No Housing!?!

[Lakota]

Blackmagic...you don't think that's a little, uh, twinkish?

I think it would have been better for you to wish up. I'm not trying to come down on you, I know that's tempting when you see loot before you, but realistically, you lost your apt and would have been on the street virtually while you were OOCly away from the game. I'm not trying to nag, that just seems a little cheesy.

[Sokotra]

Blackmagic...you don't think that's a little, uh, twinkish?

I think it would have been better for you to wish up. I'm not trying to come down on you, I know that's tempting when you see loot before you, but realistically, you lost your apt and would have been on the street virtually while you were OOCly away from the game. I'm not trying to nag, that just seems a little cheesy.

He emoted crawling in and out of a window to make up for it.

[Lakota]

With a capacious bed.

[flurry]

I know there have been several times in my own characters' lives (combined) that my PC had reason and/or need and/or authority from her own employer to check a dead person's apartment (like if the corpse is inside the building and the murderer in the process of escaping out the back way), and there was no way for anyone, even a templar, to do anything about it, and the IMMs with the authority to help, weren't available.

It's no guarantee to work right away, but you can always wish up for this. I've done this once or twice and successfully been able to have authority figures get access.

[Sokotra]

With a capacious bed.

He disassembled it first and stuck each piece out the window... then reassembled it in his new apartment.  What's wrong with that?  Or, wait, do they not have wal-mart beds in Zalanthas?  It would probably just fall apart or something anyway.

Back on topic, sorta, I would like to see more windows you can climb out of in apartments and stuff.  Maybe you can lock it (without a key) from the inside or something.  Basically there wouldn't be a lock, just a lever or something that holds the window shut and can't be unlocked/picked from the outside.  This would allow people to crawl out if they got locked in, but would not allow unsecure apartments where thieves can just crawl in open windows (the kind that are just a hole in the wall) all the time.  On the other hand, some of the cheaper apartments might have the hole-in-wall type windows or the kind that can just be opened and shut with no way of locking them.  Also, some more expensive estates and apartments could have windows that don't shut because they are high off the ground and wouldn't expect anyone to be able to climb that high or because they think nobody would dare steal from them.

[Nyr]

Hmmm... maybe the limit should be lowered, but there should be some way to make special provisions for when you're going to log out for a while. Like double rent.

You can rent an apartment for up to 300 days.  That's double what you originally beginning renting for (only 150 days).  If you want to rent for even longer, you can wish up and arrange something.

Normal rent   - 9.375 real life days.
Max rent       - 18.75 real life days.

Thinking max rent would not be bad if you were not going be around a week or so.... I always just packed up my apartment if I couldn't play for awhile, and took everything with me and logged out somewhere else.. Never really had it taken from me.. Besides once.. Once I logged out in my apartment, and couldn't return for a week or so, and logged in to see someone had rented out my damn place and I was stuck there.. picking my nose.. So I stole their shit. lol

Please don't do this.  Neither scenario is realistic.

[Kyviantre]

Myrdyrn's post got me thinking about the vacancy-when-dead issue.

Supposedly, Nenyuk's resources are vast..they know everyone who puts sids in the bank, they must have lots and lots of spies (and even less shady type of employees) who can send word when someone's dead (and thus, when it's safe for them to take all that money out of the customer's account and keep it for themselves). So maybe..a dead tenant could start a comparison/timer.

Rent due in 8 or more RL days (because player double-rented), Character dies: Timer for 5 days starts. In 5 RL days, Nenyuk has been informed that character is dead, apartment becomes available again.

Rent due in 4-7 RL days, character dies: Timer for 3 days starts. In 3 RL days, apartment becomes available.

Rent due in 1-3 days - no timer, it becomes available when the rent is due.

Urgh, no, don't do that!  What happens if your prime renter dies?  The timer starts, and 3/5 days later, all the other tennants still happily living there (family/workers/collegues/etc) suddenly get booted out because someone was too swift with snagging up the empty place before they could get hold of it (ie become prime renter).

I don't see why Nenyk would know if your character died alone out in the wastes.  I'm happy to wait the 255 days, if only for the benefits that those 255 days give when I'm the one -in- the apartment!

