Quarter Ownership

[The GrumpyCat]

A very important note:

This Poll exists PURELY for my own personal curiosity. It will NOT neccesarly effect any upcoming decisions by Dms, or Devs, or anyone else. After all, not everyone uses the forum, so this can't neccesarly be seen to be entirely representaive of the player base. But it may serve as enough of an indicator to settle an argument on a personal level, and sate a little personal curiosity. I hope you will indulge me here.

For the purpose of this poll, ignore considerations of where the location is/restrictions/possiblity for eviction ect. Just consider the question of basically - How much do you care about a property in terms of roleplay space? When you seek properties is it just to have somewhere to dump your stuff, or are you also looking for something more? (A roleplay space)

[Ruzuke]

I do not think you can ignore evictions. Location does matter. If I play evil and I am anywhere except in Crow's Nest, Senecliff, Dis, or the Shadowplane it is not an if it is when will I be caught and be evicted once I am eventually caught and exiled?

This goes for ships as well. If I want to be evil and not live in the Underdark I have on surface ship to rent. The Blue Drake. I cannot rent any ships that cannot dive under the water. In supporting surface evil you need homes. Siaybad homes are owned by most of Cordor and they play as if the city with slaves is focused on Arelith as their main trading partners.

Add in more homes (and ships) to places outside of the team good (and with an embassy everywhere they are ICly aligned to having political ties) then team neutral and evil does not have a place to play much less live. More homes (and ships) outside of those areas allows for communities to grow. Senecliff, Sibyad, and Crows Nest could develop more communities.

But first I would love to have a house (currently I would love one in Dis).

[LivelyParticle]

I've always enjoyed having a nice space of your own to call home, and the RP that comes with that and the furnishing/decoration of it. I've spent longer than I care to admit on fixtures and placing things just so. When it comes to storage - it's always an extra nice thing to have personally, settlement storage is enough, though I think there needs to be more options for 'settlement storage' vaults for PCs who don't fit in Brog, Bendir, Cordor, Guld or Sencliff. I _love the new Skal storage, that's fantastic.

The first place I owned I shared with several friends and I like to think made a difference in their stories because of it, but also it was nice to just have a semi private place to chill out and chat in. (and make look beautiful of course)

This said, I think as well that my take on things also depends on the quarter you have.

Is it a guildhouse? Then you need to keep a group around it and keep them active enough to use it well. I've been part of Castle Gloom, and even as part of the leadership (but not the owner) I felt the pressure to try and keep it working or felt that most of my time was around doing something for or with it, with very little return materially for it.

Is it a bar? Then you need to involve not only a group to run and staff it, but you also entice the public to use it and have many varied events to attract them. You get to also be mini landlord too, which I imagine can be quite stressful, but profitable!

Is it a ship? See guildhouse, except it's incredibly profitable and adventuring can happen during hanging out in a 'safe space'. There are there are a ton of additional variables and people you need to work well which can be really difficult to manage.

I think though, they all - no matter what or where - offer their own interesting take on the world and the RP that happens around you, and that's really what I'm here for.

[The GrumpyCat]

I do not think you can ignore evictions. Location does matter. If I play evil and I am anywhere except in Crow's Nest, Senecliff, Dis, or the Shadowplane it is not an if it is when will I be caught and be evicted once I am eventually caught and exiled?

This goes for ships as well. If I want to be evil and not live in the Underdark I have on surface ship to rent. The Blue Drake. I cannot rent any ships that cannot dive under the water. In supporting surface evil you need homes. Siaybad homes are owned by most of Cordor and they play as if the city with slaves is focused on Arelith as their main trading partners.

Add in more homes (and ships) to places outside of the team good (and with an embassy everywhere they are ICly aligned to having political ties) then team neutral and evil does not have a place to play much less live. More homes (and ships) outside of those areas allows for communities to grow. Senecliff, Sibyad, and Crows Nest could develop more communities.

But first I would love to have a house (currently I would love one in Dis).

I absolutly agree in general terms - but that's not really what this poll is about?

Imagine the Place You Want to Live At has two quarters. One - A fancy smancy manor. Another - a small vault room. Do you have any prefence as to which to pick? If so how strong is the preference?

There's a perception that most players just want a little Storage and that's it, that most really don't give a flying fig whether it's a vault or a manor. I'm not... personally sure that's the case? But I'm curious to see if I'm wrong!

[Xerah]

I'll just pick the one with storage unless my character actually needs a nice place so that someone else can have it. So, generally, this means, vaults, caves in druid groves, small inn rooms, etc. I take forever to decorate so I'd rather visit someone else who is better at that.

