Okay, so I've decided to put Dwellings higher up on my priority list.

Here are some of my thoughts:

Problems:
Dwellings in their S1 state don't really make sense for S2.
PvP options are no longer relevant.
Having Dwellings stick around after player expiration meant a lot of abandoned Dwellings.
Pages were too long in the residential areas, and there wasn't a good sense of it being a physical space (perhaps streets could be involved?)
Allowing to store Req between DK's was unbalancing.
Dwellings are not set up for Stamina system interaction.

Thoughts:
Dwellings are used for RP, and little else. As a gameplay element, they're underutilized.
Dwellings may tie into IItems somehow.

Ideas:
Dwellings on World Map spaces?
Portable Dwellings, such as tents? (take your tent with you, use the Cooking action with a buff to simulate setting up a campfire, then folks can come and chat)
Dwellings cost Donator Points?

What do you guys think we should do with Dwellings?

Dan, I would like anywhere I can chat. I love the idea of setting up a Bedouin campsite/ scout camp out in the desert/ mountains and having chums come by, and your idea of portable sw..dwelling works beautifully.

However, to your thoughts I shall add: Dwellings are also used to boost ego. I know I felt like a million dollar ($5) when I bought my first mansion. I would love another. I would love to be able to blow my DP/ Cigs/ Money to make it gorgeous, with other chat spaces (rooms), a kitchen (so I could improve my skills), a shed... Do you get where I'm going with this? A dwelling - much like a clan room - should allow you to improve your skills. With the new improved Island, and with more skills to improve, dwellings should tie into these.

I like the idea of dwellings on the map, be they temporary or permanent. In lieu of req and cigs, it could be possible to keep some items there. Just think, in the middle of the nowhere between Pleasantville and Kittania, a shack with three medkits in it - saved. (I am aware of the unbalancing properties this could have if clans decide to build chains of shacks between outposts - for example, PV and CC. Or the DK-impervious storage. Maybe racoons could fix this.)

On the travel screens, only the option [Search for hidden shacks] or something could be present, to avoid massive DB calls on the highly frequented paths.

Maybe if near river tiles, with scrap you could build a tiny hydroelectric power plant, with more scrap, a fridge to store meat in or other devices that can be powered with fancy electricity.

Another maybe: Make dwellings require attention, have things happening like a roofing tile breaking, things that have to be fixed in order to keep it inhabitable - they would just rot away otherwise (fixes also the problem with abundant numbers of abandoned dwellings.). Different materials: plastic foil, wood, stone&mortar, steel. Options to tear down a wall and expand, making the shack an annex to a bigger cottage. This could be made very very complex.

I'm a little partial to rooms - as Bernard proposes them, fine, but as mere RP rooms - it's rare enough that more than, say, three characters are in one. An idea would be, to be passed along with keys, some kind of communication device. I have the bad habit to wander out and do some jungle fights if nothing is happening for a while in any given chatspace - even more so since I'm able to buy my way off the Boat.

Okay, I am done with my mouthfull of ideas and thoughts that came oh-so-rapidly down my pharynx and wanted out.

Dan, I could live with any or all of your ideas. It would be nice if dwellings could be in outposts as well as on any other World Map space. I could have my town home, my mountain chalet, a country cottage and a beach shack. I could travel with a caravan or a tent and invite strangers to join me at my campfire. Yes!

I would like it if some type or types of dwelling would still have keys. That way the dwelling is a semi-private place to role-play with friends that are not in your clan. The keys would use up extra dps and/or req quite nicely, as well.

I'd enjoy an option to, well, leave the door to a mansion open. That way, at least the Main room could be entered by anybody for the time of a party/wedding, while other rooms still are locked (For example, Main room: open, winter garden: open, bedroom: locked, kitchen: locked.) but still be private [LOCK ALL] at all other times.

