[Poruku]

Housing in SL2 is a big part of a lot of characters and can be turned into very enjoyable rp spots. It's a very important part of the game and it's even a donation item

The issue: If you want a house in Dormeho, Tannis, Lispool, Cellsvich, Voilegard, Albedo even... You can't, because all houses are taken. Nowadays you need to be very lucky or buy someone's house spot oocly, or rely on the kindness of someone.

Solution 1: Make more houses
To cram more houses in the game would likely fix the issue but that would mean putting in more "districts".

An option for that would be to make individual houses smaller in general and putting more where it fits

Solution 2: Rotate through houses that aren't used
I'm not sure what the system looks like right now, but a lot of houses stick around for a while even without any building done in them
An option for that would be to make the rotation faster, or add a murai cost to be paid a bit like the shopkeeps, even if it's very minor. This would mean people need to put effort into actually paying their like 4 murai per month so people who don't care about their house would need to put in some effort or allow it to rotate out.
Alternatively, require the owner to enter the house to count for the kick time, not just log in.
People would be less concerned about "Losing their spot" if it wasn't so hard to get one in the first place

Solution 3: Add more doors
Existing house buildings could have extra doors that lead to a different house, rented separately. Additionally, buildings could be added with a ton of housing doors inside, saving space

Solution 4: Allow houses to exist outside of the physical world
Simply put buildings in each town where you can buy a plot and build a house with no limit on how many houses there are actually inside. You could click on a portal and it asks you if you wanna enter a house or buy, etc, then give you a list of houses and you pick the one you wanna enter. A bit of an extreme solution but no longer would house limits be a thing.


Personally, I think a bit of a mixture of options 1 2 and 3 would be plenty. Really it just needs a bit of a revisit to make it more reliable for people to get a house where they want.

[Shadbase]

An option for that would be to make the rotation faster, or add a murai cost to be paid a bit like the shopkeeps, even if it's very minor. This would mean people need to put effort into actually paying their like 200 murai so people who don't care about their house would simply allow it to rotate out.

TAXES, YOU'RE THINKING OF TAXES!
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The current system for houses to time out is that the house opens up if the owner has not logged onto the key in the last month (since Pok asked in the unedited post). I, myself, actually hate housing as it is now but I have no clear thought of how it should be fixed, only that it needs to. However, I do think that people should have to log onto the character and not the key to keep the house if anything. 
Cellsvich, Dormeho, Tannis, Voliegard, Cellsvich Forest, Costal Cove, and the Waterfall are the biggest problems with housing. There's barely ever ANYTHING in these places, and I can actually attest: I've bought a house in Voilegard for a million murai OOCly just because having my character's house there is what made SENSE. I can't even get my main's house in Cellsvich Forest, despite it being there ICly, because there's NEVER forest houses open.

I think more housing would be nice, but I think something like FFXIV's apartment system would actually be a good fit. Have one of the Asago portals OOCly in places where there's housing, and then allow people to take spaces in them ala you already can at the Asago building - just with a GUI where you can select a person's home to visit, if it's open. Names would just be like naming the door on an actual house.
This makes housing itself still an ~exclusive~ cool thing, but isn't going to screw with someone's IC placement just because a bunch of people already took those spots and are never gonna give them up, as well as provides better housing opportunity, and doesn't require a party to take people into (like the portals at ASAGO do).

[Jeff]

TAXES, YOU'RE THINKING OF TAXES!

I have to strongly agree with this. It seems to me that the people in this community are pretty sharp, so I will spare everyone the lecture on the importance of money sinks in MMOs.

[Autumn]

I don't think taxes being introduced to housing will really do a whole lot to staunch the issues at hand, I'd rather there just be more housing, and for Asago portals to allow you visit houses you might have access to, as a list would start to get out of hand very quickly, perhaps a list with a search function would actually do in that case.

[Poruku]

I think just needing the building owner to enter the house once a month instead of just the key being logged on would weed out the houses that people don't really care for. And adding some extra houses on top of that, like an apartment building, would probably make things fine for now

[Dystopia]

I think some kind of mass asago portal housing area would probably work well. Maybe we could search by character name associated with the house, or the house name itself.

In general I think we need more houses on the map. More places to go, maybe expand the places we do have and add more houses to them, like Cellsvich forest.


I also don't think requiring the building owner to enter the house on a monthly basis is too fair, if only because they shouldn't be punished for not stepping into their own house, so long as they're on the character that owns it.

For example, if someone's running around being really active on a character that owns a house spot, but all their RP for one monthly period is beyond the confines of their house and they only bring people to it sometimes, it shouldn't be yanked out from under them just because they forgot to step into it that month. It varies, and it's relatively easy to forget especially if you're swept up in things.

It doesn't mean the house isn't used, and the monthly rollover as is should be more than enough to keep housing spaces.

That's just my opinion as a fellow player, though!



also please no taxes, i'm already too broke to build anything as it is </3

[WaifuApple]

I would be personally up for adding extra districts to Tannis or Dormeho for extra housing there, provided permission be allowed to map them. May have unintended effects on beasts, though.

Would also be willing to help with expanding existing maps to have new housing, too, such as over at the forest, or cave maps. Overall, if more houses on the map are wanted, Dev permitting, I'd be willing to contribute to making that happen!

[WaifuApple]

An update:

Have decided to help with suggestion number one and have made additional maps to go alongside Dormeho, Tannis, and the Peaceful Forest. More places may be added onto this as time goes by and stuff.

Cellsvich isn't exactly full in terms of housing at the moment, it's just that the main area is miles better than the districts. Less about capacity and more about what remains being kinda unappealing.

Now, adding new maps still only provides a very finite amount of new places that are sure to be gobbled up again. If not quickly, over time - people like having their houses in pretty / rare / unique places, rather than being resigned to where nobody goes - even if those places aren't public.

So to be honest, there's definitely still need for other changes beyond just extra capacity. Those ASAGO portals could stand to be a lot more useful, since you need to basically drag people in to use your house in them.

While the idea of multiple houses per door isn't bad, it offers concerns over which banner gets displayed, which sign. This is a problem that is complicated in terms of actually solving.