What do you look for in a house?

[Oscar Sheila]

I have a dream, and in that dream I will create the house to rule them all. So what I need to ask you guys, is what do you want in a house?

 

Do you want:

A quaint cottage or a castle?

A fighter style home or a mystical palace?

Servants to aid you in every whim or a calm place of your own?

Lots of storage or the occasional chest?

Homely clutter or clinical minimalism

 

Feel free to jot down your thoughts, and I will set out to make your dreams come true

[Leemonski]

I'd like to see a castle that was like a proper self reliant castle fortress.

 

A large castle that has homes for servants, a farm with crops and animals and other stuff you would expect to be in a self reliant castle. Servants would need to be paid a wage and they would produce for the castle, like food etc.

 

The houses would need to be bought and built. Like you pay so much to a builder and after 24 hours the house is there and ready.

 

So the castle would start off with just one castle and large area of empty land where the buildings and farms would eventually be built.

 

On building a farm you need to hire farmers to work there and as you get more farmers you get NPC's "looking for work" who can be employed as servants.

 

You need to employ more farmers to get more workers and more houses are needed to house them in.

 

This shouldn't be too hard for you to do, I'll expect a release tomorrow :thumbsup:

[Balakirev]

What I personally need:

 

A good sized area with plenty of beds, respawning food and drink for companions.

 

An alchemy area, with sorters for ingredients, potions, and scrolls. Enchantment and spell creation. Plenty of labeled containers for different kinds of potions, soul gems, enchantables, etc.

 

A fairly large area for mannequins.

 

A fairly large area for armor and weapon display. Preferably with wall-mount displays, as in The Rift mod.

 

A good-sized library area. It doesn't necessarily need books, but it should be able to accommodate quite a few, plus, it should have some of the false front bookcases as well, that can hold all the books you want. If it can sort books, all the better, but I haven't seen a faultless implementation of this in Oblivion. (Morrowind has it, in a few mods.)

 

What I always look for:

 

Good decoration. Attractive combinations of textures and colors.

 

Plenty of attention to detail. The odd book left out, a wine bottle and a glass, a series of ceramic containers that I've not seen before, etc.

 

Easy pathing. If I move quickly, I don't like being caught on an edge of something that should give but doesn't, or pull along a bunch of items onto the floor in my wake.

 

A layout that gets me where I want to go, quickly. I hate endless corridors.

 

No giveaways. True, I can always open the CS or disable in the game that Heavy Armor of Infinite Endurance, but I almost certainly won't load up the mod that has it to begin with. Same thing goes with merchants, etc. There are cities. That's what they're for.

 

No throne rooms, planning rooms, etc. I'm not a ruler, I'm a private citizen in the game. If I want to be a ruler, I'll play Civ IV. And I prefer my rooms to have a function I can take advantage of.

 

Imagination. Simply re-using the basic house found in a given city makes me wonder why I shouldn't buy the basic house found in that city, instead.

 

Currently, I'm using Tchos Alchemy Tower, with two dimensional "zones," since Tchos didn't allow for displays or mannequins in his otherwise great tower. I'm always amenable to looking at new houses that appear to suit all my needs.

[shane24]

I'd like to see a castle that was like a proper self reliant castle fortress.

 

A large castle that has homes for servants, a farm with crops and animals and other stuff you would expect to be in a self reliant castle. Servants would need to be paid a wage and they would produce for the castle, like food etc.

 

The houses would need to be bought and built. Like you pay so much to a builder and after 24 hours the house is there and ready.

 

So the castle would start off with just one castle and large area of empty land where the buildings and farms would eventually be built.

 

On building a farm you need to hire farmers to work there and as you get more farmers you get NPC's "looking for work" who can be employed as servants.

 

You need to employ more farmers to get more workers and more houses are needed to house them in.

 

This shouldn't be too hard for you to do, I'll expect a release tomorrow :thumbsup:

 

 

On Morrowind once you advanced to the higher ranks of the House factions they built a house for you and it slowly upgraded when you advanced levels eventually turning into a Manor.