Another item on my wish list would be a 'clear dialog' command, so my meeting with my mistress on Wednesday would not show up when I host her wedding reception on Friday. At lease, it would only show up on purpose.

I agree with Bernard about liking the idea of the portable campsites and the fact that sometimes you just want a mansion because you've worked hard enough that you can afford one. Tying a way to level skills in a kitchen, etc. would also be great.

Here's my thought though, depending on the size of your dwelling (shack, cottage, mansion) you get more stam for resting in it each night. The more posh your surroundings, the more comfort it provides, resulting in a good night's sleep.

I'll also mention that I like the upgradable spaces and let's go with Sicpuess' idea of being able to determine which parts can be public in your mansion rooms. This would be pretty useful for exactly the examples that he cited.

Oh and please don't make basic dwellings cost DP - upgrades such as additional rooms, yes. But basic should be something you can just work on in the game - req and cigs.

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Islanding since 2009.

I'm seeing lots of good ideas here.. I like the idea of a tent as an iItem, Let's you set up a temp chat space anywhere on the world map, and gives a bonus 5% stam if you rest there over a newday.

more permanent dwellings can cost cigs and req, much like the old system with a similar over night bonus, say 5% for shack, 10% for Cottage, 15% for Mansion

it would be nice if you could improve them so they help build skill levels, too
add a kitchen, and get 500 cooking exp per night
add a private room and get a lockable chatspace
add a home theater and get free specials in that space

these improvements can cost req, cigs, dp, or all three as you feel appropriate.

one other note..., if you sleep in someone elses dwelling and they kick you out, you LOSE 5% stam for the following day..

This is exactly what I meant...but with numbers. Thanks, Tor.

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Islanding since 2009.

Since I already mentioned scrap earlier: Sure, you could buy building materials for 10k req from the Council. But of course, you could also tell your Scrapbots to acquire materials. (IE, a lock, 50 planks, nails)

You could also include a garage for shielding some bots from getting attacked. Heck, upgrade it with a weapons turrent or a Scrapbot gunner and it could make a little req for you while you sleep, protecting itself from [Improbable Event] Burglars or monsters that tear down a wall which you're going to have to rebuild, not to speak of the stamina loss for that night.

Tor - I see a little problem with the tents as IItems, being that they vanish over DKs. Since they're likely to be somewhat expensive, it'll be only possible to buy, set up and party in one in the higher levels. What if you DK whilst in a two-day party? Would it go away? If not, then that's bypassing the Items system because you could sell it back - and the thought of a tent as a one-shot item just doesn't seem right.

EXCEPT, of course, if tents are of the same questionable origin as the Magical Mystery Meat Mount, I could see them as - cheaper - one-shot items that are to be set up in a place, and rot away after three RL days or after you kick it over and bury it. It wouldn't be possible to disassemble it and store it away for later usage/selling after DKs, like one would expect from a normal tent.

re : tents as IItems, : good point Sic. I was thinking in terms of a one shot item.. having a 2 or three realday limit instead of a dk based one sounds like a good idea
Perhaps even with the option of using another tent to extend the duration.

@Sic:

Living Tents are an excellent idea. You could run into live ones and capture them as you roam around the map, and keep them in your Inventory for later. And they could shiver in ecstasy whenever they've got someone inside them.

It's so wrong, it's right.

Just so they don't get all wet inside over it.

I'd like to second the notions of additional lockable rooms, bonus stamina for sleeping in your dwelling, and tents.
Especially your perverted, shivering tents.

As far as a kitchen goes, how about just cheaper cooking costs while in the kitchen? Like, a -30% buff or something.

... I'm thinking of the records in how many people fit in a telephone booth right now. Modified to a How Many Mutants Fit In The Tent game, the mental image is frankly disturbing.

(And, it occured to me right now, there are items that stay over DKs. Remember the Museum Quest? eBoy would just have to refuse buying them, and game balances stay untouched.)

