Custom guild hall and player housing design using Foundry?

sendrien · February 2013

We know the Foundry is going to produce a wealth of user-generated content.

It seems only logical that guilds should be able to use the Foundry to create their own guild halls and place the entrance at a location of their choice, just like starting a quest. The only difference is that the guild halls can only be accessed by guild members and it becomes a no-PvE zone. (And PvP enabled at the discretion of the guild?)

Custom player housing would be the next extension of this idea. This would allow everyone to have their own place to call home. Once again, access could be restricted to an individual account, for instance.

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I don't claim credit for this idea. There's some mention about this in the beta forum, but I wanted to gauge the popularity of this concept among the entire community, not just beta testers.

firesnakearies · February 2013

I definitely want both of those options, and actually see them as pretty much inevitable. I'm sure they'll do this. Eventually.

gilbeggerb · February 2013

This could be awesome! Maybe allow players to give permission to others to enter their house. Keep a log or something?

daytonamax · February 2013

I don't. I like what Cryptic has done with the Starbases in STO, where a group has to work together to build it.
Using the Foundry, to me, would both cheapen the purpose of and the community of the Guild.

visionstorm01 · February 2013

daytonamax wrote: »

I don't. I like what Cryptic has done with the Starbases in STO, where a group has to work together to build it.
Using the Foundry, to me, would both cheapen the purpose of and the community of the Guild.

I don't see why that has to be the case (though, I haven't seen how base creation in STO works, so maybe I'm missing something). Perhaps they could include an option for guild leaders to grant building permissions to members (by rank, individuals or both), and maybe include some sort of farming for building materials that to be consumed when certain portions of the guild hall are created (still, this would depend on how Foundry map construction differs from bases in STO, but I'm guessing that Foundry would allow more freedom and customizability).

xeiken1 · February 2013

That didn't occur to me, that's Genius!

@daytonamax you may still keep that while allowing players to use the foundry, by requiring the guild some cash, materials, items, or whatever to enable the guild hall building in the foundry, they would still need to work together to achieve it and you would have the customization capability that the Foundry offers.

bobcat1313 · February 2013

That cool with me, I just want player housing and guild halls, really hope we get guild halls.

deathssickle · February 2013

Supposedly Guild Housing is going to come in post launch

ryger5 · February 2013

deathssickle wrote: »

Supposedly Guild Housing is going to come in post launch

Yes indeed, unfortunately, as we both know, this can mean anywhere from 60 days post-launch to uh, well, never.

deathssickle · February 2013

ryger5 wrote: »

Yes indeed, unfortunately, as we both know, this can mean anywhere from 60 days post-launch to uh, well, never.

Yah but atleast they said they will work on it

wonkywonder · February 2013

I like the idea of personal and guild housing. I don't see any real reason to NOT do it aside from just not wanting to put the effort into the development. I love how housing is done in EQ2 and would love to see the use of custom housing in Neverwinter as well. The best part about a free-to-play game from the time/money standpoint is that you can charge fees for certain aspects of the housing system to recuperate those development fees. Charge a fee for accessing the system, charge for certain sizes (get a small house free, pay more for larger sizes), or even just charge for certain tiles/items/themes for your home.

sendrien · February 2013

It's good to know that they intend to have guild housing post launch, but I think there's a lot of potential for customization here, since the Foundry already allows you to create custom content. Why not allow every guild to have their dream locale?

keirkin · February 2013

wonkywonder wrote: »

I like the idea of personal and guild housing. I don't see any real reason to NOT do it aside from just not wanting to put the effort into the development. I love how housing is done in EQ2 and would love to see the use of custom housing in Neverwinter as well. The best part about a free-to-play game from the time/money standpoint is that you can charge fees for certain aspects of the housing system to recuperate those development fees. Charge a fee for accessing the system, charge for certain sizes (get a small house free, pay more for larger sizes), or even just charge for certain tiles/items/themes for your home.

I really want guild/personal housing, however there is one HUGE very real reason not to do it. If the man power used to make housing would earn them more money doing something else (say what you like, but this is a business and it will be treated that way if not it will fail and there will be NO Neverwinter at all). Now to me housing is one of the key things I like in a game but that is not the case for a lot of people, so just because a few people want it does not mean that it will be profitable to do. Yes they can charge for things but if people don't buy them or not enough people buy them it will cost them lost revenue if they could have used those man hours to work on something that would have made them more money.

