Taminwe won't let the crew spend gold on plans, because we're supposed to be saving up for Mathiisen Manor - she almost liked Cliffshade, but it has no grounds - and we aren't even half-way yet, only about 400,000.

Laurie discovered Montclair Manor in upper Shornhelm. It's empty after the quest there, so you can go rummage through the cabinets and find plans as often as you like. Since Unna's gone through there, too, on her Cadwell's Silver pass, they can alternate. However that has a Breton bias, so the Daggerfall Inn Room is well-furnished, but almost everywhere else is still sparse. The other Inn room in Ebonheart is doing well with Dunmer things, which seem to pop up all over the place, not just in the Pact zones you'd expect. Moonmirth also started to look habitable, now we made a bed. Surprisingly that one was just green level, despite the requirement for tier 8 tailoring. We're only just starting to see the higher level plans, but can make just about anything we find.

We're looking for good places in Redguard and Nord lands that have the same characteristics as Montclair Manor. The consensus is that we'd need to go through the public dungeons Razak's Wheel, and the Windhelm Hall of the Dead and search urns instead. Not such an easy run for a solo player. There may also be a few delves as second-best.

Spreads thinks the Argonian housing is a bit primitive for her tastes. She may prefer Dark Elf, or even Imperial, but hasn't yet found a home she wants.

The Montclair runs have also netted quite a few recipes, which also helps Laurie's cause. Having just become a Master Provisioner, she needs to learn a whole lot more of them.

Just a couple of random home shots to record where I am now.

Snugpod has reached the comfortable stage. Wizwen has somewhere to cook, eat, store things, and sleep. (Warning! wiiiiiiiiiide image) I used the provisioning station with a Nord Torch added for the extra light/flames, as none of the other fires fit as well.

The motley junk pile that was in the Rosy Lion has been redistributed according to style, and what's left there is just the appropriate Breton items. Unfortunately, the only Breton carpets Laurie know how to make are HUGE, so the floor is currently bare. More clutter will be added as it turns up, so the shelves won't stay bare.

Twin Arches and Sleek Creek are further on, but actively being added to, so I'll leave those to later. Mournoth Keep and Mathiisen Manor are almost empty still. I'm just not finding High Elf and Orcish plans at the same rate as the others. Minx' St Delyn Penthouse is looking quite decent, but she won't let me take pictures until the vellum lamps are in (and have you seen the price of the formulae?). She's doing regular trips to the Dreloth tomb, and hoping for miracles.

----

Minor rant while I'm here. Did you know that Khajiit get no chairs? I can make a sofa, bench, and several styles of stools, but not a chair. And for further illogic, there are two sizes of cushions - the small one takes more materials and higher skill than the large one, which is essentially three of the small one joined together!

My problem is in tying to create a dining area for Sleek Creek. Dining table and chairs doesn't work with no Khajiit chairs, and sitting down on cushions around a communal dish Arabian-style doesn't work, because there are no serving dishes large enough.

What do Khajiit tails do when they sit down? If they stick out the back, maybe they need a bench type seat or stool rather than a chair?

Wow, your Rosy Lion looks so bright and cheery! I've never seen the light coming through the windows that way, Awesome!

It’s very clean! Khajiit also noted your lil’ buddy hanging out on the top bunk!



Well the chair would have to have an open space in the back to accommodate the tail. From there a Khajiit could just curl their tail around the chair to keep folks from stepping on it/tripping over it (although, everyone knows that making people trip while carrying platters at a dinner party is favorite amusement for some Khajiit, ).

This one suspects that the Khajiit don’t have chairs because the devs didn’t know what a southeast Asian chair would look like. So they just made cushioned stools. Very gaudy ones at that.

The game has presented me with a whole lot of housecats, so there's one on the bed in each of the homes, except: Snugpod has no bed, just a hammock, so no cat. Unna has a Sabre Cat cub instead of a house cat, and it's playing in front of the fire with Sir Socks's Ball of Yarn.

Twin Arches also has a Jackal, a Mastiff, and the Alik'r Dune-hound outside. They live in a cargo crate tipped over on its side. Sleek Creek has the new Dusky Fennec stationed as guard in a Khajiit loft by the gate. Blossom has her Eschalette out by the gate at Mournoth, and Taminwe will house all the Dwarven critters(?) at Mathiisen.

All of my pets stay at home, with the cats inside, and the dogs etc. outside. So far, I have no unused mounts, but they only appear when ridden.

