From the beginning of the concept, Dwellings have been designed to be both functional and expressive. Especially now that we have furniture, and as highlighted again by the recent change in default sleep spaces, Dwellings have served the purpose of housing contestants for increased stamina at new day. However, the more important aspect of Dwellings (at least in opinion) is that they allow a lasting creative construction, one that can be explored by anybody, at any time of day, whether the character is logged in or not and whether they are an active role-player or not. It becomes an edifice, in addition to fleeting RP sessions that build character but are easily forgotten and non-permanent.

I have some questions for all you Dwelling owners out there. I'll share my answers later:

1.1) Which aspect of Dwellings is more important to you personally? The functional aspects of the building, such as stamina and role-playing spaces, or the creative side of planning and decorating the dwelling itself?

1.2) How important is it to have balance between the two? Are you OK with having a purely functional building (like Soup and Pants, as I see the structure) or a purely artistic dwelling? (If you can't decide on an answer, just compare your masonry level to your decorating level and that might help you figure it out which you tend toward.)

2) For the functional builders: why do you prefer function over form? Are you interested in the benefits, inconfident in your writing abilities, just like building things... ?

3) For the artistic builders: do you see your Dwelling as a personal project or do you prefer to have help with the design and decoration decisions?

Also, if anyone has other questions to add to the list, go ahead and include them in your response... I had more to ask and then company arrived and now I have forgotten. Maybe you'll find them for me.

1.1 The planning. Definately. Since i usually forget i'm working on a building anyway

1.2 Artistic takes preference. I don't need to have ten thousand sleeping spaces in my house, and i wont be locking stuff to save myself a sleeping spot either. There's plenty of those, and if i miss out, well, its only a bit of stamina, i dont use the green bit on most days anyway.

2 n/a

3 at the moment, it's personal. But only untill the first person comes around and starts suggesting stuff, i daresay. I mean, come on, i live in the Dunbernarding, fer chrissakes.

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"Censure acquits the Raven, but pursues the Dove." "So, that means i'm -always- innocent, right?"

1.1) I would have to say a blend of the two, as having a place to RP in that I can tailor to my character's unique characteristics is what I like about the dwellings the most.

1.2) Balance is important. Not only is it a place where people gather, it is a representation of your character as well. (And my Masonry level is much lower than my Decorating level, but that's only because Lemm has been instrumental in the construction of the Sanctum)

2) As I prefer a balance of function and form, I believe this question doesn't apply.

3) So far, the decorating end of things has been a personal project. Getting it constructed, however, was the result of a group effort from many and varied contestants (all of whom I cannot remember, sadly. Stand and be recognized!)

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Judging by the chaos, I've been here already.

1.1) Form over function. Totally.
1.2) There's only so much functionality to have. Once you've got a room with a bed in it, you're away. Alright, maybe provide spaces for guests, but there's enough of those in the guesthouses, that each of the outposts (bar Squathole) have, and they're in the places where they're going to be useful. Let's face it. If Soup and Pants is full (and I've never seen that happen) and all of the other dwellings on that square are full, then there's the Bingo Hall one square north which can house a small country. What more do you need?
3) The mansions are shared with my (in game) wife. We decide everything between us, and it's a lot more fun that way. If someone else came up with suggestions, then I'd listen, think about them, and then we'd make our own decision.

I'd, ah, pretty much agree with the Hairy one here. I personally love the idea of building a house that's enjoyable to go through and read the descriptions...(Seriously...it's a sand castle named "Hendrix"...and the basement is full of weird stuff...) and meshes with Dave and Ari's personality (Like the kitchen...ever read the description in there?)

As far as function, though...you'll notice there's folding beds in the Guest House, couches in the Lounge, and one couch (Namely, Wallace, our pet couch) in the Courtyard. We like to think we give our guests a good place to kip off for a nap or something.

Also: I'm sure the Bingo Hall is almost large enough to be considered a small country by this point...

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Build a man a fire, he'll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

I personally find it a nice, symbiotic blend of form and function. The Warehouse, for example, one of my many properties, has a function (sleeping spaces for contestants!) and a form. Ebenezer and I have been writing in the warehouse since... October? It was a very real place to us; it exists in CC404. And when Onslaught started, we RPed that it was open to friends and defenders to sleep in, that the security bots were programmed to let people in (Yes, there are bots! You are being WATCHED.).

Other spaces are more for art, for prettiness. But they still work for me. I get my ciggies' worth!