If my character is a fancy noble, faction leader, etc, I will do everything I can to get a good spot, but that is rare these days (though I currently have a fancy spot)

[Disaster Lesbian]

I've always treated the property as an RP space, the more you play a character, the more you compile - and eventually, you procure decorative things to show off. A home isn't just storage, but it's a further place to tell a story together, Can you tell a story when you're trapped inside a cupboard like a tin of sardines? Yeah, probably - though I doubt anyone really wants to do that for prolonged periods of time.

But I think there's something else to owning a quarter/home too. For the time you play that character, that home is your marker on the server, a proof of existence and memory, even just for a little while. It's a small bit of permanence in an ever-changing, ever-shifting persistent world. It holds memories and stories you make with other people there, a bit of home to further tell a narrative.

Say you have a decent-sized house. You could a lone player could make it their artist hideout, filled across with finished pieces and partly done projects to be done later*. Or say you're a couple, and you mark this home as a place to live in together and make parts of it to be a dream for your characters and identify them. Or say you start a faction, and this quarter now serves as a base for meetings, plans, and adventures.

The desire for property isn't just about storage; storage is seldom the issue - I've always found it a desire to have a space to be able to do more in, and to involve others - to be in this together.

*Later never comes, there is always MORE

[TheDoctor]

You left out some important things from your poll I think...

Some of us would LOVE a small house with ample storage NOT a huge massive mansion but a nice little house. Small area.. One room, MAYBE two.

2) Storage is important, but it's quite nice to have something a little large. Not a must have though.

I voted something else with my something else bein this...

2) Storage is important, but it's quite nice to have small little area you can live in. NOT like one of those Sencliff vaults though. (I mean really who lives in a warehouse room?)

[LurkingShadow]

I love the little quarters one can have, I wish I could have more than one. Perhaps one on a UD char and one on a Skal char. It adds so much and I think Areliths one of the best quarter systems I seen in NWN. Amia had a interesting one also that saved your layout but you did not really own the furniture or could take furniture like in Arelith.

Funny thing is, I seen people living in their vaults, beds and all in there.

[chris a gogo]

I generally pick small quarters.
Just enough room to put down the crafting stations and im happy.

[Cthuletta]

I personally picked,
'5) Property is an absolute premium. I'd never settle with a storage room, I always want nice, big homes in nice places! I prioritize it over storage, even!'

Though I do wanna expand on the why!
It's not so much that I want a BIG home, I am perfectly happy with a smaller or medium sized quarter... as long as I like the layout and have fixture space. I use my properties as RP Spaces Primarily, Storage is a far-behind second.
Being able to decorate, set up a place to entertain and have my character's friends come over, have meetings and to put sentimental fixtures on display from their personal history (or someone else's!) are all very important to me as a player. While characters come and go and always will, fixtures have a longer life-span. It's very cool to have something that belonged to or was made by someone that's no longer around.

I will choose a smaller home with a higher fixture limit as opposed to a big manor with a lower fixture limit for this purpose. If I'm able, I'll go inside a house that's for bid/sale, check the fixture limit and if I can fit the sentimental things in there and decorate it nicely before I actually bid on it. I've skipped on certain homes because of that. Storage doesn't even come into play for me!

[Rubricae]

I've owned very few properties in Arelith(something something housing crisis), though the few I've had I've used for different reasons. When I was '''managing''' the Cloven Hoof, I grabbed a room that was conveniently located so things could be properly stored and secured. More than what a vault would've allowed me to have. It was a chaotic staff room that served a utilitarian purpose, as what we actually wanted as a group we could not procure reasonably.
I say that to echo mrs disaster lesbian's post.

Another I've had previously would be the esteemed Umberlant Shrine, which I think is my all-time favourite on aesthetic alone. It's a perfect size and thematic, with enough space to be suitably decorated to the owner's content.

I tend to shy away from the super duper big quarters as I'm uncertain on how to properly utilise the space. I'd say the one I hated owning the most was actually a Cordor mansion. Layout wasn't to my liking, it was both too spacious and also incredibly cramped.
The second least favourite would be a Myon mansion for the same reasons.

A big thing for me is when it comes to a quarter with certain thematics(Benwick Cave, Cricket Cave, Umberlant Shrine, Jotunhold, Saltspar Prison, Heartwood & Zurkhwood, Farmhouses etc), they should be played into in terms of characters that own them. As in, they should compliment one another.

