More apartments please

[sjanimal]

Okay, I want to be the one to bring up this idea, and to separate it from other threads.

Why not have more PC apartments?  Think about it.  In another thread, CRW and some anonymous kank suggested that we make more PC apartments.  For the record, I think this would be a great idea.

Before anyone jumps down our throats and says that PCs are too poor to own apartments, keep in mind that everyone lives SOMEWHERE.  Even if you had to share a flat with ten people, it seems likely that you would have a bedroll, a washbasin and shaving razor stashed somewhere that you think of as your home.  

Now that you're with me, imagine if an IMM coded an apartment.  Then another IMM copied that code and coded it to ten apartments per floor, and made ten floors per building.  And another IMM cloned that apartment ten times per city.

Now that's 1,000 apartments per city.  So even if 100 apartments get burglarized per real life month per city, that means that your character is only getting robbed about once every real life year (harsh but realistic.)  All this with a minimum of coding on the IMMs part.

Now, I know that there are a lot of details that would need to be ironed out...but I think we can handle that, or the IMMs can.  

And think of the added bonuses

1) parties.  Now you will have someplace to throw a party for your character.  Visit Tiajuana sometime and tell me that poor, desert dwelling people don't like a good party.

2)  someplace to take that nice handsome warrior you've just met so you can seduce him.  

3)  stash a little game loot.  Controvertial, but maybe a good idea.

4)  place to break the law with a lower chance of getting caught.  Smoke that spice if you got it, baby.  This one is debatable, but at least worth discussing.

5)  coded NPC burglars.  Exciting.

6)  finally, PC furniture makers will have a job furnishing apartments.

7)  No more hanging out in Taverns without buying drinks, unless you actually want to.  As it stands, we don't have a real choice.  I feel stupid having "the antisocial-badassed warrior" hanging around the Bard's Barrell all the time.

Now if you want to disagree with any one small point in this post....consider weather you like the idea overall or not.  Splitting hairs with me will not help getting the IMMs to like the idea.

And if you see one or two small potential problems, keep in mind that these can be ironed out.

Yay for new apartments!

[Armaddict]

Agreed.

[Larrath]

I think three more apartments in Allanak could be nice, but not in the high tens, let alone hundreds.

The reasons are simple:

First of all, we just don't have that many players.  If we had twenty apartments, five of them would continually remain empty.
Also, the apartments all have to fit somewhere, and a Nenyuki PC has to rent them and do whatever else the Nenyuk PCs do with their apartments.
Finally, Allanak is a crowded city-state, and there is going to be a matter of actual IC availability.



And now I'm going to pick at your list, just because I can.   :twisted:

1) Parties are pretty expensive.  Just consider the cost of water and food for a few moments, and then the size of an average apartment.  This party is not likely to hold more than maybe five people (at most), and that would mean dancing would be difficult.  These parties, again, would be pretty expensive.

2) Agreed, apartments are good for private roleplay.  Not just mudsex, mind you.

3) Agreed, stashing loot is realistic, useful, and gives the burglars something to eat.

4) Agreed, but 'chance' is the operative word here.  I don't think someone with two dozen neighbours should be able to have someone scream for mercy and then walk away without getting stares (or a militia-man, possibly).

5) Nope, nope, nope.  I don't mind an NPC burglar as long as it's being controlled by a sentient person.  Trust me, it's not exciting to have an uber/weakling burglar hit your apartment at every crash/reboot.

6) Agreed, furniture makers will have more work, and that's good.

7) Heh, that's not going to help it in the least, trust me.  It's good that people loiter there, though...it lets new characters and new players meet others easily.

There is also the matter of machine memory.  Ten new apartments probably won't make a difference, but one hundred new save rooms could take some space.  Or whatever.

All in all, I think a couple of new apartments wouldn't hurt.  Feel free to submit a room or two about them.  Consulting with the mud account and/or Nenyuki clan immortals could be good in order to discuss the guidelines before you write anything.

[crymerci]

If we had twenty apartments, five of them would continually remain empty.

Sounds like a fun challenge for the burglars...if there's more apartments, there's more chance for them to spread themselves around...and also more chance for them to break into a "dud".  Seems fair to me.

[Larrath]

How many times would a burglar break into a dud?  Once.

I said "at least five apartments at any given time" because I think fifteen would be the absolute limit, assuming apartments became the next fad.