I loved EQ2 housing and I think that Neverwinter has the potential to totally over shadow it using the modified capabilities of the foundry. I am not sure of its monetization, I think the key part of it would be decorative items for sale in the cash shop, but 3d modeling is actually expensive. Now they could not allow access to all the decorations that are currently in the foundry and sell those resources for housing, but I have a feeling that would just generate a wave of screaming and wailing on the levels of the drow nightmare that is currently going on. Personally I would pay for stuff but I put more value on my fun than my wallet but, that does not seem to be the opinion of the vocal "I want it free and I want it now" people around here. But heres for hoping

devoneaux · February 2013

keirkin wrote: »

I really want guild/personal housing, however there is one HUGE very real reason not to do it. If the man power used to make housing would earn them more money doing something else (say what you like, but this is a business and it will be treated that way if not it will fail and there will be NO Neverwinter at all). Now to me housing is one of the key things I like in a game but that is not the case for a lot of people, so just because a few people want it does not mean that it will be profitable to do. Yes they can charge for things but if people don't buy them or not enough people buy them it will cost them lost revenue if they could have used those man hours to work on something that would have made them more money.

I loved EQ2 housing and I think that Neverwinter has the potential to totally over shadow it using the modified capabilities of the foundry. I am not sure of its monetization, I think the key part of it would be decorative items for sale in the cash shop, but 3d modeling is actually expensive. Now they could not allow access to all the decorations that are currently in the foundry and sell those resources for housing, but I have a feeling that would just generate a wave of screaming and wailing on the levels of the drow nightmare that is currently going on. Personally I would pay for stuff but I put more value on my fun than my wallet but, that does not seem to be the opinion of the vocal "I want it free and I want it now" people around here. But heres for hoping

The problem with housing is that if there isn't a reason to actually do it, most people won't give a HAMSTER. Sure it's nice to have a little custom pad, but if that pad doesn't offer anything of use to the player beyond looking pretty, a lot of people probably won't even bother. Now the issue with this is if the housing does have some tangible uses like being able to craft there or sell stuff from there or what have you, then that lessens the reasons people have to hang out around the mission hubs, which could potentially lead to dead cities in most cases.

I can't say for sure how this would play out in neverwinter, but it's something to think about.

keirkin · February 2013

devoneaux wrote: »

The problem with housing is that if there isn't a reason to actually do it, most people won't give a HAMSTER. Sure it's nice to have a little custom pad, but if that pad doesn't offer anything of use to the player beyond looking pretty, a lot of people probably won't even bother. Now the issue with this is if the housing does have some tangible uses like being able to craft there or sell stuff from there or what have you, then that lessens the reasons people have to hang out around the mission hubs, which could potentially lead to dead cities in most cases.

I can't say for sure how this would play out in neverwinter, but it's something to think about.

I agree with most of what you are saying except the part "lessens the reasons people have to hang out around the mission hubs". This is often used as a reason and while it MIGHT be true, it is not something that I think is a good reason. I actually don't like people hanging out around mission hubs. I feel it lends itself to me needing to /ignore tons of people so I don't have to see their spam or for that matter shutting the channel off all together so i can actually read other things that appear in my chat window. Yeah I know roleplaying and people hanging out together, I think this is not a good reason too. Use a roleplay channel or something. Ok so roleplay channels break immersion. So does huge numbers of people all hanging out in the same area. If this was happening and a normal city the "mob" would be broken up. So that is killing immersion as well.

ryger5 · February 2013

devoneaux wrote: »

The problem with housing is that if there isn't a reason to actually do it, most people won't give a HAMSTER. Sure it's nice to have a little custom pad, but if that pad doesn't offer anything of use to the player beyond looking pretty, a lot of people probably won't even bother.

But that's true of a lot of things in MMOs. When there's exploration incentives (like lore boxes etc. etc), not everyone bothers to collect them all. When there's open-PVP zones, not everyone bothers to visit them. When then there's "hard core" end-game raids, not everyone does them. When there's dailies, not everybody bothers to log in and do them every day. When there's a transmogrify feature, not everyone cares about style and bothers to use it.

The beauty of MMOs (and RPGs in general) is they adapt to all kinds of play styles. It's a community. The way you play and the way I play will be different, but we'll both become paying customers, so what does it matter.

For the record, guild base construction became quite popular on several of the games that offered it. City of Heroes, which had an incredibly rich guild construction feature, had a fanatical fan base that created entire sites and a sub-culture exclusively devoted to designing and showing off cool bases. Sure most guilds, didn't do much with them, but they were loved by a decent percentage of the population.

I don't deny your claim here, but I just caution this concept that unless it fits a mainstream gaming profile, the development isn't worth it. That's a reactionary view that will guarantee nothing innovative will come from your design.

