Topic
Questions About New Housing and Group Halls -- NOW WITH STOOT ANSWERS!
UPDATE: Scarlett Bearsdale has provided a summary of questions and answers here.
Thanks Scarlett!
** ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS *****************************************
I have many questions in my mind about the new housing and group halls that will be coming to Glitch. I am going to post some of them here. Maybe others have questions they would like to post.
HOUSING QUESTIONS
1. Once the new housing is introduced, what steps will current users need to take to acquire a house and what steps will new users need to take to acquire a house?
2. Will a new house consist of a template that can be extended and added to? If so, will there be one template that everyone starts with, or will there be different starting templates to choose from?
3. Will houses have an exterior that is visible from public space such that any player could pass by, see the house, drop something in front of it, or knock on the door if they wish? If so, will there be ways to customize this exterior to make something that is visually unique?
4. Will there be spaces with clusters of houses similar to the current housing quarters? If so, will there be public access to these spaces such that any player can come into them and wander around?
5. Will the new houses have a permission system that is more flexible and layered than the current permission system which allows anyone who has access to a house to take almost everything that's not locked into a cabinet?
GROUP HALL QUESTIONS
1. Will a group hall look like and function like (a) a building, (b) an outdoor street or streets, (c) an outdoor street or streets with one or more buildings, or (d) any of these a group wants?
2. Will group halls be available only to formal groups or can a collection of players get together and create a "group hall" without also creating a formal group?
3. Will group halls be considered to be owned by their associated group (however such groups are defined), owned by a subset of the group, owned by the entire community, or what?
4. Will group halls be accessible only to those who are members of their associated group, or will there be a more flexible permission system (e.g. public, public w/ blocklist, permanent guest list, limited-time invitation, etc.)?
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Maybe TS will answer some of these questions, maybe not. Either way, I'm interested to know what others want to know :)
UPDATE: See below for some answers from stoot :)
Replies
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I love the idea of improving the house <3 I'm not into street projects because I'm never there the right time, but this sounds like your personal street project, albeit different in some ways.
I wonder if when you enter your imaginatory house (sounds like daydreaming to me :D ), your avatar will stay in the 'real' world, displaying something like a house symbol on top of their heads, signifying you're not really there. But then, that would require more resources than just whisking them away completely into the mind home. I'm guessing, if there will no longer be housing quarters or anything similar, that you can only ever visit your friends' houses. Lorewise, how would that work? You knock them on the skull, asking them to let you share their imagination?
Are we glitchen only the fevered dream of creature(s) who have elevated themselves to the roles of giants? I'll ponder that while waiting for the new housing to unfold ;) - Will crop gardens and herb gardens be able to co-exist in the same house?
- Excellent! Make is so...
- If we all start with a template, a shack or cardboard box, a plot for instance and build up, and our homes are in our imagination, not in the bogs or alakol per say, this completely eliminates the mcmansions, bog homes, cottages, treehouses, apts, etc. as we know it. I previously really liked the thought of expanding upwards on the treehouse design. But this doesnt seem to be the case anymore if it ever was. Also wonder if we will get to imagine a background, as in the current Kajuu landscape etc .
- This is a great housing idea, thank you Tiny Speck! My only concern is that if everyone has a template and can build anything, this will eliminate the geographical variations in houses which makes Glitch such a great and enriched environment. Will there be a geographical aspect in the new housing system?
- I have so much jun--err stuff on the floor of my house and my poor cabinet...will those items all be safe, no matter how numerous?
- MB was for Master Breeders.
- Wow! This sounds like an entirely new game concept and is therefore exciting. Thanks for the answers, Stoot!
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It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. It's definitely a totally new game with some superficial similarities. Wait and see is a good tactic to take. 'Reset' or not doesn't sound like it will matter; that probably has people with high personal investments in the game feeling nervous.
“There is great chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent.” - Mao Zedong. - I love this game.
- I still don't think these are enough answers. What is the eta?
- I'm gonna miss my location on pashas place, to refused to move on because I loved the location of my 4000 home. Kinda excited to expand though! I'm busting out of the current environment.
- Just one little quistion around when can we expect to see new housing?
- Oh, I hope this will come soon... :)
- This sounds very interesting, though I am still glad that I made the jump to a 50k house as it's been a lot of fun getting it set up and whatnot (even knowing that it is going to go *poof* sometime in the future).
- Very interesting. As I read this, your house is in your imagination. Therefore, you can go 'home' wherever you are. When you leave home, you are wherever you were when you last went home, if that makes sense. Sort of like how you enter the world where you last left it, 'home' would be a way of leaving the world for awhile.
- Stoot - will the intergrity of the firebogs be preserved? IE, will you have to choose an initial house type and stick with it?
- Assuming my assumptions above, what would be TOTALLY cool would be to have your home's vista change depending on what land you were in when you entered your home.
- The fire bogs are a place to visit, and it sounds like people will be able to construct their houses to reflect an affinity for the fire bog areas. But what exactly is the 'integrity' of the fire bogs? I enjoyed the fire bogs before the herb frenzy, and feel that the herb frenzy has spoiled that integrity. Making the herb gardens not a 'special thing only fire bog appreciators can have' might even help restore the integrity of the fire bogs, if it gets the herb hustlers to move on.
