Topic

New Housing System

While most glitchen look forward to a new housing system, there seems to be a common myopic opinion that houses are simply large glitchen drop boxes with resource nubs, and that an ideal abode would be a prettier 50k house with bog resources. But houses can be so much more; Tiny Speck has the chance to add a whole new level of game play with an update. What follows is my particular, delighted thoughts on a potential new system:

I think it would be wonderful to see a housing system that worked similar to the skill system. Rather than plunking down a lump sum for a certain class of housing, houses would begin small and bare. A glitch would then build out the house according to her fancy. Building would take time in addition to money and/or resources, with more complex structures taking more time and/or money to add.

As an example: I might start out with a tiny one acre hovel with just a trophy case and a backyard plot with enough room for one feature (a single tree patch, a four-plot garden, or a tiny pigpen to hold a single pig). I could choose to upgrade my hovel to a hermit's lair which includes a cupboard. Or instead, I could build out my backyard to two acres for a bigger pigpen or two tree patches, etc. After adding a few acres, and upgrading my domicile a few times, I might gain the option to dig out a basement for an herb garden, but I'd need Soil Appreciation VI to do so. Eventually, I could learn certain skills to improve my type of house. I could become a "Peater Patter" to build a bog-style shire home. I could learn "Plankster 1" to build basic wood homes. Or I could learn the "Mortartician" skill if I wanted to build brick homes or a castle. Of course, I would have to expand my land by a certain number of acres to fit bigger and better houses, with each acre expansion taking more time. Houses also might require blueprints for various rooms I might build. I'd pay 150k for a room with more cabinetry, but I'd also need to contribute 500 planks and 100 bricks before waiting the 18 hours (or however long) for the room to be built.

This type of system would be expandable in all directions. Property would be customizable. Some additions would be decorative and simply cost resources. Other additions would add various benefits to your property. A banquet hall might increase the amount of energy food gives you while munching it there. Or you might build a chapel to house your shrines, decreasing the amount of tithing necessary. You could then add a giant statue to that chapel to amplify shrine benefits given. Backyards could be expanded beyond pigpens, trees, and gardens. Use up one acre to add a catapult to fling yourself anywhere in Ur. Or clear away a tree patch and add a barbecue pit that could convert one piggy into a hundred meat instantaneously. Someone might own a simple house with a giant orchard. Another glitch might own a grand tower with no backyard at all. Want to paint your house? Learn the painting skill, and collect the right resources for the right color. Or top your many turret towers with collectible pennants of varying rarity, a perfect hobby for the obsessive compulsive vexillologist in us all. Potions could be brewed to augment housing development or tools built to speed up building time. A deconstructing skill could be learned to tear down walls to make way for expansion, and a moving van could even be hired to tranport your property to a new part of Ur. While any type of structure could be built in any neighborhood, certain zones might offer benefits according topography. A house in Chakra Phool might give a slight bonus to the time it takes for herbs to grow, while a house in Groddle Forest might yield slightly more harvest from trees.

The sky is the limit here. You could literally build a castle on a cloud. Or a moonbase. Or a pirate ship in a harbor. Add-ons and new designs can be piled on, without rocking the structure of the game.

But those were just possibilities, the build out could look completely different. My main point is that houses would no longer be static, but something a glitch would constantly be working on and improving, pouring time, money and resources into. And perhaps most importantly, a glitch could take real ownership of the property, creating a home that may be similar to, but not exactly like their neighbors'.

I realize my wishful thinking translates to hard, hard work and testing on the part of Tiny Speck. And in all likelihood, they've got something even better planned for the road ahead. This post is perhaps more of a veiled argument for a future reset. If Tiny Speck roles out a major new system like this, there may be some initial hiccups .For instance, they may discover every glitch has built up a Hearstian mega-mansion within a week of a housing reboot, or they may realize everyone abuses the new system by creating giant pigpen factories, pigs being such a cash cow. But I'd rather they take some risks and make some bold new changes in the hopes of a future version of Glitch that is even better and is truly infinitely expandable, even if us early glitch pioneers have to spend a couple months relearning the original skill set, and give up the hoarded resources we've been amassing.