Okay, I'm tinkering with Tents on my local test server. Here are some comments from the file:

Roleplaying-wise, we can still do fortresses, amusement parks, et cetera - I'll put in some flavour text mentioning that since Tents are in fact Improbable creatures in their own rights, their insides are naturally larger than their outsides, and can contain whole separate dimensions. Like a Tardis, only, y'know, wonderfully fucked-up in a way that only Improbable Island can manage.

Perhaps later on we can add extra functionality to Tents, various features that will unlock with their age.

(I'm fond of the "anyone can feed a Tent" thing - means it doesn't get expensive for one player to upkeep, and the best Tents will stick around longest)

If the living tent is composed of something sort of comparable to intestines and has a soft vellum-y exterior, we are running dangerously close to having giant wriggling historical condom-tents on the map. Or massive lovely sausages for the Panthzers to mistake for a prepared meal in the case of a multi-mutant tent.

Can't say I disapprove.

I really like the idea of:

- additional rooms in a dwelling. Whether this is a kitchen to work on my cooking, a shed to work on my (eventual) soldering and whatnot, or buyable rooms for extra chatspaces.
- graded stamina boosts from nicer homes.
- a building that you have to MAINTAIN continuously.
- harvesting materials to make your place awesome. Huge dwellings will be harder to maintain, small dwellings would be easier.. but if you're building from non-durable materials, you're going to have to work even harder to keep up with it.
- making the 'Local Dwellings' feel more like a physical space. Can we jockey for real estate?
- co-op work -- if you're married to someone, you should be able to work with them on a dwelling. This makes the marriage bit more tangible and worth the 100k price tag.
- Living Tents.


I suggest tying Improbable Events into dwellings. Maybe an awesome tree that grows [some good thing] sprouts spontaneously in your garden; maybe you come home one day and all your shit has been ransacked and now you have a quest to go kill THIEVING MIDGET BANDITS; maybe people can eventually start businesses in the form of apartments or tenements or something..

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BARK BARK BARK.

Okay. More refinement. I'm just typing this as it comes to me, so forgive mistakes and so forth.

TENTS
As a Tent grows in maturity, its outward appearance does not change. Its interior, however, develops the capability to become larger along a theoretical N-axis (or should that be an I-Axis? ). The upshot of this in gameplay terms is that a Tent's insides can become larger while its outsides remain the same size. And, of course, its insides can become more Improbable. Naturally, larger/more Improbable tents will require more Tent Food (we need a better name - how about "Glop?").

Bear in mind that all numbers quoted are subject to balancing and tinkering when I say "Here's roughly how I see an admin screen working, from a tent-owner's perspective":

Current Tent Age: 51 Days
Current Population Support: 8 players
Current Glop requirements: 2 cans / day

Options:
Change Interior Description (+1 can of Glop / Day)
Increase Population Support (+2 Glop / Day = +5 Players)
Train Tent for Allowed Player / Clan list (+1 Glop)
Add Healer (+2 Glop) (LOCKED - need 100 days)
Add Training function (+2 Glop) (LOCKED - need 100 days)
Add Improbable Event support (+1 Glop) (LOCKED - need 100 days)
Add second Chat Area with Description (+2 Glop) (LOCKED - need 200 days)
Add third Chat Area with Description (+2 Glop) (LOCKED - need 400 days)

Auxiliary Chat Areas could fulfil the functions of Rooms or even Streets, given that the Tent owner can modify the description. We'll stick a module hook in there so we can add more functionality later on.

Thoughts?

Alright -- I really like the direction Tents are taking now; no complaints -- but, to clarify..

*strokes chin* These would totally take the place of a dwelling-dwelling? No more opportunity for people to build in Outposts anymore, no residential district?

Can we name our tents?

EDIT: Where does Glop come from, how do I get it, is it a Monster Drop, can I harvest it from the riverbanks outside of SquatHole.. etc.!

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BARK BARK BARK.