I know some loved making houses like in EQ2. And yes, there are some really awesome houses in EQ2.
Personally, I couldn't care less for housing. I had a house in EQ2 but it boiled down to a boring time sync.
Once I got my house looking pretty decent. I left it alone and it felt pretty useless. I felt it also promoted being anti social.
I would log in and mess with my house for a few hours and not say one word in the game. I was usually watching TV and not reading any chat boxes at all.
I can understand if you need to put "pillars" for later before launch, but honesly, I played EQ1 for YEARS and never once thought, hmm, I would love to waste hours decorating a house instead of raiding, grouping, and having fun.
I would suggest making a great Game first, then worry about great housing later as in 2-3 years down the road, after release. my .2¢
I just watched a youtube video of housing in vanguard. Looks really boring to me. I get that some people like doing stuff like that. I don't hate housing.
I like the idea of something instanced like a Garrison on World of Warcraft, just something more than a house with lame architecture on the outside, and a log cabin with steps and tables, chairs and lamps.
I know this is a big part of games these days.. I honestly think if people need to be antisocial and have a place the can escape to then fine.. Some kind of instanced housing where you can keep trophies or whatever if they implement that.. I would rather see the time and money sunk into other aspects of the game.. I know the appeal yet for the time and money spent would you trade a house for game content? As far as if they do decide to do something of that nature, I hope it is not in open world.. The only place I would think it maybe "ok" would be Guild structures.. Very costly and very few places in different zones where they could be set up.. Sad to say that means first come first serve.. Otherwise keep it all out of open zones and make it instanced.. It is probably the only thing in a game that should be instanced, maybe a town or something.. Yet in no way shape for form should everyone on the server be able to be killing the exact same mob in the exact same dungeon as everyone else.. That to me is cheap.. Yet I doubt we will see much if any of that.. I really miss eq.. I also miss Vanguard.. Large worlds.
Skezix said:I know this is a big part of games these days.. I honestly think if people need to be antisocial and have a place the can escape to then fine.. Some kind of instanced housing where you can keep trophies or whatever if they implement that.. I would rather see the time and money sunk into other aspects of the game.. I know the appeal yet for the time and money spent would you trade a house for game content? As far as if they do decide to do something of that nature, I hope it is not in open world.. The only place I would think it maybe "ok" would be Guild structures.. Very costly and very few places in different zones where they could be set up.. Sad to say that means first come first serve.. Otherwise keep it all out of open zones and make it instanced.. It is probably the only thing in a game that should be instanced, maybe a town or something.. Yet in no way shape for form should everyone on the server be able to be killing the exact same mob in the exact same dungeon as everyone else.. That to me is cheap.. Yet I doubt we will see much if any of that.. I really miss eq.. I also miss Vanguard.. Large worlds.
I don't see your logic behind instancing housing. You say housing is antisocial, but it isn't inherently so. You then move to instance on the grounds that "its antisocial", which only serves to make it definitively antisocial.
I think housing should totally be in the open world. I think zones should be designed from the get go with areas scattered throughout that could be flagged for house plots. I knew all my neighbors in Archeage, and it was very social. Players that lived nearby provided me with groups regularly and even led to several guild alliances... all because housing was in the open world.
I loved housing in EQ2, I would do crafting and questing (even repeatable ones) just to get stuff to decorate my house. What made it even better was when they made it to where you could make books and write in them. I ended up haveing a very big library about adventures I went on and I loved seeing everything on displayed. I would even go back and read these books after a while just to remember what I had done, where I had gone and with whom I had done questing with; it gave me a sense of life in the game that just straight adventuring just couldn't do. Ever since then, when looking at a new game to play I looked at what they had for player housing, as this would determine if I did end up getting the game in the first place. Many may ask why this was and not why the game play was what mattered since it was what you would be doing in the game most of the time. Unfortunanly many MMO's are starting to kind of feel the same with little difference in game play, thus why I looked to player housing to determine if I would play a game.
Unfortuantly I just haven't really found any that have been as immersive as EQ2 and though I loved EQ2 housing, it did feel alittle lonely since it was instanced and you could do anything with the outside really (like gardens and such). I have also played Wurm Online/Wurm Unlimited and Life is Feudal and liked the housing options in both these games; what I didnt like was the amount of terraforming it took to even build spots for these houses. I also didn't like that if a player stopped playing, thier house stayed indeffiantly and just ended up cluttering the map with essincially "Ruins". I think EQ2 housing would have been better if you could have opened up a window and saw the actual game world of people moving on the streets and such. This would have helped with the feeling of lonelyness that came from being in an instance.