Posted 12 years ago by Jessup Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

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  • plus one gogolrillon.  they should hire you.
    Posted 12 years ago by Circe Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Do want. A reset would be upsetting but I could deal with it.
    Posted 12 years ago by Puppydog Jones Subscriber! | Permalink
  • From talking to stoot at the (un)launch party, I think he is thinking in this direction. 
    Posted 12 years ago by Oakland Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I really like this idea. *nodnods*
    Posted 12 years ago by Daffy Lurksalot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • All I ask for is the ability to increase closet space and both herb & garden plots.
    Posted 12 years ago by Rodger Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ummm no.
    Posted 12 years ago by Casombra Amberrose Subscriber! | Permalink
  • i second that no. ijs
    Posted 12 years ago by Queen Zipporah Subscriber! | Permalink
  • For those of you "um no" people - can you elaborate on what you don't like?
    Posted 12 years ago by Knitomaton Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Whats really got me wondering about the new housing system is if it is going to compensate players based on where they currently live. im currently in a 7.5k, and want to expand to a 50k, but is it worth it once we switch to the new system?
    Posted 12 years ago by VirXXIII Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Brilliant.  I'm a Faunasphere ex-pat, and one of the things that kept that game fun and fresh was my "home" world.  Everyone's home was totally different!  You could visit other people's worlds freely (you couldn't pick up the owner's stuff while you were there) to see what other people were creating and to get ideas.   You had to collect tons of stuff to create your world, and you could constantly tear it back apart and re-decorate if you felt like it.  It meant that, once I had finished all the quests and whatnot, there was always some fun creative thing to spend my time on.

    I really like Glitch, and am super excited that it seems to be moving more in this direction.  I'll be sticking around to see what happens!
    Posted 12 years ago by Clarabelle Subscriber! | Permalink
  • ...and a sauna where you can regen energy or mood or something like that (with the same sort of limit that the orb has of course)
    Posted 12 years ago by lahutchi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes!
    Posted 12 years ago by Priscilla Parsley Subscriber! | Permalink
  • the street project mechanic has a wonderful way to do this...

    10,000 units of shoveling to dig your house bigger?
    10,000 units of hoe work to get a bigger garden?

    Why not?
    Posted 12 years ago by ICountFrom0 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • ooooh a chapel for icons!

    +1  

    But doesn't  this in the ideas forum?

    As the general forum is often flooded with cubimal sales and other misc non-auctionable trades,  idea threads will be less likely to be lost if you put them in the ideas forum.
    Posted 12 years ago by Treesa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I LOVE THIS IDEA! It gets annoying having to buy a certain house (nice or not) for the room. Also, you can't change the furniture, This idea is amazing. Well done!
    Posted 12 years ago by ♥Cookie Raider♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I still want a painted Gypsy wagon pulled by a pair of Clydesdale porkers to ferry me through the streets of Groddle Meadow.  
    Posted 12 years ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Jessup, I like your imagination. Are you not related to one of the giants?

    +1 for everything you wrote.
    Posted 12 years ago by Ximenez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What VirXXIII mentioned about getting compensation for the houses we currently have if we're all booted out (I admit being booted out makes me nervous). Or better yet since I imagine the housing spots/addresses will remain the same how about we stay owning the house in that spot (meaning those of us who have grown attached to where we live can stay there and not suddenly panic about having to get that spot back), it just gets reset and so if we were taking the example in this topic you might go from your cottage to hovel (though currant compensation would still be nice to give us a boost towards our house expansions).

    Or if house booting would be a way of freeing up housing from long inactive players you could give all players an opportunity to decide if they want to stay and keep the house spot where they are. Any who don't respond (and you'd have to allow a fair amount of time) would just be compensated for their houses and their possessions put in storage.

    I'm also curious about all the stuff and resources we currently have in our houses: What about my animals, trees I've planted, crops or herbs I have growing and stuff I have littered all over the ground? I'd hope that at least the items and maybe the animals could come with me.

