Homes

This article is about the player-owned home system. For the command, see HOME command.

One of the biggest benefits to being an estate holder is the ability to own a private home for your characters.

Acquiring a Home

You must have credited Premium status for a minimum of 90 days. Platinum subscribers also have access to owning a home.

Non-premium account holders can pick up a 30 day home deed in the Crossing Estate Holder Headquarters. They are on a table in the room [Estate Holders' Headquarters, Foyer] and cost SimuCoins, a real life currency, to purchase. These deeds can be renewed to continuously keep a home on a non-premium account. The Premium and SimuCoin systems are completely incompatable, and one cannot be used to extend the ownership of the other.

By Claim

The most basic way to obtain a home is by deed. In order to claim a home, you must go to a Housing Clerk and ASK CLERK ABOUT HOMES for pricing information. You must then GIVE CLERK <AMOUNT>. Now locate a vacant home plot within an appropriate housing area, and enter HOME CLAIM to move in.

Housing Clerk locations:

• Crossing - Estate Holders' Headquarters, Housing Permit Office (west of Raven's Court), go house door
• Aesry Surlaenis'a - Home Permits Office
• Theren - Ibec Hall, Homes Licensing Office. Price here is 3 platinum Lirums.
• Mer'Kresh - Housing Arcade, New Homes Office
• Inner Hibs - Hibarnhvidar, Office of Housing

By Deed

Homes may also be acquired by purchasing a deed from another player. Much of the above process still applies, however instead of claiming a home through HOME CLAIM you use the deed to gain ownership.

If you are purchasing a home by deed, or wish to convert your home to a deed for sale, make sure to follow the procedure shown in game by typing HOME HELP 12. Once a home is converted into a deed, if it is not redeemed at a clerk within 12 hours, the deed will be worthless.

Typing HOME and HOME HELP in game will provide the full syntax and more information.

To avoid problems with the home, make sure that when you claim a home you actually go inside it. If you do not, the home will still show as being abandoned and possibly could affect your ability to customize.

Note: SimuCoin home owners CANNOT acquire a home via this kind of deed. The Premium and SimuCoin systems are completely incompatable, and one cannot be used to extend the ownership of the other.

Moving

The process for moving from one home to another is described in-game using HOME HELP 3. The following synopsis of these steps will move all of your belongings out of your old home (making it available for others to claim) and into a new home (that has not been claimed). The old home is not abandoned until you use HOME CLAIM.

1. Go to the Home Exchange Office (use HOME CLERKS for a listing)
2. ASK CLERK ABOUT HOMES to find out the current moving fee
3. GIVE CLERK {AMOUNT} (in coppers)
4. Go to a room with an available home.
5. Use HOME CLAIM to claim your new home and your belongings will automatically be moved in

Housing Exchange Clerk locations:

• Crossing - Estate Holders' Headquarters, Housing Exchange Office (west of Raven's Court), go exchange door

Housing Areas and Home Types

Homes are generally segregated within discrete areas of Elanthia created especially for residential use. There are many home sites available throughout all five provinces. On the Ranik Maps, housing areas are indicated by a square colored in with pale blue ().

Homes are divided into several basic categories:

• Urban or Rural
• Lower, Middle or Upper Class
• Freestanding Structure or Door
• Race or Class restrictions (select homes only)

To determine whether a home area is restricted by class or race, enter HOME LOOK.

The category a home belongs to is indicated by the description of its exterior:

• Lower Rural: bothy, hut, hutch, lean-to, shed, shelter, shack, or door.
• Middle Rural: cabin, cottage, dwelling, home, house or door.
• Upper Rural: cabin, chateau, domicile, lodge, retreat, villa or door.
• Lower Urban: house, hovel, hut, shed, shanty or door.
• Middle Urban: abode, cottage, dwelling, home, house or door.
• Upper Urban: domicile, hall, home, house, manor, residence or door.

A home's price is not affected by its category. The type of home determines what the outside of that home may look like. In order to change the exterior you must do so at a home shop appropriate to your home's type. Note that if you move your home to a different location, everything inside it will move with you but the exterior will remain behind.

