Player housing and comparison to other MMOs

[Ishayo-tarren-mill]

@Graeham-argent-dawn

They’re not mutually exclusive concepts and the vast majority of zones are already dead and neglected.

Which is a flaw, not something to emulate further.

@Graeham-argent-dawn

If you want to see more people out in the game world then incentives need to be put out there - which player housing can accomplish

Uhh… no, it does the opposite of that. It will probably spread people out into old zones more if you add something like that, which is great - except as soon as they’re done they disappear into nothing.

@Graeham-argent-dawn

That’s how TESO does it and it works at allowing player housing to exist without taking away from activity elsewhere.

TESO uses the megaserver concept. You have one server and it creates however many instances it thinks it needs to make a populated world.

It does certainly do that, but it also creates a world where the fact that there are other players doesn’t really matter much because it’s constantly remixing everybody into new buckets. WoW has this problem, too, but mucks it up further by also having realms that aren’t fully merged, causing some sort of megaserver phasing without being a megaserver. It’s bizarre, and terrible.

@Graeham-argent-dawn

It’s not like people just hide in their houses constantly but if they were to do that, they’re likely not the sort of player to want to interact with others in the first place.

If every player spends 1/3rd of their time then there are 1/3rd as many players in the game world at any given time. Of course it matters how frequently people are in there and how many are in there, but it’s not like them only being in there some of the time just solves this problem outright.

In fact, you’ve created a tension in the design - you don’t want players in there because then they’re not adventuring, but you do want players in there so they can enjoy all the stuff they got?

How about you get to enjoy the stuff you got while adventuring? Yes, that sounds good, doesn’t it? Que every other reward system in the game, no exceptions.

[Tosemist-stormscale]

@Graeham-argent-dawn

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

This is an MMO. We want to see other players around us in the world. The game is called World of Warcraft and here you are putting world in quotes like you’ve never heard of the concept.

They’re not mutually exclusive concepts and the vast majority of zones are already dead and neglected. If you want to see more people out in the game world then incentives need to be put out there - which player housing can accomplish, especially if the crafting plans for furniture are locked behind doing stuff out in the game world.

That’s how TESO does it and it works at allowing player housing to exist without taking away from activity elsewhere.

It’s not like people just hide in their houses constantly but if they were to do that, they’re likely not the sort of player to want to interact with others in the first place.

There is no point into explaining that to him .
People gave him tons of examples and MMOS that have player housing and have way more active world with players then WoW the guy just doesn’t listens or accept the fact that games like GW2 / FFXIV /Wildstar(had) / Runescape / ESO have way more reasons to go out there and do stuff then WoW has which creates way more active maps , he just sounds like the fox guy repeating his mixtape on his own hypothesis.

[Ishayo-tarren-mill]

@Tosemist-stormscale

There is no point into explaining that to him .
People gave him tons of examples and MMOS that have player housing and have way more active world with players then WoW the guy just doesn’t listens or accept the fact that games like GW2 / FFXIV /Wildstar(had) / Runescape / ESO have way more reasons to go out there and do stuff then WoW has which creates way more active maps , he just sounds like the fox guy repeating his mixtape on his own hypothesis.

Of course I accept that. What I don’t accept is that housing is helping them achieve that. It is that way for wholly different reasons, such as not making old content instantly obsolete every time you make a new expansion, or putting 1 million players on one server.

If WoW put 1 million players on one server then yeah, housing would probably not empty it enough to be noticeable - it’d just spawn fewer layers. But now you’ve got a megaserver and the town effect can never come back.

There is a cost to introducing ESO’s systems into WoW and then using ESO’s solutions to solve the problems that you introduce into WoW by copying ESO’s systems in the first place. You just convert WoW into ESO. I think that’s too high a price to pay.

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

I would love my own home and garden. I don’t even care if I can’t mount up but being able to choose some mounts to be present and pets etc would be a nice touch ofc.

[Tosemist-stormscale]

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

Of course I accept that. What I don’t accept is that housing is helping them achieve that.

Want pure example from me playing GW2? Guild halls made me and my guild play the maps and do the world events and meta events way more when New Guild Halls came out and made us farm together on different maps Resources Old and new(As in guild wars you always need low tier recourses to craft higher Ore/Wood/Herbs/Food) for new buildings in the guild hall (Arena structures/Holograms (Tied to new seasons) changes the skybox with special effects/Our own jumping puzzles/PvE/WvW guild structures/Proffesion plots(Daily harvesting for the guild) and so on , some of those stuff cost millions of gold also.
Archeage made me and the guild Build our player house in sertain zones for Caravan runs and access for different climates to Grow/nourish breeds of animals/trees/crops/crafting , some of those zones were open world pvp zones and Guild had to declare wars on each other to claim some areas of it (Not neutral zones) we had naval battles over islands , we did raiding for specific housing items also , we did pvp farms for it also besides the Tmog/mounts.
Wildstar made me play the map way more also besides the normal items that you get in wow for recourses/recipes/nodes/models of walls and such , go to Void plagues zone for special breeds of herbs/trees/skins for house (Just cosmetic items) events in the game “Hallows end” made me farm sertain areas for special vendor recipes/items themed around hallows end for the player housing.
The list can go on and on but that’s exactly the point of housing adding another layer besides Tmog/mounts/pet simple as that , and when you want or not want you go to your house it differs from person to person why won’t you bash people sitting in Goldshire like you cried because they “In old zones” and not new zones? why won’t you bash people who right now sit in valdrakken doing nothing because there is no real reason for them to go there besides to try and farm the weekly hunt even because they still missing only that 1 mount …
WoW has insane sharding that forces you to see people (And that’s besides server merges) the merged server have sharding themselves to put you near other people yet you almost and never see them after first month of a season.

