Thread: What housing changes would you like to see this year?

Now that we know Turbine is going to finally make some changes to housing, Im curious as to what sorts of changes you would like to see. And lets be honest.. they probably arent going to go to a full revamp to something like EQ2. So what changes do you think they might come up with?

Im hoping for the following, in order of probability:

1. Redesign of the housing structure itself. I have a small hobbit house, and it is frustrating. The fireplace is awkwardly placed in one corner, with no way for me to place a couch or chairs in front of it. If I want a bed, I have to place it in the center of the room, which is just silly. Bottom line: if you dont touch the hookpoint system, at least redo the layout so its more sensible and cozy. There are so many FANTASTIC npc homes out in the world that you can enter, and they are all so much better than the player housing.

2. Redesign of the decorations. Again, if you arent going to touch the hookpoints, at least redo the decorations so there is more flexibility. Smaller decorations, they take up less space, hey even let me have more decorations/furniture in the house.

3. Redo the hookpoint system. Unlikely given the time and resources it would take. But perhaps let us be more flexible with the hookpoints, like letting us move them about and add new ones? But I think we would all be really thrilled if you trashed the hookpoint system entirely and moved to a freeform system.

4. I know this would never happen, but I wish youd just trash the housing instance idea and just let us buy npc housing in the game world itself, ala EQ2. I know that means we would lose our outside yards, but Id love to be able to ride up to hobbiton and click on one of the dwellings there to enter my house! To me, the housing zones are lonely and depressing, I never, ever see ANYONE around. Lets breathe some life back into the starting zones!

So what do YOU guys think is possible this year, and what would you like to see?

I'd love if housing were more interactive, ie we aren't constrained by furniture hooks/can create additional wings, but that's highly unlikely. At the very least, am praying for more rooms and hooks.

Customizable exteriors/roofs on the houses would be great! I vote for getting rid of hookpoints altogether, and allow free placement of furniture. I was excited to see in the transcript that they're actually thinking about seasonal changes within the housing areas, I'd love that!

One pet peeve - broken fireplace grates in the dwarf fireplaces - get rid of the broken ones, I don't like looking like I live in a ramshackle house!

More floor and wall hooks. Other than that, I don't particularly care.

Better question is: How much are you willing to pay for such changes??

Originally Posted by Punkinchunkin

Better question is: How much are you willing to pay for such changes??

Aha! A very good point indeed. Ive been thinking its possible that Turbine might pay for a housing redesign by putting in on the store. And honestly, since its a purely cosmetic change, I dont have a huge problem with it. However, while Id pay for a complete redesign, what I WONT pay for is just some extra decorations, Id rather get that in the game.

Total removal of the hooks from indoor and outdoors areas.

An extra chest in each house type as well would be nice.

The volume of housing stuff is pretty obscene givent eh space to either show it off or store it.

I put a thread over in the suggestions about those vendor trash banners that infest the warband boxes the possibility of allowing them to be hung on walls like tapestries or from the ceiling (which would work for 2/4 house types)

I'd love to see a stable building you could apply to the player house, otherwise there's no point in collecting any horse other than one 62/68%, one goat and a warsteed. If warsteed cosmetics were actually account wide it could also function as a cosmetic wardrobe as well. We can dream I suppose.

Crafting addons like a smithy or a greenhouse for growing those plants needed for making dyes would maybe make player housing more enticing to people.

Finally housing cosmetics would be really useful if they became account bound rather than per character. Partly for storage and partly for ease of shifting them about while redecorating.

I'd like to see the ability to evict a house that is locked for non payment, and has been locked for 1 year or more.

I) Weed out the dead neighborhoods

II) Unlock new part of your home: Cellar, Attic etc.

III) Crafting tables at your home or kinhouse
(kinhouse furniture will have a scaleable bonus depending on how old the kinship is)

IV) Vaultkeeper access while inside your home

Originally Posted by Moneydie

Crafting addons like a smithy or a greenhouse for growing those plants needed for making dyes would maybe make player housing more enticing to people.

Finally housing cosmetics would be really useful if they became account bound rather than per character. Partly for storage and partly for ease of shifting them about while redecorating.

Im pretty sure we will never see any crafting facilities in player housing. Turbine is against that because it draws people away from the towns and makes them feel even more empty. I certainly wouldnt mind stables, but I wonder if theres any coding issues since it is riding from the normal non-instanced world into a housing instance. I suppose it would have to be swift travel in that case, at the very least.