[Lizzie]

Then you should become the primary renter by default. You already can pay rent, indefinitely, have that apartment for as long as you pay the rent on it. Except you can't invite anyone else to share the rent with you. That makes no sense at all. You are STUCK with whatever roommates your dead host set up for that place, even though the host is dead and can't complain if you tell those roommates they are no longer welcome there. But codewise, you're stuck. Forever. For as long as those other room mates are alive, even if you have a fight with them, even if it turns out they're thieves - if you want that apartment, you have to live with them. All because the host is dead and can't uninvite anyone. The code should reset the default when there's more than one tenant in an apartment, and the primary tenant dies. Right now, you could be the -guest- of four different buildings, and not be allowed to invite anyone to share the rent in any of them. Even if the one you actually want to pay rent on and live in, has a dead primary renter. Not even if the primary renter is alive, and WANTS you to take over the apartment.

I think that needs to be changed.

[brytta.leofa]

What about just removing the distinction between primary and secondary renters?  Make everyone primary, so to speak.

[Lizzie]

Because if *I* rent an apartment, and allow you to share it with me, I am not giving you permission to invite your family to live with us too. You shouldn't have that authority, unless I give it to you, or unless I'm dead.

[Malken]

It doesn't matter. The truth is that now an insane number of old players and new players alike now know how to make big amount of money quickly. I see it all the time nowadays, the same trick is being used by a whole bunch of characters.

So if we have 80 players online a night and Allanak only has about 15 apartments for rent, and that most of these people can pay their rent with an hour of playtime a week, then I can see how this would create a HUGE bottleneck and why
these apartments are always rented out.

Tuluk doesn't have this problem right now, not because people can't afford to pay the rent, but because no one is playing in Tuluk much lately.

[Angela Christine]

The number of apartments you can own should be limited to 2.  There are plenty of good RP reasons why someone might need a second apartment, but more than 2 just seems greedy.   

There is also the practical reason that you may want to get into one of the nicer or more secure buildings, but they are full, so you take whatever is available.  You keep checking the building you really want, and if something opens up you need to grab it right away.  For everything to go smoothly you need to rent the new place and hold onto the old place for a couple days, while you move your stuff.




Possibilities for new buildings:

Another fairly secure (expensive) building for merchant types.  These are always fill up fast, because it is difficult to do any trading if your merchandise is limited to what you can carry in a backpack.  More secure housing could lead to fewer people constantly wearing gigantic backpacks.  Your room getting burgled once per IC year is a RP opportunity.  Your room getting totally cleaned out on an almost daily basis is an incentive to find a bigger backpack.


A warehouse/workshop type space in an industrial or commercial part of the city.  Each unit would be a single room, described as a work and storage area.  I'd go ahead and make it quit safe, because an average craftsman would totally be willing to drop a bedroll in his work area and sleep there.  For atmosphere you could have some environmental echos about how noisy it is, since the guy next door is pounding rocks all night (these might even be loud enough to wake a sleeping PC).  If you wanted to make it very clear that the space shouldn't be converted into an apartment, you could have a built in workbench that seats 1 or 2, and plenty of built in storage in the form of very roomy racks and shelves, but a fairly low limit on floor space -- so it is literally impossible to drop in a big bed, dresser, dining table, sofa, and all the bulky furniture PCs like to have in their apartments.  You may have enough room on your racks and shelves to store a room full of furniture, but you can't drop it and arrange it nicely on the floor, you only have enough floor space for a cot and a couple bags.


A shorter cycle space, such as a rooming house that rents rooms by the week.  (Well, more like 2 weeks, since it should probably be 24-72 RL hours and cost about 1/5 what a regular apartment costs to be useful.)  A private RP space that is not a long-term item storage space.  Perfect for visiting traders, mercenaries, tribals, and other travelers who only plan to be in town for a few days and don't need or want a long-term place.  Also handy for someone that has clan space, but occasionally wants to have a private meeting, or a tryst, or privately do something his employer would disapprove of, but doesn't want (or can't find) a permanent room.  With a shorter rent period, only very active and regular players could use it as a permanent room, so vacancies should be common even when the housing market is tight.

[Lizzie]

Well the rule is (according to the help file) that you can only be the primary renter of ONE apartment per city. Not per building, but per city. The code allows you to rent one apartment per building, either as a primary renter or a guest.

My only issues with apartments are based around the problems that occur when you are a guest, and your host dies, and you are not allowed to become the primary renter and therefore are prohibited from sharing the rent with someone else. OR, being stuck sharing it with a housemate not of your choosing, just because the primary renter is dead, and only the primary renter can "uninvite" someone from the list. You aren't even allowed to "uninvite" yourself, to free up your "quota" and allow you to be the primary renter in another apartment in that building. You are -required- to wait until the rent is due. And if that OTHER housemate pays the rent, you're stuck for another cycle.

