This page will be the repository for all the little ideas and brainstorms that don't fit anywhere else for now. Some may eventually get moved to better locations, while others will be rejected and deleted from this page.
Player Housing
Alot of thought has been given to where players will live. I have given alot of thought to the Ultima Online housing system, and I reject it. The idea that a player will be "homeless" until they become rich is utterly ridiculous. The side effect of "housing polution" is not the greatest by-product, either. My recomendadtion will be to have an apartment house system that will work as follows:
Players will have the option to rent from a variety of apartment styles and sized. The larger and more luxurious an apartment, the more expensive it will be. Players will "pay rent" by the real month via use of ATMs. Players that are one week late with rent payment will find a note stuck to their door. At two weeks, a "collection team" will be sent out. At three weeks, the player will be evicted, only being able to take what he/she can carry, and losing all else.
Unlike UO, where houses are added as players buy them, apartment buildings will be pre-existing. Buildings will be easy to maintain, since they will not actually contain the apartment. What will happen is that players will step into the building that their apartment is supposed to be housed in, walk across the lobby to the transport elevator, which will act like a teleportation device that will take them directly to their room. The room will be a completely different part of the world map, and will be player-specific, much like the UO bank box, with furniture. When the player steps into the "elevator", the server will then download the position and type of each item in the room, and tell the client which room-type to use. To the player, it will appear that s/he stepped into an elevator, used their room key in the console, and after a short wait (to allow the server to download all info to the client), the player will step out of the elevator directly into their room. This will also allow players to bring friends "home" with them.
Players will find apartments to rent by going to a building that is in a convenient location for them. Once inside the elevator, they will find a button labeled "Manager" that will take them to the rental office. There they can make arangements with an NPC as to the rent and apartment type. Note: luxury apartments should not be made available in buildings that are located inside slums. It may make an interesting twist to have some apartment managers "prejudiced" against some races, charging them more, or even refusing to do buisness at all. ATMs should be provided in the lobby of all apartment buildings for the sole purpose of paying rent.
I feel this system will solve much of the housing problems other MMORPGs are seeing, because it will, theoretically, allow one appartment building to house the entire player base. I wouldn't recommend this. The revolving door that would stand up to this kind of traffic has yet to be invented. Instead, apartment buildings will be part of the landscape, so there should be no shortage of buildings for the player base to choose from.
Advertising
The game may be able to generate revenue using real advertisements on virtual billboards, and virtual televisions. It may even be possible to charge higher rates in high-traffic areas. It must be looked into durring coding to see if there is a way to keep track of traffic density, to provide advertisers with an estimate of how much their billboard is seen. May be a good idea to have a cache folder in which to save ads in on the client side, to limit bandwidth. Since I plan on having models use a skin-on-the-fly routine to allow for different clothing, it may be possible to use this method will billboards, also. Billboards, posterboards, and television advertisements will also add a sense of realism to the realm. It is recommended that billboards in population-dense areas be made capable of short animation sequences. File size limits will have to be established.