I totally agree with the cosmetic stuff being account bound!

housing is basically worthless because it's such a pain to get to and such a pain to leave. They should make it like the skirmish instances where you can access the instance anywhere and when you're done you exit right where you were.

let quest items be stored on housing hooks and let them give you buffs.. it helped in asheron's call so kinships and groups always met at their houses to buff up before going on a quest or raid.

fix dead housing by just moving them to a "dead neighborhood" noone has to lose their stuff, just move them away from the people that actually play

also allow bound items to be put in housing chest

I'd like to see neighbourhoods made into somewhere people go and spend some time rather than just glorified storage as they are now.

It would be amazing to go there and see some other people there for a change.

All I want is something useful to justify paying rent after the initial price of the house. Not sure what exactly... thats for them to decide. As it stands now, the prices for the houses should have been higher and then pay or a mortgage, with the option (if you had the money) to buy the house outright where once the house is payed off thats it. Or, eliminate the buying price all together and just have upkeep. I know, obviously it costs very little, but that's not the point.

There is no warrant to be paying anything after you buy the house if what you receive is the same.

I'm still not holding my breath...While I have been enamored with Middle Earth since I was able to read, and I love most things about LOTRO, I'm so jaded and disappointed about the subject of housing after five years of broken promises and bitter disapointment...I'm very sorry but it is hard for me to have faith they will actually bring about quality changes...

But as the OP asked what changes to housing we would like to see implemented, here are some of my requests.

1. GET RID OF THE HOOK SYSTEM!!! It's idiotic, antiquated, useless and looks horrible.
2. Clean up the dead neighborhoods.
3. Make housing easier to access.
4. Allow us to truly customize the inside and outside of our homes.
5. Make houses more viable. Crafting areas (for a steep in game price of course), stables for our steeds, better storage...there are so many ways to make them useful.

Basically make the changes suggested in this thread and this thread and the various other threads in this forum over the past 5 years - just as the links in my signature point out.

Additionally to all these suggestions, I'd very much like a trophy room, or at least a wardrobe-like storage room where to keep all those BoA trophies. There are way too many trophies and the only place to keep them in is the personal vault (as house chests don't accept BoA items). Besides, it would make it all the more convenient to switch them around as they'll be all in one place.
Also, I'd like a house per character. It's cruel to make a dwarf living in an elven house just because your first character is an elf; dwarves belong underground, not in a jolly green place bathed in sunshine.

Originally Posted by Sciene

Additionally to all these suggestions, I'd very much like a trophy room, or at least a wardrobe-like storage room where to keep all those BoA trophies. There are way too many trophies and the only place to keep them in is the personal vault (as house chests don't accept BoA items). Besides, it would make it all the more convenient to switch them around as they'll be all in one place.

I've been wanting that for years. A wardrobe like storage space for housing items.

I wish they would bind housing items to account not character. It isn't like my little storage alt is going to run off and put a Balrog sword in his own yard, since he's not allowed to buy his own house anyway.

I want bigger, better houses with more rooms, levels and no hook system.

I want more housing item crafting recipes that could require rare items to make different looking items. If you add "this" then your end resaults would change to "that"

A horse stable at my house. At the very least, a horse stable that you could take into town instead of having to walk my little lvl 10 alt to the AH.

A larger yard and more yard customization, like fences and stuff.

A shed, which would make the perfect place to link to the new housing wardrobe...

More cooler items, I love them.

A pet cat, dog or pig.


How about redesigning the whole system for higher level characters.

1. Free placement of items, and larger number of items allowed, both inside and outside. No more arbitrary decisions about how many of each type of furniture can go in a room or yard (in my hobbit house, there are very few furniture hooks, just loads of wall hooks, and it looks more like a museum than a home).

2. Stablemaster outside each housing area

3. I know people have different opinions on this, but I'd like to be able to craft in my neighborhood. I don't really enjoy the crowded crafting hubs. But I could live without this; replacing the hook system is absolute top priority.

4. Furniture options: Seriously, how is my Hobbit supposed to survive without a kitchen??? Please please please give us a prep table, a cooking fireplace with a spit or a kettle, a small tea table with a pot and dainty snacks, and a wash basin (a bedroom style basin would be lovely as well--my Elf likes to wash behind her ears once in a while, you know). A bread oven for the yard would be most welcome.

