Ekim's Gamer View: Little House of Gaming

Michel "Ekim" Veilleux
2003-05-02

It's time for a little vacation for this gamer, and as I struggle with packing my bags I started to wonder what is the matter with housing in games. Some RPGs seem to be offering their players the ability to eventually have their own house at some point. What's up with that, and why are we so happy to get this feature?

Virtual Home Sickness

Leaving your home for a few weeks to go on vacation is exciting. It's nice to change settings for a while. But at some point during any time spent away from home, there's this nagging feeling that creeps up, and suddenly you find yourself homesick. This home from which you fled a few days before is now remembered with longing.

Perhaps in an attempt to mimic that feeling, or try and induce it artificially, developers are implementing housing in single-player games, and in MMORPGs. For some reason, I can't help but feel happy to get my very own house in a game. It seems to be that it's a possession that I value more than any sword I'll ever get, even though I can't bring it with me. Why is that? Maybe it's because it gives the player a point of reference in the game world, a little part that is his very own which is not hidden away in his inventory.

Of course in most games that house is little more than a virtual closet to store some equipment in. Things that you can't use right away, or things that you have overgrown but still feel attached to often find their way in there, like trophies for you to reminisce at when you come back home from time to time. It is nice to be able to say that we're headed back home after some adventuring, as virtual as that home may be. But couldn't there be more to it than that?

I remember finally finishing the stronghold quest in Morrowind. It was very exciting to finally get a stronghold, a foothold in the world that didn't require me to kill anyone to artificially get some place to rest without paying. But the experience quickly got disappointing as I realized that the stronghold was nothing more than extra storage space. Somehow, I expected more. Like the Guild quests disappointed once completed, the stronghold quest fell flat. However, this is true for most housing experiences out there.

My utopian housing in a game, be it an MMORPG or single-player RPG, is for me to have control over some aspects of owning a house. Decoration is one thing, although it might not appeal to everyone. But what about the ability for me to hire people to take care of it while I'm away? Why couldn't I hire farmers to take care of the land and harvest the crops? Why not hire guards to keep everything safe? I could choose to be a mean master, and keep everything for myself, leaving scraps to the underpaid employees, perhaps eventually losing some of them as they die or leave. Or I could choose to be a benevolent master and share everything with them. It all adds to the role-playing experience.

In short, the housing feature of an RPG should be a mini-game within the game itself. It should be made to matter, or at least to offer some sort of interaction and involvement. Many MMORPGs currently offer housing to their players, and many more plan to offer it in the near future. But their houses end up becoming money pits more often than not. You need to pay rent every week or so, and you do nothing more in there than store your precious items. Why couldn't we post merchants outside that would sell our crafted items even while we're away? Make the house become part of our productivity, part of our character? DAoC is supposed to offer a similar feature with their upcoming housing expansion, and I'm anxious to see how it will work out.

But even beyond that, single-player games should offer housing that is more three dimensional than what we have been offered up until now. Choosing where to have it constructed and the style it will sport is nice, but why not make it fun after it's built too? Have us come back after a while and find out that someone stole something, or that one of the employees was murdered. Give the house a life! Give us a reason to come back home after adventuring out in the wild.

What do you think? Which was the best implementation of housing you have ever seen and why was it so nice? What would you like to see done about owning a house (or any other form of housing) in an RPG? You have three weeks to discuss :p

On this I bid you farewell for a time! I'll be absent for the next three weeks, so enjoy the lack of ranting until then ;)