The "Overcrowding" Issue
Housing will, in the short future, be a very useful system where players can essentially set up a base away from town. With plans like crafting tables, a variety of furniture, trophies, hirable NPCs, farms, stables, and so-on—it's easy to see why it appeals to many players, and why most everyone would want their own house.
What we're already seeing is that houses are very easy to obtain and keep. With very cheap costs of upkeep and no influence beyond convenience and personal taste there are already a lot of houses, so it isn't hard to imagine that one day with larger player populations we may see houses spread out across the entire continent, large portions of the map being an urban sprawl. This was an infamous issue in Ultima Online, and other MMOs with free-placed housing.
Planning ahead for this should begin now, which is why I'm making this thread.
I won't claim to be an expert on how much average players will make in a day, but I think that being able to have a few gold in your house and being set for weeks is too extreme on the easy side if we don't want every free space to be taken up by a house. In the current state of the game, you only need to kill one walker a day for some homes. I think that upkeep costs should be increased greatly, with a goal: Only an active player with a steady stream of money will be able to manage a 'non-settlement house', and these costs increase dramatically with the tier/size of house.
This means that someone who owns a small house will still need active income to support it, and for many the upkeep costs may become a chore that isn't worth it. The ability to pay in advance means that players can put in the time when they're available during the week, but 'non-settlement housing' should still be a responsibility that they have to mind and pay attention to instead of being able to forget about. Since prices increase with size and tiers, 'non-settlement' strongholds should be very costly—becoming an impressive and rare sight instead of something a small group of players can build in a night and essentially forget about if they have 50 gold in the chest.
I mentioned a 'non-settlement house' what is a 'settlement'?
The Basics of Settlements
A 'settlement' would be an area in-world where SV has created a designated space for players to build, and the upkeep costs are much, much lower than elsewhere. Upkeep rates may vary from settlement to settlement. For a small T1 house, the absolute cheapest settlements would ask for an amount that's easily attainable, even for new players.
While still not as cheap as they are now, a house placed in a settlement would be much more affordable for the average player to build and maintain. These spots would naturally be much more competitive to build in because of this decreased cost, and would have the added benefit of SV being able to design the landscape of the region for housing, including roads, footpaths, barriers between spaces for houses, atmospheric clutter like wagons/barrels, and so-on. This would naturally incentivize strangers and groups of friends/guilds to claim and build up larger settlements and become a community, while isolated settlements may only fit one or two houses and allow players to build away from others.
Some castles could also have settlements attached to them, and the guild could decide between only allowing guild members to build, or opening up a whitelist.
Starvault has also expressed the goal of players spreading throughout the world, and settlements would be a way to ensure that when a region is extremely popular, many players will naturally look to the closest settlement to place down their home instead of building right on top of it. This would create a higher value on settlements closest to desirable locations, and when those are full, players looking to access that area would naturally move to the next closest open settlement.
The Features of Settlements
Each settlement could be 'themed' to who's meant to have set it up, such as different nations or factions. Some may be as small and simple as a single plot of land out in the woods, while others may be large spaces where players can organically create a city (or expand on one).
Housing will, in the short future, be a very useful system where players can essentially set up a base away from town. With plans like crafting tables, a variety of furniture, trophies, hirable NPCs, farms, stables, and so-on—it's easy to see why it appeals to many players, and why most everyone would want their own house.
What we're already seeing is that houses are very easy to obtain and keep. With very cheap costs of upkeep and no influence beyond convenience and personal taste there are already a lot of houses, so it isn't hard to imagine that one day with larger player populations we may see houses spread out across the entire continent, large portions of the map being an urban sprawl. This was an infamous issue in Ultima Online, and other MMOs with free-placed housing.
Planning ahead for this should begin now, which is why I'm making this thread.
