12.0.1 Will there be player owned housing and how will that work?
Players will be able to build and own residential, commercial, industrial structures as well as store items in those structures.This will include residential areas for storing goods, commercial areas in which you can have a vendor sell your wares for you, as well as 'industrial' areas that will help crafters refine and assemble goods. We will have craftable vehicles and buildings in regards to player cities, though at this time, we don’t have exact details on how this will work. There will be differing styles, and there will be some recipes that you can only execute on a particular continent, town or dungeon.
We can’t go into too much more detail other than to say that housing will be zoned – you can’t build just anywhere. Likewise, there is an upkeep associated with housing, and we expect people to move as they go up in levels, leaving buildings (or at least build-able land) behind. Does that mean everyone is guaranteed a house? We’re hesitant to commit to that – it’s akin to guaranteeing content in general. There will be competition to a degree, though we will do our best to avoid both tedium and frustration. That, and the world is seamless and BIG, so there should be good amount of room.
Also, our approach, like most MMOGs, is shard-based, so servers will age, new servers will be put up, etc., so these and many other opportunities shouldn’t only be available at launch, but after launch as the game naturally grows and new worlds are launched.
In addition to owning buildings on a character level, player-controlled villages and cities are expected to appear over time.
Player housing phase one is already in. If you want to compare it to something, it's probably most similar to SW:G. You own a house, it's not instanced and is in the real world, you can arrange objects in it, place objects in it that you found while out in the world, and store items like a bank.
We have big plans to go beyond this and have hinted at player cities and the like. We are being a bit tight lipped about it though because we're implementing this big plan piece by piece. In other words, I don't want to hype one aspect of it but then not have it turned on until after launch. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.2 Where can I build?
The designers and artists will set up gridded layouts that define where you can build structures. It will not be freeform like you describe, although there will likely be some flexibility in terms of alignment, etc.
Deleting and re-building elsewhere will be relatively easy, but also costly such that you're encouraged to plan your move and not just approach it willy-nilly.
We go in ahead of time and zone the world like a modern city does. If an area isn't zoned for, say, houses, you can't build there. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.3 Why build a player house or town?
You don't just build houses for fun (although nothing's stopping you). You'll want to build near areas with resources you are looking for (and when I say resources I mean harvestable items or a dungeon you are exploring). In Vanguard we really want people committing to areas. You and your friends will head to an outpost, hitch your horses up, and dedicate maybe a couple of days to getting the most out of an area. Later, if the area is really attractive to you (it has the harvestables you are looking for; it's an interesting area to explore; there are quite a few quests that require travel in this region to complete; etc.) you may want to build near the area.
That way you can store even more items than at the outpost in your pack mule, create crafting stations closer to the areas where important resources are gathered (as opposed to having to travel way back to an NPC town), or set up vendors to sell your goods while offline.
Now this is the key part: the areas we allow you to build that are near lucrative sites (dungeons, harvesting areas, etc.) offer more reward and therefore also more risk. As an extreme example, let's say you find a dragon's lair and plan on raiding it for the next couple of weeks because it's just full of phat lewtz. So you and your guildmates decide to build a small player run town as near to this lair as zoning allows. Convenient, yes? But you're also far from civilization and it's dangerous out there in the frontier. So wandering, aggro NPCs will be much more numerous. Heck, dragon guards may fly routes that crisscross the area. That's not just dangerous for you and your party while you're online -- they will also attack your buildings whether you're online or not if they happen to notice them.
So you coordinate with your guild and try to keep people online to guard your buildings because if they're destroyed it's costly to have them repaired. And then you can also hire NPCs to guard your houses too, such that they are defended even if you and your guildmates aren't online.
One important message here is that one shouldn't necessarily look at player built buildings as permanent like in other MMOGs. It is more likely that as you progress through the world and level up that you'll want to move your base of operations closer to regions that are level appropriate. Then, when you're done with that area (levelled passed it, or just tired of the area and ready to move on), you'll delete these buildings and re-establish a base of operations elsewhere.
