The latest Update of the Avatar contains, of course, a lot of information about player housing. The most interesting piece of this news is, I think, the announcement that all houses in Shroud of the Avatar can now have basements:

During a problem solving session about cutting holes in terrain last month Starr Long proposed the notion of player basements. That night, Rick Holtrop found he needed a spot to place all the crafting stations he was working with, so he laid out a quick basement just to store his crafting stations for easy access when he needed them for scene creation. The next morning he showed his makeshift basement to Starr, who got pretty excited when he saw it, and started a thread on the Dev+ Forums to get the community’s feedback:

Starr: Sometimes constraints can lead to some of the most interesting ideas. Case in point: cutting holes in terrain and expanding player houses.

There were two features we discussed wanting for Shroud. The first was the ability to cut holes in terrain that would allow us to make transitions to underground areas seamless from the surface. The second was the ability to expand / modify player houses. After a week of technical exploration of various tools we determined that for several reasons (performance, amount of world building time required, etc.) cutting holes in terrain was just not going to work for Episode 1. This means that for Episode 1 going underground will require a teleport / map load (we promise to make them fast!). Don’t worry though! The interiors of buildings (including player houses) will still be contiguous and not require map loads.

We also read the thread about player housing customization and we agreed with the general consensus that it leads to very inconsistent visuals. We also thought that because of the limited number of lots in the game most people would only be able to have one lot (and therefore one house) at any given time. In the case of most individuals this would not be an issue but for some individuals and for some groups (i.e. guilds) this limitation might be stifling.

So then we realized if we have teleports to underground areas could we not use those to allow players to expand downwards underneath their lot? That is when the idea of player basements appeared. The idea would be that you could basically add another story (or multiple stories) below your house!

Let us know what you think of this idea and we will consider pursuing it further.

And, boy, did they let us know what they think! That thread exploded into seven pages! As a result of that community design collaboration, we decided to add basements to player housing. Basements will come in 3 sizes just like lots (Village, Town, and City) and will come in variations of materials, floors and layouts. As an extra bonus to our amazing backers we’re adding Stone basements to the Citizen Level Pledge and above…

As noted above, basements come in a few variations.

The Stone Basement

This basement is nearly as big as a Village-level lot, and can be extended for several levels:

The Stone Basement is available for Village, Town, and City-sized lots, and variations on it can be purchased via the Shroud of the Avatar Store, and is on sale for a limited time.

Timber & Stone Basement

There is also a variant of the Stone Basement, which uses more timber in its construction. This basement, too, can be extended for several levels:

The Timber & Stone Basement is available for Village, Town, and City-sized lots, and variations on it can be purchased via the Shroud of the Avatar Store, and is on sale for a limited time.

Arena Basement

Available exclusively with City lots, this massive basement adds a colossal amount of space beneath your lordly estate:

The Arena Basement can be purchased via the Shroud of the Avatar Store, and is on sale for a limited time.

Additionally, Portalarium revealed the Druid Home in this update. We’ve seen this home before, as concept art; it is built into a tree:

The Druid house can only fit on Town or City lots; Village-level lots are too small for it. It too can be purchased from the Shroud of the Avatar Store, and is on sale for a limited time.

Finally, Portalarium have announced a special bonus reward for those who have pledged at the Edelmann level (or higher):

Exciting news for everyone that pledged at Edelmann level and above, you will now receive all the homes from the lower level tiers! This means, for example, if you pledged at Knight Level, you will also receive the Edelmann and Citizen level homes! All of these homes will be part of your inventory upon starting the game, and you can swap them out on your property as much as you please!

Not, I suppose, that there’d be any reason to swap a smaller home into use, replacing a larger home. But then, who knows? That Edelmann house is pretty keen-looking.