Houses

The house system is designed to give players a chance to found another kind of community besides guilds and secret societies. Joining a house requires no free levels and has a designated member slot system which means that players may join a house only if the house has slots available. The slots are divided to two different kinds of members; full members and commoners, but that topic will be addressed later.

Each player may be member of only one house at the time, but players may leave a house any time they wish to join another house, provided there are free slots and you are allowed to join.

Population register

There is a population register office located at the government district of Arelium in Laenor. This is the place to go if you are interested in joining or even founding a house. Some actions (such as joining) are available also in the guildhouse of Dortlewall.

Population register office is the place where you can do all kinds of actions that are connected to your house. Go visit the office for more information.

Members and Commoners

There are two kinds of membership statuses that have their distinctive differences. Membership status determines what status you will get when you join a house and it will also determine what kind of points the member will contribute to the house. Members are also sometimes referred as full members or regular members for the sake of clarity.

Eligibility

In this chapter we discuss what makes a player eligible for full member and as commoner. Every new character is eligible to join as a commoner. When a new player reaches level 50 for the first time during their game career, they become eligible for full membership status. The eligibility doesn't reset in reincarnation, so once you've reached level 50, you are no longer considered a commoner and you may not return as one. The only notable exception to this rule is rebirth (help rebirth).

Members

Members, or full members, get the full advantages of a house. In fact, player needs to first reach the eligibility of a full member in order to be able to found a house. Player must also become a member before they can have any house representative rights. All full members are entitled to full bonuses from bonus packages that the house purchases.

Full members contribute class points to the house through their activity.

House representatives

A full member who has been given any rights to modify the house settings is called a house representative. The house founder is a house representative with full access to control the house and may share rights to other players if he/she so wishes.

Commoners

Commoners, or common members, are regarded to be the lower caste in some ways not enjoying all the perks, but they do have some advantages too. The negative side of being a commoner is that they may not be house representatives and they get only half the bonuses from the bonus packages that the house has purchased. The better side of being a commoner is that a commoner may join any house without an invitation if the house has chosen to toggle on the automatic recruit mode. An easy way to check joining rights is to seek the population register office and type 'houses' in that room. Commoners also have the possibility to graduate from commoner to full member (see, chapter 4 about graduation).

Commoners contribute growth points to the house through their activity.

Graduation

In order to take advantage of graduation, a commoner must be member of a house. If a player reaches level 50 and has not joined a house when they do it, their eligibility is changed from commoner to full member, but the graduation is no longer possible.

Therefore, player must be a common member in a house. When player is a common member of a house and advances to level 50 their eligibility is changed to full member and the house graduates the commoner.

All graduated members of the house may stay in the house without occupying a member slot. Therefore graduation frees a commoner slot and the house may grow.

If the graduated player ever chooses to leave the house or is banished, the extra slot is lost as well. Rebirth will also clear the graduation slot.

House-command

First of all: help house.

Testing the command will probably give more information than this chapter, but here this chapter is anyway. The command can be used to receive information about houses of the realm. With the command you may view house news or view the ranking table of the houses. You may also get information about a specific house. You can get more information of your own house than others that you're not member of.

House channel

House channel will automatically be given when the house is founded. It is the same name as the house. If your house is called Dawnlight, the channel will be operated with dawnlight- say

You may turn channel on with dawnlight- say on.

For more channel information, help channels.

Secondary characters

In the house system primary and secondary characters are treated as their own entities, but there is a small exception. If the secondary character is not member of any house, (s)he will be allowed to chat on the house channel of the primary character. Primary characters on the other hand may not access the house channel of secondary characters (unless being member in the same house itself).

House cycles

There are recurring cycles that are both important to you if you are to run a house properly. These cycles are growth cycle and tax cycle. Both cycles follow real time (with the exception of additional maintenance reboots or unexpected crashes) and you may view cycle information with 'house cycles' command. This command may be handy when you want to know when the cycle updates occur.

Growth cycle

The name of the growth cycle comes from the fact that during the cycle the house may grow its influence. But it can also lose it! During growth cycle all the accumulated class points and growth points are calculated to determine if the house gains influence, loses it, or maintains its position.

In order to gain influence, the house must accumulate class points to meet the requirements of the class. For example if house wants to raise its influence from yeoman class (3) to working class (4), it needs to gather enough points to meet the requirements of social class 4.

If the house would gather enough points for yeoman class, but not enough to reach working class, the house will maintain its yeoman class.

If the house fails to meet the required amount of class points for its current social class, the house will lose influence.

During growth cycle the house may only raise or lose one level of influence at maximum. This means that even if an underclass (1) house would gather points to reach working class (4), the house will be promoted up only one level to peasant class (2).

