Housing Do’s & Don’ts

Argent Dawn
21

I haven’t played other MMOs, so I don’t really know what neighbourhoods are. I can only guess, based on name alone, but I’m not sure if being able to visit other ppl’s houses without their permission is going to be great (I assume this is something you can do in those neighbourhoods).

Personally, I’m very pessimistic about WoW’s execution of player housing and given how WoW has had a track record of iterating over past systems and making it worse, I’m not sure if it’d even be better than Garrisons were.

My personal wishlist however - something I wished Garrisons had, that you can pick and choose where you can build your house. I understand it’s very technically difficult to do so, thus what most likely is going to happen - if even that - is that few select zones have an available lot to build on for everyone. However, since it’s a wishlist, I hope you can essentially choose any place. There are so many cozy and quiet nooks and crannies in the world that you can only fly to, tucked away behind hills and mountains sometimes. My Huntress has her own estate on the hills of Ashenvale, it’d be cool to actually build that as well. Or someone building a house underground!

I wish it’d be very customizable. Garrison essentially only had like, pre-determined areas that you can customize, but especially if it’s something on a smaller scale (one house vs y’know, a garrison) you should be able to customize everything. People have done crazy things on Pepsi, or why not take inspiration from Sims. For me, the most fun part about Sims was creating the house, so being able to do that in WoW would be great.

With it being very customizable, that’d also mean each playable race has their own assets that you can choose from for at least a good enough house, that everyone can use. Of course, it’s mandatory that each race can build their own house, humans can get human houses, orcs their own, etc. But don’t restrict them, so that humans can also build elven houses, undead can build tauren houses etc.

I would like there to be certain amenities available in the house, AH to crafting tables etc. Otherwise, I worry that most players will complain there’s nothing to do in the house (non RPers) and that it’s a failed development time. I would just really like an AH that isn’t griefable. There were some bugs in Dornogal where some people were just able to lag the entire place out.

The anti-wishlist of don’ts… first, do NOT monetize is, e.g. you have to pay 10 euros for a house, or worse, 100. Yes, people are going to pay for it, no, it won’t be great for the game. I don’t even really want to see customization options on the shop, really.

Also, most of the customization should be obtainable with relative ease. Considering how many assets the game has by now, people are going to grind for quite a bit for just the things they want, so locking some options behind either an awful RNG chance or options that take a long time feel really bad. I can understand some options being tied to certain achievements, e.g. cutting edge or rank 1. But I feel those should be reserved to e.g. a trophy hall or the likes.

Don’t make the lots available only in current expansion zones. Since they said they want it to be evergreen, that cannot be the option since that’s why Garrisons aren’t evergreen either. Player housing must have available lots in every expansion’s zones, preferably all zones. It’d be insane to make them only available in f.e. TWW’s zones, or Midnight’s zones.

I would really dislike if there was one house per warband. Make assets unlockable for the entire warband, but each character can design their own houses.

Anyway, this is already a mini essay. Most of all, considering how so many MMOs have their own versions of player housing at this point, I feel like WoW should try to push the envelope a little bit with this. Be bold and aim high, so that you can say that WoW has the best player housing in the MMO market right now. You don’t really want to develop it and then most players to say ‘wow, I’m disappointed, X game did it better lol’.

1 Like
22

In XIV’s case at least they were large instanced areas where you had 60 plots of land divided into two subdivisions with 30 plots each. Houses ranging from small cottages to medium houses to large manors. Players had to place bids on the houses against each other with some houses being locked to bidding depending on if you were a private buyer or buying for your guild. People would argue for the “sense of Community” but when you have a single guild buying up 10 plots of land for personal use you can see why that system becomes horrendous very fast. Its exclusive and can lock people from owning their own house for years. As a personal example it took 5 years of bidding for me to finally win my own house. Now picture that with the WoW community.

1 Like
23

If it is any close to this, I’d take the lifetime subscription option for WoW

1 Like
24

This is the single, worst system I can think of

4 Likes
25

Blizzard are good at copying stuff. I’d say copy how FFXIV does housing, in the sense of decorating, and being able to decorate inside, and having space to decorate outside.

And that is where the copy should stop. I’d not wish for how plots actually work there, to be how its done in WoW. I refer only to the actual intuitive and easy-to-use UI and tools you have to decorate your space, and preview the many options for things you can get.