5. Storage: for the love of LOTRO, allow bound items in the storage chests! And additional chests purchased with tp would be a handy addition.

Originally Posted by Pluck

Im pretty sure we will never see any crafting facilities in player housing. Turbine is against that because it draws people away from the towns and makes them feel even more empty. I certainly wouldnt mind stables, but I wonder if theres any coding issues since it is riding from the normal non-instanced world into a housing instance. I suppose it would have to be swift travel in that case, at the very least.

I totally agree with the cosmetic stuff being account bound!

Actually, I think they will. You just have to pay a large, one-time TP fee to access it. TP for convenience, as the store promotes.

As for everything else, a lot of things people have already said: no hooks. Possibility of add-ons, likely store-based.

I, personally, want more areas to live in. I'd totally put down a chunk of TP if I could move into, say, Bree proper, or Rivendell, or what have you.

Making houses character based, but then kicking them out if they don't pay rent for a long time, would mean also more TP spent, as well as more money sinks in-game.

I doubt that there will ever be Crafting Facilities at personal houses, but if they put Crafting Hubs in Neighbourhoods then there would be much more of an incentive to go back to your House so Houses wouldn't be left vacant so much. Seeing as there is already skirm trainers and vault in Neighbourhoods then this wouldn't be much of a change.
More Storeage would also be usefull. All I've got in my housing chest is house decorations, so I rarely go back there.
Also reduce the cooldown time for travel as even going back there for the vault is a bit pointless at the mo seeing as I have so many other ports with a quicker cooldown on them.

More storage. I don't really care about decorations at all.

Travel is critical for getting more traffic/"life" connection between the homesteads and the game world. The Man and Elf homesteads are rather stupidly located, for example. A stablemaster right outside each would be fine--usable only by homeowners and with swift ports to any major city for which a toon already has access.

More storage would be great. Better vendor discounts. A bard.

I don't know if "free-form" decoration is in the works, but I certainly wouldn't mind a grid system, which could prevent some player-side technical issues like clipping and overlap and things like that while keeping the "size" restrictions of our current furniture. Who knows. I'm curious what they'll come up with.


____________________
Crit crafting & the RNG | Dumb noob things we've done in LotRO...
"Be not so eager to advance that you fail to experience the moment, in life and in all things." -Deluros, Rivendell
legendary: adj.
1. Gilded (having a pleasing or showy appearance that conceals something of little worth)
2. Having an appearance of grandeur that obfuscates by complexity and arbitrariness
3. Disposable

Scrap houses entirely and let people buy plots of empty space, and then let players design their own house with housing materials, such as stonework from prospector craft or woodworkers could make planks etc etc, just let people freeform build their own houses and freeform decorate on their plot and inside their house.


Yes.

Also, let players have easier ways to get into housing such as a two-way no cd housing skill, takes you to house and then takes you to where you left from. Also put crafting facilities and full kit of AH, vault, etc in housing areas as well as class trainers.
To heck with empty towns, lets see the neighborhoods get some action.

It's funny to see how good ideas have to be reinvented again and again.

If I compare the hounsing in LOTRO with i.e. DAOC (from the stone-age of MMORPGs) the LOTRO-Version is (sorry) just lame.

In DAOC there were:
- Hookpoints for special Items (i.e. bindstone, chests) and NPCs
- No hookpoins for decoration
- You could place a visual copy of shields/armor/weapons for decoration free on the walls (the items itself stays in your inventory)
- You could place up to 30 Items outside the house
- You could place up to 100 items inside the house (depending on the size of it, 40 for lvl1 house, 100 for lvl4)
- You had up to 100 slots per chest in your house
- You could sell your house to an other player
- You could up/downgrade your house

and many many more...

Originally Posted by Moneydie

Total removal of the hooks from indoor and outdoors areas.

An extra chest in each house type as well would be nice.

The volume of housing stuff is pretty obscene givent eh space to either show it off or store it.

I put a thread over in the suggestions about those vendor trash banners that infest the warband boxes the possibility of allowing them to be hung on walls like tapestries or from the ceiling (which would work for 2/4 house types)

I'd love to see a stable building you could apply to the player house, otherwise there's no point in collecting any horse other than one 62/68%, one goat and a warsteed. If warsteed cosmetics were actually account wide it could also function as a cosmetic wardrobe as well. We can dream I suppose.

