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Middle Earth is the opposite of actual Earth in terms of home ownership
It's a great time to buy a house...in Middle Earth. With the new Mines of Moria expansion for Lord of the Rings Online, the economy is flourishing. Now that the level cap is raised from 50 to 60, it's a lot easier to kill monsters, take their stuff, and sell it. Among the money sinks that keep the economy hale are new underground mounts, dwarves in Moria selling goodies, and housing for those of us who haven't bothered yet.
So at level 53, I finally bought a nice little cottage in Bree-land, on the Ravenmere homestead on the Nimrodel server, at the end of Chestnut Street (it's ironic that a Lord of the Rings Online address is more complicated than a real world address). That's it up there. Quaint, yes? It's in a gated community. Well, it's instanced, so that's like a gated community. I can stock it with my trophies, which are no longer taking up space at the bank. A friend of mine made me a candelabra as a house-warming gift. There's no room for the bearskin rug, but after a few more adventures in Moria, I might trade it in for a bigger house.
One of the many things Lord of the Rings Online does so well is establish a sense of place. For better or worse (better, in my opinion), it can be hard to get around. Angmar isn't near Rivendell, which is a long way from the Shire. If you don't want to make the trip yourself, you have to be willing to pay for the autopilot horse, which is the equivalent of World of Warcraft's griffon flights and whatnot. Fast travel options are few, far between, and deeply integrated into the gameplay, based on class, race, and the reputation system. This isn't Fable 2, where you just teleport wherever you want to go, geography be damned.
Housing is part of the fast travel system. At level 15, you can buy a home for a reasonable price, plus the weekly mortgage payments into perpetuity. All of your characters on the server get the ability to fast-travel to the house, which will be in one of four homesteads, each in its own racial area. So my house in the Man-lands of Bree isn't just a place to keep my candelabra and bear-skin rug and fish trophy.
As someone who doesn't play other MMOs -- I once had an entirely useless apartment in Anarchy Online -- I'd be curious to hear how they handle housing.
By Neopythia at 11:13 AM ON 01/27/09
SWG had the most in-depth housing system I've ever encountered. Coming to LOTRO from SWG has been a significant step down in that regard. The neighborhoods themselves are quite lovely and very immersive, but the housing system in general needs another pass. Houses exist for two reasons: Storage and RP. LOTRO does neither very well.
As for the distance thing, it does make sense for the setting, but the quest developers seem to forget this. Some of the latter epic quests have you crossing middle earth so many times that the War of the Ring would be over by the time you finished one of them. I look forward to the day when Minas Tirith is in game and some quest NPC sends you to Thorin's Hall to pick something up.
By Pete S at 11:29 AM ON 01/27/09
The biggest drawback to the housing in LOTRO to me is the decorating system with its series of "Hooks" for particular items. When compared to, say, the housing in EQ2 it just feels clunky and archaic.
That, and the fact that the houses themselves are off in the middle of nowhere. I have *never* seen another player in my neighborhood, and I suspect most people just teleport in and out.
Again in EQ2, you can set up a "store" in your house and have people come in and browse, and avoid the broke (Auction House) fees by buying direct.
By Halibut Barn at 12:08 PM ON 01/27/09
The only housing system I've had any experience with was the one in Asheron's Call, where you could place a house right on the main landscape. Spots were very limited because of that though, and a lot of people wound up having to settle for 'apartments' off in portal space away from the main map.
It sounds a lot like LOTRO's system too, as it had the same kind of 'hooks' for placing items, and you could teleport directly back to your house as another fast travel method (you're normally limited to how many portals you can tie to). But they did tend to be out in the middle of nowhere and were useful mostly just as a storage spot than for any kind of community-building.
By cycomike at 1:01 PM ON 01/27/09
agree swg has the best in design and ability to decorate. lotro stinks the hobbit holes are just boxes and the hook system is awfull if i buy a medium house it should look medium and have ample of space. they tried but still failed.
By hebramleigh at 1:15 PM ON 01/27/09
You folks don't know how lucky you are. In World of Warcraft I have to stay in an inn. They never put mints under the pillows, some stinking blood elf has always stolen all the towels, and the vender-machines are never full stocked.
By Deadbuffalo at 3:56 PM ON 01/27/09
UO housing was classic. Since you could place anywhere the world quickly filled up with small one room houses. They were the only way to have additional storage besides the 200 stone backpack and bank limit. I think i remember them contributing to there being too many objects in the worlds, and thus degregaded server performance. There was even a "spring cleaning" event to get rid of crap people were hoarding in their houses.
Eventually all available housing spots were filled, so the wilds of Brittania became suburbia. So they introduced house decay for people with inactive accounts. Other players could view the timers on these, so house waiting parties became pretty common. A house waiting party begins with a couple of guys watching a spot to place a house when the old one comes down. Then they start getting paranoid about the other players so they invite a couple of friends to watch their backs. This escaltes and eventually it just becomes a battle royale over who gets to place a new house.
By malkav11 at 7:06 PM ON 01/27/09
Yeah, Anarchy Online housing was pretty blah. EQII's is quite impressive, though, with many sizes and qualities of instanced housing in various parts of the big cities, and supporting all sorts of decorations and feature content which can be placed manually however you like. (Most important, from what I can tell? A doorway directly to your guild hall.) More impressive still is the guild hall system, which is similar but offers a dizzying array of options. The guild I joined is only level 60 (out of 80), but their hall is gorgeous, palatial, and full of useful things like vendors, crafting stations, status questgivers, a variety of fast travel options, storage, and so on. And they've bought *maybe* half of the extras they could have.
The downside is that houses and halls (and hall features, though maybe not house features) all have an up front cost as well as an ongoing weekly rental fee that's much smaller. So you gotta keep coming up with the cash and status. Though many decorations reduce your rent, so there's that.
malkav11:
Yeah, Anarchy Online housing was pretty blah. EQII's is quite impressive, though, with many sizes and qualities of ...More »