housing got decoration hooks :((

I'll raise your 'put your couch on the ceiling, nor build walls out of speeders and companions' with this video of Wildstar housing. Whatever your views with Wildstar, please lay it on the side and watch the clip with an open mind.
*Disclaimer: This is not mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f--IFCZaGG4

Obviously the housing that is created fits in the Wildstar universe and many things don't fit with the SWTOR style, however, with the level of freedom in placing objects and decorations, amazing things can be done.

SWTOR housing is near the end of its development, and hooks are here to stay. Hook system is great and intuitive for beginners to get a feel for housing and is quick and easy for people, regardless of experience in housing, to throw something up. But for people who want to own their stronghold, stamp their mark on it, spend countless hours to design their perfect home, where other people can jump into your house and/or watch on youtube with awe and amazement, the hooks are very limited and restricted.

Some of my feedback in light of what we have:
- Add more hooks, watching the twitch stream, there are many corners, spaces between hooks, where there are blank spaces with no hook placements.
- Be able to move the hooks around
- As others have suggested, have hooks on decorations (although this may be hard to implement)
- Have a 3rd axis to move objects up/down
- Add tilt
- Resizing certain objects (e.g. ammo crates)

It has a lot to do with the underlying base of the engine. Some, by design, can do things better than others. There is usually a framework that everything in game is built on. If that framework would have to be completely redesigned to support resizing, scaling, blah blah blah, then it makes sense the developers went with a very flexible hook system as it probably required less rework to implement.

And before someone says it again, THIS IS NOT THE HERO ENGINE like other games use. This was development specifically for this game.

There are probably a dozen things THIS engine does well that perhaps others don't. We don't know what those are because we don't see it directly.

And if someone wants to go build a wall of crates in THE RE POPULATION they can do so. Given the extremely casual ground level this game was built on, engine design, and misc other things, the developers opted for a more casual housing system. We will be ok. A couple future Picassos will be hurt but I think I can deal with it.

You put your concerns in a reasonable, articulate manner while being aware of the limitations. I understand where you are coming from. Maybe we will see some expansion on the housing limitations in the future. I am going to try it in its current form since housing isn't all I do. It will be more of a side adventure for me. I tend to stick with operations and PvP. The hooks don't bother me.

wow that looks fun

Having a system that is 'intuitive' and/or 'simple' is not a bad thing for this game. SWTOR is many people's first 'real' MMO (I don't count Maplestory, Wizard101, Club Penguin, etc. Those are basically kiddie games dolled up to make money.) Most of you know from experience or from stories on the forums or in-game of parents who show their kids this game because it's Star Wars or because it has a good story (my personal favorite is when my grandfather told me the Inquisitor reminded him of Lord of the Rings. Go figure.)

However, I agree with other posters in saying that we should be able to:

1) Move the hooks
2) Have an up/down axis, as well as at least two 'sideways' axis (you get what I mean)
3) have a hell of a lot more hooks than you guys showed in the corners of the rooms

Man this reminds me of Galaxies. One of my buddies filled my house to the max with a robot army. In retaliation, I went into his house and flipped EVERYTHING upside down and he hasn't done the quest to unlock that ability to fix it. Good times....

I think it's important to recognize the systems limitations, if only to frame our suggestions for improvements. I don't personally think it is reasonable to assume they could abandon the hook system at this time....I think that is likely here to stay, for better or worse depending on your view.

But I do think there is some room to perhaps suggest some changes within the current system. Like adding a few hooks per room that can be moved before they are locked down for use. Let me be more specific.

Lets say, for the sake of argument, they add 2 large, 2 medium and 2 small hooks that are "free placement" per room. These items exist in the system as unlocks, and are free placement "hooks", meaning that the hook itself can be placed anywhere in the house, including on top of current hooks. They can NOT, however, be placed directly on current hooks.

This hook would have an additional axis allowance of up or down, and allow a player to place one of these "hooks" on another piece of furniture, or suspend it in mid air if they wish, etc.

Once you have the "hook" where you want it to go, you would lock it down. Then it would used just like any other hook, and only allow the items in the drop down list for that type of hook. If you wish to move the hook, you first need to "depopulate" the hook, removing the item, then unlock it again.

Now it once again can be moved to a new spot.

Even if they restricted use of the "free movement hook" to only areas that did not have a hook at present, but still allowed the hook to be moved up and down that would still be a worthy addition IMO.

That is one way the system could be improved IMO. This would go a long way toward satiating some folks that desire free placement IMO.

Wow.... That is extremely impressive. I played beta, didn't really care for it, and I mentioned before, I couldn't care less about housing in games, but that was really cool.

Repopulation is using the hero engine...Unless you are claiming SWTOR is using something other than the hero engine...I really have no idea what you are going on about.

Way to ignore what he said.