to me adding houses would be like removing all the wilderness from skyrim and letting playing only play with in city limits

It might depend on how many players are located on one shard. If it is 2000 and 200 guilds? It is still a lot. It should be somehow properly build into environment and also to make sense houses should be crafted from scratch by players, that could give out of box impression. If players are just to place same looking houses then it would better be done by company graphics.

Exactly, I don't want my game cluttered with their eyesores. They can keep them in their instances.

I would love to see player housing. It would complete my gaming experience and I wouldn't need another game.

until ESO 2 right? lol

Sorry but it is so wrong having thousands of houses around the world, I know I certainly won't care about visiting other peoples houses, neither will most other people going by other MMOs

it wont be when you have corect areas and plasses spred out on the worldmap.

then you just will get :

town that are big egnuff to be a town, and not just 5-10 houses wht max 20 ppl living ther.

vilages that are big egnuff to be a vilage, and not just 2 houses whit 4 ppl live ther.

Get the guilds a part of crafting and gatering a part of the game world.

or fallout online.

So... you're in my head now? How do you know, what I know? I'm perfectly aware of how big the game world is. Doesn't matter. It's still a bazillion player homes cluttering up the landscape. That's not the feel of TES.

It sounds like you just want to create something and want to brag about it and show it off to everyone. That's fine... at first. But the reality is, nobody cares about your home. In every TES game, not once did I ever pass by a house and stop to gaze in wonder. Players just don't care. They are on a mission to quest and explore. If the house has nothing to do with either, they pass it by like a rock on the road.

Besides, it's just adding more garbage to render when that memory can be used for other things that are a lot more important.

Instanced housing off of preexisting structures in game is the cheap way out. It let's them get player housing in-game to satisfy those who want it, but really does little to add value and a sense of ownership to the players involved. EQ2 had this system (not sure if they changed it in later years), and I always thought it was awful.

A lot of people are against open world structures, and in this type of an MMO, I think they are correct. Housing done the route of UO or SWG for example would overly clutter the landscape, break any sense of immersion, and is frankly just not feasible with the populations that these games tend to get now.

I've only played 1 game that has done it (and that was a MUD in the early 90's), but I feel that zoned housing is really the way to go. I think the devs could conceivably add special zones of housing as essentially suburbs of the larger cities in-game. The way I see it is thus:

*Add a gate to the walls of larger cities that access just these special zones.

*From the outside, players just adventuring would see just a walled area or a grouping of houses surrounded by a wall depending on perspective.

*(Now this could conceivably break immersion) The zone can be made to accommodate large numbers of individual housing, guild halls, shops, etc. Sure the footprint from the outside may be smallish, but are we really so stubborn as to demand 1:1 aspect instead of functionality?

*Inside the zone treat the buildings as they were done in prior games of the genre. Allow players to set access permissions if desired, have limits on items that can be "locked down" in a house to prevent theft, bring in NPC vendors for player run shops... basically don't re-invent the wheel. Other games done it, learn from them.

I think you'd be surprised on how much time some people do spend caring not only about their own houses, but those of other players as well. Just look around google for SWG or UO housing.

as in the real world you dont visit every singel apartment but you live in the area visit vendor and so on. most games and spec mmo have to smal and to dead towens, vilages and other npc hubs but whit guild houses mixt in whit them it will come alive.

Ultima Online seemed to address the problem of seeing "rows of houses everywhere" by incorporating a "survey" tool...One would have to scout around (sometimes for hours) in the landscape to find a spot that was compatible with a placing a certain sized house base. We would occassionally see a group of houses cluttered near pristine locations (e.g., just outside of town, near the coast...like in real life) but for the most part, they were scattered.

We could choose how many stories (levels of the house) we wanted to pay for, so building up was often an option when the land wouldn't support building outward. Once the base was down, it was a fully customizable area, limited only by in-game funds. Players would have to bring in furniture/ chests/crafting centers/decorations from inventory (most of which were crafted as an activatable/clickable deed by a woodworking player), and could place them where ever the tiles allowed. It was also a safe spot, as enemy npc's and players could be prevented from entering by locking the doors or saying "I ban thee." Some extravagant and/or charitable type people would leave their doors unlocked so that other players could check out the property or utilize unlocked chests, crafting tables, etc.

I would like to see some plots of alliance-shared land dedicated to this type of system, and have something in game include the ability to transport us to "home."

*also, there was a cool feature by which we could add "authorized players" to access the house and/or individual aspects of the house. This worked well for guildshare.

** also, also, there was a limit of owning one house per account (for any other than the original players, who were initially allowed 5) which additionally addressed the overcrowding concern. And as others have mentioned, there were effective 'decay' regulations in place, so that inactive players, etc., wouldn't be taking up the area.

Archeage has dedicated areas for making houses / forts / palaces, letting players make their own villages and towns. There are also more scenic and hidden locations to build for people who want to live in an isolated area. You have to pay taxes to the state to maintain your home. This ensures that plots with inactive owners don't become derelict houses for eternity. Then again, the archeage world is ridiculously massive and is a dedicated sandbox game. I don't think this could ever work in ESO.

Yes player housing have to have sandbox bace and not a theampark.

After all its also a big demand on more sandbox element in this game so housing is a good start.

i could deal with housing zones, this way people can show off their house (thats the only reason people want open world) but it wont have an impact on the game world.

whats wrong whit impact on the game world?

If its done in a good sandbox form?

I dont think they need to impact the world. What if they created another realm similar to oblivion that you go into and its another world just for player housing and cities.

its not just your world.

Housing zones is still instanced housing. Just not on the personal level as described in previous posts. I mean, it's a better alternative than open world housing, by far.

i agree. i call it a happy medium. players get to show off their home while not having it ugly up the landscape for those who dont give a damn. i will be curious to see the house of friends and some guild mates but i dont care nor want to see anyone elses

I also agree. If non-instanced in-world housing is going to be done, the world has to be built to account for it. Also, mechanics have to be in place to make house-building difficult and not a question of just plopping down a pre-made home.

I think Vanguard did things rather well, but in-world housing is just not meant for ESO. A phased neighborhood will be compromise enough.

No its yuoure and mine and everyone els that lives ther and we are not guests/turists. we are a part off the world so we realy need some sndbox elements so we can dome inpact on the world, and not just run around as turist ghosts whit not even CD.

I dont mind if they work on player/Guild houses after launch.

But I dont want to "see" them myself..

ghost Towns in SWG anyone?

Ghost towns in WoW anyone?

i think you missed my point. it is not your world as in, what you do will have an impact on others which in turn can ruin the experience for them. thats the thing i dont think you are getting. if you can change the world you can ruin someone elses enjoyment of it. i for one will never advocate for a system that can ruin the game for someone else.

If they go by the DAoC example there will be an instance for buying lots and then you can go crazy.