Something I lament is the lack of neighbourly oriented roleplay. I just wanna hang out on the front lawn and have a fantastical block party, man. :(

I opted for option 3.

[Xerah]

Some of those Cordor noble houses are super dated inside. The builders do such a better job now that it’s pretty noticeable how much things have improved.

[Rei_Jin]

As someone who loves decorating quarters, I have definite preferences.

1. Minimal internal static fixtures - yes, I get that static module placed fixtures have less lag, but the inability to repurpose spaces and give fixtures custom descriptions and names is frustrating.
2. Smaller spaces with cleaner lines and accessible walls - I’ve had big quarters and small quarters, and I definitely prefer small to medium size quarters, because big quarters rarely have a sufficiently high fixture limit to be decorated well, and end up with dead or useless space. You want cleaner lines (ie, long enough straight walls) so you can use the space flexibly, even if you break it up with bookshelves. Additionally, some tilesets you cannot move fixtures close to or against the walls, you have to force-place them there and then the most you can do is rotate them, not move them (Upperdark Tradepost faction house and the Myon House of Respite, I’m looking at you) and this is incredibly frustrating for things like paintings.
3. Storage behind a second locked door - ideally the quarter storage should be in a bedroom or storage room with a locked door set to the same lock as the front door. This allows one to use the space socially with less risks of theft, as well as allowing a lease holder to refresh the property from the inside if the entry door is on a different map to the quarter.
4. Quarters NOT sharing fixture limits with communal spaces - Myon’s House of Respite is one example of this, taverns/inns are another, where the common space gets decorated well, and the quarters have little to none of the fixture limit left for them. Whilst this is okay for the small quarters with static fixtures, there are larger quarters that need fixtures, and trying to negotiate this between four or even more lease holders AS WELL AS the common space users is a nightmare. Ideally, the quarters (if more than a tiny room with static fixtures) would be on a separate map to the common area, with their own fixture limit.

Further to this discussion about quarters…

1. I would love to see small, static quarters continue to be available in taverns and inns, boarding houses, etc. as the common way folk get their first quarter, with a move away from vaults OTHER THAN in Sencliff, Sibiyad, and Dis where I would love to see vaults with the ownership plaque inside for name-dropping minimisation so that folks who wish to hide their identity with disguises have a storage option that doesn’t make said disguises almost meaningless. Both of these options should always come with a module placed crafting room accessible to lease holders. These small static quarters or vaults should not require bidding, and only have a 7 day timer.
2. I would love to see the module provide more of the medium sized quarters with clean lines and minimal static fixtures with good fixtures limits, as opposed to large quarters that are filled with static fixtures or have space defining fixtures. These SHOULD require bidding, and have a 14 day timer.
3. Large quarters with high fixture limits can and should be available for factions, with a new system implemented that requires a faction with a minimum number of members for the size of the property, with a requirement that at a certain number of the members will take an internal quarter there, with those internal quarters being largely static. As an example of what I mean by this? To bid on a 5 crew ship may require that you have a faction of at least 5 people, with 3 of them committing to having a quarter on the ship. To hold it requires that you maintain minimum faction membership and quarter usage (with the doors for the quarters accessible through a dialog window when clicking on a door for the “quarters”, and one can select to enter the quarter alone or with their party; this would also allow for additional static quarters to be added dynamically at a one-off cost to the faction, or removed, down to a property module set minimum, so if the base is 3 for a specific property, you could go up to 10 or 20 but only ever down to 3.). Grace windows would need to be built in for this system, but it should be viable to do, and these quarters would be small and largely static to encourage use of the communal faction space. These SHOULD require bidding, and have a 7 day timer, due to the demand for such spaces.
4. Please, no more pre-designed townhouses from the base tilesets, they’re terrible and I hate them. Sibiyad townhouses, I’m looking at you.
5. For large quarters for faction usage, they should have a shared common space storage limit equal to 10x minimum faction size. So if you need 5 in your faction to bid, and 3 to take quarters, you get 50 common storage slots. If for some reason you have a 10 member faction required, that should come with 100 slots of storage and a requirement for 6 to take quarters. This standardises the storage levels for large properties.
6. For large quarters for faction usage, they should be able to be won by any faction member, but only be able to “roll” to the faction leader if the leaseholder for some reason does not check in within the 7 days, which would require them to be a leaseholder on a quarter there. They should be unable to go to anyone else, which would require the one who holds the lease previously to set the property TO a faction. This would mean that if your faction leader is holding the lease but goes MIA, the lease would be lost after 7 days and this would be by design so that when a faction loses its leader, they cannot just coast on. Yes, a faction leader could transfer the leadership to another before leaving, and get around this, but again, that is intentional. This means no endless guildhouse transfers, because if DMs see someone exploiting the system, they can act.

