Some people are only really interested in PvP. Some people are all about progression and facing end-game raid content. Some people are deeply involved in role-playing in-game. Some people like to hang out and chat with friends. Some people like to dance on mail-boxes with their near-naked elves (hello WoW players) or see how little clothing they can get on their seemingly-twelve-year-old slut bunny character (hello TERA players, seriously, creepy).
Often there's not a lot of overlap on those types of players described above (except the last two who obviously have a number of issues in common).
So I'm going to go on and on about one thing that's always had enormous value to me...I call it "stickiness", a game feature that helps keep a person playing long after they might have otherwise stopped...but it's also one I hear a lot of people say they have zero interest in.
Housing. In-game housing. I freaking love it when it's done well. I even like it when it's deeply underdeveloped. I'll first talk a bit about the best I've ever seen (Star Wars Galaxies) and how a game with an underwhelming system (LotRO) could greatly enhance the in-house experience. And then I'll discuss why, for those of us who love it, well-executed in-game housing is an enormously "sticky" feature.
A HOME IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY
I'll start with the one negative thing I can think of about housing in SWG...people could load up their houses with so much crap that it could take quite a while to load it all in.
That's about it.
One of the great things about in-game housing items is that a lot of them are already existant art assets. And art assets are things that MMOs have in great abundance. Increasing their utility is obviously a significant gain...additional use for a wide array of assets for a (mostly) set investment of development time.
So if a chair, or a wall hanging, or a computer console, or a weapon is already in-game as an art asset, adding that to the potential housing items allows you to leverage all of those assets to greater effect.
Here's something that most MMO devs would agree with: players enjoy personalization, the perception that they control how their character seems to others. Everyone wants to seem cool and unique (the Special Snowflake Syndrome). And housing lets them express themselves, to project some facet of their personality (real or role-played) into the game in a way that's accessible to other players.
My main character in SWG was a smuggler. One thing smugglers could do that no one else could, was make "spice", in essence, illegal drugs. (They later "censored" the drug-referencing spice out of the game). So in the basement of my house, I set up what looked like an opium den for spice users. Lots of rugs and pillows thrown around on the floor, items which were either hookahs or looked like 'em, some nice-looking storage for "the goods", a few artistic paintings on the walls, and so on.
While I sold a lot of spice in SWG, I don't think any of it was ever consumed in the spice den I had created. I don't think I even put my vendor in there, but rather upstairs in a more convenient location. But I got a number of compliments on the decor of my den. And while I did it for my own entertainment, it was certainly nice to get a compliment on it.
How did housing work in SWG? Well you were limited to the number of items you could have in a house by the size and type of the house. Generally it was 100 items per "lot" that the house took up (each player could have up to 10 lots taken up by housing, automated resource harvesters, and factories), usually 200 to 500 items. Later in the game there were also goodies that could be collected to expand any given house's limit. For large houses with maximum expansion you could be talking up to about 1500 items.
1500 items...which is why some houses could take quite a while for the graphics to load in.
Each of these items could be individually dropped to the floor, then moved incrementally in all three axes. And it could be _rotated_ in all three axes. So for each of those (up to) 1500 items, as it loaded in it would have an associated (x,y,z) and (pitch, yaw, roll). Yeah, lots o' info in a game with slow database access to start.
But because it was so flexible, the things you could do (and people did) with it were mind-boggling. People used objects in startling ways just by rotating them and grouping them together in ways you'd never have seen coming. I suggest you Google up some SWG screenies. The amount of time some people spent (like anything Internet related) defied description.
Player-run housing shows and contests were very popular. People liked showing off their creations.
And of course, this created demand for certain more difficult to obtain items for display in houses, which always to the benefit of the in-game economy.
During my time as a bio-engineer I made and displayed lots of the in-game pets which would function, if nothing else, as a fine stuffed animal stand-in. I sold a bunch of those for just that purpose as well.