It is important to notice that any unpaid taxes that the house would have will automatically negate any growth that the class points would bring. If there are taxes due during growth cycle, the house will lose influence.

If the house has tax warnings, the house may lose even more than one level of influence.

The difference of house points, class points and growth points will be discussed in chapter 7: Point Accumulation.

During growth cycle, all purchased bonus packages are also reset.

Forced disband

All new houses enjoy 60-day period during which house is given a chance to recruit new members and grow so that it will not be disbanded by the House Officials due to lack of activity. This protection will not apply to houses which lose social class due to unpaid taxes.

Normally a house will be disbanded when it loses so much activity that it can no longer maintain its social class. This means that if the lowest social class house (underclass) house fails to maintain its class, it will be disbanded by the House Officials.

Tax Cycle

During every tax cycle, the house must pay its taxes. The house will automatically pay its taxes during the tax cycle if there is enough money on its account. If house doesn't have enough money, the taxes are marked as unpaid. At this point the house needs to address the issue, because during next growth cycle the house will be facing loss of social class. If house has unpaid taxes when the next tax cycle occurs, the house will be given additional warning for unpaid taxes. Any additional warnings will cause social class to drop even more rapidly during growth cycles.

Any membership fees that the house sets will also be recorded during tax cycle. Money is not taken from house members automatically, but they can visit the population register office to pay their debts.

Any money transfers (transfer, membership fees) to the house account will be first used to pay unpaid taxes. Same applies to withdrawals from the house account. Warnings will become automatically removed once all unpaid taxes are paid.

Any membership fee and house issues are regarded to be internal business of any house representatives, but there's a rule addendum: unpaid membership fees may not be used as grounds for equipment destruction, player killing, extortion or other harassment. The house is expected to handle their affairs in more civilized ways and may use the powers given to them by the house system.

Point accumulation

In this chapter we will look into different points that are important to the house system. There are three different kinds of points: growth points, class points and house points. There are many things that award growth points and class points and the best way to gain them is to just keep playing and try to do something else if it looks like you're not gaining any.

Growth points

Growth points are generated by commoners. Growth points have an important relationship with class points because growth points are required so that class points would make a difference. During a growth cycle, house needs one accumulated growth point per class point. This means that if house gains 15000 class points, but commoners generate only 5000 growth points, then the accumulated class points will be diminished to 5000 as well. For this reason it might be worthwhile to help out our commoners by giving them hints or perhaps even join their parties to help out.

During growth cycles, the growth points are added to the existing growth point total. In each growth cycle, the amount of growth points is taxed a little bit, so in the long run the house will always need commoners.

Class points

Class points are generated by full members. Class point has two purposes. First purpose for gathering class points is that class points are needed to raise or maintain house's social class. The second reason for class points is that house may set a housetax on class points to convert class points into house points.

During growth cycles, class points are not added to the total amount. Instead, the accumulated class points during this cycle will become the current total.

House points

House points can only be gained by setting a housetax on class points. House points are added to the current house point total during a growth cycle. Conversion to house points is done before class points have been calculated to see whether the house raises its social class or even maintains it, so be careful not to cause yourself trouble by converting too many class points. House points have a designated maximum amount that the house may have which is defined by its social class. To see the limit, visit population register office and type 'classes'.

House points are used as currency to buy bonus packages for the house.

Bonuses

The Houses offer different kind of bonuses to the members. During each growth cycle the bonus packages available for the houses are generated and the houses may purchase bonuses for their houses with house points. All the purchased bonus packages will remain active during the growth cycle that they were bought. Higher social class gives a broader selection of available bonus packages, some of which could be also more powerful ones.

Each house may buy up to two full packages. A full package is called as powerful package. You may view other power levels from the table below.

Power levels: + infrequent (25%) + sporadic (50%) + strong (75%) + powerful (100%)

Buying a powerful package (100%) means that the bought bonus will be active 12 hours during every game day (=reboot). In order to have some bonus active at all times, house needs to have packages that amount to total of 200% (2x 100% bonus packages, or 4x 50%, or any package combinations that total to 200%). Houses may also choose to split purchases between bonus packages. House could have purchased one powerful package, one strong package and one infrequent package for example.

Buying a bonus package only ensures that the bonus would be active the promised time during the game day, but house does not have any power to decide when or which bonuses become active.

Whether a member may receive full benefits of the bonus package is determined by loyalty. Commoners may get only half the bonuses so their maximum loyalty is automatically 50%. Recently joined members of the house will also need to spend the length of a growth cycle in a house to be eligible for full bonuses. You may view your loyalty with house command.