housing got decoration hooks :((

Did you even bother to watch the video before jumping in here and spewing hate on the system?
Every hook can be broken down to smaller ones or several can be combined to larger ones, making the amount of possible layouts quite high (at least in thousands per house type). Hooks then accept things based on their size, to again, possibilities of combination are in tens of thousands.

For anyone who wants to use their creativity to create truly uniqe rooms - this feature will offer nothing. Sure, you can place items on different locations - but you wont be able to merge them to build new items, or tilt your tables on edge to use as walls etc. You wont be able to truly <<Create>> with this feature.

As everything else in this game, this is "decorations lite" in easymode.

I can't believe you people.

Cannot merge items to create new ones...what is this? Minecraft? Even stupid Sims doesn't give you that option and this is an MMO - housing is a extra feature and it looks much better than in few other MMO titles. It will be expanded upon, few things will be added in time for sure. Geez.

Not to try and diminish concerns about hooks....I have them as well obviously, but I am trying to remain fair (at least making an attempt).

The hooks system APPEARS to be a pretty flexible system, as flexible as a hook system can be. It really depends on how many items, and what type of items are allowed in each hook naturally. But it looks like you can change hook size inside each hook area.

So you could choose to only drop small items, or nothing but big items, and perhaps have a few overlap. Really, I think it needs to be tried, we might find more flexibility than it appears.

Games I am familiar with: STO, LotRO, SWG, EQ2.

There is so little customization of ship internals in STO that it barely qualifies as housing, some would probably say it doesn't count. LotRO has a very minimal hook system, very few hooks and very limited in how you can use them, some rotation and you can place smaller items in hooks that will take large items. You do have some customization of wallpaper though. A step up from STO but overall a poor system.

At the other end of the scale you have SWG as was and EQ2. SWG was very flexible, almost every item in the game could be dropped in a house, but you had to use / commands to manipulate all the items so it had a poor UI. People did get used to that and there were several macros writen to help folks and some players did very creative work. EQ2 is similar and now it has quite a good UI for manipulating items. Both SWG and EQ2 did not have all their abilities straight out of the box, they were/are constantly being improved and worked on.

The decorating game is a popular one in EQ2 and many items in their cash shop are related to it. The Player Studio system allows players to create items and sell them in the cash shop (money split between SOE and the players) and many of those items are for decorating. EQ Landmark, which I have not played, really expands on this idea and is virtually all about decorating with a lot of freedom given to players.

Then we have the Stronghold system here. It is a hook system, though from what we have seen it is a far superior one to the LotRO implementation with many more hooks. In addition at hook sites we have the choice of several hook arrangments, allowing the placement of a few larger objects or several smaller ones. Also there is some flexibility in the placement of items within each hook.

However it falls far short of the flexibility of SWG or EQ2, no items on items (sole exception being floor rugs), only able to place items within predefined limits and only able to place items of a certain type on a particular hook. It seems to me that this was done partly to make the system simple to use, but mostly to limit the creativity of players in just how much we can affect the overall look and feel. The devs seem to want to preserve this at all costs.

I am sure the system will be used - attaching the Legacy storage to it will ensure that - but it will not attract the kind of player who really likes to decorate and is prepared to put up real $$ to do so. I suspect that most stongholds will have the Legacy storage and other active nodes like GTN terminals and maybe a few items spread sound that players get as rewards and the obligatory speeder display, but very litte creativity. The lack of freedom will stifle that from the outset. If I could get a legacy storage terminal for my ship, I'd probably ignore it completely.

On a 10 scale if STO is 1, LotRO would be 2, SWG and EQ2 8 or 9 (no system is perfect after all ), I would rate this as a 4 or 5, bearing in mind that all I have to go on is the blog and the twitch TV video.

Of course I am quite open to being proven wrong and maybe some creative players will be able to do spectacular things with it, but I am not hopeful.

No, this is a housing and decoration system in an MMO - and there have been a few such MMO's with awesome systems for just that.

When BW says they're gonna implement a housing/deco system in SWTOR, can you think of 1 single reason why those who are familiar with those old systems would not want equal or better implementation here? Can you think of 1 single reason why <<anyone>> would want a lesser system?

Performance and ease of use?

Oh, sorry, that was two. Should I retract one?

The system looks plenty flexible as it's shown in the streams. Is it as flexible as WildStar or SWG? No. Is it more flexible than every other hook system out there? Yes.

Everything I've read so far leads me to believe they did what they did because of the inherent limitations they have. I'm sure if they could have done free placement without hampering the game in other ways they would have. Instead, they worked with the boundaries of what they had to make it as flexible as possible.

When you program your own MMO with housing, let us know. Please, enlighten us on "easy mode."

Right, because how dare he have an opinion on a game he's paying to access without knowing how to create a game himself...right? Like you, I bet you don't dare drive an automobile you couldn't make yourself in your garage with the help of an intern right? Or live in a house you couldn't build yourself. Or watch any movie and critique it because your acting skills are so much better...right?

Calm down...it's just his feedback on entertainment he's paying for. He's a consumer of the entertainment and he's free to have an opinion on anything without any need to be able to produce something equal or better.

The hook system is not bad for a hook system. But ite no where close to freeplacement if you dont belive me take a look at how wildstar and rift did it. You se what crazy and creative stuff ppl can make. With this system all you will se is diffrent items placed diffrent places. After looking over photos and the stream agen. It even looks like you cant change the coolor of the floor and walls. Am not bashing the game. I write this couse i hope they listen tho what people write in this post there is a few realy good points here i love swtor and only want the best for the game. And i belive full hook system is not the way to go.