Building a House:
Staking your claim to a plot of land, and building your very own house upon it is very satisfying!
All house types are built using the House Placement Tool, available from the Architects in the carpenter shops in town, for about 600 gold. The tool is blessed, and draws directly upon funds in your bank box, so if you are looking for a house, carry one around with you at all times... you might just come across the perfect place where you can build your dream house!
You have a choice of 20 various pre-built houses to suit your needs, or empty plots of different sizes on which you can build a house of your own design.
Some pre-built samples:
Before you set off to stake your claim; check that you have the House Placement Tool with you, and that you have sufficient funds in your bank box to cover the expense of the house or plot you plan to place. A tip: you can check your available funds while 'out in the field', by using the house placement tool and clicking any of the three options for plot sizes. The bottom of the window shows the available funds in your bank.
Note that when you place a house, the 7-day rule applies, and you cannot place or acquire another house for a week! Also, any houses that you own will become condemned.
Important house rules:
There are a number of important rules that you, as a homeowner, should be aware of. If you are unaware of these rules, you could be inconvenienced or at worst lose your home!
The 7 day waiting period:
You can buy or place a house only once every 7 days on your account, regardless of the character used to acquire the house.
This 7-day waiting period starts from the moment you acquire a house through trade or by placing one. During this period you will not be able to place another house, or receive another house in trade. You will be informed of this fact when you try to receive a house in trade or place one.
The following actions are not subject to the waiting period, nor do they start or reset
the waiting period timer:
- selling a house
- demolishing a house
- changing a pre-built house into a customizable plot
You can verify if and how long you'll have to wait until you can acquire a house again, by using the House Placing Tool: the message shown will display this.
Note that the 7 day waiting period only applies when you already have a house; if you place a house and then demolish it, you are able to place a new one right away, without having to wait.
One House per Account:
You are allowed to own and keep only one house per account (this may change to two houses in the future). You can obtain a second house on your account temporarily, but this will condemn any other house(s) you have on the same account. You will have to sell or demolish these condemned houses, before they decay and fall down. You are allowed to keep the newly acquired house, of course.
Condemned Houses:
A condemned house is a house that will decay and fall down after 5 days. If a house is condemned, this fact will be noted on the house menu.
Why do houses go condemned?
If you own a house, placing or buying another house will condemn your existing one.
You can only have one house per account. You can safely use the house placement tool to
check spots and see if they'll fit a house, as long as you do not actually confirm that
you want to place a house. Note that if you get rid of all other houses except the
condemned one, it will not become un-condemned again automatically! The only way to
un-condemn a house is to sell or give the house away to someone else, or demolishing
and re-building it (but be careful of the 7-day waiting period!).
Building a Custom House:
One of the nicest features in PC Realm is the ability to design and build your own home! At last you can tailor the house design to the things for which you use your house, in a style that best suits your taste or fits the surroundings. You can also opt to live in the biggest eyesore on the block. The choice is yours....
If you already have a pre-built house, you can convert it into a customizable design by double clicking the house sign, selecting Customize at the top, and choosing Convert this House to a Customizable Design. All the stuff in your current house will be placed in the Moving Crate (more information on this below).
Before you get started:
Everything in your house will be safe while you work on the design and even when you commit the design and alter the house. Vendors, barkeeps, add-ons, secure chests with their contents, and locked-down items will all be placed in the moving crate when you change your house. You should be aware that add-ons such as forges, tapestries etc. will go into the moving crate when you enter design mode... even if you do not commit your new design, these items will have been removed. Locked-down and secure items, vendors, and barkeeps will remain in place until you actually commit a new design.
WARNING: If you demolish a house while there is still stuff in the Moving Crate, that stuff will also be demolished and is not recoverable! Make sure the Moving Crate is empty before demolishing your house. See below for Moving Crate information.
To enter customisation mode, chose Customize this House from the house menu, in the Customize section.
Using the Customization Tool:
Using the tool is pretty much self-explanatory. Below is an overview of the menu and the function of various buttons:
1. Here you can select the various sets of building elements: Walls, doors, teleporters, stairs etc. With some items you will need to further specify the desired set of elements, by choosing the wall material for instance.
2. Use the Eraser to remove elements.
3. When you use the Eye Dropper tool and subsequently click on a building element in your house, the indicated element will be selected both at your cursor and in the customization tool.
4. This brings up the customization menu, which allows you to backup or commit your design. You can backup your design so you can return to finish it later!
5. Go up one level in the item selection, eg. return to the wall material selection.
6. This toggles between windowless walls, and walls with windows in them.
7. Here you select the building element to place into your design. Use the arrows to the left and right of this window to see more choices.
8. With this you can make the walls, and floor tiles of each level in your house opaque or (semi) transparent. This can help you place floor tiles behind a wall, for instance.
9. With this you select the floor level in your house to build upon. You always work on only one floor at a time.
10. This indicates the total value of your design. Note that when you commit, most of the value of your current house will be deducted from this amount, and the remainder is charged or refunded to your account.
11. This indicates the number of building elements (the first number) and the number of doors and teleporters (the second number).
You can cancel customization and return to your current design by right-clicking on the Customization Tool window, thereby closing it and exiting house design mode.
The Customization Menu:
Backup: This saves your current design. You can cancel any changes you have made or continue designing, then return to the saved design at any time by pressing Restore.
Restore: Restores the last design you have backed up.
Clear: Clears everything and leaves you with a bare plot.
Commit: This commits your current design, charging or refunding the difference between the value of your current house, and the cost of your new design.
Synch: Synchronizes the house design you have on your computer with that on the game server. If you have problems placing or deleting certain items (especially doors), pressing this button sometimes fixes the problem.
Revert: This resets the design you are working on to the last committed design, ie. to how your house currently looks.
The moving crate:
During or after customization, items in your house will be placed into the moving crate. You can bring up this crate by double clicking the house sign, selecting Customize at the top, and choosing 'Relocate Moving Crate', which will make the crate appear at your feet. If you want to move the crate somewhere else, simply use the relocate function again. If you do not access the crate for awhile it will return to the house sign and you can relocate it again later.
Secure chests and locked-down items will appear as-is inside the moving crate. Anything that was inside a secured chest or locked-down container will still be there. House add-ons such as forges, banners, tapestries and so on, will appear in the moving crate in deed form.
Vendors and barkeeps will not appear inside the moving crate. Instead, you can replace them by standing in the intended location for the vendor, bringing up your context menu by clicking on yourself, and select Get Vendor. You'll be presented with a list of vendors and barkeeps that were present in your house before you customized it. Vendors will appear with all of their merchandise still in their packs.
When you have removed everything from the moving crate, it will disappear.
A word on costs:
When you build on an empty plot or change an existing design, you will be charged for the total new value of your home, which is the value of the empty plot and the cost of each element you have used in your design. You will be reimbursed 90% of the value of your old design, so making many small changes to your home and committing them separately is an expensive hobby!
Note that the house value shown in the house menu (under Information) already takes into account the 10% deduction, so the value shown there is the value that you will be reimbursed if you demolish the house or commit a new design.
Decorating or storing items in your house:
You can easily decorate your house with furniture, rare paintings, big fish trophies, plants, etc.
To do this you need to lock them down or secure them. Simply dropping an item on the floor of your house
does not mean it is safe!! Any items left unlocked will eventually decay and disappear, and cannot be recovered.
To secure a chest or other container (armoire, etc), say "I wish to secure this" and target the item.
You can then select whom you would like to be able to access the contents of that container.
To lock down a furniture or non-container item, say "I wish to lock this down" and target the item.
To release secure or locked down items, say "I wish to release this" and target the item.