What Makes a House a Home?

This is not going to be my most coherent or well-thought out post, so please bear with me.

I was reading Ravious’ latest entry on Kill Ten Rats about Player Housing, and there’s a big part of me that agrees with him, in the sense that I hope the multitude of MMOs that come after Everquest 2 or WoW have player housing as something important, rather than as something tacked on or ignored completely.

I imagine that in the deep vastness of space, where Jedis and troopers roam and fight to keep the peace, there are still emotions that run through them. The longing for belonging, of having something tangible that they can fight for and strive for.

People, regardless of whether they are online or off, want to feel like they have something worth living for, and I think that where one lives is ultimately a reflection of that feeling that says, “Hey, I’m here, I’m alive, and my existence is tangible and means something to other people.”

Player housing allows people to make a house (or spaceship or city block) a home. Or to put it in less cliche terms, allows individuals to reinforce that feeling of meaningfulness in their action.

When one fights in these massive online battles, he fights not simply for honor or for glory, but also to protect something, and that something is, in one way or another, tied into the self. If you have a place to call home in a game, then the home that one builds acts as a reflection of one’s self as well.

Anyway, I’m pretty much rambling now. I just wanted to talk about that briefly because Ravious’ post really got to me as someone who always wants to find a place he can feel comfortable in.

Above, you’ll find a picture of Deyotol Tummins, who owns a three-room home in South Qeynos. He doesn’t own the largest house, but he made that house his own, and I’m happy and proud to have been allowed into it to take pictures of his home, which he decorated with stuff he’d picked up from his journeys on Norrath.

The Living Room

The Garden

The Mini-Lounge

The Bedroom

The Party Room!