A tip from another player encouraged me to enter the Taborea Living contest in order to receive a free house upgrade. The upgrade gave participants a much larger house with two-stories. I’ve been decorating my house ever since. My goal was to have a fully functional crafting workshop. This is beneficial because up to a certain level, you can craft in all professions. Here's a small photo album of my progress.
I absolutely adored crafting and player housing in Everquest II (EQ2). The fact that you could conduct commerce out of your house was wonderful RP fun. Using display cases, you could allow players to come into your house to purchase items which saved them the transaction fees charged on the Auction House. The only thing missing from my setup in EQ2 was the ability to craft in my house. Crafting stations were available in EQ2 but there was no way I’d ever earn the status needed to purchase them. Since I last played EQ2, they release Guild Halls, which has elevated player housing to creating mini player cities.
Along comes Runes of Magic (ROM) with similar crafting, housing and the ability to craft in your house. Biggest difference is that the stations are purchasable via micro transactions which means you can have them day-one. Another difference which I hope is changed is that your auctions are all timed like World of Warcraft. Timed-sales make it harder to return a profit on small margin items. If they don’t sell the first time, you’ve lost your small margin by re-listing or vendoring. I’ve always felt that EQ2's Auction House and selling mechanics were superior to any other game I've played. Everyone else please mimic those and move on. *Smile*
Regardless of that one downside which is common in other MMOs, the micro transactions were going to allow me to realize a long standing desire to have a crafting workshop in my character’s house. The stations range from 70 to 80 diamonds each. Purchasing diamonds in the smallest block available puts the stations at $2.8 to $3.2 USD each. The per station cost would be cheaper buying diamonds in larger chunks but I'm uncomfortable with making a larger purchase for RMT. I purchased one of each station, five in total. By crafting in my house, which equates to spending time in my house, I also receive the benefit of boosted XP and Training Point gain from my other furniture selections.
Like EQ2, you can allow other players to visit your home. They can use your stations but can’t access any storage items. Don’t bother wasting the House Energy points to change your house’s name. Unless the RP-value of having a cool name show up when people enter your house is worth the 700 energy points to you. I wasted the 700 energy not realizing that the first time. Players have to provide the house number, not the name, to enter your home. The house number is located on the house features dialog box that displays when you enter your home.
If you’re playing or just trying out ROM feel free to drop by Surian’s Workshop. Stoke up the fireplaces (dbl-click) and take a load off or get some crafting done, all in the same space. If you’d be so kind as to send me in-game mail that you visited it would be appreciated.
Surian’s Crafting Workshop
Character Name for game mail: Surianah
Server: Artemis
House #: 014303
Password: (blank)