And I think I'll take a hint from Buffy, and have my new Nixad guard Snugpod.

Well, I can't dispute you on the gaudiness of their furnishings, but I did think that cushiony=ness of the benches did look like something a cat might like to sprawl on if they had a "Sprawl" emote; and we know they sit on stools by the Khajiit that brings us our crates,

I actually did wonder why the wood furniture for Khajiit was kind of scratched up, though; did the Devs think Khajiit were sharpening their claws on their own furniture?

Rakaand's room at the Rosy Lion is now much cosier!! Thanks mALX!!

https://i.imgur.com/JJ7eXPV.png

https://i.imgur.com/h2w2Lna.png

https://i.imgur.com/U7WHOKZ.png

Nice!

Boy, the Dominion folks sure got the short end of the free room stick. That tiny room in Vukel Guard is crap.

I like that Vulkhel Guard one a lot; you just have to work with the shape of it:


https://imgur.com/a/pSUm7








Awesome !!!!

Eh, Khajiit thinks it’s too small. This one was definitely all too happy to spend money on the Sisters of the Sands apartment.

I think the size of that room is why Taminwe demanded Mathiisen Manor as her upgrade. Both she and Cat Man Dhou now have other homes, and it only gets used as a wayshrine (because you can go home from anywhere).

However, we're just not getting the plans for the right High Elf furniture for the Manor. The only bed Laurie can make is the bunks (which are in my instance of the Mara's Kiss room), and you can't furnish a home with just tables, no matter how diverse they are.

(The exception to the above may be crafting tables. We haven't yet decided if the Manor will become our crafting hub, with attuned stations).

----

And on a completely different topic. I was testing out furnishing ideas on the PTS last night, and having difficulties seeing what I was doing, as it was night-time, and you have no control over that. So I bought a Clockwork Illuminator from the store for the nominal crown, and used it as a work light. I'm now tempted to invest in the formula for one on the live server, where the price may be a bit higher!

I remember that haute had used one to light up her Twin Arches (shining through an opaque door, if I'm remembering correctly), so it could be a useful generic light source in all the homes. One of those gives a lot of light!

Since my Mournoth Keep and Mathiisen Manor are both almost empty at present, I was looking around to see what I could currently place in them.

The Manor has eight fireplaces, and when you buy the house, three of them have firelogs already in place. The Keep only has one fireplace, with nothing in it. I poked around and discovered that you can't make firelogs, and have to buy them with Crowns. I moved one from the Manor to the Keep, and will probably put a fern in each of the others. You can at least buy (some) ferns with in-game gold.

I need to look at what else is Crowns-only, before I make too many plans. I know that Imperial furnishings are that way, but I don't have any need for those. However, it looks like boxes of fruit (except for plums?) are like that.

And books! If you want rows of books on your bookshelves, and are not Redguard or Hlaalu, you can't have shelves with books already in place. The rows and stacks are all crowns-only. Redguard lattice chairs are crowns-only.

Even though I'll most likely abandon it in the coming weeks, I'm really getting into decorating the Alinor house. Never have I needed Decorative Wax as much as I do now lol

That said, I can see myself using that fireplace for a kind of Forge, assuming forges haven't been added yet. (haven't found or bought one yet)

The PTS server had one before housing came out that was huge; (would not fit inside the house); but before housing came out, they removed it.

I've been waiting and waiting for that to come to the luxury furnisher and was hopeful that it would come along with the loom and all the other crafting stuff a while back. No luck. :/

Anyways, I went out and spent hundreds of thousands of gold for furnishing recipes and completed furniture, and I'm only 3 major pieces away from finishing the house. :U (It's not worth it buying the crafted furniture given how much they go for vs the recipe, but the recipes go for 100k on average) Once I find/buy the cabinets/wardrobes/benches, it's done. I ended up buying a fireplace, since the plan is around 300k on average vs the 14k for a crafted one lol. Did the same for other pieces I only really need one of.

In the future, I think I'll stick to buying furniture instead of tracking down the plans unless the cost of the plan is cheaper than buying the individual furniture.

A very small preview of the Alinor Crest Townhouse. The Squad's beds:

Hates: Before, After

Jo'zira: Before, After

Fjotreid and Eolan: Before, After (+the Augur)

Now that most of the furniture is in, I can start customizing the place a bit more. I figure the room Fjotreid and Eolan are in can be split up to give enough space to both of them instead of corralling them together into a single area. Jo'zira's "room" is more or less ready, save for a few knicknacs and plants. Hates is finished.

