Apartments

Pre-alpha apartment complex in a metropolis node.

Apartments are internal only (instanced) spaces within a node that offer some housing functionality. There will be an initial 50 apartments available for purchase when a node advances to a Village (scena 3). Additional apartment buildings can be built at Town (scena 4) if the mayor chooses to construct them and if there is an available plot to do so.

• The number of available apartments increases as a normal part of node advancement.
• It was previously stated that apartments would be available at Town (scena 4) or above.

The mayor may additionally construct apartment buildings when the node hits stage 4 at one of the building plots in the node, along with cities gaining additional static housing and apartments by default as a normal part of the leveling process. – Steven Sharif

Apartment options.

• Apartment rentals offer node citizenship.
• Different price points offer different sized apartments.
• Prices for apartments will fluctuate depending on the number of units already sold in the node.
• Apartments are instanced and only limited in number by the increasing price.
• Apartments can be decorated as required.

Household security

A permissions system will enable an owner to grant access to specific parts of their housing.

• Ability to open the door and enter the home.
• Access to crops.
• Ability to deposit or withdraw items from storage containers.
• Permission to use furniture or crafting stations.

A property has a single owner.

• Marriage enables family size to increase by one so that housing access can be shared.
• Access lists can be used to mimic co-ownership.
• Payment of taxes may be via a "gentleman's agreement".
• Mayors are able to allocate treasury funding to hire mercenary NPCs to defend their node during sieges.

It'll be a single owner based system for those types of properties- for properties in general, but it doesn't prevent players obviously from you know collaborating and pooling resources in order to achieve certain achievements in the game. – Steven Sharif

Apartment destructibility

Apartments may be destroyed in the following circumstances:

• If their building was destroyed during a node siege, even if the siege was not successful.
• If a mayor built extra apartment buildings at Town (scena 4) or higher and the Node deleveled below that stage.
• If the mayor decides to destroy apartment buildings all items and layouts will be mailed to the owner.

Node building destruction

Destructible castle.

You could be more precision oriented in the decision to attack a city. Let's say it's a rival node that's trying to reach you know a node stage five or something and you want to disable their ability for the religious system to progress so you target the temple during the attack, or you want to disable their scholars academy from reaching a higher level so that your nodes can; or you want to disable multiple buildings that allow for experience and quests to be undertaken by its citizenship, which prevents them from keeping up in pace of experience gained with your node. These can be more precision oriented and don't have to effectualize an actual takeover of the node. – Steven Sharif

Node buildings (including player housing) have hit points and can be damaged or destroyed by different systems.

• NPC-driven events that are a response to story arcs or node atrophy.
• Node sieges and node wars.
  • Attackers may not be capable of destroying a node during a siege. Instead they may carry out precision attacks to disable specific service-oriented buildings within the node. These buildings can be targeted with siege weapons and bombs.
• Hazardous events such as tornadoes or hurricanes.

If buildings suffer more than approximately 25% damage, any NPCs or services offered by that building will not be available until the building is repaired.

• Players must repair damaged buildings (or rebuild destroyed ones) in order to reactivate the services from those particular buildings.
  • Citizens will need to obtain the resources needed to repair and rebuild any damaged infrastructure.
  • Larger more advanced buildings will require more resources to repair them. In-node housing will likely require the least resources to repair.

Buildings that take significant damage are destroyed and appear as rubble on the plot they occupied.

• Node governments must clear any rubble on plots before any buildings can be reconstructed. Any prerequisites for the building reconstruction must be satisfied beforehand.

  Buildings also live within a prerequisite system. So in order to build down the tech tree of what these buildings provide, as the node grows larger to access stronger building types, you may get a kink in that chain if it's destroyed and you'll have to stand that back up in order to support the service again. – Steven Sharif

• If the node is destroyed by a node siege, the debris field will contain spoils that are lootable to the victors of the siege.
  • Player housing that is destroyed during a node siege can no longer be sold. Furnishing and decorations are retained and can be placed again later.

Housing decorations

Alpha-1 housing decorations.

Pre-alpha furniture and decor concept art.

Players may decorate their player housing and other types of buildings.

• Houses will be empty when purchased.
  • Players may be able to upgrade to pre-furnished sets when they purchase their home.
  • Pre-furnished sets will be almost entirely visual and aesthetic. Only items crafted by the Carpentry profession will have in-game functionality.
• Players may place Furniture, artwork/paintings and other decor items in their player housing.
  • Items may only be placed in locations that are suitable for that item. For example: Statues, may only be placed in exterior locations (of Freeholds and Static housing).
  • Each size of player-owned housing determines how many decor items can be placed in it.
    • Building skins may change the shape of a homestead but the space available for furnishings should remain consistent.

  When it comes to if you put a cosmetic house on top of your normal house, those cosmetics should be similar in size. The shape will change, so maybe the room layout will be different, but it'll still be like a one-story building. – Margaret Krohn

• Prized items such as achievements and trophies may be displayed.
• Characters will be able to interact with furniture items such as sit in chairs and lay in beds.
• Players will not be able to alter structural aspects such as windows and walls.
• There may be decor items that are representative of unique weapons that are available in the game.

Quality furniture can be crafted in-game based on the skill of the craftsperson.

• Furnishing items with in-game functionality will be restricted entirely to those created by the Carpentry profession.

Your ability to craft more luxurious furniture comes with how much of a master craftsman you've become in the furnishing profession... This isn't like you know, I want my house to look good, I got to fork over 50 bucks in cosmetics... Players can craft in-game based on their dedication and focus in that aspect the artisan tree. – Steven Sharif

Housing types

Player housing	Type.	Availability.	Starting count.	Ownership limit.
Apartments	Instanced.	Village stage and higher.	50.	One per character per server.
Freeholds	Open world.	Village stage and higher.	Ample.	One per account.
Static housing	In-node.	Village stage and higher.	8.	One per character per server.

Real estate

Players buy the deeds for housing from the node itself. Players can also buy and sell properties from other players.

• Housing will have a base price that scales with the number of citizens in the node.
  • In-node housing will be at a premium, and is expected to be hotly contested.
  • The more apartments that have been purchased in a node, the higher the price scales.
• The developers are considering an auction-based method for listing new properties that become available for purchase when a node advances.
  • A grace period will occur before the housing becomes available for auction.
  • Bids will then be accepted starting at a minimum reserve value that is based on the number of citizens in that node.
  • At the end of the auction, the highest bidder will win the house.
• Static housing and apartments can be listed and sold to other players.
  • There is no cap on the price of player-originated housing sales.
  • Player housing that is destroyed during a node siege can no longer be sold.
  • Freeholds may not be sold to other players. This is subject to change based on testing.

There's no cap essentially in player originated sales. Those are determined essentially by supply and demand as it is within the game and there's no artificial barrier to how high that demand can go. – Steven Sharif

• Housing ownership can default back to the node if the owner fails to pay their property taxes. A balance and penalties will be charged to the new purchaser of the home in the manner of a "foreclosure process".
• Players will not be able to exceed their allotment of housing in the game.

This will allow players to transfer real property goods. This includes ... static housing, this includes apartments that they may own; and they can sell those because those will have a limited and finite quantity. – Steven Sharif

Rental and leasing concepts are currently under consideration.

Some concepts that we have is going to be rental or leases that could be had allowing players to kind of lease a property for a period of time where they will have control rights over utilizing storage based on the area, controlling the furniture or access point; all that kind of stuff. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Static housing
• Freeholds
• Real estate