    Oh, and I wonder how house expansions would effect the cost of housing? If you bought a house someone had expanded I imagine it would be more expensive.
    Posted 12 years ago by Sunburst Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If it's not a huge grind sink like some activity is right now ,I won't mind changing housing system for the better atleast.
    Posted 12 years ago by Cryroth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This exactly what i had hoped for when i heard about the housing change! Brilliant ideas, and i really hope Tiny Speck takes your post into serious consideration.
    Posted 12 years ago by NovaParadigm Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes...this is exactly what Glitch needs!
    Currently as you level up more and more there seems to be less and less to do, even though you have more skills and resources to use. The quests are pretty much non existent anymore (unless you 'create' your own) and street projects seem to only come around every couple months or so which causes a mass influx of glitches on that one street/project, which in turn makes the projects not as fun or rewarding as they once were or could be (more people are crashing/freezing up, phases are completed before you can even click an item, etc).
    So great idea Jessup...love it all!
    (and +1 to what Clarabelle said)
    Posted 12 years ago by Dick Dastardly Subscriber! | Permalink
  • love your ideas, Jessup!
    Posted 12 years ago by chilirlw Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for the kudos, folks.

    @Treesa: Yeah, my bad, should have posted this in ideas!

    @VirXXIII: I wouldn't worry too hard on the decision. Once you near the end of your skillset, 50k comes fairly easy with an hour or two of piggy nibbling, mining, or simply playing the game and selling what you've collected. Though it wouldn't surprise me if TS simply gave glitchen their old house's value in currants upon a system update. The potential naysaying will come from glitchen who feel robbed of the easy utility. Right now, you purchase a 50k and simply log in a few times a day to collect a couple hundred meat, milk, veggies, and tree resources. Glitchen who lose that may whinge when they realize it will take them a month or more to build their house up to the state it was in before a system change.

    @Icountfrom0: Glitch at its best is a cooperative, interactive experience. "Shoveling 10,000 units" would pull the game toward glitchen sitting in their backyards, alone, grinding (as opposed to starting a yard expansion project and then running around playing with other glitchen and coming back to a finished project the next day). But your idea does hold great merit. There's certainly the possibility of many house projects requiring multiple glitchen to complete. You may need to gather five glitch friends to help you raise a barn. The "hammer 10,000 units" wouldn't progress unless five glitchen were hammering at once. You could even scale the number for endgame additions. Perhaps to raise a marquee in front of your house, you'd need 20 glitchen to help you simaltaneously, all with the "marquee de solderer" ability. Or maybe you could build a moat by yourself, but to fill it with gaurd dolphins, you'd need to get 30 glitchen to stop by at some point and give your dolphin pups some prehensile dolphin love.
    Posted 12 years ago by Jessup Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hmm, I don't know about needing others to add certain expansions to your house. That would put me off. One of the things that I love about Glitch is that you have a choice. You can be social and do a lot of team things, but you can also go it alone and do your own thing. In other words you're not forced to interact with people to do anything. Of course there are benefits to working with others, but currently you don't have to if you don't want to.
    Posted 12 years ago by Sunburst Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I can't agree more. Skills and working for things is what makes this game so much fun. I didn't have a chance to go through all the comments, but I think I'd also like to see the option to 'Share the work, share the house.' Let's say a bunch of people want to get together and build a house together because they want to be roommates, I think that would be an awesome option to have. Some people will love it, some people will still choose to do everything themselves.
    Posted 12 years ago by rorschach Subscriber! | Permalink
  • rorschach: Something like your idea is in the works, as "group halls". They will be built by members of the group.
    Posted 12 years ago by Ximenez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • if we already have houses? will we get a refund? i hope we will get a full refund. and how about what we have in our current houses? will we get them back or will they be in the new houses?
    Posted 12 years ago by Kristabel Subscriber! | Permalink
  • how about the stuff in our closets, and also our piggy feeder, meat collector, butterfly milker, and our animals? will they be moved to the new houses?
    Posted 12 years ago by Kristabel Subscriber! | Permalink
  • love everything about this. :)
    Posted 12 years ago by Flirty Gertie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like this concept, and I think that the basic street project mechanics (Feature X requires Y resources plus Z skill/work) tweaked for slightly less grindiness, can perhaps be reapplied to housing. As I've said in forums a couple of times, I don't like the concept of "Everything Bagel" houses, where having a zillion currants buys a player the right to incorporate a huge number of in-world features into his/her home, and I imagine that TS is thinking about the appropriate gameplay balance between "working on/in your home" and "working on/in the game world".