Originally Posted by .Jables.

fix dead housing by just moving them to a "dead neighborhood" noone has to lose their stuff, just move them away from the people that actually play

also allow bound items to be put in housing chest

Originally Posted by WBS

I'd like to see neighbourhoods made into somewhere people go and spend some time rather than just glorified storage as they are now.

It would be amazing to go there and see some other people there for a change.

Originally Posted by Malidan

All I want is something useful to justify paying rent after the initial price of the house. Not sure what exactly... thats for them to decide. There is no warrant to be paying anything after you buy the house if what you receive is the same.

Originally Posted by Sciene

Additionally to all these suggestions, I'd very much like a trophy room, or at least a wardrobe-like storage room where to keep all those BoA trophies. There are way too many trophies and the only place to keep them in is the personal vault (as house chests don't accept BoA items). Besides, it would make it all the more convenient to switch them around as they'll be all in one place.
Also, I'd like a house per character. It's cruel to make a dwarf living in an elven house just because your first character is an elf; dwarves belong underground, not in a jolly green place bathed in sunshine.

Originally Posted by Trilwych

Travel is critical for getting more traffic/"life" connection between the homesteads and the game world. The Man and Elf homesteads are rather stupidly located, for example. A stablemaster right outside each would be fine--usable only by homeowners and with swift ports to any major city for which a toon already has access.

More storage would be great. Better vendor discounts. A bard.

Originally Posted by Trilwych

Brilliant ideas! I love them all! I hope they will come true.

something like http://www.therepopulation.com/index...ews&Itemid=484

But since it wont happen more rooms, chests and hook removal will be fine.

Originally Posted by Namesse

I'd like to see the ability to evict a house that is locked for non payment, and has been locked for 1 year or more.

This. Should be Number 1 on the house revamp list. You loose your house if you dont pay the upkeep for a year. This will help that guy on BW who cant get a house, he's earned one IMHO (cant remember his name but every couple of months he posts).

I dont really use my houses other then for storage, but im hopeful the revamp in housing is a good one. people have been asking for it for a long time, they are due.

I agree with a lot of what's been written here especially being able to purchase more chests that allow bound items, a stable that will take you out of housing, an extra room or two in the houses, and, of course, for something to be done about the hook system.

Also, if we can't have crafting or an Auction Hall in the housing districts maybe there should be housing district related activities that can only be done if you own a house there. I'm not sure what they would be precisely (maybe races of some kind?) but something with awards that might get more people visiting their houses.

One Phrase:
"Star Wars Galaxies"!

By FAR the absolute BEST housing I have EVER seen in an MMO. Place your own house wherever is available (I don't foresee that at all), free placement of items inside and out and you can place storage containers AS FURNITURE!

TBH I'd like an epic City Management system like SWG, but that's too left field. Why would they put true effort into something when people are already paying for mediocrity?

More storage and superior crafting stations in house.

Originally Posted by ConyersGrube

One Phrase:
"Star Wars Galaxies"!

By FAR the absolute BEST housing I have EVER seen in an MMO. Place your own house wherever is available (I don't foresee that at all), free placement of items inside and out and you can place storage containers AS FURNITURE!

TBH I'd like an epic City Management system like SWG, but that's too left field. Why would they put true effort into something when people are already paying for mediocrity?

I had toons on Radiant , and Gorath , you?

hmm, this is a tough choice.

well for starters,

1) i would love to have a housing decoration ability that was available in SWG. but will settle for more hooks inside and out.

2) an in house storage container that would be able to hold all my and only my house and yard decorations.

3) I would love to see an option for KINS to purchase crafting stations. yes, i would pay huge gold for kins to have this option. and it might look more appealing for solo players to join kins and be more active.

4) more storage chests, if i was willing to spend a lot of TP to increase each of my 15 toons vault chest. I definetly would be willing to spend tp to be able to add more housing or kin chests.

5) wardrobe/ cosmetic set up for wall paints and floor tiles and themes. that way we can drop them into the wardrobe and just swap out the designs as the seasons or festivals change. then just pitch the actual paint or floor tile like many do with toon cosmetics.

6) this 1 is reaching but would love it. my personal Turbine store purchased. Auction NPC, not connected with town ah's.. this housing ah npc would have the abilitity to post each item for more than 48 hours and post more than 30 items per toon.

example : grand master tailor decides they use up all their hides from lvl 10 to lvl 85. oh say 5000 hides total. the tailor makes the items, pays the posting fee and sets it for the max sell time and manages to post more than 30 at a time. (player ran merchant vendors in SWG were awsume and made the game more fun. I spent countess hours checking every players house or structure i came across just so i could look at the players goods for sale.