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

If WoW put 1 million players on one server then yeah

WoW cant handle 40v40 epic BG without a lag/delays what are you speaking about? we will never have that no matter how much you wish for it .
We don’t need 1 million people because we have thousands upon thousands and tens of thousands people in 1 server and in merged server we have over tens of different layers on those merged servers and yet you don’t see people because the only thing we have is M+/Raids/PvP(all instanced) and people just sit in main hub waiting for a group or a que + the reason they do it its for the Mount/seasonal set Tmog/Enchant mog/Achievement so why won’t you give them another layer to do it and add player housing items? will give them way more reasons to go out.

[Athzu-blackmoore]

Meaning it’s in their heads for 20 years and they didn’t do it. They still won’t. Unless they realize they can sell e-furniture. Then they will.

[Tosemist-stormscale]

@Athzu-blackmoore

Meaning it’s in their heads for 20 years and they didn’t do it. They still won’t. Unless they realize they can sell e-furniture. Then they will.

Do you even follow up on blizzard devs or any interviews of them saying how they made big mistakes because they didn’t develop evergreen systems and they made just power grid systems that were left behind after each expansions? how they now have teams dedicated to expanding the game evergreen features making the game wider and not “Taller” or you are just not a person who understands reasons ? when devs come on interviews before TWW and says “We were wrong with our Phylosophy WoW didn’t grow it just became a grind fest from season to season and we want to change that”?

[Athzu-blackmoore]

Sorry I hwas mean to you on the schoolyard, I ma gonna be a good boi now! Promis ! Just look at the new Zepla interview.

[Tosemist-stormscale]

@Athzu-blackmoore

Just look at the new Zepla interview.

You see the problem is that Zepla interview isn’t new she just uploaded it 11 days ago it was recorded before the Alpha of TWW and you think its new because you watched it from asmongold , yeah i have seen it she asked questions only about M+ / Raids / Vertical systems like “What will be with the Affixes” “will we be able to spawn in the boss room” “how you will make M+ more accessable” but nothing about evergreen systems and the game as a whole like the interviews i linked with Preachgaming/Tali&evitel/Soul/MRGM .
What does zepla interview has to do with new evergreen systems when she didn’t ask even about it there? (infact she did ask 1 question about “Do you look into updating the guild system because it looks more like a raid rooster” and they said “Yes we definitly are looking into that its really important to us” “we do like that blizzard tries now to innovate and try new things” which means they do look and want to come up with new evergreen features.
i do understand that you have a rough time with logic and conclusions but only because you saw asmon video of 1 interview not even on the topic(besides that 1 question) and not 20 different resent interviews has nothing to do with what you wrote and what i spoke.
Infact that interview shows they do want to try and add new things into the game and not so much into M+/Mythic raiding which makes you seem not good to bring it as a example.

[Tah-earthen-ring]

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

It won’t bother the servers at all.

Are we playing the same game?!
This game has issues with big numbers of people being at the same place.

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

It’s not big houses, it’s the number of them.

WoW’s camera makes all this a bit tricky, but even if we ignore that and say everybody gets on average 100m2, and then a little for the roads and so on, that’s like 4,000,000m2 and that’s just for those currently online players on a high pop server. If everyone is to have a house, it’s like 10 times that, or around 40km2.

That’s why you use instanced housing.
Everyone shares the same ‘front door’ so to speak.

I don’t know why you’d ever need an actual ‘physical’ house for every single player. That sounds like madness.

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

This is an MMO. We want to see other players around us in the world. The game is called World of Warcraft and here you are putting world in quotes like you’ve never heard of the concept.

I explained my reasoning for doing so. So suggesting another reason serves what purpose?

Anyway; I simply don’t see it as a problem if you see a few less people around. This issue already exists to a large extend with lots of people only hanging around in ‘insert whatever the relevant current hub is’ waiting for their queue to pop or something similar. Whenever I roam around the zones (which I do relatively quite a bit), I see people at current weekly questing locations, but not much else.

So in that regard, I don’t think much would change honestly.
People will still be in the popular ‘need to be’ places.

