My Main Concern After Playing Release 1

I too, disagree with the original poster here. Instanced housing isn't fun, and I have yet to experience housing as good as it was done in UO. However, I think Shroud of the Avatar will finally beat that experience.

 

Completely disagree with this. Also I feel most towns will be eye pleasing given the options that players are allowed all fit the "style" of the game. Instances in general I loathe so perhaps I'm the worst player to respond here lol.

 

I'll just leave this here.

Richard Garriott spoke to this very issue during the Kickstarter campaign, back on April 5, 2013 in this Live Broadcast (I embedded the time, but skip to 58:27 in case it doesn't jump to it).

Transcript:
The reason why I’m against instanced property and or I’m similarly against endless neighborhoods is I think either one of them creates boring worlds. You know, in UO, it was great you could build houses anywhere until houses were built everywhere. Or the ships that were built abandoned everywhere.

And the problem with endless neighborhoods of endless houses is that, you know, imagine going into any neighborhood that is not your own and just driving through it. It’s not that interesting to drive through other people’s neighborhoods. It’s just not. If it’s not theirs — you don’t want to burden people with the hassle of going through row after row after row after row after row after row of endless neighborhoods that you really don’t care much about.

And so if you do the instanced stuff, which means you make it more compact, well then you have sort of the other problem which is, ok well now I’m not forced to go through it. But now no one’s ever going to come to your neighborhood because no one’s ever going to your neighborhood except the one that’s theirs. And therefore, yes it might be fine to have an apartment somewhere to store your own stuff, but it’s not part of the persistent reality of the game.

And so that’s why we’re trying to set it up to where every village or town or city that we build has enough central services to make it a valid place for people to come into. You know, you’ve been traveling around the landscape, you beat off a few monster groups, you at least on something, so you drop into the village I found here, there’s a hundred homes and the general supply of place in the middle of town at least I need to go visit. I’ve only seen a few towns, but only that tic tac toe grid of it, so I don’t have to go through endless neighborhoods. I only have to go through a handful of neighborhoods and somebody might have built a cool new shop there.

But by virtue of the real estate being rare and being, and therefore cared for well, the probability of a good shop or interesting home decoration to be there has gone up. And so we think that by getting rid of the chaff, the whole world will be better for all people.


I hope this gives everyone some perspective on the design goal against instanced housing, as well as not creating more real estate endlessly for no other reason than to increase supply.

 

If you want to make the game better, make specific suggestions about how to improve the layouts of villages, towns, and cities if you still get that feeling of "endless neighborhoods". The more specific you are with your feedback, the more likely you'll get a response, or even get them to change the game. Screenshots, mock layouts, diagrams, videos, etc. -- the more constructive, the better. But merely complaining that it's a visual eyesore to you personally likely won't be heard.

Regarding Owl's Head, there were 39 player lots on the outskirts, 15 in town, and 12 in the protected area. Definitely not an endless row of houses as they were logically split by type too. And the lots on the outskirts were in separate sides of town. I'll still reserve judgement on layout until we get to OPO and people can populate and decorate those houses. There were some public services in both areas inside the town perimeter and none on the outskirts which seems correct according to their design philosophy.

 

I definitely like the idea of coming into a town and getting a good glimpse of my neighbor's personalities just by looking at their houses, and visiting with them if they happen to be in. That's just something that wouldn't happen with instanced housing.

 

People enjoy showing off what they have, thats true in real life as well in gaming. If you take away open world housing thats one item less that they get to show off.

 

I disagree,

I have experienced instanced housing first hand. It was a lot of fun in Ultima Online to enter another players home. People spent hours decorating their homes for other players to see, this increased the ability for players to demonstrate their artistic talent. An instanced house does not provide that same type of experience. In fact, instanced housing is isolated and serves no purpose other than an area to store items.

A house in town means a more vibrant economy where players will purchase goods from other players rather than just NPC's. This will increase the purpose of crafting at the same time as giving players an outlet mentioned above. I'm interested in seeing houses out in the wilderness as well as in town. There should be organized house locations in certain areas, but not a huge amount of them. Houses should remain relatively rare and a very high end item. This will prevent the boring neighborhood scenario Richard Garriott described, while allowing murderers to have a location to operate from (assuming murderers cannot enter towns, which should force players to be an outcast even in the open PvP option). This means that playing a PK will be a late game option where only players who have accumulated enough resources are able to play. However, they still have a sanctuary in their own home.