7) kin house: ,members to be able to donate to a kin bank vault. so the kin leader or officers can purchase high end items to run contests or use the donate money to purchase raiding materials to keep in stock for the kin raids.

8) a stable route ability both to the housings and back to towns.

just my personal wish list. but ill be happy for any improvement made.

I am hoping they have reviewed both SW and DoC. I do hope they do not allow free placement of your house, that was the one error SW did in my mind, doing quests and find a house in the middle of the quest area.

I definitely want a room I can make into a trophy room.

And Daily Quests in neighborhood!

I would like to see Auto-Kick from inactivity of a year.

I also would like to see workbenches and forges in kin houses.

It would be good to be able to mount retired legendary weapons as decorations once they are no longer used instead of deconstructing them. Not sure if it is possible but would add an element of personalisation and would be something you might likely do. Bilbo's sword Sting hung in the Mathom House like this for many years before he finally left the Shire for good.

Probably not do-able, but I'd love a stable or corral for all my horses and goats.

Originally Posted by Gagmuk

2) an in house storage container that would be able to hold all my and only my house and yard decorations.

4) more storage chests, if i was willing to spend a lot of TP to increase each of my 15 toons vault chest. I definetly would be willing to spend tp to be able to add more housing or kin chests.

Something along the lines of how shared storage works would be excellent.

Originally Posted by LurtzArcher

Something along the lines of how shared storage works would be excellent.

Excellent idea.
I know that there are vault keepers in each neighborhood, but moving Shared Storage and possibly Wardrobe to your house would give people more incentive to visit more often.
I love the location of my house, but seeing as it's in a nice corner of the neighborhood it's a longer ride from my house to the vault than the vaults are from the hub milestones.

My Top 10.

1) For me I'd say first making it easier and more worth while to visit other's houses.
Better travel options to the neighbourhoods like Stable masters inside the neighbourhoods that take us to the nearest hub.

2) Slightly offtopic but connected since I have a elf house but adding STs to hubs to Duillond.

3)More neighbourhoods - Rohan for men, Rivendell or Caras Galadhon for Elves, 21st Hall for Dwarves and the Stoor village for Hobbits for instance.

4)Clean up, evict those deadbeats and allow us to pay further in advance.

5)More storage

6)Improve the hook/placement system like letting us hang banners separately inside possibly adding a new hook type.

7)Customisable houses for instance being able to change the windows of your house, or expanding the house by building another floor.
Adding a kitchen and doors to rooms.

8)Vault access I hate having to ride from the house where I keep my dyes to the vault keeper to apply it to the wardrobe.
Alternatively a simple Wardrobe function.

9)Displaying gear on Mannequins or inside a wardrobe.

10)Pets there's a little bit of this coming with the new Hound property guard but it would be awesome to have a dog or a cat to come home to.
Even a fishtank with fish we catch to expand on the fishing hobby.
(I've been playing Dark Chronicle lately and they did fishing really well in that game, you can enter them into competitions, raise them and race them, nothing better than raising a champion fish and breeding him).

1) Firstly and most importantly .... I would like to see the whole concept of rent abandoned. Calls for people to be evicted are simply vindictive and nasty and way too 'thinking inside the box'! It is NOT FUN! Why bring the real world into a game!? There would be no reason for it if you do the second part!

2) Secondly, and much more ambitiously, I would like to see all location based housing zones merged into one. All Blue Mountains zones become one, all Bree zones become one, all Shire Zones become one ... and so on. This will bring the population back into housing zones ... because part of the problem is that there is no LIFE in housing zones. Each one is a separate ghetto.
* Each HOUSE itself becomes an instance instead, so that multiple people may own the same house, but the internal view is different. That's the relatively easy part.
* This does leave the complication of yards. I propose that a method similar to WoW's phasing method be used so that you can view your own yard, but don't see the yards that don't belong to you. If people are on your friends list or in your guild, you see their yards as well. If people occupy the same space, then there should be a priority of You -> Friends -> Guild.

That's a start anyway. I think that if people take the easy route, housing will not get fixed. The fundamental, underlying problems with an essentially flawed system will not be fixed. It needs to be RE-THOUGHT OUT!