Also I am playing Black Destert Online and have visited every city in the game and have to say the Hendeli and Venali were the best places for housing since the appeared to be thought out and pleasing to the eye. The other cities seem to have been more of an after thought and don't look as good as these two places. Also while I do like BDO as a whole, I dont like that the only crafting that can be done is done by "workers" that you hire, except for cooking and alchemy. Also I dont like that there are not that many quests to do to actually get things to decorate your house with like in EQ2 or that the furniture in game look "blagh" while the furniture in the cash shop look "OMG". I do like the housing in BDO since it is kind of instanced and yet not instanced to a point. In some places you can see out of the house into the game world to observe people moving around, but again you cant open a window or do anything to the outside of the house which I find very lacking.
All said I do like the option of open world housing. i think it is neat when you explore an area one day and there is nothing there but come back later and something new has appeared. This would keep people exploring the world contiously just to see what other have done with their houses. But it does need to be managed better than ArchAge's landrush fiasco. Also location astetics is important for alot of people so dont underestimate what you think someone would like to see or not see when building a house some where.
I love housing. I love decorating and I love being able to acquire special items throughout the years that I can keep in my house. If it could be anything like EQ2 housing, it would be perfect. Not so much the instancing, but the ability to put things anywhere you want. I didn't even mind the limits, as they were fairly high. I loved how poeple would get creative with normal objects and create something new. I loved collecting books, and trophies. It was a way of remembering my character's journey throughout the world.
My biggest fear with player and guild housing is the negative effect it will have on the cities. In EQ2 they destroyed pretty much all the social aspects of the cities. You could access everything from bankers to merchant to tradeskills in the guild halls. There were portals to just about every zone in the game inside the Guild halls. There was no reason whatsoever to go into the city and actually socialize with other players
I love the fact that Brad and Co. want to do something big for housing and am plenty fine with that being added on down the road. And while I love how AA and VG did housing with no instances and housing via open world, I do believe there are ways to do housing WITH instancing and still make it feel like it is open world housing.
I'm sure someone somewhere has mentioned what I'm about to suggest but this discussion is TL;DNR, so...
...and I think maybe FF (the newer MMO I always forget the number) sort of handles housing this way but I'm not 100% sure...
I'm pretty sure it's been done before but I like the idea/concept of instancing THE VILLAGE rather than instancing THE HOUSE itself. It's sort of silly to me when player housing is going to the Inn where you access a magical door which leads to 1000s of player houses like some sort of Hogwarts mega condo resort. Yeah EQ2, I'm looking at you! Just instance the entire town/village/city or whatever. The art team creates a village which is surrounded by a large wall and/or moat or possibly a village on an island where the only way to enter is via a bridge or front gate. This is where you have the loading zone for the instance at. On the outside the village looks very much apart of the surrounding world. And on the inside the housing area feels alive where you have neighbors who might be possibly working on their garden or crafting or whatever else can be done with your house.The devs place a max capacity for the instance and once that number is reached a new instance is created. This way players can still own a piece of land in the world and do all sorts of crazy things with their housing.
And the good thing is, is the devs have a lot of leeway to work with and can safeguard themself from numerous pitfalls that come with open-world non-instanced housing.
There is scope for innovation in housing. Obviously, as Aradune stated, the simplest is instanced housing. It is cheap on development and easy to implement, not to mention add/update. However, it is also anathema to player interactions as it splinters the player base into tiny cells. Since PROTF is not going to have instanced housing, at least this option can be discounted.
There are ways to implement (a form of) procedural/dynamic housing in an non-instanced world without too much icky-ness. The trick is probably to develop the village/town/cities using the same development structures you will use for later player building etc.
1. Designate the town 'grid'.
This may be (i) concentric circles (ii) 'standard' grid, or (iii) some pre-set 'shape' or pattern of plots/roads. These 'grids' designate the plots and (potential) streets. The grid doesn't have to be visible at all (apart from in the Estate agent's office). They define what is and what will be (in terms of shape/structure), but not content or detail.
