TriadCity Message of the Day
2004-01-18

We're very happy to announce that Character Houses are now available for purchase.

A Character House is a private property owned by an individual character. Unlike most other locations in the City, its rooms allow permanent storage of your property. That is, items which you leave there will still be available after server reboots.

Unlike Inns, however, which do something similar, your ownership of your house is permanent. No rent to pay once you've purchased it. And, you can add any character you like to an access control list, allowing that character to open the door. Thus you can share one house among all your characters, or your friends, or anyone else you like.

Additionally, Character Houses are among the key mechanisms through which the personality and distinctiveness of each character is communicated to the rest of the player community. Where someone lives, and how they customize that space, will grow up to be core components of TC role-play.

Properties are available for purchase through the Real Estate listings of TriadCity's newspaper, The Adventurer. Everything for sale is automatically listed there. If you're logged-in and have characters who can afford the selling price, a "Buy Me" link will appear. Click there and you'll be able to choose which of your characters with fat bank accounts will purchase that property.

Everything listed for sale is automatically opened for inspection. Anyone can open the door of any listed property. Feel free to explore as listings appear.

Once you buy something, you can use the new 'ACL' command to manage a private access control list. Only characters you add to your list will be allowed to open the door. You can remove them at any time. Only the owner of a property is able to use the ACL command for that property.

Every Room inside a Character House will save your items for you between server boots. You don't have to put things in the closets. Neatness is an individual prerogative.

Ownership is just the first step. A series of iterative enhancements will enrich the property-owning experience over time. We think these will add some interesting flavors to our game play. Here's a partial list:

Ownership is just the first step. A series of iterative enhancements will enrich the property-owning experience over time. We think these will add some interesting flavors to our game play. Here's a partial list:

• A "remodel" command will allow the owner of a property to change its various descriptions. Owners can redecorate at any time.
• Owners will be able to sell their property via the same Classified Ads Real Estate page. This makes it potentially possible for characters with large bank accounts to go into business buying properties, remodelling them, and selling them off again for a profit. (It also makes it possible for really rich characters, or consortia like the Mob, to buy up all the real estate, selling it at inflated prices. If there are buyers.)
• It'll be possible to buy furniture for delivery, so that owners can choose their own tables, beds, and etc. Right now the properties are basically empty.

Even in advance of these enhancements, please do feel free to use these spaces as you like. You're welcome to lease them to other characters, for instance. Or do anything else with them which strikes your fancy.

Please note that at some point in the future, Character Houses will become subject to taxation by the appropriate Third. Dunno when or how much, but, it's inevitable. Just FYI.

This has been a long-anticipated enhancement. We see it as a milestone toward end of the "beta" phase, toward real release. As always, let us know what you think!

Back to the current MOTD index.
Not yet a member? Get started today!