Fifteen characters in one city-state to hire an apartment.  Think about it for a moment...that's really, really a lot.  Normally you'd have about maybe seven independents/hunters/medium-class people with apartments, another apartment or two for a noble and another for a merchant.  That's ten, and even that's not certain.


I'm not saying that apartments are totally evil and should not be added at all.  I just don't think we need *that* many.  Allanak IS crowded and there should be competition.  I don't think House Nenyuk would really have more than maybe forty apartments empty at any given time.  This is only my assumption, of course, but still.  I think it is more realistic to have every apartment populated than to have three quarters of apartments populated.  It better represents the state of things.

If you think we need more apartments, though, by all means, go to a room where it should have a door, idea it with "this is the room my email refers to" and write a room submission.


I hope I'm not coming out as mean, because I seriously don't mean to.  If I want to see more kinds of clothes, I would normally find the time to submit them.  I hope this will become common practice with everyone.

[Bestatte]

There already are vacant apartments in both Allanak and Tuluk. Why would we need more of them? When Nenyuk rents two apartments that have been vacant for a month, within another month, two more become vacant. The problem is, no one knows about it (at least in the north, I don't know about the south) because the Nenyuk PC hardly ever shows up and when he/she does, they're never around long enough to catch all the people looking for a place to live.***

***I have noticed an improvement of the availability of Nenyuk PCs lately, so this has been resolved to some extent in recent weeks.

I know of one apartment that stood vacant for two Real Life Months..that was one of those really nice places that cost too much for the average commoner, and there were at least three people looking for a place JUST LIKE THAT.

I also know of several apartments that are currently vacant, that have been vacant for awhile now, but they are in lousy buildings or areas with lousy locks, and no one wants to live there because everyone knows they're "easy pickins" for burglars.

Maybe the "poor folk" should start playing "poor folk" and take what's available - which is what "poor folk" would do...instead of claiming nothing's available just because they can't get a burglar-proof lock.

As for item #1 - yes, people DO have to live somewhere. Most people live with virtual families, virtual spouses, virtual kids, virtual parents, virtual orphanages. Most people are NOT orphans with no siblings and with no place to live.

[wizturbo]

I'd like there to be more.  Instead of these apartments being considered 'vacant' just consider them virtually inhabited.  Perhaps put some NPC's in there, some might be VERY easily upset Byn mercenary who'd love nothing more then to murder a burglar who's coming in to steal his bottle of ale.  

This would be good for burglars, and for everyone else.  It'd give a feeling of 'crowded' to the city.  Every apartment doesn't need to be unique, but have lots of them.  Have some without locks, but that can be closed from the inside crudely locked from the inside with a piece of wood or stone.

[Ghost]

5)  coded NPC burglars.  Exciting.

No.  Let the NPC burglars play around NPC houses and VNPC houses. And PC burglars with PCs.

And as of the apartments, I agree with Bestatte that the main problem is not the lack of avaliable apartments, but the lack of Nenyuki PCs.  And this is a problem of both North and South alike.  In the North, there were a couple of Neyuk PCs, but they also were seen for a short time.  If they are not in a break or playing in different times than me, than they also are disappeared.

[Agent Rain]

I think three more apartments in Allanak could be nice, but not in the high tens, let alone hundreds.

The reasons are simple:

First of all, we just don't have that many players.  If we had twenty apartments, five of them would continually remain empty.
Also, the apartments all have to fit somewhere, and a Nenyuki PC has to rent them and do whatever else the Nenyuk PCs do with their apartments.
Finally, Allanak is a crowded city-state, and there is going to be a matter of actual IC availability.

You're wrong. We do have the playerbase to support more apartments. As an Agent in less than an IC year all my apartments were rented. People just die too goddamned quick.   :twisted:
Allanak has plenty of space. Even if they just took the single floored dwellings and made them into buildings, Arena road is pretty free and clear, so is the area around Merchant's gate not to mention we could feasibly plow right through the rinth. Nenyuk has enough sid to build and build and build some more and while Nak is crowded, the death ratio is high, which is why you don't see that many old NPCs or PCs.

That said, I'd like more housing.

[Angela Christine]

I think there may be an actual shortage of appartments.  I recently had a character ask a Nenyuk about an apartment, and was told there was nothing available but an elven hovel with a hole in the roof.  Now maybe s/he just didn't like my character, or had some other good reason to claim a lack of rental space, that is always a possibility.  Desperation forces people to do odd things like take a room on the edge of the elementalist quarter, because apparently those are the only rooms availible in the whole city.  Maybe that is realistic in character, since the elementalist quarter wouldn't be as crowded as the commoner quarter, so some non-mages could easily be that desperate.