2. Designate 'wall status'.
This is the inclination of the locals to build a wall (defensive). The wall is a value doubler for plot 'value' within its margin. Some races will opt for this (Humans perhaps) while others will not have an ingrained racial need for it. Perhaps town that plan walls have a 'wall tax' to pay for it!
3. Public/Civic Buildings
Using something akin to a task-list with check boxes, the DEVs pick the community buildings to be included. These should include, barracks, Town Hall, Church(es), Craft buldings (eg smithy), Inns/taverns etc. The AI will place these based on (i) plot value (ii) randomness - dependent on plot usage (Pubs spread out, Civic building near centre etc).
4. The AI then puts in streets linking plots by 'traffic density'. Most used - paved, least = dirt.
Thus, as players/guilds buy up plots and put houses on them, the AI periodically updates traffic density etc and recalculates the street textures. Plots would extend outside the walls (historically accurate for many regions) particularly those of smelly/noisy crafts.
Think 'Sim City meets MMO'.
Yeah .... quite a bit of work involved to get it started up (house models, house tex's, Civic buildings, village/town/city grids, City-AI etc) unless you poach a developer from (insert name of game developement studio who creates simulated city games). But it would be nice to consider if it is worthwhile by somebody who is in a better position to actually estimate the developemnt overheads for 'project city builder' then myself!
PS this mechanic would easily allow players/guilds to 'clear' an area of mobs and 'found' a city which could be seen to grow (buildings updated with partially built models at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and full-grown, say) as plots were built upon. Probably pie-in-the-sky I guess - but certainly within the ability of modern games to program.
PPS: A mechanism to avoid a 'land rush' would be needed. It should not be level based (since this would spark a 'level rush') but some towns further away may need you to level up in order to get there. Perhaps buying a house requires:
a) Good faction with the towns-people, after all you want to join them!
b) Perhaps 'proving your worth'. Did you save them from the werewolves?
c) Land in pre-existing towns/cities would already be owned (by the city/king if nobody else). Costly enough that you would have to save up for a plot.
d) Renting should be the 1st option. Apartment blocks in cities should be available.
Apartments to RENT in this ideal location!
Situated near all major amenities, it has integrated
toilet facilities (window), no bad smells (17th floor
only) and lots and lots of new people to meet; all
within arms reach! (Floors/Doors optional extras)
-- New ThroneFast Slum Rentals! --
STRICTLY NO OGRES
Housing will come later with an expansion pack.
How... housing will be, is simple.
It will be a mix of "instanced" apartments & villas in Cities, and land owners out in the country with all different type of structures. I suspect many player made structures such as large Guild Keeps & Castle and many different size homes & shops... Brick, stone, wood..
Resource gathering and crafting the supplies needed for homes will be a big industry and undertaking. Owning a home won't come cheap.. may take a year to amass the wealth to build one. Then there is the time. Having friends to help will speed things up considerably. Most will co-own a house.
There is no land rush, it will be a market frenzy resource rush.. some crafters (& gatherers) are going to get rich.
I thought EQ2 had the best housing until I played Wildstar. I loved the fact you got a yard to play in as well as the decoratable housing. I'd love to see some kind of combination of the two. Also, for those who like trinkets, minipets, trophies, furniture, playing house -- whatever -- housing allows for those who love to collect items to have a place to show them off without other people worrying about immersion.
Lghtngfan said:I thought EQ2 had the best housing until I played Wildstar. I loved the fact you got a yard to play in as well as the decoratable housing. I'd love to see some kind of combination of the two. Also, for those who like trinkets, minipets, trophies, furniture, playing house -- whatever -- housing allows for those who love to collect items to have a place to show them off without other people worrying about immersion.
Not gonna lie, housing was actually one of my favorite parts of EQ2. I spent countless hours rearranging things. I think Brad's ideas for Pantheon are even better, but I wouldn't be mad if he settled for a system more like EQ2 for the sake of practicality.
The housing in Black Desert Online is handled extremely well, IMO. Outposts could be done the same way throughout the world without sacrificing landscapes for plots and housing areas. I would certainly make the entry level price-point/resource requirements a lot higher, though.
I loved my house in EQ2, but it eventually became drab due to the lack of interactivity, very few things were alive so to speak just for looks only. I don't think I could even sleep in my bed...but the deco flexibility was great.
Vanguard housing was pretty cool. Took forever to skill up to build one. I did it twice haha....Vanguard had housing areas, which did not interfere with the gaming world activity. It was a great idea to keep housing from being in the way of things.