[Amateur Hour]

I am a diehard social RPer, so while I don't need a ton of space, I do need something that can be made to look like LIVING space. My previous main lived for a year and a half real-time in one of the Great Oak one-room quarters, and it worked just fine for what I needed, meeting with small groups of friends and whatnot.

[Opustus]

I answered something else because I think for some characters having a closet or a wee hovel or whatever for a living space is fitting, or if it isn't fitting it's at least funny to be a royal arse drow or such and have to settle for a dingy little flat because the rent is too damn high. So style over size for me, and having diverse styles is important and not always getting what you want makes the game a bit more interesting for me.

[Emotionaloverload]

Mine generally depends on the character but if I am buying a property it is because I want to rp there so it at least needs to hold a sitting area, even a super rustic one.

However, now I am running into this problem where most properties are just blank areas. Nothing in them and limited walls or just exterior walls. I don't have much time to play so by the time I finish playing Sims with the property, it's already been weeks and now my energy to use it has diminished. I would love it if properties for bid could be viewed before so that I can suss out those with minor furnishings (this could be a bug on my part but I cannot enter an on bid property unless the door is already open by other means).

Big, small - doesn't really matter to me unless I plan to run a faction out of it. Most important is furnishings/theme. Playing a naturewalker? Wild, rustic, green space. Snooty Noble? Gaudy, ridiculous space. Things like that.

Thank you,

[perseid]

I would say that it depends on what I have. If I have nothing I tend to just grab whatever I can afford when I can for the storage. From there I tend to shoot for a location that'd be convenient for my rp and so I'll watch a wide range of leases. After that's settled I'll start watching specific properties though, like spaces I think would be ideally suited for the kind of rp I want to do, places with unique perks, boats, etc. So there's sort of a climb until I find a property that generally checks all the boxes and from there I tend to stop looking outside watching maybe one or two dream leases on the off chance they go up for auction. But the start of the climb is always just securing a quarter at all for the storage.

[Kessarin]

I'm very similar to the above post: initially, I'll grab a vault or single-square room for storage. Then, I'll start bidding on things as I see them come available. If I get something decent, then I'll spot-check specific places that would be considered an upgrade and then hope for the best.

I also love Rei Jin's faction storage (#5) idea. I still maintain that at least few more properties would be available if more than one PC could have storage in all these big multi-room properties!

[D4wN]

Imo, it entirely depends on your intentions with the quarter. If you're hardly ever on, then a vault could be plenty. If you're on but it's just you and/or a love who mostly use it, a small home could be very fitting and cosy. A big mansion may be totally appropriate if you run a large noble house/faction or do something like Winter's Rest and open it up to the public after turning it into a giant library or if you're often using it to host parties or accommodate a large amount of people.

I think rn one of the biggest issues is people hogging large quarters when it's just them, a handful of faction members or they hardly play. How you address this issue, I can't say. Don't have a solution. I just know if I didn't use a space I'd give it up gladly to someone who would.

[Kuma]

I selected 3, but my answer is slightly different.

Quarter quality is different to quarter size.

A vast mansion with room for gala balls might suit some characters but not all (some Guild houses).

Some of my favourite quarters are those with character and charm, while still being quite small (Burning Shores Volcano Lair, the Boreal Keep apartments).

And sometimes having a handful of discrete rooms with obvious uses (kitchen, lounge, bedroom, crafting room) as opposed to cavernous 'decorate it yourself' areas can fit too (the ones that look like real houses throughout Cordor/Guld/etc).

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this because characters (and players) are all different, as are circumstances.

[The GrumpyCat]

Getting some great answers. Looking back I wonder if I should have made it more of a 'rate how important a quarter is to you aside from storage, from 1-5' maybe.

But I still feel my question has been (to a small degree, this poll isn't perfect!) and that's whether people are JUST looking for storage space, or something more. I really think it is the Something More. Yeah, t here are some players who don't care about anything except storage, but a lot more do seem to care about other aspects (size, style, location, ect) so... yeah. That's at thing.

[Security_Blanket]

The main reason I use a quarter is for storage, I can store all the heavy cheap materials in my home with minimal security while I keep expensive materials in settlement storage. It'd be nice to have a bigger home that I can RP in, but since playing on Arelith and dealing with the shortage of housing, I've severely lowered my expectations and am quite happy with a broom closet as long as it has a chest.