I think yapposai has it right. If you're going to put a fancy new feature in an RPG, it should be integrated into the gameplay. Carpentry, roofing, furniture-making, locksmithing, plumbing and landscaping could all be skills that characters could cultivate. If you want a big fancy stone house, you need to find someone with adequate skill as a mason to build it. If you want an impregnable front door, you need a skilled locksmith to build a high-level lock. Rather than just including a Sims-type interface to let you customize your home, have it require some kind of interaction with other players. Skill and reputation would be affected, money would change hands, and truly unique and noteworthy things would arise.

You could learn it all yourself, of course, by building and rebuilding your own home, but once you've got the practice and the experience, why not hire your character out to other players? It could be done during your offline time, so you don't actually have to pound nails for three hours in-game to install a new garage wall.

Items and materials might be bought or harvested, and some signature quest materials might be available. Use the wing membrane from an elder dragon to make your curtains, or enchanted wood from a distant forest for your barn. Trophies could be mounted by a decent taxidermist, and treasures could be displayed or guarded in your house, as well.

I think that it needs to be more than just a storage box with wallpaper. The house should be factored into the character. The house might be more central with the bloodline systems we've discussed elsewhere, since the manor would outlast individual characters.

Keep in mind that "House" doesn´t necessarily mean a fixed structure with a roof. It could just as well be a space station, a large land vehicle or a portal to a safe haven in another dimension.
(curently playing Knighs of the Old Republic 2 where the integration of the spaceship "Ebon Hawk" is done very well, not only is it a mobile base camp, it also comes with its own backstory)

As a gameplay device it mainly provides stability - the player can return here to rest, refresh and craft items.

Since the original question was RPG and not MMORPG a lot of the crafting / social / economic stuff isn´t really useful. Here´s a few (I only skimmed most of the thread, sorry about repeats):

* focal point for the story. Social interaction with NPCs, quest handouts etc.
* progress indicator: something that changes with your game progress and reflects how far you´ve come.
* storage.
* crafting and modifying items.
* character modification / levelling point
* party selection point
* plot development tool. Imagine the house as a ship that sails down a river and takes the PC through various magical lands.
*

A house is a house.

Storing/developing would be pretty much expected if you found it was intereactive/purchasable.

Theres only so much you can do with it ( maybe simple alterations takes/twists on what you can already do with it) on the stat building side of things for a MMORPG.

Interactive Houses that can be purchased should all play their role of a customisible hideout (place rest/gear up again) with todays technology.

What's interesting is on the flip-side. Allowing NPC's into your house should induce certian actions/re-actions when they enter.

Say in a RPG/Stratergy when someone is allowed in they should have a visible meter of how safe they feel/if they are gaining your trust, like you...etc. How you stlye your house should directly reflect on a characters personaility-like a General of an army you are currently neutral with-you could get inside information, understand his persona/interset's and decorate accordingly.

In a war/stratergy game perhaps you would have to take down a head on a steak (previously in your house) of a general this guy once went to war with. You would need inside information about what he liked/who he hung out with, perhaps in the from of a inconspicuos mail man/messenger.

and stuff....

Alot of nice idea's bouncing around. :D

-Houses should be expensive and uncommon to acquire, thus making them a prized and sought after commodity and symbol of status. Whether this is through the skills/materials to build the house, or through money to purchase it.

-Houses should be customizable, at the very least in terms of indoor decoration.

-The player could decorate his home with rare/unique items that he finds in his travels (i did this alot in Morrowind, man i had a nice showroom).

-Houses can be a sanctuary for the player to rest and recover, with stores of food and supplies and any other equipment the players may deem to place (such as a teleporter or base defense system for the generators, depending on the type of gameworld).

-Your house's security (which effects theft rate and break ins) could be determined by the strength and locks of the doors you purchase, the guards you higher/create, and any traps you may lay. Naturally, the necromancer won't have a problem finding someone to watch over his house. Lighting may also play a factor (ala Theif: The Dark Project).

-Players can rent out rooms to other players, or open their own shops and services/dungeons/schools/temples etc. and turn a profit or create a sudo-town, or thriving dungeon to tempt adventurer's to their doom seeking your treasure.

-Farming for food and creating orchards is also another nice placable feature with a players land and/or plantation.

-Could be a place to invent/practice magics/tame\train monsters and/or pets, along with various other tasks.

