Places to Live

Different MMOs have different ways of making the whole gaming experience more realistic or more fun. Ultima Online allows players to rest at “hotels” and recover, but it also extends this by allowing players to own their own buildings. There are a number of benefits to owning a building; first, you can safely store lots of equipment and items you have collected. You can also create a shop where you can purchase an NPC as a shopkeeper and sell goods. In Ultima Online, you can build these houses and stores only in particular locations, so very quickly the most popular routes are taken very quickly. The great thing about Ultima Online is that there are a large number of building types to select from—players can choose a small hovel, a farm, or even a castle-sized building (with a castle-sized price tag, of course). If players fail to pay the rent on the building, the building will slowly fall into disrepair and finally will disappear, and players lose any goods that they may have stored within the rooms.

If you are able to implement a house-based system within your MMO, it is definitely worthwhile. Allowing the players to have a base of operations which they can relate to, decorate, and purchase items for can make a big difference in keeping your players interested in your MMO. The more your players invest in your game, the more likely it will be that they will continue to play it.