The only other MMO I’ve tried with housing is GW2, and the UI there feels rather clunky. It works, but it’s just… Clunky’s the right word.

1 Like
26

Damn, didn’t know FFXIV was so realistic! Good thing WoW is high fantasy and definitely doesn’t have a playerbase wishing for realism that’d inevitably get this as well! :slight_smile:

1 Like
27

i despise it. eso for its faults nailed how houses should be implemented. monetary issues aside.

was this with guild halls or the more recent homesteads? Homesteads feel a bit easier than they used to be with it

unless you go to buy a house in a goblin suburb and you get hit in the face with american-tier inflation

28

For me, it would be:

Instanced content that is visible from the outside world, like Garrisons were, with a personal HS for fast travel.

Various house/plot sizes. Want a simple cottage on a small plot of land? Fine! Want a big house on a larger plot of land? Good! Want a small house on a large plot of land, leaving room for other houses and features such as a garden, a stable and other stuff? More power to you! Don’t want a home at all and just a campsite? Fair does!

Racial variety: Garrisons had very good human and orc building upgrades, but variety is needed! Also variety in a race’s circle, such as different orc clans or human kingdoms, troll tribes and goblin cartels.

Character specific: let each character have their own home to design, not just one house for your whole warband!

Warband home: in contrast, if you choose it, let it be so your other characters can walk around the plot and interact with stuff!

Other players: let other people be able to enter your home if you’re a group leader, and let it be cross faction too!

Location: let us choose where you want your home to be!

2 Likes
29

Now this might be me misremembering things, but I think we were initially told that our WoD garrison could be placed in any of the expansion’s zones - which was then walked back on later. Having the pick of several zones to serve as the background for the homes would almost be poetic.

30

There’s got to be a balance regarding the “usefulness” of housing. We know from garrisons and from other games that having too many features locked to these personal instances is a good way to make your MMO feel lonely. There are some features that must remain exclusive to capital cities, so that these places can serve as hubs of player activity and so that the game feels somewhat alive. Based off of prior feedback, people want their MMOs to feel like a world that they’re sharing with other players.

So, another part of that is how accessible these houses will be to other players. Though some people feel like the neighbourhood system of FFXIV is immersion-breaking from a roleplayer’s perspective, there are a couple of good reasons for that system. One, it allows you to publicly display your house and your craftsmanship, it allows you to put your creativity on display for others to admire. Two, these neighbourhoods full of eclectic houses do give the impression that the world is actually lived in, you see these places and you know that they were made by other players.

So if player houses are little more than private instances that cannot publicly be observed by other players, and if player houses lack the desirable amenities that draw players to capital cities, a lot of players will ask “why should I bother with this gimmick at all,” if it’s just a private vanity feature that no one else gets to see without an invitation from you.

What function should houses provide that isn’t already provided by yaks, brutosaurs and various toys and racial abilities, without infringing on the utility of capital cities and turning them into ghost towns that players only visit once a week for weekly quests and the vault?

And to what degree should players other than the owner be able to interact with and observe the owner’s house? Should someone’s house be completely invisible and inaccessible to you unless you’re invited into it, or should you be exposed to the houses of others, in an attempt to make the world feel more lived-in and interconnected?

I don’t envy Blizzard. If they screw this up, housing is either going to be useless for anyone other than roleplayers or it’s going to destroy any remaining sense of community that the game has, perhaps even for roleplayers too.

2 Likes
31

TESO allows you to list your house for public viewing whilst still keeping it instanced.

I was lucky enough to own a large housing plot in FFXIV back when I played that and yet one of the neighbours ran a brothel. I had to seal the house doors to stop the clients entering my house - but I couldn’t do anything to keep them out of my garden.

I also think it’s entirely fine for role-play and housing to be a private, curated affair. Especially when stalking and harassment has at times been a major issue on this server over the years.

2 Likes
32

I am not using the best solution as a suggestion, for WoW’s engine cannot handle housing in the open world. We can dream big till we hear more. Notes below, are of course, my views.

