Custom Housing Design Tool FAQ
If you have not taken the time to view the FAQ on the Custom Housing Design Tool at the Age of Shadows Mini Site, I suggest you take a few moments and read it through. It provides alot of useful information about the new tool, as well as, some pictures of the tool itself, and an explanation on how to use it.
Age of Shadows Mini Site
For those who have taken the time to read the FAQ at the AOS mini site, I have provided extra information that has been posted on the UO.com discussion forums in answer to many questions we are asking.
Q: Can I edit just one tile of my pre-exhisting home?
A: It hasn't been completely decided as to whether or not there will be a small fee for the act of upgrading (in addition to the cost of whatever you add to thehouse), but I do know that we will not be charging players for the entire house each time they want to make a change. (see the end of the next answer for the cost)
You can not edit a small part of a pre-made house, but you can edit a small part of a customizable house.
Confused? Heh... let me clear that up. Essentially, when you take a pre-made house (any house type you can place currently) and change it to a dirt lot, what you're doing is switching out your pre-made house with a customizable one. So in order to customize your pre-made house, you'll basically have to level it and start from scratch. But... once you have built a customizable house, you can do as many edits as you like, and you don't have to start from scratch. So if you have a customized house, and you want to add another floor, or change only one tile, you can just go into Edit Mode, change that tile, and re-commit your house. UPDATE! this will incure a 10% fee of your total house cost as well as the cost of the extra tiles you add or fix!
Q: Will we be able to customize and turn our improperly placed houses into plots when AoS comes out?
A: Current thinking is that yes, you will be able to turn your improperly placed house into a dirt plot and customize it.
Q: What will happen to my vendors in my house if I decided to upgarde/customize my home?
A: Vendors will be stored in the "moving crate" we mentioned in the FAQ, and they'll keep their inventory as well - so you won't need to worry about removing, emptying, or storing
Q: How will i get from one floor to another? will there be ladders? stairs? teleporters?
A:There's two methods for traversing between floors: staircases and teleporters. The ladder images aren't part of the house design tool, so please keep that in mind as you begin sketching out your future houses.
Q: will railings be included?
A: Not yet, However, we do have some half-walls and
half-doors that will be available in the tool, although I guess none
of our custom house screenshots show this yet. Perhaps in a
future update we'll be able to put in some of those sorts of
pieces (although I'm not sure when we might do that just right now.) just remember them while you redesign a house. UPDATE!! railings as well as two types of wooden fencing and iron fencing have been included with the tool!
Q: Will we be able to have different colored walls, floors? neon for example?
A: all tiles/house customization pieces will remain of a
natural color, and you won't be able to give them special colors.
However, there's a wide variety of variations to choose from, so
almost all your housing needs will be covered.
Q: What other types of floor/roof tiles will be available? dirt? grass? stone? water?
A: There's a variety of "floor"graphics, including dirt (the default), grass, sand, wood,stone, and a number of fancier "designer floors" (you've already seen these in some ofyour fancier NPC houses). There won't be any ground that provides resources, like water or furrowed soil, so if you're looking to create waterfalls, for example, you'll have to continue using the "player method" of creating those. UPDATED! water, lava, swamp tiles, dirt, grass, and also water falls, have been added to the tool. Just remember if you can not walk on them normally you will not be able to walk on them when placed in your home.
Q: will the tool provide us with "extras" like tombstones, spider webs, trees, as shown in one of the designs?
A: We decided that it would be best for the house customization tool to focus on essentially walls and floors, so there won't be special decorations like the tombstones and spiderwebs included with the house decoration elements.
The house design tool focuses on the foundation, "floors" (including grass, stone tiles, cobblestones, teleporters, etc.), and "walls" (including arches, rubble, short walls, doors, etc.). I've mentioned there won't be any resource-providing tiles (water, furrowedground) or specialty tiles (like lava), but I should also specifically mention that although there was a tree in the very early test that the screenshot shows, they aren't available in the final version. That doesn't mean you won't be able to place any flora, for you'll still be able to decorate with player-created plants and gardens.
Q: a 2 story Villa, can I make 3 floors and still have a roof? and a tower will allow me to have 4 floors?
A: It's certainly possible to build 3 floors of a house and not have a roof. If you end up with a foundation that is based on 3 floors+roof, you're fine--you obviously just didn't build a roof. If you end up with a foundation that's based on 2 floors+roof, you're still fine--your top floor is simply built like an extra room and not a traditional roof. Without a roof you'll have a beautiful view of the stars...although I wouldn't recommend such a room-without-roof design for those cold snowy nights on Ice Island. ;}
keep in mind there's no angled roofs with the tool--all roofs are flat or non-existant.
Let's say you just placed a 3-floors-plus-roof foundation. You could then build the three enclosed floors and an open, flat, walkable roof. Or, you could instead build threeenclosed floors and a fourth floor on top that had no roof.
Q: Will i be able to build a dome for instance if I were creating a lighthouse?
A: There are some archways and angled "corner edging" pieces (like some of the "angled walls" we've seen in Trinsic, for instance) that may help you fake a kind of peak for a lighthouse roof effect. And if you lockdown a lantern in the center, you're all set! ;D
Q: Also would the area under the wing be counted in the dirt plot? If it isn't and theres no houses in that general area, then when we choose to make a dirt plot can we extend the land to include that area?
A: You can only build up from a dirt plot, not out from it--nothing will be able to hang off the
edge of the dirt plot. If you're looking to gain some extra tiles you'll need to consider
grabbing a larger customizable foundation.
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