I can honestly enjoy the house as it is now.

Nice job, Monkey. It looks great and suits your characters.

You did an Awesome job decorating! What beds are those? They are gorgeous!

I straight up just copied the furnished version you can get for crowns as a guide, lol. (Except Jo'zira's room, anyways) I find it's a better starting point than doing it entirely from scratch.

Anyways, the beds are (in order): Alinor Bed, Canopy Full(Epic); Alinor Bed, Overhang Full(Epic); and Alinor Bed, Polished Single(Superior). I can only craft the latter 2, but I also found the Alinor Bed, Noble Single plan and have a crafted one to use later.

I need to start finding those Alinor recipes, then; they are gorgeous! LOVE that style! Those beds are Awesome.

I'm hoping the new Alinor plans will push down the prices for the older High Elf ones. Taminwe prefers those, although that canopy style is tempting her. And now we have the Heartwood, we can start to consider that job.

Of course, solving our woodworking problem moved us on to other shortages. We just used our last Rakeipa making another light for Sleek Creek. We have silly numbers of enchanting surveys, so it's time to clear those out of the bank. However, they'll have to drop a bit better than we're finding so far. Twelve surveys got us only three Rakeipa!

And after buying plans for dividers, we ran out of heartwood again. Not to mention discovering that the Alinor furnishing items all require culanda lacquer, obtainable only in Summerset (or at crazy prices). We had ideas for using the smallest fountain to provide water for the dogs at Twin Arches, and to use the scalloped platter at Sleek Creek. Now those are abandoned.

Taminwe has been foraging in Bal Foyen again, as she's the one character that gathers all the things we run short of, and also gets copper dust, which I can use to trade. And since it's her home we're trying to furnish ...

Also trying to make a budget for the Crowns. With bulk books all being Crown-only (25 crowns per set), a library gets expensive, but the empty spaces at Mathiisen Manor need one. 32 shelves in 8 bookcase to fill (once I get enough Heartwood for the bookcases ), plus Sleek Creek has a small bookshelf, too.

Reduced my ambitions for the Mathiisen library somewhat. Bookshelves on one side only, with a desk on the other, and some comfy chairs to sit in and read. However, the Altmer don't seem to believe in comfy chairs. The Alinor bench and its one-person variant may be the only padded seats in their style.

I took a look at haute's current primary home, mainly to check out the bathroom for ideas. Her Bouldertree had one, and I seem to remember them in a couple of the other homes she showed me. Not disappointed this time, either.

I noted that the Breton Urn, Striated was her go-to ceramic item for these, usually combined with some kind of chair or throne and so Laurie bought the plans for it. We're trying out the Redoran stool as the frame, instead of a chair, at Sleek Creek. I should switch that to Primary Residence for feedback, soon. It has enough furnishings in place to look lived-in, even though it needs many more. Space is reserved for crafting stations, once Cat Man Dhou starts to want his own.

Blossom now has a Humanoid Skeleton, Robust at her Mournoth Keep, and she tried it out. Her DPS is now officially pathetic, not just apparently so. She blames all the skill points she put into crafting.

I love reading the (dreams and plans) versus the reduction when the cost of the dream is realized to be too high, lol. Boy have I been there! Yes, all that Alinor stuff requiring that rare Culanda Lacquer is going to keep them hard to come by, but boy are they gorgeous! I am totally in love with every single Alinor item I've seen so far, and would LOVE to be able to afford doing anything with them on some of my places because I have SO many ideas of things that could be done with them, lol.

But the Alinor pieces are all huge, which def limits where they will fit, lol.

That Guild Hall I decorated for that other Guild recently = I built the entire Guild Hall in Alinor stuff (Haute might have seen it, she is a member) = it cost an absolute fortune just in the Culanda Lacquer! We walled off that entire Coldharbour floating island with those huge Alinor fence pieces and even the roofs were upside down Alinor stairs. The lighted walls were Alinor bookshelves lit with torches, etc. It kind of looks like Camelot meets Coldharbour, lol.

But yeah, as rare as that Culanda Lacquer is = it will stay expensive unless they increase the drop rate. Maybe that will end up being something you can buy with Telvar stones, like the Hakeijo runes are. That is how the price finally dropped on the Hakeijos = people could buy them with Telvar and flood the market with them.

