[Tamaki-Kun]

tldr: House building pretty harsh right now can we get a furniture catalogue item, priced at 500 Asagorians, which lets us see all the furniture items and 'buy' them from it like a shop for free? We already spend Asagorians for houses, so why not?

Hello hello, Shibe from Space here! I've come to provide a rather lengthy and, dare I say, bold suggestion and hopefully sprout a discussion among SL2's House Builders. There's a tldr up there, if you're super lazy like me. I'd appreciate it if you gave this whole thing a read, though!

First, a little background check. Shibe, who are you, exactly, to even dare speak of building? Well, I'm one of many house builders that exist in SL2. I certainly won't claim I'm the best at it, but I'd like to think I know a lot of ins and outs on how these things work. I've built a good dozen houses meant for events and player houses both, worked tirelessly to crank out an environment for everyone to role-play end enjoy, previously with relative ease! 

But now? It's actually kind of difficult to make much progress, especially without grinding a lot of Murai. And by that I mean a lot of Murai. It was already quite a mountain to climb just trying to gather enough Ashwood and Murai to create a decent house. Making it all look pretty. Now, with the taxes, and the prices on the furniture(which I will get to further down this thread), it's taxing and inconvenient to try building a grand house. And trust me, 400 furniture limit? Not enough if you're aiming high(this is coming from someone with 800 furniture limit. 1000 is the cap, by the by).

In light of the crafting update and the newly applied taxes, there's already enough money-sinks in the game that affects everyone globally, which also strangles us builders more than before. 

Let's not forget the fact that with the recent update, it's incredibly aggravating to walk back and forth, back and forth, back and forth between your house and an ASAGO building. God save you if your home was somewhere far away like Voilegarde, Law's End, Nameless Shrine Cave.

This isn't even delving into the annoying four housing merchants(whom have a notorious history of glitching out and vanishing for an entire reboot. But Dev fixed them already, hopefully for good!).


Now let's get on with the nitty and gritty. Firstly, let's review why building houses feel terrible now. Reason number...

1. People don't like being inconvenienced and being forced to walk to their player house to the ASAGO building, or those four aforementioned housing merchants(five, technically, if you count the pumpkin in Darkwood Manor). This wasn't much of a problem, previously, but with all the housing furniture scattered about everywhere in SL2, it's become a major problem.
   
2. People who build houses are 95% of the time poor. Now, you may say 'Shibe, you pulled that percentage out of your bum', but I assure you I can speak this with confidence. Most of us(house builders) depend on other players to dole out and provide us with cash and materials(previously). You won't see us walking around with ten thousand Murai, unless we're on our way to buy a bunch of furniture(previously ashwood, cotton, iron, etc.).
   
3. Taxes. As if it wasn't already heavy on our Murai pouches, taxes has come to claim even more of our hard-earned cash that we're aiming to spend for a player house meant for other players', or your own, enjoyment. Sure it might make sense if the character is, IC, poor and works at it enough to get a better house, but most often player houses are built as event areas or places meant for the public. 
   
4. Inventory space. This is a problem people on lower end devices suffer from more than those with shiny high end ones.  Ever wanted to stock up on your chairs just in case you might need more or you're not sure how many you'll need for a two floor house? If you're playing on a good computer, you can probably afford it. But for those that aren't? I'm sorry, but whenever you open your home tab after stocking up around 100~200+ items? Your dreamseeker's going to slow down, ranging from 'this isn't so bad' to 'oh my god it hasn't stopped freezing for ten seconds now'. God save you again if you even try making keys from doors and try renaming them, because it will happen again.
   
5. Now this is something I've been baffled by the most. Why should I, the guy that spent 500 Asagorians on a ticket, need to spend more Murai to buy furniture for a player house that I bought? Isn't it already enough to spend what is, commonly known as, the equivalent of 50,000 Murai for a house ticket? Why do we need to spend 10,000~(ranging to an extreme 50,000~+) more Murai just to make the house we bought with real money(or hard earned Murai if you bought Asagorians from another player) prettier?
   
6. It takes a lot of time building player houses as is. The process of setting down floor tiles, wall tiles, and mapping out a good layout to use takes a while. This adds onto issue number 1. This can burn us out a lot.
   

Okay Shibe, you stated your 'numbers'. How about you show us those prices on furniture? Isn't the new update better on our Murai storage?

Depends! But if I were answer it as honestly as I could? Ab-so-lute-ly not!

Previously, a chair costs around 45 Murai(15 per 1 Ashwood), not counting reputation. Now? It costs a whopping 60(+10% Tax rate). Chairs are by far one of the most common furniture items you usually use. Those Onigan chairs? Cotton costs 10 Murai, and while I forget how many you needed at the time, I can say for certainty it definitely did not cost me 60(+10% Tax rate) Murai when I grabbed them.

Sure, there are items like Big Trees that needed a whopping 10 Ashwood(150 Murai) that costs 60(+10% Tax rate, because I hate the new taxing system) Murai now, and that's great! Heck, items that were hard to craft like those light sources which required nerif's blood, or the various paintings that needed really weird materials are easy to get and buy now! I'm pleased with those!

But again, why do we need to buy furniture items with Murai for a donation item?


What do you propose?

This is where we get to the daring and bold part. What I propose is simple, and one of these ideas is one that I heard from another fellow house builder that I really like.

• Abolish the Murai requirement from furniture items entirely. There is no need to add a Murai sink for players who oftentimes don't have any Murai to begin with. We're all basically your slaves working to provide you an area for your own amusement, over and over until the next, new shiny area comes up for everyone to flock to and abandon the last one.
  
• Provide house builders with a furniture catalogue item of sorts, priced at 500 Asagorians in the donation shop, where all furniture is listed and free to take, with an unlimited quantity. This will solve so many problems player house builders have, and would only serve to motivate them further into creating more wonderful environments. Once again I see absolutely no reason as to why we must grind Murai on an already taxing and time-consuming process that is building, so please, just give these furniture to us for free. There literally will not be any impact on the economy(despite how broken it already is, house builders excluded) if we're given this feature.
  

Is there anything else you'd like to say, Shibe?

I know I can speak for all player house builders when I say we build these environments not just for us, but for the community as well. As divided we all are, we all just want to enjoy the game. I firmly believe that improving house builders' quality of life with the furniture catalogue is a great step in the right direction, and this isn't just my bias speaking. Please hear me out and give your thoughts on this!