House mechanics:
Best case scenario: Personal phasing (Garrison, see your home in the open, but all will see their own for that location), or neighbourhood (Like FF, or LOTRO by a plot in a pre-rendered neighbourhood), Housing instance (Wildstar, your whole home in one instance))
Worst case scenario: Interior Instance (FF Apartments, SWTOR ships - You only see your home from within, no exterior).
Most likely scenario: Personal Phasing (Garrison, see your home in the open, but all will see their own for that location (Since they already have that method))

NOTE: LOTRO housing is a neighbourhood of instanced housing. You can decorate outside by a selection of item hooks, and then you instance inside your house.

Locations:
Best case scenario: Housing Personal Phasing Plots (Like how the Garrison was meant to be with Warlords of Draenor. locations spread across the continents for us to place our personal phasing), or Housing Neighbourhood Instance Plots (Like how we see with LOTRO, or FF, a pre-selected area where you can form a neighbourhood with others)
Worst case scenario: Housing instance only located in main faction capitol.
Most likely scenario: Housing locations selected across the world, either personal phasing, or instances.

Visiting/Company method:
Best case scenario: Able to make a visitor’s approval list of people who may enter, even if you are not online.
Worst case scenario: No visitors allowed.
Most likely scenario: You may have up to 39 visitors while you are online.

Decorating:
Best case scenario: Dynamic placements of items (See AA, FF, WS, etc)
Worst case scenario: Static pre-set items with the housing.
Most likely scenario: Dynamic placements of items, or item hooks (See LOTRO)

Housing Design:
Best case scenario: You may select buildings, and extensions as you see fit (See Wildstar)
Worst case scenario: Same building for everyone, only to be upgraded as a total (See Garrisons, FF housing)
Most likely scenario: Selection from WoW’s building catalogue to place as we see fit.

Housing Area Design
Best case scenario: We may place fields (that are functional, see AA, or Wildstar), as well as additional buildings as we please.
Worst case scenario: No permissions to place exterior extensions, or even able to have an exterior (See FF apartments).
Most likely scenario: We are given a restricted amount of land slots to place a pre-selected amount of structures (See Garrison).

As for function of housing. I want it to be completely cosmetic. A cosmetic reward track that can be progressed on doing world content. No Auction access, no teleport access other than personal HS, nor trading vendor access. I want you to be able to pick up your Trading Post items as “Mail” (Some crates there, you have mail), a bank access should be a thing, upgrade to be able to transmog as well. No profession controlled features (Garrison garden, Garrison mine), should be able to have a profession station. No trade chat access.

3 Likes
33

I might be one of the few who is less spirited about the idea of player housing. Whilst I love the idea of having our own spaces and getting the opportunity to decorate and customise to our heart’s content (I hope), I half pray that this will not be what kills open world RP.

Half the charm of WoW in general and Argent Dawn in particular is that we actually run into players here and there in the open world, that we have the opportunities to interact with people crowding a city, a forest, a village or a grove. We can create events open for all in select places that might fit the theme for a festival, a tournament, a lecture, a play or similar. If one can visit other players’ houses, I would honestly not mind a cap on party size. Else I fear open world RP would move into select player houses designed in a specific style, or guilds would simply linger in guild housing, if that is offered down the line. The last thing I would wish for is an invite-culture to grow in the RP sphere we have, along the lines of “this event will be happening at player X’s house, sign up for invite” or “there will always be RP at this player’s house, if you are on that player’s list of visitors”.

One should not be too much of a pessimist, naturally. A lot of good things can come out of this too, depending on the features Blizz implements. I just hope it is not what will be the nail in the coffin for the open world RP-scene.

2 Likes
34

My worry also, really. Housing sounds fun but yea.

35

It won’t do what a culture of RP-by-appointment, ignoring anyone not from the ‘in group’, and a general sense of not wanting to really deal with new people/people they don’t know yet hasn’t done already.

12 Likes
36

As is, people are always visible. Sure, a new person at an event might not be well-timed or suited, but it’s how they learn about one another. If a bubble becomes invisible… well, it becomes invisible.

3 Likes
37

Just give me my hut in Alterac Valley among the Frostwolves, where my wolf rests outside.

Only Akamito, Manata and Stonetower are permitted to enter.

3 Likes
38

My god it’s Ivus the Forest Lord with a steel chair

9 Likes
39

You never did have taste.

40

You sound jealous cause your peak is too distant to be of winter and snow.