Ultima Online housing was also awesome. I loved visiting people's vendors. I didn't mind the clutter because of how many unique ideas people had for what they did with their houses. Later on there was the ability to build from scratch, and some people were amazing.
Lord of the Rings housing was horrible. I hate neighborhoods. Hooks to place your deco was totally limiting.
Hopefully they find a way to either do Vanguard style-out of the way-housing, or a combination of instancing with in game cities/villages/hamlet areas. You could be in a vast NPC city which has doorways to people's houses (which would be an instance)...that would get them out of the way for those who didn't want to see them, but make them expandable for people who owned them with no limits on deco etc...could be fun...
I just love housing in a game. It gives me a place to garden, decorate, sleep, and relax. Hope they will give us some benefit to sleeping in this game.
I am remembering SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) where you could claim land to build your house...but over the years, it ended up in a lot of cases, as this big ugly misshapen sprawl, where people had long ago not come back to the game (in years literally) those housing spaces/land were still occupied however, and it took some work on SOE's part to figure what to do..newcomers couldn't buy land to put their house down. At first I think they were blowing them up ..then they took to dismantling the homes to free up the land, all the parts, pieces were sent back to that person's bank and inventory. Hopefully there is a better solution for Pantheon, pretty much why I figure instanced homes where you can allow visitors to visit and buy from your vendors (like EQII did) and still decorate and have as many wandering pets within as you please. Did like Vanguard's set up too, where you actually build your own home, brick by brick or plank by plank, with help from your friends if you wished. Guess I'm kind of sitting on the fence on what the best option or solution is. :)
Bazgrim said:Lghtngfan said:I thought EQ2 had the best housing until I played Wildstar. I loved the fact you got a yard to play in as well as the decoratable housing. I'd love to see some kind of combination of the two. Also, for those who like trinkets, minipets, trophies, furniture, playing house -- whatever -- housing allows for those who love to collect items to have a place to show them off without other people worrying about immersion.
Not gonna lie, housing was actually one of my favorite parts of EQ2. I spent countless hours rearranging things. I think Brad's ideas for Pantheon are even better, but I wouldn't be mad if he settled for a system more like EQ2 for the sake of practicality.
Me too Bazgrim, plus I spent many hours crafting inside my little instanced house, it was kind of neat the windows had windowpanes ..you could look through them to your patio outside, and you could place things for decoration on the patio too. :) I loved the pictures you could hang in your home, that you could zone through to a new zone..new quests/adventures. Hope Pantheon does something like this. (those were special pictures..don't remember ..might have been achievement based or lore holiday based..or veteran reward?)
Evoras said:There is scope for innovation in housing. Obviously, as Aradune stated, the simplest is instanced housing. It is cheap on development and easy to implement, not to mention add/update. However, it is also anathema to player interactions as it splinters the player base into tiny cells. Since PROTF is not going to have instanced housing, at least this option can be discounted.
There are ways to implement (a form of) procedural/dynamic housing in an non-instanced world without too much icky-ness. The trick is probably to develop the village/town/cities using the same development structures you will use for later player building etc.
1. Designate the town 'grid'.
This may be (i) concentric circles (ii) 'standard' grid, or (iii) some pre-set 'shape' or pattern of plots/roads. These 'grids' designate the plots and (potential) streets. The grid doesn't have to be visible at all (apart from in the Estate agent's office). They define what is and what will be (in terms of shape/structure), but not content or detail.
2. Designate 'wall status'.
This is the inclination of the locals to build a wall (defensive). The wall is a value doubler for plot 'value' within its margin. Some races will opt for this (Humans perhaps) while others will not have an ingrained racial need for it. Perhaps town that plan walls have a 'wall tax' to pay for it!
3. Public/Civic Buildings
Using something akin to a task-list with check boxes, the DEVs pick the community buildings to be included. These should include, barracks, Town Hall, Church(es), Craft buldings (eg smithy), Inns/taverns etc. The AI will place these based on (i) plot value (ii) randomness - dependent on plot usage (Pubs spread out, Civic building near centre etc).
4. The AI then puts in streets linking plots by 'traffic density'. Most used - paved, least = dirt.
Thus, as players/guilds buy up plots and put houses on them, the AI periodically updates traffic density etc and recalculates the street textures. Plots would extend outside the walls (historically accurate for many regions) particularly those of smelly/noisy crafts.
