Have you played an RPG that let you own property? What did you like and what didn't you like about it? (Or if you haven't, what WOULD you like?) What sorts of possibilities would you like to see a house provide? For starters, here are some ideas *Houses can store your goods, but theft is possible. If your goods are stolen, you get a recovery quest. *Property around the house can generate some change in the local area, like providing more food (think orchard) *The bigger your house, the better your reputation around town *Houses decay over time, but you can hire some NPCs to keep them up while you're off on missions / quests

A house would definitely be a good place to put up some rare items that youve found, vs. leaving them in a bank or some chest or whatever. I think leaving the house open for theft is good (since Im a fan of the more logical RPGs), so long as you can set traps or at least be able to track the felon who stole your goods.

A house also gives you a place to rest that you dont have to pay for (in the event you dont have to pay taxes for it). If you allow mini games in the house (chess, tic-tac-toe, etc.) it would be a nice place to hang out and chat with your friends. I think it should be something that takes a while to earn though, to prevent urban sprawl. Until then, they should at least be allowed a room to stay in. Everquest II does this. You simply have to pay for the room every week, but you get the room as soon as you get into town.

Houses i think provide their own rewards in games, it allows the player to further customize his character with how he decorates it, and in what region he lives in. There are a few games i've played that let me own property, but the best i think was The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall. Houses cost a hell of alot, but i could choose one to buy one in a number of locations in the region, and then store all my goods in it. ;D

The houses themselves weren't that customizable, merely a space to put things and the tag that its "mine", so there was room for improvement. I could see something like The Sims construction model so the player could customize the layout of his/her home on a specific lot of land. Maybe the player could even have to deal with mundane things like keeping the place clean and dealing with pests like cockroaches and mice, or be able to raise and tend livestock.

Come to think of it, Second Life is a good example as well.

I think that player owned houses, if included, should be quite expensive and/or difficult to get, which should give players a sense of accomplishment if/when they manage to aquire one.

If possible, the houses should be customisable - things like different furniture, artwork, decorative indoor plants, and perhaps even things like lighting fixtures are some good examples of features the player could customise without needing to go to the effort of the structure itself being customisable. However, along the lines of the structure itself being customised, it would probably be a good idea to provide a range of different house types. If some are much larger and more ornate, but are harder/more costly to aquire, it allows for the player to gain a house, but still have another award to seek.

I've seen some games where players can own property that already exists on the map (Baldurs Gate II for example), and others where players can buy a certain type of house and place it where they like in the world (eg. Ultima Online), with certain restrictions of course. If the houses have a fixed position, then they should probably be put somewhere the player is likely to already be returning to regularly, such as near important shops, so that the player isn't forced to return to a certain area just to maintain thier house or use any facilities it offers. Placeable houses on the other hand, must have carefully thought out restrictions on placement - could a player perhaps place one in the middle of dangerous territory, therefore making it much easier to traverse the area?

Storage seems the most obvious use of a player owned house. I quite like the idea of the potential for items to be stolen, generating a recovery quest, but I agree that there should probably also be an area (possibly of quite limited size/capacity) that is completely secure, as well as additional areas with varying levels of security, and perhaps the potential to hide items. Being able to set traps, or perhaps customise security systems also makes a good addition.

Another possible use for a house is as somewhere to rest, free of danger (or perhaps just relatively so, compared with other locations), so that players can regain lost hitpoints, etc, as appropriate.

Houses could potentially offer other benefits as well - perhaps the player can have in thier house tools which are too large, complicated, and/or delicate to carry around with them, but which can provide useful functions, such as item repair/creation/modification, healing, etc.

I see an opportunity here to have a house (fortress,keep,etc) in which you can rent out [rooms, boxes, spots on the floor] to other characters for a nominal fee. Your job is to safely store stuff for other people. Provide insurance, etc. Confiscate their stuff if they fall behind in "rent".


Maybe this is already done in one of the MMORPGs. Having never played one, I couldn't say...


just my $.02

Ulima Online allows players to own houses, a player must buy a house placement tool and then walk around trying to find a place that house will fit, the different house have different foot prints and different things will block house placement. Once you own a house you can have it private so that only you and the other players that you let in can access the house, or you can make the house public so that all players can access it, if the house is public you can even use it to run a shop, and place vendors all around.

The houses you can get are either pre-build or you can choose to design your own, using a system similar to the sims

Most people use their house as a storage system but other have come up other great ideas.

Taverns - With live bartender to chat to
Shops - Lots of vendors with everything you'd need
Rune Library - Runes allow you to travel to different locations they setup a full collection
Auction Houses - people trade good once a week at the live auction
Even Player Run Towns - collection of houses that belong to a town

And many many more different systems.

Houses really add to MMORPG's they give you a save spot to call your own and give you a place to customize to help your roleplaying experience

In a MMORPG, I think houses can serve as focal points for a community. make the houses part of the environment and game. With everyone in the community taking same responsibility. If a player's house is on fire, make it possible to spread if the fire is not put out quickly. make a NPC fire brigrade with the possibility to hire PCs as firemen (to learn anti-fire spells or get anti-fire equipment, for example)

imagine a small village of user-owned houses burning or getting attacked by orcs. players might band together to protect their houses more than protecting some unknown town. Might make for some nice in-game stories (sorry to hear your house burned down... at least you killed the dragon and leveled up ;P)

also houses as mini games/quests. building a house takes time and money. you can hire low level characters to build your house, the hired help play some sort of mini-game and earn some strength or other skills (to make the level grind more varied). I also see this as training for thieves. they can improve their skills by practicing on houses (even if they can't steal all the stuff)

for customization, make the artisan class make/customize furniture. the artisan player can give quests to get specific materials needed to make a furniture. so the player gets furniture and quests, the artisan gets some money and raw materials. Imagine showing your friends around your house (yeah.. this chair is made from 100% dragon skin by a lv 40 carpenter friend of mine)

Owning and using propery has always been something I've wanted to see intergrated into games. But for me I a want it to be something more then a place store items and place furnishings I'd like to see some use out of the property.

What if furnishings and housing equipment wasn't easy to get but instead head to be found or earned? Then the items in your home would be momentos of your accomplishments. For instance The crystal vase on the shelf, I found that in the throne room of the mad warlord who threatened destroy a 1000 planets with his death ray. That dna scanner was a gift for saving a group of shipwreaked scientists on a seiger infested world. You get the idea, espcially if those items can be functional and not just decoritive.

Another concept that I explored a little bit was the idea that all npcs have both a home and adventure use. The concept for this idea was that you started with a single piece of land with an old familiy cottage on it, and as you progressed in the game you could develop you land as you wanted. Purchasing more land to increase the area you could use and develop your home into a fortress or community. The ammount of room you had in your home determined the number of npc you could recruit and the npc you had recruited shaped your development possibilites.

The home and adventure use of npc where based around that fact that in most games you get more npc then you can use and so the one outside your main party rarely contribute. But that is where the home use comes into play. When a npc is your base they contribute their home use which varies from npc to npc. For instance a "Theif" gives you a cut of their takings each week, while a carpenter could build new buildings and expand existing ones for you while your out adventuring. A system like this is in my opinion a good way to have the player feel that their other npcs are valuable and contribute something even if they never bring them into battle. It also opens interesting avenues to explore in terms of base development.