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

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04...erq/#continued

Enough said!

Originally Posted by Pluck

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!

This is how housing should have been done from the beginning. It would liven up the actual in-game world rather than making these hundreds of identical fictitious neighborhoods that are usually completely dead. Unfortunately, I doubt they'll implement such a radical change to the housing system, but one can dream... They could stuff hundreds of houses/"apartments" in Bree and it would feel so much more alive. There's also a ton of wasted, blank space in Michel Delving (the Mathom House hill, for instance, is quite bare) in which they could put hobbit holes. The same goes with Thorin's Hall and Ered Luin, and even some housing in Rivendell and other higher-level areas.

Even so, there are plenty of non-enterable houses already in existence in the game world that could be converted to player housing for a very high price.

Some would argue that implementing such changes would destroy the 'feeling' and 'atmosphere' of Tolkien's world, but has that really been the goal of this game from the start? There are hundreds of Dwarves and Elves running around Bree-land for instance, and hundreds of hobbit heroes that we somehow never heard about from Tolkien... so in that sense, I don't see how open-world housing is any different from the other lore-breaking aspects of the game.

Again, I realize this will probably never even be considered for implementation, but it would make the game world much more immersive and alive.

An option to purchase more storage! Also, the point alot of others have brought up- more interaction- i've never seen another player in my housing neighbourhood...

In short, I want it to be like in eq2.

I would like to be able to get a house and see what y'all are talking about. Alas no, no housing is to be had in LOTRO because they won't evict the damn inactive accounts and those that don't pay their upkeep.

I think one of the main problems with the current housing system is that you cannot get evicted. If you do not pay the upkeep you are simply locked out - never evicted. Many neighbourhoods are unpopulated ghost towns. The houses are all occupied by long gone people. There are rarely more than a few actual people inhabiting a single neighbourhood. Naturally the neighbourhood never becomes 'alive'. If the neighbourhoods were in fact inhabited by actual people and not by estates of long lost owners there would be real communities there.

I have always felt that the house system in LOTRO is quite a planned economy mixture of use and ownership. If you only rent the estates it would make a lot more sense that you are actually evicted if you do not pay the rent. If you buy and own the property, then the prices are obviously faaaaar too low. Paying only a few gold for owning a property for all eternity does not make sense. Why not put them in the auction house and let the real market value decide the prices? And why do you not get the invested gold back when you sell ('abandon') your house?

A simple change that would overall improve the system a great deal would be to add the option to pay for more months in advance and then simply evicting everyone who has not paid for a full year. That is after all what happens in the real world. If you do not pay rent - you get evicted. If you own your house but do not pay your bills - the enforcement services makes a visit and sells the property to pay for the debts of the person.

Lots of good ideas in this thread.

There's just a few things I would like to add:

1) Paintable (or dye-able) furniture. I love the elven-style furniture, for example, but I hate red. It clashes with everything else in my house. This would really boost the ability to individualize our houses with a very limited furniture pool.

2) No fireplaces. We can already put in our own, where we want and what kind we want, so why bother having "permanent" fireplaces that will clash with anything else we put in?

3) More trophies. I concur with this idea, at least as far as animal trophies. There are so many creatures that we are killing now. After seeing a white stag, I could already see one gracing my house, and was sadly disappointed. While we're on the subject, the winter worm...let's be serious here. The worm I killed was *way* bigger than that! More trophies would be nice, *accurate* trophies, and perhaps more color variations on the ones we have. (The warg I killed was not gray. I think the taxidermist mixed mine up with someone else's.)

4) More neighborhoods. The game has gone way past the four starter areas now. I think that there should be higher-end neighborhoods for high level players. Places like Lothlorien, Rohan, Moria, etc, would be excellent candidates. I disagree about free-form neighborhoods. Consistency makes the neighborhoods look great; total free-form would look messy. There could easily be enough neighborhoods to satisfy everyone's exterior desires. For added customization, allow us paint and/or texture the outside walls the way we do the insides.

5) The hook system. I loved the idea of switching to a graph system. That would elimate a lot of placement problems. However, if the hook system must stay, then put as many hooks in as possible. Cram 'em in! Also allow for the fact that some players want to center their furniture, and some would like to place their furniture against the wall. Having my bed in the middle of the room just looks weird. Also I hate when I have a table, with a rug underneath it, and the two cannot be centered no matter which way I turn them.

6) Lighting. I loved my two-story deluxe elven house, but the upstairs bedroom is depressingly dreary. Also, what is the point of putting in lamps and chandeliers if they're only like 10 watts? Not only that, but they have to be turned on, since they automatically turn off any time we leave (same with inserted fireplaces). I know that technically this will be difficult to fix, but it definitely needs something, even if the lighting has to be a permanent fixture in the house. Just include a scroll-down with a few cosmetic choices or something.

7) Private stable. I totally agree that this is a great idea. After all the trouble I went to collecting the reputation horses, it would be nice to know that that wasn't a waste of time. If we can't have the cosmetics for our warsteeds (that would be my first choice), then at least let us put our horses in the yard or in a stable. Then we could look at them instead of just carrying them around in our pockets.

8) One house per character. Each of my characters has his own personal tastes, and the more characters I have (8 so far) the more difficult - and messy - it is to cram all of their tastes into one house. If players are willing to pay for more than one house, I don't see why they shouldn't have that opportunity. This would certainly alleviate the complaint that there is not enough storage space.

9) House design. Cookie-cutter houses are, I suppose, unavoidable. Perhaps each neighborhood could contain all different houses? Any additional instances of that neighborhood would of course be duplicate. Also there should be enough of them that players have a fair chance of getting the exact house they want. The current housing crunch alone ought to be sufficient motivation to make these housing changes a top priority.

10) Rohan furniture. Please fix the Rohan furniture. It looks great, I'll say that much, but I was hoping for a complete chandelier, not just a chain. And the bookcases/shelving should be wall furniture, so that they stand up against the wall. And seriously, out of all that furniture, is it too much to ask for just one table? Just one thin furniture? Now that we have seen how great YOUR Rohan interiors are, we want the same quality for our own houses.

My final thought is that, rather than redesigning the neighborhoods we already have to incorporate all these exciting ideas, it would be simpler to make four brand new neighborhoods - one for each race - for higher-end players. That way, we can try some of these ideas out. I mean, look at remote looting and open tapping: it worked so well in Rohan that now it's universal. Why not do the same for neighborhoods? Besides, nicer neighborhoods for higher levels will encourage players to play harder to access them. That works in Turbine's favor, and ours too, who have been waiting a long time to see these changes.

Thank you, devs. We know you're working hard.