As for poor people not wanting poor apartments, that kind of makes sense given the reality of the situation.  A room that would be fine for 10 people to squeeze into together is worthless for one person to live in alone.   With 10 people there would always be someone home, probably several people, so it wouldn't matter too much if the lock was crappy.  They might not be able to fight off a burglar, but they could make a lot of noise or run away screaming.  A burglar would have to do his work fast, and get out of there.  If nothing else, the door would get re-locked sooner if 10 people were going in and out all the time, preventing a parade of opportunists from walking off with your furnature because the burglar left your door open.  But because your family and room mates are all virtual, your room is dead empty most of the time.  For a while I had an appartment that was getting broken into every single RL day, untill every object that was not nailed down had been taken.  To me that is unrealistic, and renders the cheap apartments worse than useless.


I think there is also more demand for rooms than is being accounted for.  I personally do not believe that _most_ people with jobs really live in a common barracks provided by their employer, that is mostly a
semi-OOC convience.  Most barracks have no sign of children, and most would not allow you to bring a non-member into the barracks, so where does your mate, your kids, and your granny live?  Where do you take your "date" if you get lucky?  Many military types in RL get off-base housing as soon as they can, despite the free acommedation provided.  Your barracks are a good place to crash sometimes, and a good place to keep your work-related gear, but not a good place to live for your entire life.



Angela Christine

[wizturbo]

I think the problem with excessive burglarly is mostly OOC and coded issues.

Primarily, the odds of a PC being home to notice a burglar is very slim because of OOC reasons.  Also, there is little coded penalty for burglary opposed to something like pickpocketing.

There are a lot of burlgars around that get a lockpick, and then pick every lock they can find repeatedly, taking whatever is in the apartment without any fear of retribution because of the unlikely nature of being caught.  

I'd say add these realistic restraints:

1.  Lockpick breakage.  If its not metal, TRUST me, it will break.  I've broken lockpicks in real life made out of steel without much trouble, bone ones would snap in no time.  That would mean, there is a potential risk of losing an expensive lockpick each time you try to burglarize, potentially losing more money then you gain.

2.  Lockpick confiscated upon being arrested.  Just like weapons.

3.  Many less locks that are so easily picked even by a newbie burglar.  Soooooo many locks are pathetically weak, so weak i don't see the point of them at all.  I don't mean for lockpicking to be impossible to learn, but even easy locks shouldn't be so easily picked, it should take several tries.

4.  Hell...i know this might receive some harsh criticism, but i'd say make the pick skill something that branches, rather then something that burglars can do from the start.  It could be one of the more easily branched skills, and it wouldn't be like burglars would start out being unable to do anything from the start.  

Thats just my opinion, i could be wrong.  I just don't like seeing burglary being so commonplace.  It shouldn't be rare, but people shouldn't have their homes robbed every single day either.

[Delirium]

My suggestion: If you are in a lawful area, a picking attempt will incriminate you unless you were successfully hidden before the attempt.

I've played a burglar. It would have been ridiculously easy to scream around Allanak and strip everybody bare. Being able to re-lock a door should be possible, as well. That'll help the conscientious burglars in preventing a room from being looted of everything AND the kitchen sink, when all the original burglar wanted was that shiny steel katana kept in the target's closet.

I also like the suggestions above.

[Larrath]

To the Agent:

Yes, but I don't think you'd fill every apartment if you had twenty more places to fill, let alone thirty or forty.  I don't consider an apartment that was rented for ten years in advance by a PC who died a week later as occupied.

This may be a significant difference, but still.  I don't think Allanak has more than twenty people who are able/going to get an apartment at any given time.


I'm hardly an expert about this, but I wasn't really talking about adding apartments.  I'm just against adding dozens of them...from all the PCs who approached, wouldn't five to eight more apartments be enough to keep everyone happy?

(Yes, I upped my numbers from three to five to five to eight).

I still think it's best if people just submitted apartments instead of making the immortals write some more room.  Writing one or two rooms for an apartment is not such a huge deal, I feel, and if everyone who wanted an apartment but couldn't get one spoke to the Nenyuki immortal for apartment-making guidelines, well, I think this would be resolved better.


If not for the time it saves the staff members, then for making a few more people submit things.  First it's an apartment, then it might be a new type of furniture, and who knows where it might end?

Just my opinion, though, and I'm not going to argue with people who simply know the matter better than I do.