In-game housing, when done well, is a great driver of a lot of other in-game activities, and the players "into" in-game housing are enthusiastic, involved, and very loyal to the games. I've seen it in SWG and in EQ2, which has a similar system to SWG. Vanguard seems to have a nice system as well, so the direct descendants of EverQuest are well represented here.
Get a housing devotee started talking about their in-game property and they'll never shut the hell up.
That's the kind of loyalty that keeps subscribers around.
THE LAST SMIAL ON THE LEFT
Lord of the Rings Online has housing too. It's very pretty looking.
And it stinks on ice.
When it was first brought out, my initial opinion was "This looks really nice and is the start of a really good housing system."
And since then, they've added LOTS of stuff you can put into your house, but done absolutely nothing to improve the basic housing functions. Really, it's appalling. And appallingly short-sighted.
Each house has a certain number of "hooks", and you can only put certain types of items on certain types of hooks. Thin, small, and large furniture hooks, wall hooks, floor hooks, all in specific places in small numbers. Basically, your options are dreadfully limited. You'll also have a small number of yard hooks.
The total number of available hooks will depend on the size of the house and no matter what that total is, it will feel dreadfully small. A "full" house will have items scattered around through many mostly-empty rooms and will in no way feel like somebody lives there. It'll look like they store their spare furniture there for their real house.
And every festival or new instance adds nice new furnishing items that can fight for space in the dreadfully limited housing they've given us.
Player's opinions on in-game housing differ, but those who don't care about it don't care, and those who do want so much more than this half-assed half-finished thing they've given us.
That's what's so frustrating about it...if they hadn't included it...well, most MMOs don't have housing, so while disappointing, it wouldn't be a big deal. But to include a major game system like that and then leave it unchanged for five years is baffling to me.
Especially since the game has gone free-to-play. Housing freaks will spend enormous time and effort...and money...to make their house into a showpiece. So add in more options for placing/rotating objects and then charge for more "hooks" the way they do for additional slots in the bank or shared storage or wardrobe. And charge for super-cool housing items, the way they do for horses.
Due to either ineptitude or foolishness they are missing a market opportunity...plus it's one that adds to their bottom line by reusing in-game art assets.
LotRO's housing could have been something special. Instead it's unfinished and unsatisfying.
OH GIVE ME A HOME...
I actually don't care if it's where the buffalo roam or not. And forget about "seldom is heard a discouraging word". Clearly, around me, often is heard both discouraging and profane words.
I want housing in more games. I want it in almost all games. In TOR you should be able to decorate your ship. The Secret World needs apartments in Seoul, London, and New York. Guild Wars 2 could use a place to hang up your weapons...and maybe some nice trophies too! Oooo, I know, a house in Divinity's Reach and a house-boat in Lion's Arch! What a dreamer...
If you're a game designer, here's what a good implementation takes... Freedom of placement and rotation. A (very) large number of potential in-house objects. A wide variety of types of objects to allow for things like "a weapon collection on the wall", "a trophy room", as well as the usual bedroom and kitchen. Items obtainable from crafting, questing, and random drops. Different floorplans, different sizes, different appearances. I'd like a yard with appropriate items for it, but I understand that can be a lot more problematic.
I know...that's a pretty long feature list. But you get a lot out of it if you do it right. First and foremost, a good implementation of in-game housing has _enormous_ "stickiness" with a lot of players. The prospect of keeping and improving their showpiece home can help keep paying customers around longer.
It provides an additional method of revenue generation through the almost ubiquitous "in-game store", both through expansion of housing limits and through store-only special items. And by providing a second use for a great many art assets (everything from the open world furnishings and animal head trophies) it increases the value of those assets going forward.
Players are almost universally seeking for ways to customize their experience. Most MMOs provide them with ways of controlling their appearance, but giving them an _environment_ to play with as they see fit can be a powerful motivator.
All we want is a house to make into a home!
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