I am going to ignore my own questions and just ramble:

Kash's dugout is purely form. It is hidden in an out-of-the-way jungle, disguised, and locked up. I've only told one person where it is, though I suppose with this information others could probably figure out where it is. (And if you know where it is, Akogi, please stop stealing my supplies? Thanks.) I have a bed there for those refreshing post-construction nights of sleep, but that is the only technical-functional addition I have made or plan to make for the foreseeable future, i.e. I do not intend to expand any rooms, even with the new zero-default for sleeping spaces. However, I am intending to do extensive decorating and redecorating to all of the rooms as I have time. I finished a room yesterday that will take 102 decorating actions to adequately describe... at my current level, about 400% stamina. Oh, and that room is going to be redecorated, after the initial form fulfills its intended role-playing purpose, and the new description will probably be even longer. I'm eight rooms into the plan and am at most halfway done with what I have determined I want already.

Granted, much of this is extremely more in character than out. I really wouldn't mind, as a player, having help building rooms and doing the dirty work of decorating... but Kash would never allow it and thus I keep the front door locked. On the other hand, Kash is building this hidden edifice as an expression of himself, and thus the room descriptions themselves are practically a part of his character, so I would probably never accept room description suggestions... unless Kash built the room specifically for other people to take over. Considering that he's building a sanctuary for himself (for the time being, at least) it is similarly unlikely that he would do that in the general case.

On another hand (Kash has three, currently), I am one of those artists who does all his work for himself and then if other people enjoy it, then awesome! So maybe I'm just an outlier.

Actually I don't know where it is so it's not me. And it'd probably be me if it was a large supply and you notice one of the building I routinely work on get bigger in a short period of time.

Or piling a large amount of other people's dwellings... though I haven't done that since Big Shug was around and he waging his "war" against GERM. I had it up to 90 stones and 50 logs and then someone took it all away.

I probably have a little more unique take on this subject, as the Bordello is meant to be a place of complete openness for everyone. As such, each room is constructed with the intent of providing a back drop and materials for a rich RPing experience for all involved.

There isn't a room that took less than 60 steps to decorate and most are over 120. In fact, decorating has become quite the fetish for Byte over the course of building and she'll help anyone that needs it.

I have enjoyed immensely the ability to both add too and create a fun area for people to relax and enjoy. And I often solicit help with ideas for new rooms, a whole new theme room wing being built now, down the seductive hallway, with many, many ideas now flowing in for new rooms there.

I only have three complaints, One, the amount of time to fix or change the main descriptions, once a new area is built. Two, the new rooms not having any sleeping areas. Almost every room has to have sleeping areas, as people often just fall asleep exhasted after a little, or lot, RPing in there. And three, not being able to connect rooms. For the Bordello, where we keep any room where explicit RPing can be done locked, this means MANY keys, instead of one allowing access to multiple areas, eventually.

But I must admit, I have enjoyed immensely moving about the island and seeing the different structures that have been built. I'll even comment in the ones I like the most.

At the moment, SPICE Tower (located at 17,10) attempts to blend form with function.

1)Key building tactics included:

a) Sleeping areas (large) within a click. The largest sleeping area is the Terraced Garden, which is the first room. Private Residences are no more than three clicks away. That allows those who are going to use the area for stam boosts to get what they need quickly and move on. That said, the dormitory is five clicks away, and probably should have been placed closer to the entrance. This may be fixed in future.

b) That said, the more functional the element, the closer it is to the entrance. Areas such as meeting rooms, ballrooms, dining halls and bars are closer. The more whimsical elements lie deeper in the structure, which currently boasts 8 floors at no less than 3 rooms per floor, and boasts 38 rooms in total, as we embark on our third expansion to achieve a desired 44+ rooms.

c) Clan input: Initially, there was the notion that we'd do one floor per race. This ended up getting left aside (although there are some traces of that initial skeleton visible). There was also the desire to be able to highlight some clan lore, and some past players who had made significant contributions. What did emerge from that were stock characters that we're planning on having be bi-located between Clan Halls proper (our bartender Proteus, for instance) and SPICE Tower.

d) Acknowledgment of neighbors. Rykar's Manor is nearby, as is Ashtu's and the Smoking Windmill -- future descriptions of views will enfold both SWEET Network clan structures, as well as those of friendly neighbors. Call it cross-promotion of dwellings, as happens in other buildings.