Think 'Sim City meets MMO'.
Yeah .... quite a bit of work involved to get it started up (house models, house tex's, Civic buildings, village/town/city grids, City-AI etc) unless you poach a developer from (insert name of game developement studio who creates simulated city games). But it would be nice to consider if it is worthwhile by somebody who is in a better position to actually estimate the developemnt overheads for 'project city builder' then myself!
PS this mechanic would easily allow players/guilds to 'clear' an area of mobs and 'found' a city which could be seen to grow (buildings updated with partially built models at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and full-grown, say) as plots were built upon. Probably pie-in-the-sky I guess - but certainly within the ability of modern games to program.
PPS: A mechanism to avoid a 'land rush' would be needed. It should not be level based (since this would spark a 'level rush') but some towns further away may need you to level up in order to get there. Perhaps buying a house requires:
a) Good faction with the towns-people, after all you want to join them!
b) Perhaps 'proving your worth'. Did you save them from the werewolves?
c) Land in pre-existing towns/cities would already be owned (by the city/king if nobody else). Costly enough that you would have to save up for a plot.
d) Renting should be the 1st option. Apartment blocks in cities should be available.
Apartments to RENT in this ideal location!
Situated near all major amenities, it has integrated
toilet facilities (window), no bad smells (17th floor
only) and lots and lots of new people to meet; all
within arms reach! (Floors/Doors optional extras)
-- New ThroneFast Slum Rentals! --
STRICTLY NO OGRES
This reminded me of Dark Age of Camelot...the forts you defended, keep rebuilding that front gate with materials you have on hand, so the invaders can't get in. ( that would be for a pvp server I would imagine) that was a heck of a lot of fun. Invaders win? They walk off with the Relic for that fort. Which if I remember right..put some sort of minor debuff on the members of that community til they got their Relic back and maybe attacked the Invader's fort to get THEIR relic for more power and strength. :)
Lol Strictly no Ogres (funny stuff)
Just curious Evoras..with the town wall and grid, would this be up to an alliance of Guilds or one guild to build and then keep the city in good repair, defended from invasions according to your ideas?
I love the idea of player housing and this is one of the things I am really looking forward to down the road, but what about the ability to rent a room in an Inn for the night, or rent an area large enough for a guild event until we are able to have player housing and or guild hall zones?Is this something you might like to see in game?
A small room for example with a single bed to rest in (for exp rested bonus) if you want, or rent a larger room with a bed and a sitting table and fireplace and you can have your co-guild officers over to sit and have an in-game drink and go over your officer meeting for the week, plan raids, discuss issues, all in privacy with in game voice chat or whatever, or rent guild event sized halls for your guild events, whatever floats your boat. These rooms could be somewhat cookie cutter and I don't think people would mind too much. I would personally take the extra ten minutes to log out, and travel to go rent a room for more rested exp bonus, or a slight HP bonus for a few hours in game or something if your character is already max level.
I'm not big on the game Rift itself, but I really enjoyed their take on player housing, guild halls and the ability to play with lego so to speak and design a zone to suit your tastes and theme it however you like, I would love to see a VR take on this implemented!
Not a fan of instanced housing at all, like EQ2 or more recently EQ1.
Housing needs to be open world like in Vanguard. There were so many housing plots in that game that there wasn't a risk of running out at all. So open world housing can be done w/o the issues ArcheAge had. I would have loved to see how housing turned out in VG had Sigil had the resources to complete it.
Guild housing on the other hand in Vanguard, IIRC there was a land rush then because there weren't that many guild hall plots. However, the low supply may have been intentional for healthy guild competition?
Regarding the arguement that housing takes away from community socialization... when you remove instances from the equation, it's no longer an issue. In ArcheAge, you were friends with your neighbors. Sure, you may not spend as much time in the Pantheon version of "EC Tunnel". But what's wrong with having smaller player hubs spread throughout the world? Centralizing the population doesn't really make for a better community. I mean look at the plane of knowledge...
I found Horizon's housing system to be the most interesting, an open world system where designated plots where available for purchase, but you didn't just raise the house ( or shop) from nothing. After selecting what type of building you wanted to build, and suppling the materials and money to the project, other players who had the skills (architects,masons,woodworkers ects) would begin building their portion of the project.
This was in fact the same system used to reach new areas, if you needed a bridge built to get over to a new island the whole community had to pitch in on the construction, a real shame this type of community focused features aren't used more in MMO’s.