Yeah, you have to choose her best few combat skills and one weapon style to fill one hot bar and duplicate that on both bars to minimize your expenditure in combat skills but still have an effective fighter for self defense when needed. Take only the passives needed for those particular combat skills/her racial passives/and armor passives for her armor style. (based on whatever you have left over after your crafting skills are filled in)

You can tweak their effectiveness by toying with Armor, Mundus, Attributes, and Champion Points to make them effective enough in self defense.

Also, once they have researched everything they need to, resetting their skill points then will give you back any skill points spent in speeding up their researching.

I just respec'd all my crafters when Summerset dropped and they gave us one week of such low cost skill point resets = made a huge difference in their fighting abilities. Of course, they are at level 160 and still wearing level 1 armor (or buck naked under a costume) = so they may still die fairly easily if they can't kill the enemies quickly first, What keeps them alive through most fights is their Champion Points.





Er, by the way = the Guild Hall has two combat dummies, you could have tested Blossom out a long time ago!

Blossom's not really ready for testing her DPS, as she's still collecting her gear. Laurie helped her make some Hunding's, and she's trying to collect the right bits of Spriggan's to go with it (and so she's got a lot of Seventh Legion, and Vampire Lord). She doesn't have any Monster pieces, either. So her axes are a bit underpowered, waiting for set ones to replace them.

The dummy's there because she wanted one. And you don't get one and not hit it. Laurie gave it a whack or two when she made it, and her output's less than Blossom's, but she's a tank, so she isn't too worried. Of course, Laurie was also whispering in Blossom's ear persuading her she'd like a dummy, because Laurie wanted to make one.

They are a lot of fun! I got hooked on the one that talks to you as you beat it, lol. He was yelling at me to "Cease and desist!" the other day when I was testing out a character on my son's account, lol.

I assume that's the one you get at the completion of the Precursor quest in Clockwork City. How much of a grind is collecting the pieces? I think Unna found about five so far, and went and started the quest off. But we didn't really bother looking for more, and haven't seen any for a while.

It was a little bit of a grind; but not too bad. I think there is a piece in every Province plus something like four in Clockwork City or something = can't remember. But I have to stop myself from picking up the one in Stonefalls every time I see it, lol. It is right where I loot regularly; and is so tempting to grab;

Out of all the pieces, the only one I had trouble finding was hidden in the far part of Clockwork City. The rest of them kind of were easy to find. That one = even with directions to it from friends on TeamSpeak I had trouble finding it; and finally a guy brought me right to the spot and I still had trouble seeing it, lol. That one wasn't easy, but the rest weren't bad at all.


Maybe our Guild could have a scavenger hunt so we could all get one for our houses? That would be a nice Guild Meet fun run!

We now have one at Sleek Creek (thanks to Unna). I'll switch my Primary residence to there soon, so everyone can go there.

Finding the parts wasn't hard, but getting the Integral of Reason meant starting the main Clockwork City quest and doing the first half-dozen quests, otherwise the area was locked. That rules it out as a Guild run, unless everyone has the DLC, and has done most of that quest-line.

Now that Laurie can make a Hlaalu bat tub, we've installed one - plus a wash basin, and a single, presumably cold, faucet over it - at Sleek Creek, in the "outhouse". That arrangement avoids the need for screening it off, but the other homes need dividers or something similar. I looked at the price of the blueprints for the Dres ones to use in the Saint Delyn Penthouse, and decided I need a plan B. Some of the other homes could use one, too, and I'll be having the same problem, although not all dividers cost an arm and a leg, and Laurie can already make Redguard, Khajiit or Wood Elf ones.

Does anyone have experience of buying random plans from Rollis?

I used to be addicted to buying the random plans from him; but got so many repeats of the same item that when they doubled the prices on those random plans I stopped buying those. It is kind of like the crates, it is a crap shoot whether you get anything you need or want.

Now I just find out the correct name of exactly what I want to be able to craft and then go buy it from the guild traders. Whenever I see anything I like in a friend's home, I stop immediately and ask them for the full name of it and write it down. Then I go to the Tamriel Trade Center and find out who has the plans for sale.


https://us.tamrieltradecentre.com/pc/Trade


You can type the full name or just type a portion of the name into the "Tamriel Trade Center" site (above or just Google it) and it will give you a drop down list of any items with that word in it = choose the one you want and click on it. It will open up a second page that tells you which guild traders have that item and how much they are selling it for (and when someone last searched for it). It defaults to showing you the most recent finds; but you can click on "Price" to sort it by lowest price too.