2) The Future

a) Secret Rooms as Actions: I'm very excited about the notion of using secret rooms to embed actions within the structure. Such as, for instance, we have an airship we're building. What if secret rooms could be used to navigate that airship -- apparently around the Island? So, for instance, say you're behind the wheel of the ship, and you all cap HEAD TO THE MOUNTAINS, that would lead you to a mini-adventure thread where you can go on an ice run to CC404 to bring back fresh ice for our Jungle Lounge.

Similarly, our Library hopes to use secret rooms to house data and other insights.

3) Issues and Ideas
a) MOTDs: I've gone on record elsewhere as wanting a MOTD style update feature that would be applicable to certain rooms where we elect to install it: IE, it might be a whiteboard in a meeting room; a party announcement in the ballroom; a clan message board in the commons; or new actions by characters in areas where we have NPCs (Jungle Lounge, Dept. of Horrible, Airship, The Fountain, etc.). So I won't belabor that.

b) 0-space rooms: I hate them. I feel gypped. At least on first expansion of 0-space room, give us two spaces. The current system for rooms is just...bait and switch.com. That really, really irritated me. I am remembering to breathe. Alternately, since I would prefer to use 0-space rooms as ACTIONS (You are in the pilot's seat: and you get a menu of choices) make those rooms v. cheap, then make it spendier if we want to sleep in them.

c) Secret Rooms: Can we create a cigarette pool to buy them vs. DPs? I only ask because I'm skint.

d) Crowd-sourcing key purchase: There is no way I can play enough to generate the cigs to buy keys for everyone that's going to need them. I'm too busy....building shit. If there were a cig pool for key purchase, that would be most helpful.

e) Outdoor furniture. I want some. I have a garden. I know it's coming.

f) Double beds: Some people want them. But they want to do horrible things to one another, and I don't want to see them have to scooch a pair of couches together before they cover one another in horrible erotic text. It's...so high school.

g) Exterior descriptions of dwellings: I want bold tags and new lines. I have...things I want to do with Titans. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Okay: That's my daily core-dump.
Comment or flame; agree or demur as you see fit.

Love,

~CTP

yes! Yes! YES! Oh PLEASE implement something like this...

Interesting post from Crash Test there. I was particularly impressed with the 'Useful rooms easy (few clicks) to get to' idea. Good forethinking there.

I'd also like to second both 3c and 3d. Secret rooms are very nice, but a bit pricey at $5 a pop. There's lots of interesting and imaginative ways that they could be used. CTP gave a few good ideas, but they only scratch the surface. There are a few dwellings out there, where people are trying to build puzzles into them. Secret rooms are an invaluble tool for them. There's a post somewhere in the forums (can't find it now) where someone wanted to have a series of rooms with successively harder riddles in them. Secret rooms are ideal for that, with the password to the next room being the answer to the riddle. There's many other things that you can do with them. They're not all "Speak friend and enter"

3d. Sharing the cig cost of new rooms around, very helpful, especially in group dwellings, like the clan ones that are going on. You can sort of get round it by giving people master keys, but that's far from perfect. It means that you share the cost partially between the people with the master keys. Dwellings are, apart from anything else, very good at bringing people together working as a team. The key aspect is a bit of a blockage to that.

Hey Mary, thanks for the shout-out.

The useful/near thing is just a holdover from usability design. When you think about Web navigation in terms of clicks, transforming that into the gaming zone isn't too much of a cognitive leap. But thanks for the kind words.

Re: Secret Rooms: Agreed, my notions barely scratched the surface. I love the ideas of riddle-rooms, secret doors, and key phrases unlocking areas of wonder.

But what struck me, and made me fixate on the notion of secret rooms as actions are some early experiences I had in the MUDding universes where rooms were objects, and one could attach actions to objects. Using secret rooms as actions is a bit of a hack, but at this point, it's the only thing in the codebase at present that offers some similar functionality.

The idea that you can enter a phrase like "Get Lamp," and have the room description change (actually you're in another room, but so what) gives the ability to create something that looks like an object action.

What I would prefer would be objects in rooms that have actions associated with them. But until then, the hack is too tempting to not play around with.

My two cents, anyway,

~CTP
(the other racer's edge)

I think I'd like to suggest, instead of a cig pool, an owner of a structure can designate who is allowed to have keys to their home. Then, if they need to save their cigs for something else, are newer and getting cigs is a slower, more arduous task for the, or if they just earn cigs slowly, a designated person can spend their own cigs to buy the keys.

While it might not be practical for ordinary dwellings, for such things as clan buildings, I can see that being very useful. It takes an individual less time, on average, to earn fifty cigs than it does for them to earn n*50 cigs.

