Housing

Housing Types | Purchasing Rules | Ownership Rules | How to Decorate | Decorating Tips
Decorating Commands | House Values | Mailbox | House Decay

Overview

The only houses currently available on Valhalla are "static homes".  No house deeds are available to be placed by either GMs or players.  Static homes can be purchased from their house sign.  If a house is available, simply double click the house sign with the gold in your pack, and you will become the owner of the house.  If you decide later on that you wish to sell the house back simply disown the home using the sign's menu and your gold will be returned, minus a 10% processing fee.

In order to protect your chests from being burgled, first make sure that they are lockable.  Then, lock them with a key and then secure them by saying "I wish to secure this" and then targeting the chest.

Housing Types

There are four types of static homes on Valhalla:  Homes, shops, second floors and rooms.

1. Homes are houses without vendors in them where you own the entire house and possibly some area around the home.  (Please note that not all houses have a lockable area outside the house.  If your home does not have such an area, it is by design.  Please do not page a GM to have this changed.)
2. Shops are buildings with NPC vendors in them.  You may own the shop, decorate the shop and in all ways have ownership of the shop.  However, you may not have the NPC vendor removed and you may not lock the front doors.  And in most cases you will not have a lock down area outside the home.  If the front door of a shop with an NPC vendor is found locked, the front doors will be removed and the "lock down area" will be modified to restrict those doors from being locked again.
   MOST shops have an internal lockable area ... either a gate locked counter, an upstairs room or a gate at the top of the second floor.  If you purchase a shop and do not have a lockable area please page a gm and they will try and help you.
3. Some shops and buildings have a second floor available to be purchased.  Only the second floor is available to be owned.  The front doors may not be locked.  However, due to the nature of the "house sign code", you actually are able to lock down things on the first floor.  One or two things or a vendor is fine, but don't clutter the place up.  You can easily tell the difference between a 'shop' and a 'second floor', because house signs for second floors are not on the front of the shop.
4. Smaller houses and rooms in Inns are available. These are typically sold for 10,000 gold. You will not usually get any lock down area outside of the room.

Rules for Purchasing

1. Please do not purchase a home that has a "reserved sign" on it even if it has a for sale sign.
2. If you purchase a home with an attached gate and the gate does not display as *LOCKED* when you buy the home, then the gate is not part of the home purchase.  Please do not page a GM to have this changed.
3. If your home does not already have a stable or farm area, it is by design.  Not all homes have stables or attached farm land.  Please do not page a gm and request this to be changed.
4. However, house teleporters need to be installed after the home has been purchased.  If you want access to your roof, then page a gm and request a "house teleporter" to be placed.  
   One request ... if you are planning on decorating your roof, please do it nicely.   Please don't use roofs for storage areas, its just unattractive.
5. If you purchase a home and your vendor will not work on the front stoop, then it is because your home does not have a lock down area outside the home.  Please do not page a GM to have this changed. 

Rules for Owning

1. You may own ONE large house,
2. You may own ONE small room, for your second character
3. You may own ONE vendor spot at a vendor mall.

How to Decorate

Once you buy your house, you will want furniture and knick-knacks. You can buy all sorts of neat things to dress up your house from NPC Decorators, NPC Bakers, Player Carpenters. The NPC decorators have a lot of items that can not be crafted by players like decorative weapon racks, decorative shields, spider webs and more. There are many other places to find cool stuff for your house, such as treasure chests, quest prizes and special event monsters. Player vendor's are also a good source of items and decorations.

You will want to limit how much stuff you keep at your house. Limit "top level" items, such as containers, furniture and decorations. We have noticed that when we have a lot of stuff around (top level) that we have trouble logging in at times. Sometimes it helps to have your friend move away from the screen so as to lower the item count on logging in.

We will not be providing GM special decoration items for a lot of reasons.
One - It opens up the discussion of favoritism.
Two - Its a pain in the butt for the staff.
Three - We want to save some of this stuff for quest gifts.

If we get a lot of requests for some reasonable items, we MAY make them available for purchase from NPC Vendors.

Decorating Tips

1. House signs specify who the owner is, and only the owner can lock or unlock items. 
2. Be careful! If you set something down it is a very very very short time period before it will decay!
3. If you are dying furniture, dye it in your pack until you are happy with the color and then go ahead and place it and lock it down. Be quick about locking stuff down.
4. To change the facing of most items, simple double click the item.
5. Farmers carry seeds that will create plants. When you use a flower seed, you'll be able to choose from a few different types of flowers that you can plant. If you select a flower, a flower of that type will appear locked down at your feet (using 1 house lockdown slot.)
   To removed a flower, unlock it like you would any other item ("I wish to lock this down", or "I wish to release this".) You will not receive a flower seed back (after all, you ripped the plant up by the roots. Its dead.)
   When you use a flower seed (available from farmer NPCs), you now get a targeting cursor. If you target yourself, you'll plant the flowers where you're standing. If you target a pot or vase, you'll plant the flowers in that Sometimes looks pretty bad, sometimes looks pretty good. You'll just have to experiment.) If you target anything else, you'll cancel the planting. You now have to lock down the vase where you want it. When you target the vase, the flowers will appear on top. If you target yourself, the flowers will appear where you are standing.
6. To move a bed or other deed, simply say "I wish to release this" and target the item, it will reappear in your pack.

Decorating Commands

• To lockdown items you say "I wish to lock this down"
• To release a locked down item you say "I wish to unlock this"
• To secure an item you say "I wish to secure this"
• To release a secure item you say "I wish to unsecure this"
• To raise an item you say "I wish to raise this"
• To lower an item you say "I wish to lower this"

House Values

• Houses with 1 point get 50 lockdowns and 5 secure.
• Houses with 2 point get 100 lockdowns and 10 secure.
• Houses with 3 point get 150 lockdowns and 15 secure.
• Houses with 4 point get 200 lockdowns and 20 secure.
• Houses with 5 point get 250 lockdowns and 25 secure.

House values may need to be adjusted by a GM upon purchase due to the way the house point system works. If you have any problems you may page a GM through the help system under housing problems.

Mailbox

You get mailboxes by crafting a wooden chest in the color and size of your choice. You may make a metal chest but only the larger chests come out in the ore color, the small chest in the ore comes out an orange color.

You then drop the box on your vendor. Your vendor will prompt you to tell him how to advertise the box. You type in "YourName’s Mailbox" he will then ask you how much to charge for the item press cancel and he will return the item to you named. Then go lock it down outside your house. It is best to lock the box, as then most players cannot look inside of it, but they can still drop things off in it. If you do not have the skill yourself many players have vendors that sell these type of items.

Note that this method of naming an item can be used for most containers.

House Decay

Houses can only be refreshed by the owner or by a friend.  Speaking inside the house will refresh it for 2 weeks.  Saying "I wish to refresh this house" while inside the house will refresh it for 30 days.