Lastly, though, keep in mind that this isn't all that building player towns is all about. You may very well also want to own buildings in safer areas for social or other reasons. And that's encouraged too, and given that they're in safer areas, it's much less likely that the buildings will be attacked because they're not built in hostile regions. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.4 Can you name your player town?
Persistent extensions of your character (ships, horses, houses) will be named by the player, absolutely (under hopefully the same naming restrictions that are applied to the character itself).
Naming the entire town? No clue yet -- depends on how much of city building we have time to realize by launch. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.5 How do I work out how to build a town?
Players who want to advance in city building and related skills will begin by interacting with NPC built towns (like New Targonor), and then later move on to player created towns. You also may be able to build some player owned buildings in an NPC town, if it's zoned that way (again, practice for later starting your own town).
But while it's true that New Targonor is still under construction at the time the game takes place, players at best may assist with a quest or something related to that story line indirectly -- sorry, you won't be finishing the castle. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.6 Can my house be damaged/will it need repair?
Houses will likely have an upkeep, but they are also in a sense non-moving persistent pets. They have HP, they can big configured, they have an inventory. And so they can die too. NPCs will attack your house if you build it near a dangerous area. And if you never pay your upkeep, my guess is something similar will happen. But that's where crafting comes in -- just a cleric rezzes your corpse, the crafter fixes your house, making it accessible again. Now, what if you leave for a year... obviously, there are some restrictions we'll be forced to place.
Believe it or not, yes, player house can be destroyed to the extent that they become a 'corpse' in a sense where you need a crafter to repair it (just as you need a cleric to rez your body). Same with ships -- they can be 'sunk', resulting in flotsam, but this too can be repaired by crafters. Any loot you have in your house, horse, ship, etc. is retained but only accessible after a rez/repair it.
How does your house get destroyed? Well, you build it near a kobold village or some such, and wandering monsters see it and attack, whether you're there or not.
I would like to see the payment plans flexible too. Dings your bank, or you can pay up front, etc. We are open to these variations.
We just need to make sure the upkeep means something, so people feel some pain in owning property and other similar constructs. I am confident we can balance that once money sinks are tuned and we keep track of things and make sure currency retains value. But it's not that hard. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.7 Will houses be instanced?
The plan is no instancing, even with player houses. Think SW:G in this case -- the houses are really there in the world. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.8 How are entry permissions for housing handled in Vanguard?
If you are familiar with housing in Star Wars: Galaxies then you should be very comfortable with housing permissions in Vanguard. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.9 What if all the house plots are bought up and there's nowhere for me to build?
It's hard to answer that. The general answer is that no content in the game is guaranteed, including owning a house. We'll have to see in beta how well we can accommodate people. But also keep in mind that you aren't supposed to keep your house forever -- you'll abandon it when you out-level the area. Also, the world is BIG, so lots of room. And finally, if a group of people form a little town, while they can keep you out of their residence, they can't keep you out of their city (speaking about PVE servers). And cities come with publicly accessible buildings, crafting stations, places to bind, banks, etc. So even if you don't own a house, you will be able to take advantage while travelling of other's towns when you come across them. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.10 What will attract people to my town and stop it from being deserted?
As for whether they will feel like a ghost town. Well, first you'll be able to set up offline merchants. You will summon an NPC merchant, give him the items you want sold, set prices, and when you log off he will stay there. Also, we hope to spawn other NPCs doing their thing too (this gets into city building and I don't want to get detailed as I don't know how much of our lofty goals and plans we'll be able to realize by release). You'll likely also be able to hire guards to protect your house from NPCs.
Lastly, if we make having a house or a town compelling and an important part of gameplay, then people should be there. We certainly do not want ghost towns that are just storage units visited once a week by their owner. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)
12.0.11 What happens to my house when I move away?
You'll relinquish your house and plot to make room for up and coming players (which is part of the plan to deal with housing sprawls, though the world is HUGE). There will also be upkeeps on buildings, so no logging off and re-appearing 6 months later to find your house still there -- it won't be.
There will also likely be functionality that allows you to copy the layout (decorations, storage, items, etc.) from one house to another. (This answer is courtesy of Silky Venom)