You can offer guild/player housing without TOO much effort, because of the Foundry. Even if it is just a place to congregate, people will use them. If it offers some crafting tables/bonuses, so much the better. If it offers hearth stones that take you to key zones in the game, even better. If guilds must earn these things with points, play and accomplishments even better.

But it doesn't have to be that elaborate to start. It can just be as simple as some basic maps that are flagged as "guild maps" that you can decorate and customize to give your community a sense that it has a "home". Trust me, a portion of the population will use it and delight in having it. And those players are just as valid as the ones running around as fast as lightning trying to soak up as much XP as quickly as possible.

chili1179 · February 2013

I personally think that guild hall/player housing should be left for Cryptic to add and that they should work to add it by the official launch, at least guild halls with player housing coming in later (soon™ after launch).

It would be much more stable and customizable if worked into the base game rather than a foundry addition but could possibly have a foundry-like feature that can be manipulated by the guild master to add customization which could be purchased/unlocked through either guild bank alpha diamonds (which could be earned through guild activities/questing/pvp/delves/etc...) or zen.

Some of the unlockable/purchasable features could include:

A guild merchant with ranks (10/15/20% reduced vendor prices)
A guild stable with ranks (5/10% off mount prices)
A guild crafting station (reduction in crafting material costs)
A guild priest (bonus to astral diamond gains when using invocation in the guild hall)
In Guild Target Dummies (for looks or to test new skills on)
Guild Calendar: To list guild events and guild only foundry/delves/questing events for coordination.
A door to each player's personal housing through the guild hall (a portal if you will) rather than leaving the hall and running to the player's house in the physical map.
PVP Sparing Area (1v1 dueling area)

This could also lead to a plethora of other guild features such as mini-games.

I think Cryptic needs to make guilds a feature, which is something a lot of people clamor for in an MMO, especially one that has a deep RP background.

chili1179 · February 2013

I would also like to mention that your options are biased, making it seem like unless they choose the foundry option that guild halls and player housing would not be included at all.

hercooles130uscg · February 2013

Guild halls should be a join effort by guild members. With that, they should work out a collaborative system in the foundry where a guild leader can appoint players to be co-builders. However, how large a guild hall can be is based off guild age or some such. It will work much as player housing below.

As for player housing the idea of using the foundry is amazing.
At a set level a player is given access to build a single house using the foundry. Maybe even make it a reward for authoring or reviewing so many Foundry quests, this way the use of the Foundry to build a house is tied to use of the Foundry in general.
When a player decides to create their house they open up the Foundry as normal. They are then given an option to build a player owned house. Doing this sets immutable restrictions, as well as changes a few key rules.

First, no encounters can be placed.
Second, while "flavor" NPC's can be placed (like a butler or cook), they only have dialogue options. No objectives or quests are actually put in.
Third, your house is not published to the host of Foundry content. Admission is by invite only. This could possible be changed to allow public access and have a special section of the foundry dedicated to player housing. (much as Rifts dimensions are)
Fourth, throughout your adventures you will find or be given special housing items or effects. These can range to trophies, furniture, pets that roam around your house, NPC's you can place that offer services. Options are unlimited.

At first you are given access to just a house, with limited amount of "floor" space. This size increases, to also include a full yard or property around your house, as you author or review even more content.

Tie in the housing as a tiered reward for the Foundry promotes further participation in it.

To help eliminate the ease of junk quests however.

If you author a foundry quest, it has a to receive a set number of reviews, the average review rating will be taken. This will then break down the amount of credit you get towards your housing upgrades. For example: A one start reviewed quest gets nothing. 2 stars get 1 credit, 3 gets 2, 4 gets 4 and 5 star rating gets instant upgrade. These reviews MUST BE BY NON-GUILD MEMBERS...no cheating.

To promote people to actually review however, and if you wish to get upgrades to your house as a reviewer and not content creator, then you get one one 1-3 credits for every quest you play and review.

Reviewing any quest gets you 1 credit
However, if you review a quest that is still in the grace period of needing so many reviews to give the author credit, you get 3 credits for playing it and reviewing it.

Its convoluted but it can be worked with a little bit of effort. This will also force Cryptic to create a more robust review system of Foundry content, something people have been asking for since it's inception in STO.

chili1179 wrote: »

I would also like to mention that your options are biased, making it seem like unless they choose the foundry option that guild halls and player housing would not be included at all.