[Malken]

Please keep to one apartment per character per city! If we have about 200+ characters right now playing in Allanak and the city only has 15 apartments for rent, we reaaaaally need more of them, even if they just appear out of nowhere..

Armageddon is becoming victim of its own growing popularity in oh so many sections of the game.

[ale six]

hey malken lets get a estate for house kawaii in tuluk then more ppl will play there! <3 <3

[Gimfalisette]

Let's get the numbers right: There are 36 or so apartments in Allanak, about 275 players of ARM on a weekly basis, and probably 1/3 of characters play in Allanak. That means there is probably about 1 apartment for every 2 PCs in Allanak. Assuming nobles, templars, and merchant family members are not renting apartments for themselves (as some have done in the past, and if they are now, perhaps they should rethink?), then people just need to find roommates.

No panicking.

[Tisiphone]

Though, in a positive light, I do see a possible thread merge in the future.

[Morrolan]

I like the idea of the squatter hovels.  No, not everyone would live there.  People would often aspire to leaving.

I really like this idea.

Morrolan

[Kyviantre]

A warehouse/workshop type space in an industrial or commercial part of the city.  Each unit would be a single room, described as a work and storage area.  I'd go ahead and make it quit safe, because an average craftsman would totally be willing to drop a bedroll in his work area and sleep there.  For atmosphere you could have some environmental echos about how noisy it is, since the guy next door is pounding rocks all night (these might even be loud enough to wake a sleeping PC).  If you wanted to make it very clear that the space shouldn't be converted into an apartment, you could have a built in workbench that seats 1 or 2, and plenty of built in storage in the form of very roomy racks and shelves, but a fairly low limit on floor space -- so it is literally impossible to drop in a big bed, dresser, dining table, sofa, and all the bulky furniture PCs like to have in their apartments.  You may have enough room on your racks and shelves to store a room full of furniture, but you can't drop it and arrange it nicely on the floor, you only have enough floor space for a cot and a couple bags.

I <3 this idea!  That one gets my vote!

[Lizzie]

What would be AWESOME is if trying to spar, in an indoor apartment that isn't -designated- as a sparring area, would result in random broken furniture.

You want to sleep in a bed tonight? Then stop tossing your housemate around the bedroom, or you're likely to bust it.

[Twilight]

I like the warehouse idea.  In fact, I had previously put something in the Submissions forum:

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,30913.25.html

I think I could do a halfway decent job of it, I did submit the original tenement in Nak.

I think the solution lies in creating higher weight capacity warehouses (like AC said, on how to do it), for crafting, raw materials, socializing, etc.  At the same time, lower the weight limit in rooms, such that in squalid ones you might be able to get a bedroll and a chest or two per room.  In the nicer ones, a bed, piece of furniture and a chest or two.

Additionally, and I think this is relevant both to Arm 1 as well as to Arm 2, you need stop magickally expanding space...well, unless it is real magick.  Ie, in addition to the weight limit, you need a total container space limit in save rooms.  So a room would have, for example, 200 stone limit and a 100 container limit.  The container limit would prevent someone from dropping 10 50 stone capacity chests weighing 10 stones so that they can store 500 stones worth of weight.  So, unless you really used magick (that'd be a neat spell), you couldn't have container space more than 100 in said room.

[Ammut]

I once (a year or two ago) owned an apartment in every complex in 'nak.  I dunno if that's considered too much,
but I used them IC as a hideout and for other reasons I won't go into here.  Afterwards, when
that guy died, I realized that I had also paid up every one of those apartments to the max amount
of days.

Sorry, the housing problem in 'nak is all my fault.  I think perhaps limiting how many apartments
one person can rent would also be a good thing.

edit: Well, almost all the complexes in 'nak.  Maybe not all of them.

[Bast]

I think it would cool if you could rent the houses in Allanak again. Maybe pay your rent and get your keys at the bank. There are a lot of cool houses in the city and its just unused space at this point.

[Archbaron]

I think it would cool if you could rent the houses in Allanak again. Maybe pay your rent and get your keys at the bank. There are a lot of cool houses in the city and its just unused space at this point.

This would be very nice.

[Yokunama]

Ok.... I've been walking all around Allanak. And there is -no- housing. Not one apartment for rent. I've checked four apartment complexes, and I don't think there are any more. Everything is full. I would like to see some more housing built in Allanak, please? Thoughts?

Solution: Move to Tuluk.