- Integrity of the fire bog?! Just out of spite I'm going to put at least one herb plot and one barnicle in my new house.
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One point I have raised elsewhere is the notion of architectural styles.
One thing that was charming about Firebog, Groddle, and other homes was that they had unique architectural styles.
I think as you (TS) assign "basic homes" to players, you might wish to seriously consider the notion that the exterior appearance of those homes correspond to a player's choice of architecture or style.
I, for instance, would very much enjoy to see what homes might look like in a Uralian style, or an Ixian style, something we have not seen before.
I know it will all be customizable to some extent, but I think the idea of allowing the player to imagine a kind of "terroir" or regionality to the exterior styling of their home is something I, and I imagine many other Glitchen, would find most charming.
This has been suggested earlier in this thread (dagnabbitrabbit), but, yes, the notion of "background landscape" will also be important.
Thanks again for all the transparency, and best of luck to the devs & stoot! -
Thanks for the updates, Stoot!!
And, yes -- I would VERY much like to be able to choose a style/template/environment for my home, because I'm really charmed by the geographical variations in Glitch housing, and I'd hate to lose some of the style touches that I enjoy so much now! -
Can someone please please tell me if Im understanding this correctly:
When we log in after the change, we wont have the old house anymore, but we will have assigned a space for the new house? Because if our goods are moved automatically, it means they will be moved somewhere right?
My concern being location, I love my current location, I want to know if the new system will mean a reset of locations also not only of houses. - I'm super excited to see the housing changes, but I'm also gonna miss the house I have now. I love my treehouse, and I love having a street to call home. It's always so nice to get back into familiar territory after a distant expedition, knowing that you're almost home. And it's also lots of fun to visit friends that have different houses than you! I'm afraid that this update is going to make all houses roughly the same, leaving nearly no fun in visiting other people.
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@merope
I love having a place in UR that's my home too but I think it's not going to be like that anymore. As I understand it, our home will be totally seperate from the world that we can enter where ever in the world we happen to be. -
We will be able to retreat into our imaginations, and find our home there. Or so it seems.
So we'll all be homeless. Sorta. People with a huge clunk-a-junk hoard all over the floor in their present home will find their imagination clogged with all the clunk-a-junk. Sounds cool to me. - ooooh i cant wait!!!! one thing im wondering is will you still be able to give keys to other glitches? has that already been asked? if so plz forgive me, im too lazy to read every single comment :)
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Number 3: Will houses have an exterior that is visible from public space such that any player could pass by, see the house, drop something in front of it, or knock on the door if they wish? (YES)
seems to conflict with number 4: Will there be spaces with clusters of houses similar to the current housing quarters? If so, will there be public access to these spaces such that any player can come into them and wander around? (NO)
Blue skying, it sounds like when you go 'home' you will see a courtyard which (based on an interview elsewhere) would have signposts or links somehow off to your other friends courtyards.
How 'public' that would be is debatable. You could just add someone to your buddy list to get to their house. How it might otherwise work? I give up. - It is public WalruZ because friends of friends could still make it to your homesite...by sign jumping. So, not as public as we currently have where anyone can get to your place without knowing you, but still public in that those who are not your friends can still get to your homeland. In a past game, we'd post lists of our 'friends' so people could find our homesites if they weren't already friends of ours. In that game, we had a 300 friend limit, so some folks had filled up their signpost so to speak, so you'd have to find a mutual friend to get to their location. The reason to go to someone's location that you might not know already was for parties, or contests, or mazes, or ...well, you get the idea.
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My, my. So many questions and ideas since I've been asleep.
I wonder if we'll end up having to spend a lot of time building up our houses with the imagination we'll get from converted exp (If that's how that's gonna work, and confirmation on that would be awesome.) so we'll actually have some place to put our newly homeless crap! I for one have hundreds of stacks of items, as well as quite a few pigs, butterflies, trees, and chickens occupying my current home.
I suppose they can always sit in moving boxes for a while. I can only imagine all the living stuff will have to ascend to a higher plane, or else be converted into seasoned bean/baby animal form.
Alas, I am merely tossing out my own conjecture for the perusal of the group! None of us has any idea how any of this will turn out. I would suggest taking anything without the Staff tag next to it with a grain of salt! They may be nuts. I may be nuts. YOU may be nuts. You never know. So be careful what you believe about the update :) All you know for sure is what Stoot has said. - ANOTHER question: What will happen to our neighborhood animals? We have 5 piggies, 7 chickens and 6 butterflies on my homestreet..will they just vanish? (We are taking very good care of them and would be very sad to see them gone.) If they just vanish, do we get a warning so we can try to save them in time?
- Hold on a minute. I hope I am correct, as this is what I hope for: The houses won't be accessible unless a "summon" to the house is given. So, basically, the houses will be "detached" from the game, not on streets. Such as if anyone played the game Spineworld when it was first up and running. You could press a house icon to go to your house, and you would have to let others in the house through permission. However, no keys were given out. your friend would have to ask each time and you could "summon" him/her in your house.