Greatly Increased Upkeep Costs
(Art is by Fantasy Flight Games)
(Art is by Fantasy Flight Games)
I won't claim to be an expert on how much average players will make in a day, but I think that being able to have a few gold in your house and being set for weeks is too extreme on the easy side if we don't want every free space to be taken up by a house. In the current state of the game, you only need to kill one walker a day for some homes. I think that upkeep costs should be increased greatly, with a goal: Only an active player with a steady stream of money will be able to manage a 'non-settlement house', and these costs increase dramatically with the tier/size of house.
This means that someone who owns a small house will still need active income to support it, and for many the upkeep costs may become a chore that isn't worth it. The ability to pay in advance means that players can put in the time when they're available during the week, but 'non-settlement housing' should still be a responsibility that they have to mind and pay attention to instead of being able to forget about. Since prices increase with size and tiers, 'non-settlement' strongholds should be very costly—becoming an impressive and rare sight instead of something a small group of players can build in a night and essentially forget about if they have 50 gold in the chest.
Settlement Regions
(image from Dragon Age: Inquisition)
(image from Dragon Age: Inquisition)
I mentioned a 'non-settlement house' what is a 'settlement'?
The Basics of Settlements
A 'settlement' would be an area in-world where SV has created a designated space for players to build, and the upkeep costs are much, much lower than elsewhere. Upkeep rates may vary from settlement to settlement. For a small T1 house, the absolute cheapest settlements would ask for an amount that's easily attainable, even for new players.
While still not as cheap as they are now, a house placed in a settlement would be much more affordable for the average player to build and maintain. These spots would naturally be much more competitive to build in because of this decreased cost, and would have the added benefit of SV being able to design the landscape of the region for housing, including roads, footpaths, barriers between spaces for houses, atmospheric clutter like wagons/barrels, and so-on. This would naturally incentivize strangers and groups of friends/guilds to claim and build up larger settlements and become a community, while isolated settlements may only fit one or two houses and allow players to build away from others.
Some castles could also have settlements attached to them, and the guild could decide between only allowing guild members to build, or opening up a whitelist.
Starvault has also expressed the goal of players spreading throughout the world, and settlements would be a way to ensure that when a region is extremely popular, many players will naturally look to the closest settlement to place down their home instead of building right on top of it. This would create a higher value on settlements closest to desirable locations, and when those are full, players looking to access that area would naturally move to the next closest open settlement.
The Features of Settlements
Each settlement could be 'themed' to who's meant to have set it up, such as different nations or factions. Some may be as small and simple as a single plot of land out in the woods, while others may be large spaces where players can organically create a city (or expand on one).
- Some may be designed in a way which naturally creates housing plots.
- As an example, many may have prebuilt roads, pathways, and fences—with the spaces between these only able to fit houses of a certain size.
- The 'boundaries' between these plots could be anything from streams, to roads and pathways, to wheat fields, to trees, to clutter objects, to actual fences/small walls.
- The places where houses can be built could naturally lack grass, rocks, trees, bushes, and so-on to create an aesthetically pleasing place to build. These areas may be dirt, flattened grass, paved brick, wooden platforms, and so-on.
- Different settlements may offer different built-in features, such as:
- Ponds, Rivers, Streams, and Lakes
- Small fields/orchards of resources like wheat, rye, rice, cotton, grapes, apples, etc.
- Passive animals that fit the settlement's theme, such as dogs, cats, goats, pigs, cows, chickens, rabbits, etc.
- NPC buildings such as an inn, a temple with a priest, and so-on.
- Patrolling guards
- Plenty of settlements would obviously lack these.
- NPC vendors that may sell things like building designs, furniture designs, clothing designs, cooking tools, utility tools, etc.
- Plazas in the center of the community for gathering, hosting events, etc.
- Walls and other buildable structures not owned by any one player.
- Many—even most—settlements would have no conditions, however some may require a high standing with the nation/faction tied to them or some other features such as high sophistication to gain access.
- Titles
- When you build a house in a settlement, you might get "of [Settlement Name]" as a possible title for however long you own a house there.
