Housing needs a purpose or it will fail

Community Housing
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I’m enjoying building and moddifying my house.

I enjoy the system, I enjoy being in a guild neighbourhood and checking out all my friend’s houses. I wanted to make sure that I started with saying: It is great.

But surely I’m not the only one thinking: “Ok, so…. what do we do with it…?”

Bear with me for a second:

I build my house, and it looks amazing (I copied from videos and posts shamelessly), and I enjoy the LOOK of it, but… what is the exact purpose? What’s the point? What’s the motive? What’s the feeling?

If we go with the “fantasy” argument, then wouldn’t I want to come back home after an adventure? I go out, I kill baddies, I get loot, and then…. I go to Dornogal…?

I want to go home, but everything is in the city…

And yes, of course we don’t want another garrison flop! No, no, no, no. Absolutely not.

We do not want a place where you can have everything and never leave out into the world, but do we want a place with…well… essencially nothing…?

It is my house, after all. Shouldn’t this feel like in real life where I need to go out for some things, yes, but I also have my own stuff at home?

  • What would be wrong with having our bank tabs at home, for example?
  • What would be wrong with being able to craft our crafts at home? (notice that I said craft, not gather)
  • What would be the downside of having the guild bank at the neighbourhood center?

Some systems could be Dornogal-exclusive still, like the AH, the access to dungeon portals, the gear upgrade vendors, and everything else that feels like you’d need to “go out into the city to get some stuff done”.

This, to me, should be a matter of creating a fantasy that feels vibrant, and giving the houses and neighbourhood somewhat of a purpose beyond expressing our creativity.

Some parts of the game, like transmog, could be city-bound until you completed an achievement which allows you to place a transmog machine at home.

Void storage could be something city-exclusive, since the fantasy behind it seems to be that a specific faction helps you with that.

I know this is a new system and it’s going to improve with time, but if we want it to really feel evergreen, then it needs to be something more than “ok, I’m done, house is finished, now I’m off to Dornogal forever”.

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They’re trying to avoid a repeat of the Garrison problem where the open world felt dead because everyone had all they could need in their Garrison. That said you can access you warband and guild banks, mail, and transmogs inside your home already (usually on cool downs) using tools or toys that are available.

We’re also currently on a limited implementation on the Housing system until Midnight releases and we get community events to draw us into our neighbourhoods. So for now enjoy expressing your creativity.

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At the very least, there should be a post box. I am aware there’s a post box deco item but I haven’t gotten it yet, so don’t know if it’s functional or not. If it isn’t, it should be.

There’s two sides to the argument when it comes to whether utilities should or shouldn’t be added to houses and/or neighbourhoods; those that’ll think it’ll completely kill off player hubs, and those who think that ship has already sailed, or leaving port at least, with the addition of utility mounts, toys, whatever else.

I think they should be added to neighbourhoods, but it should be a slow drip. Players should have to gradually work towards it. Endeavours should slowly contribute to unlocking utility buildings for the entire neighborhood, IMO.

But yeah, the whole point of houses is just to have somewhere cosy where you can decompress after a long day’s questing. Having a beautiful home is the reward in itself.

Maybe they could add Garrison functionality to houses? My Druid would love to have a herb garden in her front yard. I could then go home every day and trim my bush, haha.

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It isn’t. Purely decorative atm. Hope it changes and they add some more versions.

Right now, i’m having fun with the creative side of the system and hopefully they add more over time. I’m in a rp guild, so my house will be used for rp purposes but i do hope they add stuff that can be interacted with like the Warlock and Mage class hall platforms.

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Cheers for letting me know about the post box.

I’ve been enjoying decorating, too. And y’know what else? I’ve been enjoying going back and finishing off rep at various places, strictly to unlock deco. I’m doing Kul Tiras world quests at the minute because I want the well item from Storm’s Wake, as well as a couple of Proudmoore bits. It’s super refreshing to go back to the area after years.

I hope they let us by plots in other locations in the future. I mean in addition to the two we already have. I’ve come back to WoW after a big stint playing SWTOR, where they let you have many houses, so you never run out of things to decorate. I can picture a scenario in WoW where I’ve decorated both homes and then I have nothing left to do. This will need to be addressed eventually. Like, in my opinion, that’s the true future issue with WoW housing.

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I do hope this will happen too. I would’ve liked to build custom houses for my some of my alts only to find out I can only make 2. And yes I know I can incorporate this into a single house but that would mean giving up parts of my original vision I had for my main’s house since there’s only so much limit you can have.

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I think they only need to improve the current form rather than try to add in some “purpose”. They will surely do it at some point, if only to sell some functional stuff, but atm it just needs improving what exists.

Stuff like letting us save houses. I might want to try building something else rather than scrapping my current house. People would stay at their houses more building and trying new stuff, if they dont have to fear destroying their current thing.

Anyway, it does not need to become a garrison, but I would still like mailbox and vendor where you can just sell stuff.

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This is true, and there’s time, they can gradually improve things.

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Yeah this is something to definitely consider, and I know you know this. We’re early adopters. Give it a few years to be iterated on, and player housing will be a feature-rich pillar of WoW gameplay. As a foundation, I think they’ve smashed it out the park. By far the best housing I’ve played about with in an MMO. I mentioned SWTOR housing in a previous reply. WoW’s already puts it to shame, so it’s a really positive sign.

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I do believe that if they want to make this an evergreen system, they need to plan for it the same way they plan for delves. which were, imo, a success.

As far as how it should evolve, I wouldn’t mind seeing some Once Human-isation of some of its parts. That game excels at housing.

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I have the same kind of thought , I got an alliance house got a horde house. But what to do with it no Idea it has no purpose ,

I havent been there for a few days even. havent really started building/decorating cause I am saying to myself what is the use and why would I spend time and resources on it.