Game Guides Archive

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Thunderheart wrote:

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Firesped wrote:

I'd bet dollars to donuts that it's because the "place [profession structure]" has a different path of code than placing regular structures, and as such it would mean reworking how two placement commands work...

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Thats one of the issues. Other issues include how the database stores all of the item information (locations, item specifics, etc).

Visually it pops in and pops out, but a lot happens under the hood.

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I don't know, that really doesn't make much sense considering that all other player structure changes have affected guild halls, cantinas, city halls, theaters, and hospitals. They all act exactly the same for healing and entertainer zones as normal houses. They've all always acted the same way for PvP flagging as normal houses. The item limit increases a while back affected them the same way as normal houses. Merchant tax discounts are the same for all. Privacy is handled the same.

I can't really think of any way they act differently at all other than city rank limitations - which I don't understand at all if that's an issue since it isn't with any of the above... but I haven't seen the code and have no idea how it works so... *shrug*

Maybe you could just ask the coders if this can be turned on for other structures as well? It may be that they actively turned it off for other structures and made it "house only." If that's the case, it might not be a very involved change at all, just removing a check.

I'd love to see this, as most of my "houses" are either med centers, theaters, orcantinas, heh.

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Akaara wrote:

Why can't we trade these houses?

I really need to transfer some houses around to my different characters, I was waiting for this because the CSR's won't help me transfer my houses to other accounts, and I am unable to log in 2 accounts at one time. I am a little disappointed these cannot be traded. People have asked me to decorate their houses and this way, I could decorate houses in my spare time then sell them to people fully decorated. Bummer

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I can just see the next step there... Fully decorated houses for sale on vendors.

Hmm... Though it may be easier to have "deeds" that really are deads... An item that when purchased or traded transfers ownership of an existing house to you, and gives you a waypoint. Then the new owner could come pack it up, AND you could even open it up for people to look before they buy. For security reasons, only one such deed should be able to exist at a time, and while the house would still exist on your lots, nobody would have admin rights any more. (But the deed would display structure status.)

• if i'm in a someone's house, and they pack it up, do i live out my days trapped in the house in their datapad?


• can a packed deed be transferred from the datapad into a data storage droid, bank vault, or vendor?


• if a house in a datapad runs out of maintenance, does it delete along with the contents?


• will it ever be implemented so that vendors can be packed as well?


• is there any cost associated with packing and unpacking houses? (like the deed fee currently in place) otherwise, many people would just run around with their houses with them and unpack them in the field when they need something

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Tiaga wrote:

I can just see the next step there... Fully decorated houses for sale on vendors.

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Panthu wrote:

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Tiaga wrote:

I can just see the next step there... Fully decorated houses for sale on vendors.

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Ooooh, now that would be cool!

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No it wouldn't.

I'd like to see architects actually go out there and BUILD houses etc from components. Using the floorplans the devs have created, yes, but they put in the walls, the roof, choice of flooring, choice of lighting. I'd go Architect to do that.

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RichardBryant wrote:

I'd like to see architects actually go out there and BUILD houses etc from components. Using the floorplans the devs have created, yes, but they put in the walls, the roof, choice of flooring, choice of lighting. I'd go Architect to do that.

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I think that would be cool too. CoV is doing something like this for their guild halls. It looks a lot like the original Sims house building interface, but it has some limitations with certain room types. This would be cool for bases too (and would make Dvnce insanely happy, he's been talking about this stuff forever).

Message Edited by Panthu on 08-12-2005 08:34 PM

TH, one thing I've been thinking about... when the housing purge happens, and all these houses of inactive players get removed from the game world.. they're STILL in the server database, and tracking them will still cause the server to lag a bit.

If it's still SOE's policy to retain player data in case said player returns... do ya think perhaps it could be set so that houses & bank storage for players who have been gone for... let's say 6 months... can be backed up off the main server? That way the data's still accessible if the player should return, but it's no longer a load on the main game server. A lot of lag should vanish as a result.

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Crizis wrote:

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Thunderheart wrote:

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rYsyn wrote:

Will you be able to "unpack" the house if you have no open slots?

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Yep

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Hmmm, not sure I understand. This makes it sound like, via datapad, we now can hold somewhere around 1,130 items on our person, in inventory, backpack, and (5x) 2-lot houses, that we can pull things out of without actually placing the houses to do so. If we can get items out of the house datapad item, can we put them back in?

I LIKE IT!

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But you do have to drop the house to access its contents. It isn't like a droid.

Awesome Friday Feature! I know there are many people that have been looking forward to this for a long time. It's great to see that it's on the horizon!

I would like to add to the comments already made about opening this up to any player-placed structure. I understand that it works differently than what this one outlines, but it's something that would be greatly welcomed. Plus it would take us closer to a character structure purge.

It's not just Politicians that want to see a Character Purge. The landscape needs to be cleaned up. Fields of burning harvesters, houses sitting condemned in prime real estate, and active Player Cities that can't advance because of inactive cities holding rank are just a few of the problems that could be cleared up with a character/structure purge. Active and paying customers are being shut out of things because of the leftovers of players long gone. We *need* this, and we need it soon.

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Panthu wrote:

I'd love to see this, as most of my "houses" are either med centers, theaters, orcantinas, heh.

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Yeah it was annoying to have to rip up my hospital from the middle of Rori, in a town that no longer existed. I'd love to see this apply to all structures as well.

FWIW, there's another issue right there. You pull a structure from a city that can't support it and you can't just redrop it. Obviously this is just a "warning, are you sure about doing this?" sort of issue but still...

I'm looking forward to this being implemented, but have one concern that I haven't seen addressed:

Is there a check for datapad space BEFORE the house is packed?

It would really suck to pack a house, then have it all poof because 'there's no space in your datapad for that item'.

Or is this just avoided all together by the packed house not counting against datapad limitations?

And I'd like to pitch in here and say make PA halls packable too. Almost all of my houses are PAs (with no associated guild), and I'll be irritated to no end if I can't move them just because they're not 'intended' houses.

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RontoMike wrote:
TH, one thing I've been thinking about... when the housing purge happens, and all these houses of inactive players get removed from the game world.. they're STILL in the server database, and tracking them will still cause the server to lag a bit.

If it's still SOE's policy to retain player data in case said player returns... do ya think perhaps it could be set so that houses & bank storage for players who have been gone for... let's say 6 months... can be backed up off the main server? That way the data's still accessible if the player should return, but it's no longer a load on the main game server. A lot of lag should vanish as a result.

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stuff sitting in the database not being called is a lot better then the houses sitting in the game right now...

and yeah they should purge at a year of inactivity I think...a year works for most people that are in the military since when they ship out it is normally for 9 months...