 

When I look for house mods I look for a house that is as simple as the houses the NPCs have, but at the same time unique. I currently don't use any house mods because castles = sh i t, and the houses are improperly furnished. You can tell that the house was built by someone. People tend to build houses to what they think looks good to fit their needs usually. (In a general, if you're making a mod you want people to use; make it something simple but complex. [Open-Minded]) Why not construct one similar to the houses in the area it's going to be in, and have it furnished in a similar, but unique manner.

 

Basically, a house that has a really good atmosphere feeling to it. Something that can make you feel like you're in the game instead of playing a game.

[Oscar Sheila]

Great thanks for that guys, keep the ideas coming....

 

Mannequins...maybe thats a mod I havn't played with yet. What do you mean by that exactely?

[raph696]

what i want to see is something that not only looks good but is useful because i have the waterfront to store all my stuff to the point of near game crashing lag in all three containers. houses shouldnt be in city but should bring the player back to the spot because there is a novelty element or quest or feature or dungeon so that the house is a place the player can play in, things like inns andd shops are intresting or town and mines though the house should be somewhere where other houses arent and it would be good if it featured features like compatiblity with other mods like dragon stables (scripted for fast travel entries) and maybe a place to park the skyship

[Leemonski]

Great thanks for that guys, keep the ideas coming....

 

Mannequins...maybe thats a mod I havn't played with yet. What do you mean by that exactely?

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31218

 

Mannequins are the human figurines you see in clothes shops, dressed in clothes to show them off and set in a pose.

 

They are surprisingly good fun and addictive to get a mannequin decked out in every full set of armour in the game.

[slygothmog]

Dont ask me why, but i like flowers in a house, lots of them, this is something sadly lacking in most houses and i think they really help to make a place more homely, servants, just 1 or 2 maids, separate bedrooms for the player, companions and staff, and lots of carpets and tapastrys, a mixture of Shivering Isles and normal ( upperclass ) furniture, and if possible some indoor water features, lighting is also very important, i hate it if they are too bright inside, i much prefere candle light, the flickering light can make a place quite soothing, and storage, lots and lots of storage.

[David Brasher]

I am a party pooper. I am sick of house mods. I don't like house mods.

 

So my suggestion be that your mod include something with play-value. Hoarfrost Castle had some awesome quests and dungeons to beat to get the house. I suggest that you have something sinister in your house. Maybe a mystery to solve. Maybe your house could be attacked and you could defend it. Maybe thieves could break into your house and steal some of your stuff. Maybe you could have hidden passages and dungeons full of monsters in your house. Maybe you could have interesting NPCs in your house that are fun to talk to or that provide services.

 

You could take another approach and make your house a nice safe place with no secrets. But then you could put it in a bad neighborhood. You could have there be quests that radiate out away from your house like in the vanilla Oblivion main quest from Cloud Ruler Temple or Knights of the Nine from the Priory of the Nine. You could place new dungeons or locations near your house. You could add additional enemy spawn points near your house.

 

Things like this would make a house mod so that I would actually want to download it.

[Spl1nt3rC3ll]

This is my ideal house, along with Rosethorn Hall.

 

I like large, but not too large, houses. The rooms don't seem huge, sparse, or too small and cluttered. The general layout is nice, and it has a cozy feel. Lighting is very important, definitely not a dank, dark castle. I also like study/ display rooms. Not a room full of display cases, but a room with desks, shelves, tables, and one or two display cases. Not everything fits or looks nice in a display case. I also kind of dislike large dining tables with something like twelve chairs. They look grand and pleasing, but they also make me feel lonely. :sad: A medium sized four chair table is large enough.

 

An example of a Don't: the manor in Anvil.

It looks nice from outside, but it's cramped, dark, and has a terrible layout. I think Bethesda added the secret room to this house because it's the only thing that makes it interesting. You might as well live in this "manor" in it's destroyed state, otherwise you spend a ton of money for practically nothing.

 

That's my two cents.