On a related note, I remember hearing they were delaying housing for post-launch. I hope in the mean time there are at least some vacant buildings in towns that players can use as desired. Perhaps phased by group or something. Little something simple while we wait.

He tried to. But he was promoted out of development and moved to different offices and so whatever plans he had for the game, which he likely held close to his chest, were never implemented. After he was moved off the project, SWG seemed to lose whatever sense of direction it had. Nobody else really stepped up to the plate and saidn, "Okay, we've got this and this, and the plan was to add that and the other, so let's be about it." No. The only course of action his successors took was to redesign the fundamental elements of the game... TWICE... Both times resulting in mass unsubscriptions.

Mr. Koster's idea was not without a major flaw. He seemed to have been convinced that the player didn't need a development team to provide content, that the players could create their own. After all, that was the whole notion of a sandbox MMO. The trouble is, that any sandbox is just a box full of sand without toys to play with and encourage the shaping of that sand. And very little effort was ever put forth by SOE, under Raph Koster's direction or otherwise, to produce the desired toys. And that right there is the real reason SWG failed.


I'm still moderately active on the STO board. After the Perfect World conversion, my forum handle of CaptainQuirk was no longer available. And since I have some interest in Cryptic's model as it will be applied to Neverwinter Online, I decided on a more medieval sounding name. I can be seen posting as sirsitsalot in the STO and NwO forums... I still play STO very casually these days, making it a point not to try to rush my way through things. The game has become a grindfest and the faster you try to work through it, the more like a chore it feels... It's not going anywhere, so I have no perceived need to make it to the end as fast as I can.


I liked the customization options that SWG presented for its housing model, but I did not like the whole being able to plop down a house wherever you wanted approach. Driving through a player city or cluster of houses presented some nasty lag problems, and back then I was more or less stuck with dial-up internet access, so it was problematic. Especially with hostile mobs spawning in the midst of structures and the instant agro mechanics that went into effect with the Combat Upgrade. Hit structure-based lag with dial-up, and you didn't even see the red dots on the radar. You came out of the lag spike dismounted from your vehicle and incapacitated. Then because the mobs would instant agro once you came to, you got incapped again. Next came the one way ticket to the cloner express...

How I would handle housing is to make the primary social hub of any given city the market square... Some other zones could exist for story and roleplay purposes, but some side streets leading from the central hub would lead to lower, middle and upper class housing districts. These districts would be instanced and similar to Lord of the Rings Online, would have many plots of land where a house of the apropriate income class type can be placed. So you get that same freedom of placement as you had in SWG, with interior design being similar. New districts would automatically be added when an existing one is 75% full. The districts would all be laid out randomly with the only common feature being a horse carriage service at the center. This would take you back to the city's market square, or to any other residential district in the city. Or you could walk through the districts yourself...

Cities in MMOs really are not as big as they really should be, though some are pretty big. But what is effective for cities is simply making services available to players, and sometimes having to walk through district after district just to find the services you want can be frustrating. I'm not saying stick every service clustered right there in the market district, but reduce the need to go all over town just to buy something, drop off something in the bank or whatever. A separate building in the market district for each service would suffice. How many MMOs have there been, SWG included, where cities were full of buildings that you cannot go into? That should change.

Under this model, residential areas can be massive and sprawling. But they would never interfere with the landscape, and would only load for those who have need or desire to go there. The horse cart service would take you instantly to any district, or to any house in that district you wush to go to for a small fee for the convenience. Cities would gain a truly sprawling feel but would be entirely self-contained...

In fact, it was 3 times SWG was re-designed. The last 1 just didn't have all that many players affected (due to the other 2). CU, NGE, and C6CD (Chapter 6 Combat Downgrade). C6CD had patch notes every bit as long as CU had and was basicly a combat re-design all over again, changing stats, difficulty, etc etc etc, right on down the line. No game could withstand that amount of massive changes from what players regarded as the "norm".

Personaly, I do not regard Koster's "sandbox" as a flaw, however many did. /agree that when Koster left for SOE San Diego SWG seemed to lack a clear vision on future development and your again right that no1 seemed to pick up the ball. Interesting note, that I actualy had the chance to discuss SWG with Chris Klug. He told me he interviewed for the "creative director" of SWG when NGE was a thought in SOE Austin's minds. During the interview, he stated that the NGE was the wroing way of doing what they wanted and the right way would of been to add content to the CU, basicly, quest lines for leveling. He did not get the job.

I gave up on STO. I tend to be involved with PVP gameplay and Cryptic does not even try to hide the P2W aspects of STO anylonger. In fact, they tout it as something great. "Wanna stay up with the Jones's, head for the C-Store and pay $50 for that new shiney OP ship and console". That game has certainly de-graded since launch. To me personaly, more than the NGE caused for no other reasoning than the way they run their store. 90% of the character building aspects of STO, at end game, are now included in the store for payment. Just not my kinda game, anylonger.

I doubt we'll see open-world housing ever again unless SOE picks it up again with EQNext. I never had all that much problem with lag in SWG, but I run an Alienware Area 51 on a T1 line. My lag was minimal even in Restess with 30X30s.

I believe your probably right of how housing will be treated in TESO. Personaly, instanced housing, for me anyway, will be fine as long as deco is treated correctly. After 8 years of SWG, I think my bunker, with it's 1400 items in it, is what I miss the most of that game now. It was my personal ownership in the game world, unique, as no1 had another one just like it. Took years to get it like that and it was a decent mini-game when you just don't feel like killing anything. In fact, I do a little of the same in Skyrim now even with the limited deco possibilitys of Hearthfire. Like SWG, I start and log out in my "manor" altho I never have been that big an RPer, to be honest. The Hearfire additions of spouse, kids, housecarl, and bard (NPCs) make it even a bit more immersive, to an extent. Just some things that I believe Bethesda has done very well.

I was big on citys in SWG, expecialy after a couple of years. Nice mini-game. I was the 2nd to last mayor of New Solah on Bria, before I tuned it over to my wife. City layout was up to the "mayor" and I did have a central "business district" with a bit different layout for houses- layed out in squares around central gardens. Players were able to have their own "compounds" while still haveing all the ammenities of the player city. The fact that the city lied on the coast of Naboo and was build around a lake just a few meters from the coast, was also a plus (altho city area extended well into the water whick limited the amount of players you could get into it via land). Zaos once offered me 3 billion credits (max credits 1 toon could have) for the city. I turned him down.

Here's hoping that Zmax does housing right in TESO. They've got a really good start with what they've (Bethesda) done in Skyrim.

Heres my housing wish list..

1. Allow me to store stuff.
2. Allow me to tweak the layout (add wings etc)
3. Allow me to display stuff (trophies, weapons, armor)
4. Allow me to do stuff in my house, such as crafting.
5. Allow me to sell stuff from my property (consignment merchants)
6. Give people reasons to be in housing zones. (Merchants or what not, make housing zones a instance found within cities, depending on which "city" your house is in..NOT just the capital cities either)
7. Housing zones are quick and easy to get to.

This is essentially what EQ2 does. There are multiple buildings throughout the cities which are used for player housing. The door is the entrance to each player's individual housing instance. Different styles and sizes can be purchased at different locations, up to and including guild halls. It works very well for instanced housing. I just don't see ESO ever going with open world housing. They might surprise us, though...