I love the idea of ciggy pools. I'd add the following features for clans:

1) donate ciggies for keys. Creates a pool of cigarettes that can be accessed directly from "clan designated dwellings" - only the Clan leader can so designate a dwelling, but once the dwelling has been marked the owner of the dwelling can draw from the pool to make keys; and

2) donate ciggies for furniture. The clan leader can set up an account at Cadafel's for specified members of the clan, who can then make purchases of furniture via Improbable Interac (tm).

I also think that at $5 a pop, secret rooms will see little or no use. I have locked back rooms in a lot of my dwellings for personal sleeping space (that way I never have to kick anyone out if I need a lie-down), but I'd much rather have hidden rooms. There are a lot of other interesting ways in which secret rooms could be used, but right now they're just way too pricey.

Finally, I too am still pissed off about the disappearance of sleeping spot. I've yet to see any kind of valid in-game or OOC justification for why rooms don't have floor space available to start. At the very least, building that first expansion should yield 3 floor spaces instead of just 1 (allowing people who don't want floor space to avoid it and those who do want it to obtain the same number as before the ninja-bait-and-switch for 90 wood and 25 stone).

To add my OPINION here:
I agree with Zamboni completely.

I would also add that (since for some reason there's an extra 150 cigs in a certain clan's bank after they went infinite) that the cig overage be thrown into a clan purchase pool for keys and such.

All opinions. Not demanding a bloody thing. For the record.

~CTP

Come to think of it, I've NEVER demanded anything from anyone re: this game.
I have resolutely only tried to add to the overall conversation re: design/featureset/use-cases that I experienced or thought of in the game.
And even on the few occasions I've drunk-posted, I have not been demanding there either.
Nor have I insulted anyone, called anyone out on anything, criticized in-game/out-of-game conduct, conducted ad hominem attacks, insinuated that anyone was guilty of a felony or misdemeanor, or urinated off the side of the Failboat.
I also make sure I only whisper when I find myself in a library.
I have always tried to add more to the game than I took away from it, and I shower regularly, shave impeccably, clean up well on formal occasions, and applied lip balm in dry conditions.
When I chew gum, I make sure I bring enough for everyone, and I've donated my last cig to group causes before upgrading my bandoleer.
In short, I think I've been a solid citizen.
So stop looking at me like that, will you?
What? Is there...oh...hmm.
(wipes nose).
Did I get it?
Thanks.

~CTP

Agreed on the floor spaces. Doesn't seem fair for people making dwellings now to have to spend much more stamina making them livable than people building when dwellings came out.

Well to be honest, I see it the other way round. It doesn't seem fair that you guys have the big advantage of being able to choose whether or not to have sleeping spaces when poor old me is lumbered with them in all the rooms that I'd alreay built. Well that's perhaps my fault, I should have hung back when dwellings first came out instead of leaping straight in. Anyway, it's something that I'm going to have to live with.

Seriously, is there any real argument at all for starting off with sleeping spaces? I haven't seen one yet. Only the rather flimsy argument that in RL sleeping out in the wild gives you less of a nights sleep than in some of the other places that rooms have been made into, sleeping out in the wild for example, or in a chocomilk lake, or having a drink, or wearing a pair of ridiculously high purple stilettos.

Oh, and the argument that two people can build a room in a (game) day and a half, but it takes an extra quarter day to build a sleeping space in it.

Come on. You can all sit around laughing at me, you've got the big advantage, and you're still not happy. You'd be whinging if it rained money on your head you guys would. If you're really determined to whinge then at least come up with some sort of justification for it.

Well, if I whin(g)e -- damn that's a funny spelling -- it's because:
a) I made plans.
b) Didn't read the Enquirer as RELIGIOUSLY as I'm reading it these days.
c) Was surprised.
d) Because my precious, precious planz had to change suddenly.
e) Which I hate, being a planner.

So, there's my justification. Seriously, in America, you don't need a reason to whine. Just look at the Republican party.
They now oppose many things they used to support, just because Dems are showing up for similar legislation.

It's our right, and why we threw off the British yoke.
And waited until you guys needed Lend Lease, so we could snap up all that random shit you guys had in the Atlantic.

Seriously, I know it's the flimsiest of pretexts. I was just surprised, and think it could have been done better.
But hey, I'm dealing.
It's what we do, here on the Island.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll have to update my blueprints.

The above post is mostly tongue in cheek.

Namaste,

~CTP