Exterior Housing Shops:

Type	Freestanding	Door	Knoll	Ondjai
Urban Upper	Elite Architecture A Flawless Facade	Grand Entrance	-	Building Supplies for the Honorable Ondjai
Urban Middle	City Statements	City Statements, Doors of Distinction	-	-
Urban Lower	Exterior Motives	Thrifty Doors	-	-
Rural Upper	Estate Home Exteriors	Estate Entrances	Fillop's Finest Knolls	-
Rural Middle	Dove's Delightful Dwellings Marscern's Cottages	Dove's Doors	Fillop's Knollshop
Rural Lower	Hayseed and Hatchet Sheds and Shacks	Hayseed and Hatchet, Door Stack	-	-

Occasionally, special homes become available by auction or raffle, or as a prize for an in-game event. In the past these have included treehouses and houseboats.

Access to the Home

Each premium account may now have one home for every character on that account.

Entry and Exit

To enter a home, you must first UNLOCK <HOME> to unlock the door. No key is required. Then OPEN <HOME>, and GO <HOME> to enter. For <HOME> use the one-word type-name for your home, e.g. HOUSE, COTTAGE, SHACK, DOOR, HOME etc. If more than one such home type is present in the area, you might have to use an ordinal modifier e.g. UNLOCK SECOND HOUSE. It is a quirk of the game engine that each time the game is reset after a crash or other system shutdown, the listing order of homes in an area is reversed. This means that sometimes you might have to use the ordinal modifier and other times you won't.

Entering and exiting a home breaks groups, so everyone who wishes to enter must do so on their own. Once inside, LOCK DOOR then CLOSE DOOR to prevent others from coming in. GO DOOR to exit, and CLOSE and LOCK <HOME> after leaving. Your home will close and lock itself after a few minutes if you forget to do so yourself.

When the door is open you may PEER through it to observe the area outside. If you have a window, you may peer through that as well. CLOSE WINDOW to prevent people outside from peering into your home. OPEN WINDOW if you have nothing to hide.

In order to reduce load on the game servers, the home system was coded so that the rooms are only actually running in the game engine when the home is opened. When vacant, the homes are removed from the game and packed away as data in a save state (see HOME SAVE below). Opening and closing a home too frequently within a short period of time will incur a long roundtime so that this process does not itself overly tax the server.

Guests

When the door is open, anyone may enter. Other characters are forbidden from entering a home when it is locked. You may, however, grant special guest privileges to one other character by typing HOME GUEST <PLAYER>. This allows your designated guest to unlock and enter your home on their own. Your friend must be with you when you name them as your official guest. To remove these privileges enter HOME GUEST CLEAR.

If a visitor becomes unruly, you can kick them out by typing SHOW <PLAYER> TO DOOR. The first time will give a warning. The second time will remove the player from your home and prevent them from returning for a few hours.

Furnishings and Home Environment

There are many ways to customize the appearance of your home and the objects within it. HOME CHANGE can be used to rearrange the appearance of your furnishings. When you get everything just the way you like it, typing HOME SAVE will store the various appearance and environmental settings so they will remain that way for the next time you visit.

Starting

• sturdy oak table
• dusty oak floor
• tasseled cotton rug
• rough-hewn oak wall

Attached to wall:

Estate Holder plaque

• simple stick cot
• small firepit
• door

Furniture

Furniture and other home furnishings are available in shops across Elanthia, and fit into the following categories:

• Miscellaneous item [2 slots available] (table, couch, or bed)
• Chairs (single or set of several matching)
• Floors
  • Rugs, Carpets, & Floormats
• Fireplace
• General storage item (chest, cabinet, closet, trunk, wardrobe, or woodbin)
• Armor Stand (standard ones holds three pieces of armor)
• Weapon Rack (standard ones will hold two weapons)
• Window
• Door
• Wall
• Pet
• Exterior decorative items

A house will only allow one piece of each type, with the exception being the two miscellaneous items which are interchangable. Items are replaced by purchasing a different one of the same type. Once placed in the home, furniture can be rearranged to suit your tastes through the HOME command.