The Foundry is one of THE MAIN points of this game, and it is not unreasonable to make the Foundry the way you make or build a guild hall. Of course for those guilds who rather not spend time just building their own, many pre-made guild halls will be available to just drag and drop and be complete in a few minutes. But the option for full customization will always be there.

gerberatetra · February 2013

deathssickle wrote: »

Yah but atleast they said they will work on it

Ask the CO players how those 'talked about' Supergroup bases are coming.

on the other hand..

STO did get them..

deathssickle · February 2013

devoneaux wrote: »

The problem with housing is that if there isn't a reason to actually do it, most people won't give a HAMSTER. Sure it's nice to have a little custom pad, but if that pad doesn't offer anything of use to the player beyond looking pretty, a lot of people probably won't even bother. Now the issue with this is if the housing does have some tangible uses like being able to craft there or sell stuff from there or what have you, then that lessens the reasons people have to hang out around the mission hubs, which could potentially lead to dead cities in most cases.

I can't say for sure how this would play out in neverwinter, but it's something to think about.

upgrade it with zen and BAM! have special vendors who get even better stuff with every upgrade, you can get some kind of guild based currency or just have it use AD. Easy way for both sides to get something from it

ocrambos · February 2013

From a business perspective they could make more money with pre-made guild halls. However, I'd say they release pre-made halls, but also 'build packs' for the foundry guild halls. (I prefer it free, but let's be realistic, these gais need moneys.)

clcmercy · February 2013

ocrambos wrote: »

From a business perspective they could make more money with pre-made guild halls. However, I'd say they release pre-made halls, but also 'build packs' for the foundry guild halls. (I prefer it free, but let's be realistic, these gais need moneys.)

No. Nonononono.
No premade anything, please. Leave creativity in the hands of the players. Let -us- build our guildhalls and homes, please. This is what the Foundry may be able to do.
Sure, package up some neat items to place in our homes and halls and sell them via the store...but for the love of all the gods and goddesses....please let US build our own homes.

Also.....yes to individual housing. I for one, do not join guilds. I solo or pug most times, and still want my own housing.

ocrambos · February 2013

clcmercy wrote: »

No. Nonononono.
No premade anything, please. Leave creativity in the hands of the players. Let -us- build our guildhalls and homes, please. This is what the Foundry may be able to do.
Sure, package up some neat items to place in our homes and halls and sell them via the store...but for the love of all the gods and goddesses....please let US build our own homes.

Also.....yes to individual housing. I for one, do not join guilds. I solo or pug most times, and still want my own housing.

What I said is that they'd probably premake some, but give the option to make your own for cash. If they update it to the foundry for free they'd probably miss out on too much income.

bobcat1313 · February 2013

I don't care how they do it! HALLS AND HOMES FOR ALL!!!! I do hope they add features to guild hall portals, merchants, stuff like that. That stuff in homes also cuz I"M GREEDY!!!!!!

castagyre · February 2013

I'm all for housing so long as it's done well. I'd rather do without if it's half-***ed

sendrien · February 2013

Cryptic already realizes that only 2% of its player base will ever use the Foundry. They have already announced that they have no intention of monetizing user-generated content, because this will place a barrier to content creation that is already sparse enough. Player homes and guild halls only make this game richer and more detailed, so I highly doubt they will attempt to monetize this aspect. As far as actual perks of housing and guilds, perhaps those could be sold to willing buyers (for example, having a mail courier directly in your guild).

But that's not unreasonable, in my opinion. Seems like Cryptic gets it, in terms of what players expect for free and what players feel is a "fair" item to charge money for.

ironzerg79 · February 2013

deathssickle wrote: »

Supposedly Guild Housing is going to come in post launch

Name one MMO to launch in the last 5 years that didn't promise Guild Housing "sometime post-launch"

devoneaux · February 2013

ironzerg79 wrote: »

Name one MMO to launch in the last 5 years that didn't promise Guild Housing "sometime post-launch"

Lord of the rings online.

drudgy · February 2013

I'd love to be able to design my own house. I really miss the old Player Housing section in DAoC. The houses themselves were pretty basic, but you were able to customize things like artwork, floors, walls, carpet, etc and place several pieces of furniture around. It would be very cool to have something like this in Neverwinter, and I think the Foundry would be a good place to accomplish this. One thing I wouldn't like so much is if the house took up a Foundry mission slot. It should be a separate thing all together.

ddmac69 · February 2013

I think the guildleader and officers(to a lesser extant) should have the option to create/modify a guildhouse in the Foundry, or choose a premade one from a list, once the guild is Created, and as for player houses.. once the house is purchased (square footage & options) the design should open in the Foundry for customization and option placement

Custom guild hall and player housing design using Foundry?

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