That way you are only buying what you want, not relying on the RNG to give you something you might (not) need or want.

Sorry, I haven't rolled the dice with Rollis yet. Jerric has to finish the Vvardenfell achievement before he can buy the Morrowind ones. He is not even close yet. Pog has been buying purple plans at the Guild traders.

I'm using the TTC to get plan prices, and the nice Dres dividers are more than the price of Autumn's Gate! If Minx decides she wants somewhere larger (like the Ald Velothi Harbour House) then we might use enough to make it worth spending. Or we might put a Dark Elf bedroom in Mathiisen Manor, and use a few.

I still roll at Rolis for the purple and blue random plans - we are still getting 50% new plans (new to Maz anyway), the rest we just put up for sale at our traders.

As of yet Maz can't do the Morrowind ones, she has not yet gone to vvardenfell. Phae has the requirement, and we probably could give her the vouchers to hit up the snooty one, but we haven't tried that yet.

At this point, a year and a half into housing, we've decided to not spend any more money on plans unless it is something we are going to use a lot of (and Maz has already learned most of those). If we need only one or two of something for a specific instance, I just send the materials to my housing guild GM and he makes them for me. If that is the case for you with the Dres dividers, ghastley, I'd be happy to ask him to make them for the mats. If you have the mats, I can pass them on to him and pass the dividers back to you.

I am not as heavily into the Alinor stuff as I thought I would be - it's just too German Romantic to appeal to me. It feels like it belongs in palaces of the royalty and not the humble homes of the working class like my gang. The boudoir Redguard style is as fancy as my toons want to get.

Bold: I just don't know what you could mean!


https://imgur.com/efyswak


BWAAHAA!!! Yeah, I'm pretty hooked on it, the Dres and Redoran. And it is too fancy for my characters; but I can't stand it, it is just so much fun to play with!

German Romantic is what I call the Gothic Revival style that was popular in Germany about 200 years ago - emphasis on dark wood, light stone, massive furnishings meant to intimidate the common folk - not very comfortable at all to me!

Went digging on DuckDuckGo and found a few images of German interiors that pretty much epitomize that period

Cochem Castle
Bed and Breakfast in a German Castle
Those Cathedral Windows are the inspiration for the tall Palace windows in Alinor (and the Psijic Villa!)
Typical Bavarian Castle Bedroom

I was just making a joke, (hence the "roll on floor laughing" emote). I knew what you meant. The truth is, so far it is the only style that they have given us decent building blocks for; so I actually have gone nuts playing with them, which is why I attached that screenshot, lol.

I didn't respond at the time, but we did buy the plans and make a pair. I reason that I am going to get more Dunmer houses, and will put them to good use. In fact, we hit the slot limit in the St Delyn Penthouse and are getting restless right now.

I'm also softening my stance on not using crown-purchase furnishings. With my purchase of the last couple of mounts for Unna and Floozie, there's little left in the store that we're saving for. I'm collecting gold as fast as I'm wanting new homes, so paying Crowns for houses isn't needed. Those nice Redguard chairs, and the firelogs, and the books may get acquired soon.

Any advice re buying single pieces versus packs?

If the Pack has a TON of really neat furnishings that you must have, then get the pack.

I've seen that the furnishings in the packs tend to be duplicated in the CS, with the exception of a couple of items - the statues in the Dibella and Clockwork City packs come to mind.

I got two Dibella packs because I liked the statue that much, but I passed on the Clockwork pack because there weren't very many items I wanted, and those that I did want were available in the CS. Same with the New Life pack. So I hope that helps.

I'll be trying it later, but I may as well ask now. Has anyone used the /sethome command of EHT? Each of my characters has a place they call their own, and I regularly park them there, but I'm wondering what downside there might be. After all, it would have been easy for ZOS to do it per character, instead of just per player.

Still, they don't provide for a guildhall to be saved for a guild, so maybe it's just a "not worth their effort" decision.

Does anyone have a furnished Gardner House I could look at? I previewed it, and wasn't impressed by the ZOS furnished look, and the empty house has overdone the open-plan thing. I'm really looking for ideas on slicing it up.

