Housing System

[NeedForGreed]

Hello! There's two things I'd like to suggest be addressed for the housing system.

1. The feature would benefit from a delayed availability at launch.
2. The wiki page is a bit confusing and contradicts itself.

Delayed Availability​

I strongly urge staff to consider delaying the availability of property ownership/rentals until at least 3 months after launch, and consider delaying further if need be. My reasoning:

• The server will likely be extremely full the first month, and many players--especially those whose free time is during peak times--probably will not be able to play. As a result, it's very likely that the only people who will be able to play enough in the first place to afford properties are those who are lucky enough to get online and stay online.
• Having immediate availability (or effectively very quick availability due to time needed to get the money) causes players to have no time to settle into their PC and the RP if they wish to acquire a property. Having such an immediate, early timeframe to grab properties exerts a strong pressure on PCs to get as much money as possible to not be left without any available housing, before others speed ahead of them. Once it's gone, it will probably be gone for a long time -- this has been my experience on other servers. Easing the length of time will allow people to focus on RP and work towards the goal at a more reasonable rate. It's simply impossible to work on money at a reasonable rate if you are trying to afford a large purchase in anything less than three months.
• tldr: immediate or early availability of housing strongly favors players lucky enough to get online and who grind hard right away.

Given the massive interest in TDN, the first week or month are likely to be a bit chaotic and difficult for people to even log in. For this reason, it would be extremely unfair to make housing available until things calm down a bit.

The Wiki Page​

Can be found here. On the System Overview, the costs associated with Property Tiers is described as "taxes". However below, under Outline of Process, this is implied to be both a purchase system and a rental system:

1. A player approaches a sign attached to the housing that will indicate property cost and provide dialog options to give the player an opportunity to purchase the property. (This sign is made invisible if the property is already purchased)
2. Once purchased, the sign vanishes and player is awarded with two sets of keys and a deed to the property. The keys will be persistent on-use. Duplicates can only be made by the property owner.
3. Properties can only be owned by ONE Player. No sharing. If someone wants to live with another player, they can figure out the expenses on their own.
4. Paying Rent Process:
   1. The Deed is the primary tool to handle the administrative aspects of owning the property.
   2. Players can pay rent in advance (as far as needed), and each 30 days, the system will remove silver from the pool of payments that the player has submitted.
5. Eviction Process:
   1. If a player fails to pay rent for 60 days (two rent cycles), the property will be forfeited. Additionally, if evicted, all permanent placeables within the area are subject to being removed without reimbursement by a DM.
      1. Alternatively, someone purchasing the property with the items inside may have the items/placeables turned over to the new purchasing player.

Could this be clarified possibly?

 

[Danuvis]

Thanks for the suggestion(s). I'll address them below:

Delayed Availability

This is something we're already intent on simply to ensure the numerical values of housing will be matching the server's economy, though you've also made some fair points here. The exact time period that housing will be unavailable during is up in the air. However the intended investment time (the exact amount of which is also uncertain at the moment due to the difficulty of predicting the server's economy) is meant to be long, so it's safe to say housing essentially won't be available in the first months at the very least. We'll discuss specific numbers internally regardless now that it's been brought up again with other considerations in mind.

The Wiki Page

IC housing can be either actual purchasing of property or renting of property, which is always reflected in the name & descriptions, as well as the dialogue window of in-game signs for available housing. All housing has an initial purchase cost, alongside the monthly cost, regardless of what kind of property it is. I'll see what I can do about clarifying the system's wiki page.

 

[NeedForGreed]

Thank you so much!