    Sunburst makes an important point that any reworking needs to take into account solo and collaborative play styles, but both should require interaction with shared spaces. Building out personal spaces seems like an obvious endgame / high-level activity, but having higher level players spend most of their time within that space has the potential to make the game world at large seem like a gated community.
    Posted 12 years ago by Holgate Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This is a great idea. I actually wouldn't mind having to be resetted for it to be implemented.
    Posted 12 years ago by girlthulhu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hmmm... I really like this suggestion!
    Posted 12 years ago by HopeforAlice Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1! This is so totally awesome hon!
    Posted 12 years ago by Avariella Subscriber! | Permalink
  • perhaps instead of making it a requirement that you share the work ...only have to share the work with those you intend to share the house with..your roommates could be required to assist rather than just anyone who won't reap the benefits of the actual house beyond the experience they get helping you.
    Posted 12 years ago by Chylli Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah! Forced socialisation, great!
    Posted 12 years ago by niemand Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yes, i too am a sociopathic hermit that hates myself and other human beings too much to interact with them even in the impersonal robot world of the internet, despite the fact that i am voluntarily playing a multiplayer game rather than sitting inside my designated sociopath containment chamber
    Posted 12 years ago by Effigy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I wouldn't mind a reset of the game itself, but I would absolutely detest, loathe, hate, abhor having to ~yet again~ relearn all the skills.

    *forced* anything sux
    Posted 12 years ago by ~Scilly~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +11111111111111111

    My girlfriend and I were talking about this exact stuff last night...
    Except your ideas are a lot more fleshed out... And just plain better =p
    Posted 12 years ago by zeroDOTjon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Effigy: There's a difference between playing an avatar of unabumber, and not wanting to have to rely on others to get stuff done in the game.
    Beside for this part i liked the rest of OP ideas.
    Posted 12 years ago by niemand Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Great ideas, Jessup!
    Just to let you know, I started a similar thread (li'l ole thread) over in Ideas.  Would love to see what you think.  I think there's a lot of common ground we've both covered, but I'm enjoying your variation a great deal!
    Posted 12 years ago by CrashTestPilot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The "recriut your 'friends' deal" sounds a little like some sort of Zynga swindle.  Tiny Speck is better than that.  Want to play Farmville? Go play Farmville.
    Posted 12 years ago by Parrow Gnolle Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This reminds me a bit like Animal Crossing. You have a tiny house, then you have to pay of the debt. It's great. :) Like this idea is.
    Posted 12 years ago by ♥Cookie Raider♥ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I just want decorations.  That's all.  I don't want to have to pour hours and thousands of resources and skills into building up from scratch.  I like buying big houses and having lots of space or trading out for smaller ones as I like.  I don't want to have to put a lot of thought into it and I'm sure I can't possibly be alone in this.  =/
    I hope TS will take all the options and opinions into consideration and not make it such a huge affair that it loses it's fun for me. =/
    Posted 12 years ago by ♪♥~ Auren ~♥♪ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • love it
    Posted 12 years ago by Arietty Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1
    @ icount - love the idea of using the street project system, would actually make you have to work at getting a bigger house instead of just watching the clock tick like the skills

    UG! @ Parrow - did you have to use that Z word?? 
    I got so sick of notifications and "having to have" people send you stuff that I blocked all but 2 games on FB and neither of them are from Z.
    Posted 12 years ago by BlackWolf Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1
    Posted 12 years ago by Hen vla Ham Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think we need commercial streets. The businesses could be just as customizable as the homes.
    Posted 12 years ago by FyodorD Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Commercial streets, yes!

    Blanky provided a hint in the topic about the new Marketplace forum to the effect that the forum should be considered a temporary thing. So there will be some other way implemented for players to get together for sales and trades. Perhaps something like this!
    Posted 12 years ago by Flowerry Pott Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Commercial streets! +a million! Even better if they only contained OPEN businesses (so it wasn't miles and miles of closed shops). I don't know how technically feasible that is but it would be great.
    Posted 12 years ago by Miel Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This idea has been around for a long time, since long before the reset. It has been alluded to before that TS was going to take steps in this direction, but alas, they have not.
    Posted 12 years ago by Yves Subscriber! | Permalink
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