We haven't bought it yet, but I'm considering it for Floozie's graduation present when she hits level 50. The proximity to Rolis will help Laurie with Master Writ turn-ins as well.

Another query for the group. Unna just completed the achievements for Hero of the Ebonheart Pact (because she could) and I note that it entitles us to purchase the Ebonheart Chateau for gold, instead of crowns. We have 2.4M of the 3.8M required, and could probably get there fairly quickly by doing all the top-level daily crafting across the team.

After doing Cadwell's Gold, she's not far from the same achievement in the other two alliances, but buying all three manors is more than 10M gold total. Has anyone bought them all for gold, or did you use Crowns? Because Floozie is a Breton, she'd prefer that we get Daggerfall Overlook first, and maybe instead of the Gardner House. However, Laurie wants that one to reach Rolis faster.

Sorry, Jerric’s crew hasn’t bought any of those houses for Crowns or gold. If they do it will be for gold. Crowns are reserved for horses, dogs, and dresses.

The Flaming Nix room is a good step-stone to Rolis. Mournhold is my most used writ spot.

I personally do not like to spend Crowns on furniture either; because it is real world money spent on a game/virtual item. I don't even like buying Pets or Mounts with Crowns = not to say I haven't done it; I have a few times. I just really don't like to. When they legalized the Gold for Crowns Exchange; I was thrilled; and kind of went on a spending spree for a little while.

Then this past December they finally opened up the household furnishings in the Crown Store in exchange for Gold in game! (before this past December the Crown furnishings lists that you can only access while inside your home were not attainable by Gold to Crown exchanges; but midway through December they removed that restriction! WOO HOO !!!! )

The Special furniture "Packs" for Events/Holidays = those are usually NOT available for gifting; so would not be able to be purchased with a Gold/Crowns exchange (but some of the basic year round packs possibly could be; just look for the "Giftable" logo in the Crown Store to see what you can buy for Gold/Crown exchanges.

* If interested:

You have to find a Broker; and it has to be items marked as "Giftable" in the Crown Store (some things aren't).

The exchange rate (Gold per Crown) varies depending on the market. (in the past week it went up from (150 Gold per Crown) to (200 Gold per Crown).

How it works is that you contact a Broker to buy the Crown items you want. (so shop first before contacting them; and have the exact name of the item you want written down with spelling correct because you will need to be exact).

I use my SneakyBo Guild to get the lowest prices in the exchange; and because there is no middleman with my Guild = I just contact the Guild Master and tell them what I want; send them the gold; and they send me the items in minutes.

Before SneakyBo started Brokering Crowns I used the Tamriel Crown Exchange (who has Gina Bruno as an Officer). They are more expensive and you have to deal with a Broker and a "Procurer" = neither of whom are people you know personally; so you are meeting them outside of towns so they can tell it is you meeting them (not in the middle of a crowd trying to see names). You have to wait till all three are there; then trusting strangers to send it in the mail that might spell your account name wrong; etc = it was very uncomfortable for me.

I was really glad when my Guild started Brokering so I didn't have to use the Exchange anymore. The difference is = the Tamriel Crown Exchange works well for people who are not in a Guild that Brokers Crowns. They are there for everyone who has no one else to turn to first. (they would never be my first choice now that I know how easy it can be with your own Guilds).


* Houses:

They are wavering right now on selling houses for a "Gold to Crown" exchange because it turns out to be a lot cheaper exchanging Gold for Crowns than buying them for Gold via the normal route. So to buy houses you have to "Apply" and may or may not be approved.

If approved; the Exchange cannot (or will not) do furnished houses = NO furniture. That means no free rocks; lights; trees; etc.

I actually bought Coldharbour that way; but there was a LONG wait for them to approve the sale = about a month from the time I paid till I received the Surreal Estate on my account. And they come stripped bare; no "free" Lights or anything. I finally (after a month) got a message in my game mailbox from ESO's system = telling me that I had to log out and log back in; and Coldharbour would be on my account when I logged back in.


The reason they are balking on allowing the houses is because the price buying it this way is SO much lower than their set Gold price that they would get overwhelmed with people wanting to buy it via the Exchange. They don't want the hassle.