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How will this affect what location we find ourselves in when we leave our homes? Or are our homes only going to be accessible from some point on, from a link like on our keychains~?
Will we be able to view an overall "map" of the housing from above, like we do for streets, or will the only way to explore be to physically navigate from street sign to street sign (ugh)? - Oh and another question: How will our Icons interact with the new system of "Imagination" rather than currants? If there's no XP / leveling after The Change happens, will we have to pay our Icons in Imagination...? If so what will we get back? Or will our icons stop being functional (heaven forbid!) after this??
- Wow, lots more questions that need some answering...can someone please pose as a journalist or press person so we can get some answers?
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Sure, b3achy. Joe "Scoop" Blow here from The Joe Times...I'll handle this:
Dear TS:
??????????????????????????????????????????
Sincerely,
Subscribers -
I hope that when we launch again we will get the referendum votes extended for a year. I like having a sub for the wardrobe but originally I was sold on the idea of votes. I wouldn't want my subscription to expire a few months after referendum voting is implemented.
I also wish it felt a little more like beta and a little less like "waiting for relaunch". Would like to do more testing of features. I liked that thing we did with testing player to player bartering. Playing the game the way it is while waiting for changes is a bit depressing because there the uncertainty makes it seem pointless to set goals. -
Either way I am excited for this new feature to happen!
Relax...and let it come. -
Treesa: the accrued votes will still work regardless of your subscription status at the time you go to use them. We are planning to have the first votes (likely on new animals) in the next few months.
Joe Blow/b3achy: how about you summarize which ones still need answers into one numbered list? -
;-; How can you just blow our minds with an offhand remark like that? New animals?! That's big news Stoot, my man!
Put every last one of my votes on Olive Bears that give oil when squeezed :P Or Squozed. -
With all due respect, pushing the reponsibility back on the customer is unacceptable, stoot.
Until very recently, I have been reassured by the fact that stoot and the other devs that were prominent during beta have been silent in the forums the past few months. Their time is much better served heads down focusing on making Glicth the awesome game that it should be. I was reassured that thier lack of presence in the forums would equate to results.
That said, my hope was that there would be a TS presence in the forums...and in the game itself...that would keep a finger on the pulse of the community, filter questions as appropriate, and send the important feedback (not spice vs gas plant nonsense) to the people who need to know. Sadly, this has not happened. At all.
The questions are evident to anyone who has been in the forums at all in the last 2 days...or 2 week...or 2 months. The questions, quite frankly, don't even really need to be asked.
I will push back to you, stoot. Tell us what you can tell us. Pretend it will be published in a gaming website for all to see. Conduct your own interview as questioner and answerer. It will be much quicker than answering questions one by one. Better yet: have someone answer questions on your behalf, acting as the filter between valuable and nonsense. Spend your time where it should be - making Glitch awesome.
If you can't anticipate the very basic questions of your audience, then I'm afraid I have no additional questions to ask. - I'm sure staff have their own opinions about tree wars etc. but as they have this giant STAFF label, they can't really post.
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I may be showing my age here ---
Anyone else remember when GeoCities changed urls from streets (geocities.com/area/neighborhood/address) to individual urls (geocities.com/~username)? I see the housing change as the same sort of thing. -
One of the things I have really enjoyed about Glitch is the sense of place provided by regions and housing clumps. I love having neighbors and sharing streets.
The changes to come sound like they will make Glitch less like a shared space, and more like a string of connected beads. Which in turn makes me a bit melancholy. -
I don't want to be overly critical, but I think Joe's post captures a pretty common sentiment. A question need not be posed for an answer to be given. Based on the posts here I'd say there's a LOT of confusion.
If you simply give us as much general information about the imagination switch and housing update (Honestly I think they will be happening at the same time, but I DON'T KNOW, it hasn't been said) as you can without saying anything you don't want to...
Simply ask yourself what you'd want to know as a completely uninformed player and vomit it into a well organized post about the length of Joe's.
I apologize if that's harder than I perceive it to be. I'm not you, and I'm not a dev :) I think you know what's best, but this is my two cents :) -
all these questions and stoot ignores mine and many others. Why the selective response man? :`c
I'd really like to see ALL the questions answered. (Yes ALL the things.) /le sigh -
Perhaps Staff are really, really busy with the changes, and therefore to sift thru all the pages (not just here but elsewhere in the forums) to find all the questions is just too time consuming.
I think Stoot is reaching out now, and let's grab the opportunity to get some answers. I propose to state your questions again; preferably in a continuos numbered order - then it'll be easy for Stoot to answer, and the OP can be edited to show all q and a
Now turn that frown upside down :) -
I've watched a dog chase its tail, catch it, then chase it again 10 seconds later. This thread, and others, is either the dog, the tail, or both.
Asking questions about widgets, without the foggiest idea as to what a widget is, is worthless. -
my basic question:
1) About how long until the next big change? - I underline Joe's post.