Why so few guildhouses?

[DangerDolphin]

So I understand that there are limited resources in the database for storage, which is why player housing is limited. But it seems like those resources are being inefficiently and badly used.

I have played two characters on the server in the past month, and both were able to get a room/quarters easily after some searching around of less frequented areas. This meant on top of settlement storage I had a personal chest for stuff all to myself.

The problem is, big player factions with 10-15 members or more are having to use inn rooms and bedrooms to base out of too. Sometimes they have a house which is decent enough, but very few have any kind of decent sized area. They would make much better use of storage in the database, as a 50 or even 80 slot storage chest could support the entire group, where usually that much storage space would be occupied by just 2-4 players. Likewise, new characters could join an existing group and become involved in RP, have allies and access to storage immediately. They would have a small hub to meet up with their group.

Obviously, there's room for abuse here because players could take guild houses for themselves, but I'm sure that could be solved using the citizenship system whereby it requires 4-5 citizens together to own a guild house, or similar. Settlement leaders can always evict individuals hogging large guild houses. (Of course, they could abuse this too, but would alienate an entire faction of voters in the process)

The second aspect I'd like to address that makes very little sense is where player quarters are found. I get that it's cool to have a variety, so people can be a hermit / strange wizard living in an obscure location, but why does the Arcane Tower have like 80 rooms, where a giant city like Cordor seems to only have 30? Other examples are hard to mention without spoilers, but the number of people living in a cave or another plane because large cities are lacking space seems really, really weird. Again, I appreciate that we should have some places like this for exiled/eccentric characters, they just seem to outweigh the normal.

I'd like some discussion on this topic, especially given that in the next few months we may have a new settlement coming along with the potential to begin rectifying some of these issues.

[three wolf moon]

Probably because they would require DM oversight and Arelith is moving toward automation in all things. Identifying that the owner of a guildhouse is inactive and not being used, contacting them to try and get them to either get active or pass it on to somebody when they're probably purposely avoiding people, and so on is work. I would really love it if DMs took greater agency in the case of chronically inactive factions hogging guild halls; for example finding a group (s) that may fit the theme of a guild hall (a group of thieves or Maskarrans for the temple of Mask, off the top of my head) and running a quest or even a contest of some kind to obtain it if there are multiple groups.

For now the reality is that guildhouses are valuable to mulers and hoarders and not much is/can be done the way things are currently. Yes a settlement leader can evict, but only if you can manage to catch them for the split second they're online at 4 AM to do the requisite roleplay.

Once upon a time, the settlement system did not exist and the social landscape of Arelith was much more guild-based than it is now. I truly wish that we could facilitate the return of those times but as it is it's too attractive to simply hoard any guildhouses that are added or go up for sale.

This is more or less the same reason that wilderness/remote quarters outside of the settlement system seem to be getting phased out. A lot of that is/will be added to the Land Brokerage system, which is tied to the settlement system, meaning that independent or even some flavor of evil-based guilds will have less places to go. Wilderness quarters/guildhalls are popular things to quarterhog since they can't be evicted by players, so that's the result.

For a tl;dr, adding more of the things you speak of and keeping them in the hands of active players would probably require more work on the part of an already-taxed team and so it's done less often than other stuff. Sadly.

[Shrouded Wanderer]

Probably because they would require DM oversight and Arelith is moving toward automation in all things. Identifying that the owner of a guildhouse is inactive and not being used, contacting them to try and get them to either get active or pass it on to somebody when they're probably purposely avoiding people, and so on is work. I would really love it if DMs took greater agency in the case of chronically inactive factions hogging guild halls; for example finding a group (s) that may fit the theme of a guild hall (a group of thieves or Maskarrans for the temple of Mask, off the top of my head) and running a quest or even a contest of some kind to obtain it if there are multiple groups.

For now the reality is that guildhouses are valuable to mulers and hoarders and not much is/can be done the way things are currently. Yes a settlement leader can evict, but only if you can manage to catch them for the split second they're online at 4 AM to do the requisite roleplay.

Once upon a time, the settlement system did not exist and the social landscape of Arelith was much more guild-based than it is now. I truly wish that we could facilitate the return of those times but as it is it's too attractive to simply hoard any guildhouses that are added or go up for sale.

This is more or less the same reason that wilderness/remote quarters outside of the settlement system seem to be getting phased out. A lot of that is/will be added to the Land Brokerage system, which is tied to the settlement system, meaning that independent or even some flavor of evil-based guilds will have less places to go. Wilderness quarters/guildhalls are popular things to quarterhog since they can't be evicted by players, so that's the result.

For a tl;dr, adding more of the things you speak of and keeping them in the hands of active players would probably require more work on the part of an already-taxed team and so it's done less often than other stuff. Sadly.

Assuming what you are saying is true about settlements being more in control of guildhouses, how exactly are evil guilds going to be able to work with the threat of nearly every couple of months a new settlement leader getting elected and evicting said guild?

For that matter good aligned guilds near/in an evil controlled settlement as well.

Seems like, atleast on the surface, evil guilds need wilderness guildhouses or face extinction due to the inability to hold land

[three wolf moon]

Assuming what you are saying is true about settlements being more in control of guildhouses, how exactly are evil guilds going to be able to work with the threat of nearly every couple of months a new settlement leader getting elected and evicting said guild?

For that matter good aligned guilds near/in an evil controlled settlement as well.

Seems like, atleast on the surface, evil guilds need wilderness guildhouses or face extinction due to the inability to hold land

These are words from Irongron himself which he said in a public Q&A he hosted some time ago (but not a long time ago). I, too, think it's a very unfortunate decision and I hope that it's reconsidered before it happens. The ETA for this update is unknown.

[Exordius]

Do what i plan to do, create or have someone create a guild-house for you using the toolset, save up an insane amount of gold, find a nice spot outside of a town but not to far away, and rp using that gold to buy some land and build the guild-house there. Can rp the whole process from buying the land, to construction, to final product.