The best open world housing situation I've ever seen in a MMORPG was in a really old 2D game called Tibia, it's actually older than EQ1. What they did was put houses for rent, mainly in cities, with the occassional house out in the wilderness. To rent a house you had to win a week-long auction or buy it directly from another player for however much gold that you two agree on. You also needed to have an active game subscription, and pay the rent with gold every month. In the case of you cancelling your subsription or not paying rent, you would lose the house, all of your items would be transferred to your bank, and the house would go back up for auction to other players. By doing this, they avoided having housing claimed by retired players. It was a very prestigious, social aspect of the game, and was great for the economy.
Housing: All for housing, I think it's a wonderful feature and I'm totally supportive of it being in the game, and am totally understanding if it's a post launch feature that comes with a big update or expansion. (When it does, introduce a carpenter crafting class like EQ2, please!)
Open world vs. instanced: This is something I'm ambivalent on. I actually didn't mind EQ2's instanced housing, and I think there's certainly room for improvement there. I haven't played any games with open world housing, but I can see how doing such can be a logistical nightmare, and I'm definitely not for a system that might exclude players from being able to acquire housing just because they're late to the game. Either way, I just would love for housing to be in the game at some point :)
I have no big problem with how LoTRO did their housing instances. You came up to a gate and selected which neighbourhood you wanted to visit. Once inside, you found a small community which had a lot of character and felt like it was an organic part of the game terrain. There were maybe 15-20 homes in various settings to choose from. You had a chance to interract with neighbours, but in reality, you rarely saw anyone else in the instance. LoTRO's instanced housing was a way around the land rush and it avoided what I would describe as "housing spam" with complete open world housing models that have been used in previous games.
I really disliked the apartment style housing which was introduced in EQ2. I don't know if something better came later, but the apartment instances were completely isolating.
I did like Vanguard's housing model, but somewhat like the LoTRO housing instances, I rarely saw my neighbours. At least this was the case soon after release. Whether the island was instanced or not didn't really make any difference since the location was quite isolated.
Horizons (a game that came out around the same time as EQ2) also had open world land plots. Some of those were in quite remote areas, so you had to explore to find them. This was an aspect that I really liked. It would really nice if there were remote locations that you can build in.
SOE's Landmark had the ultimate housing engine in that you could build almost anything, anywhere. They had a good number of pre-made objects for populating your building and you were mostly limited by your imagination in terms of what you built. You could put a door in the side of the hill and go underground or you could build a tower or small fort in classic castle style. The flexibility was nice, but the problem occurs when you have player built structures popping up EVERYWHERE and not always appropriately themed for a fantasy MMO. I'm pretty sure I don't want to see phallic towers or QuickyMarts at the entrances to all my favourite dungeons.
I can appreciate that it would be really fun and interesting to have players working together to make towns which might have an impact on the behaviour of mobs in a short radius of the settlement. Perhaps if enough players worked together, they could displace a small group of orcs or bandits which may have be terrorizing that small area. Since there would be pressure from external hostile forces, the upkeep to this settlement would be constantly required by numerous players. This effort might take the form of tradeskills, payment of coin/bribes or raiding parties to keep the hostiles at bay. A settlement such as this would need many players to keep it active or it would be eventually over run and decay to ruins.
On the other hand, I'd like to see the opportunity for me as an explorer to find remote, isolated places to build my home. I shouldn't be automatically welcomed and it should be difficult for me to get a home established in these areas. I should have to do considerable faction work so that my neighbours allow me to coexist in their area, whether these neighbours are bandits, goblins or simply aggressive local wildlife. It should take a lot of faction work for a druid to be accepted by orcs, but perhaps the druid class would be non-kos and his dwelling more readily accepted by local wildlife than say a mage or warrior. There should be some sort of logical alignment of both race and class in regard to housing as in other aspects of adventuring. Also, since my dwelling is quite remote, it will harder to find skilled trades workers to help me construct it. These sorts of mechanics can help discourage housing spam in remote areas, but there would likely have to be physical restrictions (such as predetermined plots) which restrict players from just plopping a structure down anywhere.
Housing can be something which is interesting, fun and challenging. Anything less will be a disappointment. We've lots of previous games to use as models of what worked and what did not.
I like Brad's perspective of don't do it until you can do it properly.