 

Well, that's not a "fact."

All some people want is more storage. Maybe they would enjoy isolation. It's not up to me to decide why they do or don't want an instanced house.

 

There may still be isolated housing in the game. Instanced housing is not required to have isolation, only complete isolation from the rest of the world. More to the point, it has already been declared housing will not be instanced. I agree with their design choice on the matter.

 

It takes more than a little hubris to declare what is the "actual game" (or not) in the sandbox genre.

 

OK I can see i am in a minority here and perhaps i have the wrong end of the stick, I never played UO but did play all the other Ultima's after 6, This will be a thing in SOTA and i will live with it, I have never had an interest in any housing or crafting in any MMO i play, So it seems just my thing, I bow to the majority.

 

There is still the single player offline version where you won't have to worry about housing whatsoever and can focus on the story if you'd like. You can also pretty much ignore housing online as well since most people won't participate in that. Not everyone wants to craft and/or roleplay and that's cool.
The intention is that there's supposed to be a little something for everyone. Stay involved and if you think that the parts you like are being overshadowed by other stuff, just remind us but please don't try to water down the experience that they're offering because you don't like it. The things scheduled to be in episode 1 are limited but it doesn't mean you should quit asking for elements that you want to see.

sent from the future using my Coleco Adam

 

--But housing IS Instanced!!! When you leave a town, your view changes to a "bird's eye" view similar to old UO view. You will see a few monopoly style houses marking the city you just left. In effect, that city IS an instance.
--So how easy it would be to add more cities. Perhaps a guild could "buy" themselves a city charter? (I loved player cities in SWG)

 

The term "housing is instanced" denotes a different concept than what you are perhaps referring to, and could cause some confusion.

I believe you are you referring to how there is a separate local map for each "hex" in the game ?

When a user enters that hex map, the server assigns them to an "instance" of that map: A copy of the map for their use during their visit, which may be used by other users who fit the selective multiplayer filtering you have defined.

That "instance" contains all the persistent housing in that map. The housing will be the same for all instances created for that hex.

----

I'm sure this is what you meant, however confusion over terminology can lead to unnecessary arguments.

I like your idea though, where a guild could purchase a village hex map for their own use, and define a charter for conduct in that town.

 

Instanced housing takes away from immersion.

 

Well this is an all instance game so you may be disappointed.
I am not sure how the SP offline will play, but it seems to be completely out of place with any single player RPG that's you get today, they all have large world maps to explore and give lots of freedom to do other things crafting/gathering even house owning in the game.
Look at Skyrim a massive world and with the DLC's you can build a house and do the storyline at your leisure, SotA will not offer that freedom to travel and just enjoy the scenery and open spaces.

 

Yeah I'm with the choir here. I want my land to be in a town (or in a shack out in the woods if I can get a wicked eyepatch to go with it ).

 

You've never played a dual scale map game before? Dragon Quest 1-8? Final Fantasy 1-9? Ni No Kuni? They all have dual scale maps, that doesn't end exploration, that doesn't stop you from enjoying the scenery in the overland map or when you zoom into a scene.

Instanced is a bit of a misnomer because people think of instances like instanced dungeons in MMOs, which this game isn't going to be like.

The goal with they way they are making this is you wont be able to tell, you'll just see a world populated with a lot of people, but not too many people. Plus, the people will mostly be on your friend list or have something in common with you. With persistent housing, and your actions having persistence in this world, it isn't exactly "instanced" as many people think of it.

 

Maybe your immersion, but certainly not everyone would agree with this statement. People aren't asking for persistent housing to be eliminated, only that there is another option.

 

How can it take away from immersion if you can't even see it and you don't even know it exists unless you are in the instance? It's a pocket dimension that uses an existing door. With instanced housing they can create unlimited housing and also control the memory sinks that occur when there is too much junk displayed in a house.

Instanced is better.