Mechanics of Player Housing
Disclaimer: This article was written before housing was implimented and was an essay on the types that the developers might choose. Ultimately the "Suburb" type of housing was added.
- There are several methods of adding Housing that seem to be appropriate to the game, all of them involving some form of Instancing due to the popularity of housing among players and the lack of space to fit them all.
- These methods can be called The Suite, The Neighborhood (in town) , The Suburb (in country)
 (this type was chosen), and The Villa.
- The Suite is an instanced house set within a settlement's own structures. The front door of a building is the front door of the house, with multiple instances able to occupy a single building. This Suite can thus contain just one room or many rooms as fits the house size.
- Example: A house structure in Bree or Brandy Hall.
- Pros: Can be used for hundreds of players and is flexible to allow for many sizes and layouts of the interior without affecting the game outside.
- Cons: Everyone uses the same door, turning the building into a Hostel or Condo of sorts. There is also no room for individual exteriors.
- The Neighborhood (in town) is an instanced zone within a settlement, accessed by gate or entry-way. Once inside, you see many buildings gathered around a central courtyard or road. Each structure can represent a single player house, or a multi-player house. The zone lends itself to centrally located services for crafting, auctions, and the like.
- Example: One of the internal areas in Bree, or through a side-door in Thorin's Halls.
- Pros: Provides a Commune feeling. Each building can be an instanced space that also allows for hundreds of styles and sizes of housing within. The instanced zone also allows for hundreds of such communities within one settlement.
- Cons: This setup may require two zonings; one for entering the neighborhood, and then a second to enter your home. Some settlements, such as Celondim do not allow for instanced neighborhoods within their confines, as there is no dicernable room.
- The Suburb (in the country) is an instance like the Neighborhood, but the access point is located outside of a settlement and becomes a town not marked on the map. This type of area can be reached through an NPC, a Stable Master, a side-valley, or a hillside entrance, depending on the type of racial housing inside.
- Example: A hill-sheltered glen accessed by a side gate near Celondim.
- Pros: Provides the same Communal feelling as the Neighborhood. The zone is not confined to the size limitations of a current settlement, as it is a settlement of its own. The zone can be as large or as small as it needs to be, allowing for each house to have it's own exterior space.
- Cons: Players still suffer the double loading to enter their home. Current towns will see a decrease in traffic if Instanced Housing has crafting services of its own.
- The Villa is an instanced plot of land, access from outside of a settlement, or inside the corner of an existing one.
Because it only occupies a "hidden" area within or just outside the settlement, it can have several access points available to the other methods, such as a gate, an NPC, a valley pass, or an alleyway.
- Example: A plot of land sheltered within a forest, accessed from a side gate near Combe, or a solitary mountain hall accessed from a mountainside-door in Thorin's Gates.
- Pros: As a private area, this plot can be as large as a castle or as small as a hut, allowing for extreme flexibility in size and layout for each player. This also allows various sizes of exteriors to customize.
- Cons: No Communal feeling. Everyone loads in at the same access points.
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