Dwellings - Unpersonalised?

[Elke]

These things did come up in the application as well, although the escort part is a new idea! No response either way on the application yet though.

[Arnof]

To deal with the absent players and used up space issue..
What if there was a main lobby, a single room, with a clerk or guardman. The player can then present themselves to the guardman or clerk and be transported to their room. The room itself could be elsewhere, not actually taking up limited space in a real coded building. This would solve numerous problems involved with space, people coming and going and coding.

There really aren't limitations on coded rooms and I think in the spirit of realism and whatnot, we'd like to see the rooms be local and have the characters walked to their unit(s). As far as what to do with a player's belongings... I wrestle with this somewhat. Something definitely should be done if a character neglects his or her responsibilities regarding the dwelling. But, at the same time, no player should feel obligated to log onto the game. We should be able to come and go as we wish without feeling tied down, especially on something as arbitrary as paying rent as opposed to responsibilities of faithing hopefuls.

An option that occurs to me for long-absent players is some kind of token to be redeemed later on. For example, player A buys a home and occupies it for a few months (the duration is not really important), but then player A goes away from the game and is gone for six months (or whatever arbitrary number you decide upon). Player A's things are put in a store room (perhaps a list of the generic, coded items like the area's furniture will be placed into a chest with the player's belongings) and Player B moves into the home. Player A will receive a token in their inventory. Upon the time of their return, they may redeem that token for the next available dwelling instead of kicking player B out into the street.

I think Drew has a solid idea here and I think it meshes well with what we've discussed earlier in this thread. It solves two problems. The neglected unit is vacated and made available for another character as well as finding something to do with the previous tenant's belongings. I think maybe the previous tenant should have to pay a recovery fee. Just an idea, something like what we have to pay to recover a mount from the impound.

[*] To hit on some other points, I don't think a character should be limited to one of these non-specialized dwellings. If charX wants to have a place in Waterdeep, Zass, Berdusk and Tantras, then I think that's just fine and certainly fits in to the IC setting comfortably without appearing unbalancing.

[*] I think these dwellings should be susceptible to burglaries. I don't think it should be as simple as a character casually walking in, but I think the opportunity for thieving should be there. I think a 'fun' way to handle this then would be to have a program set up to trigger if someone enters the room other than the tenant, then an echo when the tenant re-entered the room after the fact. Something to the extent of: "You notice the bed is not made as you left it." or "The window is open more than it was before. Or did you even have it open?"

[*] I think that if we find success with these dwelling 'nodes' then we should consider establishing small villages with a multi-tiered dwelling system. Not tiers in the sense of building up, but tiers in the sense of value levels. Multi-roomed dwellings, potentially a small courtyard, fountains and the like. This particular idea I can see as conflicting the most with the custom-dwelling system that exists and I would understand if it were shot down. But, again, this idea wouldn't have the customization of being able to write your own descriptions, decorate with what you will and again, you wouldn't be hiring your own staff.

I'm sure many of you have other ideas or criticisms for things that have been noted in this thread so far so feel free to bounce other ideas, provide criticisms, or again voice your support for the general thread topic.

Hope everyone's doing well,
B

[Grenwyn]

[*] I think these dwellings should be susceptible to burglaries. I don't think it should be as simple as a character casually walking in, but I think the opportunity for thieving should be there. I think a 'fun' way to handle this then would be to have a program set up to trigger if someone enters the room other than the tenant, then an echo when the tenant re-entered the room after the fact. Something to the extent of: "You notice the bed is not made as you left it." or "The window is open more than it was before. Or did you even have it open?"

I like that idea. Higher-security dwellings would have more difficult locks, possibly guards, and maybe even(as suggested) escort-only access to certain rooms(not hard to code, just have a certain token--kind of like a signet ring, but not necessarily a ring--and have the mob trigger a "transport" to that room.)

