Well all the ugly fat nerds on percival liked to used housing for a place to go cyber

 

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I would agree that all instanced housing zones are lame, because in the end they are glorified vaults.


Housing that is in the world ala UO is a different story. They become more then just storage dumps.


In the end though, we are comparing a sandbox style game to today's more linear games.

Housing is a fairly complex development task that in the end only goes to satisfy 20% of the players for more than an hour or two (the storage issue can be addressed by upgradeable bank slots rather than housing). Most MMO developers are working so furiously on moving back the goal posts as fast as they can that they don't have the people to spare for a massive project like housing.

And yes, WoW showed that housing is not necessary for a successful MMO, so why even bother?

 

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"Why do new MMOs not have housing?"

Because the developers were afraid they'd be inundated by Chinese immigrants who would demand the name be changed to 'Vancouver'?

 

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Horizons was the most elaborate housing system I played in, with players building entire towns piece by piece, every building standing on its own, both viewable and able to be entered, occupied, and customized.
EQ2 was prolly the smartest I have seen, with a gazillion instances of a few different models. But players were still able to inhabit and decorate them, including having other people visit them. Seemed a smart way to save resources from a development standpoint.

 

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MMO's going further away from player customization, housing, keeps, and an ability for players to shape the environment is what finally clinched my decision to leave MMO's.

I'm not interested in a big FPS where "MMO" means quest ladders and lots of casual hack players running around.

 

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DAoC housing was both awesome and horrific.


Among other things, it totally killed the pre-existing crafting communities, which was a bummer as I made a fair amount of 'friends' chatting while crafting and had plenty of sales as shoppers moved through the crafting town. On the other hand, housing allowed very efficient production and stocking of crafted items on house vendors. I would never have run the siege equipment shop I had going for NF if I were limited to the crafting town setup. And I sold a ridonkulous amount of siege engines for months. My armor sales didn't do too badly either. But the sense of community totally suffered.


I've played LotRO for a few years now, never been in the housing areas beyond the starter quest run and don't really miss it from the game experience.

 

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SWG had the best housing I've seen. You would wander out into the tatooine desert and stumble upon whole massive cities in the desert, complete with elected mayors, public buildings, guild halls, whatever else you can think of.

That sounds similar to Horizons Yuki. Did you ever play that one?

 

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I never played Horizons. Could tell that one was a trainwreck from the outside.