Player owned ownership name plates should not be visible to other players. I wouldn't be able to walk up to a house IRL and get the identifying information of the residents, and I shouldn't be able to do it in game either.
In before... "You just don't want people to blow up your house." On the contrary I would love for people to waste time and gold on blowing up my house.
Makes sense.
The only reason I could ever think of why there are house signs are to let third parties know who owns a house.
Star Vault knows who owns a house, naturally.
The owner, and possibly "friends of the house" wouldn't exactly need a sign; if there was a way to target a house and give a /command that worked like /who does for avatars, that would be enough.
- If the house was yours, it could tell you "This is your house and you owe $$$$ in upkeep".
- If you were a friend to the house, it could tell you "You are a friend to this house, and it needs $$$$ in upkeep: .
- If it wasn't yours, the interface could tell you "This is not your house".
This shouldn't interfere with putting <Your Name> or <Your Bisiness Name> on a House Sign, as an
option. It also shouldn't interfere with putting your Badge or Emblen on the House, if that ever becomes possible. But the default should be to tell people nothing when it's none of their business.
So why does Star Vault want to let third parties know who owns a house, or any of the other information that was (in MO1) available to all? The only reason I can think of is to make it so others know who to siege. You could be nice about it and say 'Star Vault doesn't want any building sieged by mistake', but I don't think that explanation holds. I think it's a holdover from earier, MO1 days when Henrik te al. expected people to knock down houses, and it was relatively more easy, and yet not a lot of houses ever seemed to get knocked down (though some fell to unpaid taxes.