They can be turned into a furniture voucher via the HOME REMOVE command.

Storage Within the Home

An additional benefit to home ownership is that you can safely store a small number of items inside. Each storage slot may only be filled with items that are completely empty. Labels make things count as having something inside it, so items with attached labels may not be stored within a home. An item with a price tag on it will count as two items also.

Standard Capacity:

• Tables can hold two items.
• Beds, sofas, couches, or loveseats hold two items on top, and one underneath.

(if you HOME SWAP the table/bed slots then the item holding slots are also changed.)

• Walls may be hung with one appropriate item such as a mirror, plaque, or painting. (You can actually put any item on the wall, but it might look silly!)
• Storage trunks or closets generally allow four items within, and one placed on top. Woodbins will only hold combustible wood items for the fireplace such as logs.
• Armor stands hold three pieces of armor.
• Weapon racks will store two weapons.

Not that special furniture may store more items than the basic ones.

Only the principal homeowner (or another character on the account) & the designated Guest can place or remove items as described here. Visitors cannot remove or add items within a home. Be advised however that anything left on the floor of a home is considered fair game for the janitor.

It is important not to modify items while they are being stored on/in/etc furniture. Modifying being something such as repairing an item, picking a box, charging cambrinth or using runestones. Doing so will cause problems with the home and will require GameMaster assistance to restore functionality.

• Special note about the janitor in homes: The housing mechanic is different than janitor mechanics, in that anything left in a house is deleted as soon as the house is closed/left (unloads). So if you have something on the ground and the game crashes, it really is, actually, gone forever (deleted).

Pets

Pets are available at pet stores, some of which have rotating stock or only appear during festivals or similar events.

Once you have purchased a pet, it is delivered to your house. Pets give random messaging specific to the animal unless you POKE them, which causes them to fall asleep until poked again. They are also interactive and respond to such verbs as RUB, HUG, KISS, SCRATCH, SNUGGLE and others.

Older pets may or may not allow your assigned house guest to interact with them. Newer pets generally treat your guest as they treat you and some pets (many from HE fest) will also allow limited interactions with any visitor to the home as well as interesting, not quite as friendly ones with your guest.

A pet's gender can be changed once by TAPping it. There is a timer on changing your pets gender, and not all pets can have their gender changed.

Exterior Decoration

Each type of home will only accept certain types of exterior decoration, usually listed at the shop. The types are knoll, tree, door, and freestanding.

You can add items to the home by PUTting it on the home.

To remove the exterior decoration, REMOVE <home noun>, such as REMOVE CABIN.

This will leave you with a parchment scroll, which you can add to a home the same way you do any exterior decoration. No need to go to the housing office!

Appearance

There are other ways to control the appearance when you LOOK inside your home. Certain standard home elements such as the door or rug may be TAPped to toggle concealing or revealing them.

Scents

You can add a scent message to the LOOK of your home, but it won't be detectable by SMELL or SNIFF. Typing HOME SCENT when inside your home will give all the options available, of which there are many. You can choose from dozens of different aromas, and set the intensity as well.

home scent

Usage:
HOME SCENT CHANGE CLASS <CLASSNAME>
HOME SCENT CHANGE SCENT <SCENT#>
HOME SCENT CHANGE STRENGTH <#>
HOME SCENT LIST <CLASSNAME>

Valid Class Names:
Floral
Forest
Spices
Foods
Miscellaneous
Profession
Animal
Unpleasant

Scent Numbers are 1-99, Strengths 1-10
To change your scent, change the class first.

Dancing

Dancing within a home may be turned on or off via TAP FLOOR.

See Dance floors for options.

Neighborhoods

See Category:Housing.

Related Forum Posts

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Additional Information

• Housing Shops - Furnishings and decor for your home
• HOME command - HOME CATALOG will help find furniture
• Unsigned deed: Means of gaining a home for non-Premium accounts.