[Anonymous]

In another thread, CRW and some anonymous kank suggested that we make more PC apartments.

No, I didn't.  I said that the low number of apartments, relative to the presumed number of burglars in game, is the reason why you have such a high probability of getting robbed.  I used this as the impetus for another method of storage as I consider secure storage an important part of fostering more player to player trade.

[crymerci]

By my reckoning, it's been about a year and a half since a batch of new apartments were added to Allanak (except for that special housing thing).  Back when the last batch was added, I think they were all rented out within a RL day or two.

The demand is there.

[jhunter]

If there were more added (and I think there should be) they should be shitty little, cheap-ass ramshackle apartments.

[Armaddict]

Might have been said already, as I just scanned, but there is currently a waiting list for apartments in allanak.  How's that for demand?

[Rain]

To the Agent:

Yes, but I don't think you'd fill every apartment if you had twenty more places to fill, let alone thirty or forty.  I don't consider an apartment that was rented for ten years in advance by a PC who died a week later as occupied.

This may be a significant difference, but still.  I don't think Allanak has more than twenty people who are able/going to get an apartment at any given time.


I'm hardly an expert about this, but I wasn't really talking about adding apartments.  I'm just against adding dozens of them...from all the PCs who approached, wouldn't five to eight more apartments be enough to keep everyone happy?

I guarantee you that I could fill 40 apartments in Allanak if they were there. I filled 25, not counting my own place or the places that are occupied by longtime renters. Recently there have been places added and those went right away too.

I still think it's best if people just submitted apartments instead of making the immortals write some more room.  Writing one or two rooms for an apartment is not such a huge deal, I feel, and if everyone who wanted an apartment but couldn't get one spoke to the Nenyuki immortal for apartment-making guidelines, well, I think this would be resolved better.


If not for the time it saves the staff members, then for making a few more people submit things.  First it's an apartment, then it might be a new type of furniture, and who knows where it might end?

No Nenyuk Immortal has spoken up and said they would or they would not accept submissions but Larrath is right in that everyone should contribute to the game. Not just apartment submissions but regular submissions as well. Guidelines for room submissions are here http://www.zalanthas.org/ArmDocs/Community/format.html#rooms and I'm sure that as long as the place is period it would be accepted. Somehow I don't think the Nenyuk Imms would mind the ideas.

[Myrdryn]

I'm not the Nenyuk Imm but if you'd like to submit any "shitty little, cheap-ass ramshackle apartments" I would love to have as many as people would send me.

If this is something anyone would like to do, please email them to me at myrdryn@ginka.armageddon.org

[sjanimal]

Thanks Myrdryn, I'm pretty busy with work these days, but I'll get on it if I can get my work schedule reduced.

[Agent_137]

1. Lockpick breakage.

2. Lockpick confiscated upon being arrested. Just like weapons.

1. YOU MEAN THEY DON'T?! WTF.

2. YOU MEAN THEY AREN'T!? WTF.

I've never had a burglar. I sorta assumed these things happen, because they make SO MUCH SENSE.

[mansa]

1.  Lockpick breakage.  If its not metal, TRUST me, it will break.  I've broken lockpicks in real life made out of steel without much trouble, bone ones would snap in no time.  That would mean, there is a potential risk of losing an expensive lockpick each time you try to burglarize, potentially losing more money then you gain.

It's in.  Trust me.  Morgenes fixed up the code.  I know because I told him that my lockpick wasn't breaking and he said, 'What?!  I'll fix that!'

3.  Many less locks that are so easily picked even by a newbie burglar.  Soooooo many locks are pathetically weak, so weak i don't see the point of them at all.  I don't mean for lockpicking to be impossible to learn, but even easy locks shouldn't be so easily picked, it should take several tries.

That's not true.

[sarahjc]

I do think there is a need for more apartments, just not too many, and they should -not- be cheap. As far as I know, most people in both cities who aren't dirt poor, share their space with a bunch of other people for affordability. The fact that a common soldier or an ordinary house servant could afford a place of his/her own, I think is rather annoying.

I would like to see perhaps more cheap and shared common dwellings and maybe I will write one or two up. But a room with a description that you are sharing it with one or two NPC's or VNPC's or offer it to more than one PC and give each resident a locked chest of some sort.

This would:
A. Make it more realistic that life is indeed hard. All you really do have is a bed roll.
B. By having a locked door and a locked chest, as well as NPC's in the room, a bit more challenging for Burglars.

Just my thoughts