Home Invasion Tour

I had a strange moment last night.  I felt a strong urge to play, but no urge to hunt at all.  The end result was a night spent snooping through people’s houses seeing how they utilized their space and how it differed from what I have done.

Some of the more fun moments involved going through Gorowyn and Neriak housing.  I had only seen the Gorowyn houses once this past weekend and I had never seen the Neriak houses before.

I have to say… people can be creative.

I guess I just wasn’t expecting to find the level of creativity in EQ2 housing that existed in SWG.  It isn’t that I think SWG players are more creative.  It is more that EQ2 housing restricts what you can place within the house.  You have items designed to go in the house that can be placed, but nothing else.  In SWG, if you could pick it up, you could drop it in your house.  That resulted in all kinds of creative decorating.

Crafting also had a lot of sub-combines in SWG.  Many times, the subcombines could spark a moment of creativity.  For example, in order to make a house, an architect first had to make structure modules.  If you were making anything other than a small house, you then had to use those structure modules to make wall modules.  Then, you had to make a generator module, storage modules, and lighting modules.  Once you had all of those created, you could combine them into a house deed.

The structure modules, when dropped, looked like massive bricks.  Through dropping, rotating, placing and stacking, I could make all manner of house items out of the structure modules.  I made fireplaces, aquariums, armor display cases, and many other items using those structure modules.  A friend of mine used various ship parts, armor parts, and sub-combines from weapons to create a full sized AT-AT in her house.  I saw screenshots of someone who created a Star Destroyer in his house.  Another person used ottomons, end tables, and various weapon components to create a grand piano.

When I first started looking to decorating in EQ2, I pretty much just looked at the furniture, the rules for what you could put in your house, and the limited (from a former SWG player’s perspective) movement features for shuffling items and I just assumed that housing decoration in EQ2 would be a fairly bland affair.

Over time, as I have played with the system, I have cooked up a few ideas in my head of what my finished house will look like when I finally acquire all of the items that I want.  At times, I have even patted myself on the back and congratulated myself on my “creativity” in figuring out ways to manipulate what I viewed as severe limitations.

The more houses I looked through, the more I realized that my “creative” ideas weren’t that creative and, in many cases, not all that damn original.  I had forgotten the first rule of gaming… if a game says, “You can’t do this,” stubborn gamers will say, “Watch me” and figure it out.  If a game says, “This is what you have to work with,” stubborn gamers will say, “There is some bend area in that rule.”

I know a lot of people who just don’t get the whole player housing thing.  In SWG, the houses were just extra storage for them.  In EQ2, it is something that they just don’t have.  When they get an item reward that is supposed to go in a house, they sell it.  They just don’t get it.

That is perfectly okay with me.  There is no rule stating that they have to get it.

For me, player housing is like a living, evolving journal chronicling my journies through the world.  My house says as much about where I’ve been and what I’ve done as the gear I wear and the titles I sport.  Three years from now (if I’m still playing at that time), I’ll be able to walk through my house and point to that item and tell a story of how I obtained it from running a quest that started in Nektropus Castle or how that was a reward for what I did in Splitpaw.

And when I walk through other people’s houses and admire the fashion in which they decorated, I am also always looking for the tell-tale signs that they were present at a particular event that took place before my time or that they shared the same adventures that I am going through now.

Call me weird, but that is fun for me.