[*] I think that if we find success with these dwelling 'nodes' then we should consider establishing small villages with a multi-tiered dwelling system. Not tiers in the sense of building up, but tiers in the sense of value levels. Multi-roomed dwellings, potentially a small courtyard, fountains and the like. This particular idea I can see as conflicting the most with the custom-dwelling system that exists and I would understand if it were shot down. But, again, this idea wouldn't have the customization of being able to write your own descriptions, decorate with what you will and again, you wouldn't be hiring your own staff.

Could you have a player-run complex?

[Arnof]

[*] I think that if we find success with these dwelling 'nodes' then we should consider establishing small villages with a multi-tiered dwelling system. Not tiers in the sense of building up, but tiers in the sense of value levels. Multi-roomed dwellings, potentially a small courtyard, fountains and the like. This particular idea I can see as conflicting the most with the custom-dwelling system that exists and I would understand if it were shot down. But, again, this idea wouldn't have the customization of being able to write your own descriptions, decorate with what you will and again, you wouldn't be hiring your own staff.

Could you have a player-run complex?

I think this would be a tremendous idea. I love the idea of player-run anything. The merchants guild, if/when, adopted
properly is an incredibly exciting aspect to FK. The idea of having a player-run complex/community/development/whatever
is very appealing to me. Clearly, before anyone jumps the gun, this would, I think, need to see the successful use and
handling of these simple code-managed dwelling areas that we're proposing. But, I'd be very eager to see someone apply
for a special RP as a landlord or something of the like. The extent to which that immerses player's characters into the
world around them and adds revenue opportunities for the cities that host these dwellings, I think, is very appealing to a
lot of players.

B

[Harroghty]

Yeah, I concur with Ben. Let's not jump the gun, but I like where you're going with it Grenwyn.

I believe that a simple test facility of 25 or 50 VNUMs split maybe between WD and ZK is the way to start this out.

[Kelemvor]

In all of this discussion I havent seen anyone indicating how you'll overcome the fact that a MUD reboot will wipe out any items not stored in a coded store...

Would the dwelling be just that or are you assuming that each will have its own storeroom? Which is one of the reasons dwellings have fallen out of favour and are hard to shoehorn into the game.

[Harroghty]

I do not think that anyone has wanted to get that involved in the details while the application is still pending approval (following the lead of some of Elke's comments here), but since you asked:

I recommend a mixture. The more wealthy homes would feature more than one room flagged as ROOM_CLANSTOREROOM and allow the buyer to customize the furniture in any room of those rooms by using that code.

The less expensive homes might offer a mixture of one or two storerooms, pre-coded furniture, or bare rooms. A hovel might include an area-coded bed of poor quality (like a straw mat) and one storeroom while a middle class home might include an area-coded one of slightly better quality, a table, and one storeroom. You could even expand this kind of much all the way up the scale of worth (ie. wealthy homes would have a very nice area-coded bed included).

At the end of the day this is Elke's baby (she proposed the idea first), but that is my suggestion.

Muddled Afterthought ....
You could still personalize some of these items. For example, there would be a QBIT for purchasing a house and then items (such as a household shrine) might have a greet program to custom-tailor them to the new owner that would change the short and long descriptions. So, for example:

Player A buys a home (mpmset questr X Y X)
Player A enters the home
Player A passes the generic household shrine
Generic Shrine uses a greet program (if questr (X, Y, $n) == X) that will check the faith of Player A and change accordingly (into an anvil for a follower of Moradin or a cog for a Gondar, etc.).

This could be expanded to also include QBITs for a house theme. A QBIT for purchased, one for a rustic style decor, a fancy decor, etc.. Hm. Thinking this through I have overlooked resets.
You could give the home owner an object if they were interested in this kind of thing? That way it would persistently change the descriptions the first time that the key-bearer passed by after each reset? Maybe that house's particular key would cause the check against the bearer?
Maybe a range of QBITs for each house in particular? So you could determine home-owner of that exact home and desired home style?

Just off the cuff.