Quote:

almost everyone

Sim House anyone? To be useful in a RPG the house shouldn´t be too much in the focus... I´d rather approach the subject from the side of "what gameplay elements can be enhanced by having a house" rather than cramming as much functionality in a virtual house as possible.

We have housing and renting in our online world, and we find that players like the following things:

- the ability to let friends in, and keep others out
- the ability to decorate to your liking (and expressing yourself)
- the status that scarcity brings (there aren't infinite houses)
- the roots you get from having a more permanent place
- game/world related benefits, such as scheduled events etc

In fact, building, painting and selling decorations for the houses is a measurable part of the economy of the world.

If it's not a multi-player world, then I'm not so sure that a house is as important. It'd still be fun to build and decorate, I guess, but without the "my place" and "my friends" part, it's less attractive.

Quote:

Original post by Hase Keep in mind that "House" doesn´t necessarily mean a fixed structure with a roof. It could just as well be a space station, a large land vehicle or a portal to a safe haven in another dimension.

[wink] Nice catch. Narrowing the definition narrows the creativity!

Quote:

As a gameplay device it mainly provides stability - the player can return here to rest, refresh and craft items.

Yes, the really useful thing I can see here is centralization of things vital to gameplay. Healing, re-equipping, security, etc. all in one place.

Quote:

Since the original question was RPG and not MMORPG a lot of the crafting / social / economic stuff isn´t really useful.

I was going to comment on this but actually find it more interesting firstly to see where everyone's mind goes (which is, from a single-player RPG perspective, something I have to deal with); and see what interesting ideas from the MMO world might be incorporated into a co-op / single player RPG if there was some kind of NPC social system.

Quote:

Original post by Iron Chef Carnage If you're going to put a fancy new feature in an RPG, it should be integrated into the gameplay. Carpentry, roofing, furniture-making, locksmithing, plumbing and landscaping could all be skills that characters could cultivate. If you want a big fancy stone house, you need to find someone with adequate skill as a mason to build it. If you want an impregnable front door, you need a skilled locksmith to build a high-level lock. Rather than just including a Sims-type interface to let you customize your home, have it require some kind of interaction with other players. Skill and reputation would be affected, money would change hands, and truly unique and noteworthy things would arise.

This is such a problem area. As you've noted before, it's the automatic implications that really drive content and feature creep. "If there are strong doors, there must be a strong locksmith" or "if there are chairs in the game, they must do something."

I'm more likely to agree with you than not about this, but these implications could really bloat an RPG if it wasn't an MMO. If we're talking MMO, though, I think this stuff actually seems to be what fills out the level grind.

Quote:

Original post by Hase Quote: almost everyone Sim House anyone? To be useful in a RPG the house shouldn´t be too much in the focus... I´d rather approach the subject from the side of "what gameplay elements can be enhanced by having a house" rather than cramming as much functionality in a virtual house as possible.

I would really like to see this, myself. Leave the Sim house for the sims, because in that game, it works because that is the playing board. In an RPG, it's everywhere else.

To more tightly focus on RPG, you have things like:
* You have bins and boxes or whatever for storage and security
* A stove lets you create food so you can poison people or get in their good graces by baking them a cake
* The sink lets you get rid of evidence or reduce the chance that a monster can give you a disease (like Helljoint in Morrowind)
* Chairs and tables let you hold enough guests so that you can thow a big enough dinner to attract the governor (oh, and poison his aide who keeps getting in your way)

That sort of thing...

Quote:

Original post by JimmyShimmy What's interesting is on the flip-side. Allowing NPC's into your house should induce certian actions/re-actions when they enter. Say in a RPG/Stratergy when someone is allowed in they should have a visible meter of how safe they feel/if they are gaining your trust, like you...etc. How you stlye your house should directly reflect on a characters personaility-like a General of an army you are currently neutral with-you could get inside information, understand his persona/interset's and decorate accordingly.

Okay, now THIS has a lot of potential. Everything from "showing your colors" to frightening your enemies by inviting them into a space where their brothers' heads are in trophy cases. (Heh, sorry, just trying to shake off the Sims pastel feeling I get when interior decorating comes up [grin])

---

General question to all:

I know that customization of homes for single and multiplayer RPGs is as important as character customization, and it should involve some work, but what about the gameplay tie-ins that make the rest of the world come alive?

Isn't putting sunglasses on your character empty if at least the NPCs don't respond?