Okay; in answer to your other questions:

Sometimes the packs have a unique item in them that makes the rest of the pack worth buying if you want that one item bad enough = example: The big crow combat dummy was AWESOME! = but you could only get it in that pack. (that pack also had a scarecrow with crows flying around and landing on it intermittently; a crow that would perch inside your house and move its head looking around; etc = things you can't buy anywhere or anytime else but in that pack. So you really have to hit that "R" key and review what is in each pack to determine if you think it is worth the 4000 (or so) Crowns. Some of them are def worth it (like the above one with the crows; or the Dibella one that Haute bought; etc). But some of them aren't worth anything because ZOS has loaded them up with crates and barrels that have zero value or their plainest pieces.

I haven't bought that Gardner House; but you can check out YouTube vids to see how others have decorated there for some ideas or inspiration, etc.

I have not even bought one of the noble houses at all yet; really not sure if I will; though I have earned the Achievements to get all three. They cost a lot of money; and if I'm not mistaken they only come with 700 inventory slots and aren't close enough to any amenities. I prefer the smaller houses for my own use; (when not trying to make a guild hall, lol).








I absolutely LOVE that Flaming Nix room! It is one of my favorites! (hard to beat Sleek Creek, though).



Oh Ghastley = might want to ask Haute! She has a huge number of the houses; so very well could have the Gardner and Noble houses! Her decorating in the bigger houses is amazing!

N00b question: Can I turn in at any Rolis? The Master Writ quest always points me specifically at Wayrest (for Laurie) or Mournhold (for Unna) rather than giving me a list of possible locations.

I suspect a One Tamriel change that didn't get updated in the UI. I still see some of the regular writ quests telling me to turn in elsewhere.

Yes, you can turn in master writs to any Rolis despite the fact that the quest 'points' you to the Rolis in your alliance.

At some point I need to decide which is now the quickest to get to. Now Floozie has the Gardner House, I can go there direct from the Psijic Villa after using the Guild's stations, so it's probably going to win over the Snugpod alternative, but there won't be much in it.

And mentioning the Gardner House reminds me. I was comparing prices for plans and furnishings, and noticed that some lower-level plans are cheaper than an item made from them. The Purples are usually a considerable multiple for the plan, and Laurie debates for a long time before buying the plan (always). Anyone in a trade guild have a clue where those prices come from?

You can travel to any house from the Villa; including Snugpod. Snugpod is smaller, but is very close to a Wayshrine; Guild Traders; Merchants; the Undaunted Enclave; a Stables; and both a Writ turn in spot and a Master Writ turn in spot. Gardner house doesn't offer all those amenities; it is just a lot bigger. It may be in town; but is not convenient to the needed facilities.

Also, what Grits said above = the Flaming Nix in Mournhold = it is my second favorite house of all of them (Sleek Creek in Rawl'kha is my top favorite). The Nix is just as convenient as Snugpod; but add to that convenience to crafting stations and a price of @ 13,000 gold! Can't beat that!

The best way I can think of to make a decision on which houses to buy is to walk from the house to the nearest facilities you might want access to from them. The biggest of these has to be a Wayshrine. Anything beyond that it offers is a plus.


Addendum: The prices on anything at the Guild Traders is based on how many there are on the market. The rarer the item; the higher the price to buy it. If the market is flooded with them, they will go for nothing no matter how much they cost to make.

I have two locations I really like for crafting/writ turn-ins: the Captain Margaux House in Daggerfall and the Flaming Nix apartment in Mournhold. I have my two crafters - Maz and Alise, parked there, both places are set up with seven crafting stations for their daily crafting writs. Both have Tythis living there as well, it makes it convenient to bank deconstruction items and pass master writs around.

The only drawback with the Margaux house is having to cross all of Daggerfall to get to the writ drop off and wayshrine, this is when Maz takes Madanach the stallion out for his daily run.

The Flaming Nix really has no drawback, the wayshrine, writ drop off location, and Rolis are all right there. Alise doesn't even mount, she just runs.

Snugpod is neat, but I really hate having to go inside and upstairs just to use crafting stations - it seems there is a lot more running involved.

As for surveys/master writs, generally every four days or so I have Maz go out and collect all the surveys, then hop to mALX's Villa to do the master writs, then port to Alise's Nix to drop off the writs. It makes for a nice change of scenery, though we curse every time we have a survey in a fairly inaccessible location . . .

On an unrelated note, I'm off these next four days (even Saturday ), so I will be working with EHT's animation effects - I have an idea for one of my smaller homes that I'm dying to put into practice. It will be a challenge, but any of you with an updated version of EHT will be welcome to come see . . .