Thread: Improve of the Personal- and Guildhouses

Hey Lotro Players and Developers,

maybe this theme was in this Forum before, but I think its important for Lotro and Turbine to improve some game details to get more interesting things into the game.
Feel free to discuss some Ideas or add new...

My suggestion is to fundametally change the Housing System into an open place were you can meet and talk etc.
For me the House and Guildhouse as it is right now is just a very limited, uncreative storage-depot nothing more.
The Villages are very lovely designed but there are no reason for normal players to be there longer then necessary. For me its only to bring some stuff in the chests of the House or Guild nothing more. Thats really sad, cause there is so much potentional in this whole Village and Housing thing.
And when I bought my first mansion in the game, i felt like: "Oh...ok, I have a house but I can not use it as I want to!"

I think about Games like Everquest 2 and other games.
Take a look at the Everquest system, where you have a really big villa with 5 or more rooms and a complete cellar. There you can waste hours and hours to design you own personalized house and style and it is funny with all the things moving and changeing things.

And here are my suggestions:
1.)
Why not let the players choose where and how they can put the stuff in their homes and let them move everything free. For example, that you can put all the barrels together in the house at one side of the house. Ok a picture can only put on a wall and a chest has to stand on the ground, but you can put it everywhere you want to. I think that put Housing in a much more creative level.
I mean not forcing the player to use(not very well placed...)placeholders for the stuff and furniture. I have so many nice furniture but I can't place it, cause I dont have free placeholders. Same in the Guildhouse, there are so many nice stuff but less Placeholders and they are not well placed too.

2.)
Animated animals and things for the houses.
I mean "living" animals moving and running around in the house.
Something like: "domesticated barghest", "cat", "watchdog", "tamed toad", "little angry spider", "timid singing-bird", "fallen perjurer", "little burglar"
And players who visit the house can for example....die by step on the "spider", or the "watchdog" barks when foreign visitors come in and follows them, the "bird" flies around the rooms and you can try to catch it, "fallen perjurer" gets angry from time to time and changes the light from normal to red or blue and run around in the house searching for an enemy who doesnt exist, "little burglar" is a little ork that tries to steal important things from visitors and put it in his chest with a giggle, where you can pick it up before you leave the house.
There is lot of nice and funny things who are possible for that.

Edit: I thought about to combine this with the classes or maybe races. So the different classes can domesticate different animals or things. For example the Captain can try to catch a perjurer, Hunter can try to catch barghest or bear with a special spell
and if you get it (dropchance maybe 10%...) it can be selled or used at your home. Other things could be dropped at festivals or special quests. Sounds very funny to me...what do you think?!?

3.)
In the garden: Give the players the chance to design their own houses.
That means colour of the walls or the style of the fence or the colour of the roof and maybe put some gimmicks at the house and garden. Something like flowerbeds(like "Bed of Roses", "Man eating plants", "rotten stinky tomatoes" etc.) where you can buy regional flower seeds at the housing-trader and plant them(growing time 5 days?!?).
Then items like chain of lights, lampions in different colours etc. Maybe a stable for the garden where some animals(horse, sheep, swine) standing in and moveing around.

4.)
Develope a button/chance for Guilds to organize a party at the guildhouse or the cityhall. (Cost: 20-40g, Needs: 100-200 Cans of Beer, 100-200 Fresh Food(produced by cooks) for the visitors)
Maybe with some rewards like: "make 200 parties in the garden of your guild" (100 Points, and title: Partyanimal) "make 100 parties in your hometowns city hall" Title: Honored by the Major, 150 pionts or something else.

And visitors at these partys get a 20% legendary exp bonus or 20% exp bonus for 1h after that party ends(1-2 parties/day) .
Then Guilds can design the garden of the Guildhouse with lampions, tents and musik or something when a party is planned.

5.)
Replace the very limited Storage chests with free movable Storage-chests. one for armor and weapons, one for profession stuff etc. And maybe a Storage cabinet with collecting places for things out of Dungeons like Draigoch and Orthanc.

Maybe, thats a lot of different Ideas, but i think there are so many creatvie ways to get more focus on the housingsystem. Cause right now it only seems that players only buy several houses for storage places and some build fake Guilds to buy a Guildhouse/Storage-depot. Thats really sad, cause there are many ways to use Houses and Guilds.

I hope some of my ideas are familiar with the players in lotro and can maybe find the way into the game. Feel free to discuss...

Greetings from Middleearth...