But with all that said: To ‘fuel’ this housing system, people are still going to need to do stuff out in the world and in the various activities that WoW provides. The vast majority is only going to be in their house when they’re decorating and/or in RP situations.

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

I remember there being an interview with Tom Chilton just before Cata where he said the feature was too difficult to make fun instead of clumsy, that they tried, and that we should expect it to come out “shortly after never”. That very same person then gave us Garrisons.

And that’s also many, many years ago. Things change.
I don’t put much stock in what a dev said so many years ago.

[Jito-turalyon (Jito)]

@Tosemist-stormscale

i do understand that you have a rough time with logic and conclusions

@Tosemist-stormscale

Infact that interview shows they do want to try and add new things into the game

Since I’ve argued a bit the same as the guy you replied to, I’ll just throw in a comment on this.

Fact of the matter is that a desire for Housing was brought to Blizzard’s attention before WoW was even released. And it’s been brought to their attention ever since.

Another fact of the matter is that Blizzard have always said that it’s something they would like to do.

So awareness and willingness are there.

But here are a few other facts.

They’ve had more than 20 years to work on and iterate on a design for Housing. And they haven’t been successful with anything beyond The Garrison – which Blizzard themselves said (at the time) was their take on Housing in WoW.

There is nothing that implies that Blizzard’s desire to shift toward more evergreen systems in WoW is an indication that Housing is a priority. After all, they made Dragonriding and (soon) Delves – not Housing.

The communication about a shift toward evergreen systems came as a response to the backlash from recent expansion features like Warfronts and Torghast – not as an immidiate desire to do Housing.

So as far as facts and conclusions are concerned, the following can be said:

There is nothing that indicates that Blizzard has a working design for Housing in WoW.
There is nothing that indicates that Blizzard intends to implement Housing into WoW in the immidiate or near future.

What you’re arguing is the conviction of your belief that Housing will happen, that it’s a good idea, and that Blizzard’s general statements can be interpreted to be about Housing.
That’s not argumentation based on logic – logos. That’s entirely based on your feelings on the matter – pathos.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the conviction of your argument doesn’t hold up to reality.
If Housing has always been such a great idea and Blizzard have always said they would like to do it, then why haven’t they done it by now?

[Tosemist-stormscale]

@Jito-turalyon

There is nothing that implies that Blizzard’s desire to shift toward more evergreen systems in WoW is an indication that Housing is a priority. After all, they made Dragonriding and (soon) Delves – not Housing.

True , and its the outcome as they said themselves “That was development was too focused on the treadmill of raids/dungeons/pvp seasons which they admitted on recent interviews was WRONG” which means No they didn’t focus on evergreen features ever in those past years it was their formula all this time “Seasonal M+/raids/PvP” They said their phylosophy shifted into wanting more evergreen features in wow that’s how we came to having “Dragonriding” and not each expansion forgotten “Waste of time Vertical features like Torghast/Island exp/Warfronts”.
As they admitted it was wrong not a long time ago their development shifted towards wider world and not taller.

@Jito-turalyon

There is nothing that indicates that Blizzard has a working design for Housing in WoW.

There is nothing that indicates that they have “Now”

@Jito-turalyon

There is nothing that indicates that Blizzard intends to implement Housing into WoW in the immidiate or near future.

That’s actually was asked by one of the content creators in a month old interview i don’t remember which one of them because there was tens of them , and they said “We are looking into housing and its definitly something we want” it could be any time it could next expansion(Midnight) it could be (last titan) it could even be after we end the “World soul saga” that we can’t know but the fact stays the same They said they do want and they are looking into it + they have separate teams for evergreen features that they didn’t have before DF.

@Jito-turalyon

That’s not argumentation based on logic – logos. That’s entirely based on your feelings on the matter – pathos.

as already said but will say again “We want player housing we are definetly looking into it” “We have separate evergreen development teams” (in past month interviews)
as also they said they do want to update the guild system and not be a pure “Raid rooster”.

@Jito-turalyon

If Housing has always been such a great idea and Blizzard have always said they would like to do it, then why haven’t they done it by now?

Who told “Always” the only time they wanted was classic alpha , they didn’t even focus on those features not as of lately all past expansions we got Specific Exp features tied to player power(Garrisons also exp player power feature) as they stated was a mistake that they made that didn’t make the Game grow in reality but wasted time for them to be gone later.
as to why they haven’t done it by now is the same way you can say Why they did dynamic flying only now when MMOS like GW2 had them from 2017 , its all their different priority list , or you can say maybe because they were part of Activision but now they are part of Microsoft or because Bobby isn’t there anymore so they have more freedom of development so we see new things like Dragon riding/Plunderstorm/remix/delves and a lot more experimentation then in the past from cata(2011) Tmog last evergreen feature we got into wow besides M+(legion) till now times.

[Punyelf-draenor (Punyelf)]

@Tah-earthen-ring

Are we playing the same game?!
This game has issues with big numbers of people being at the same place.

That PvP Event Southshore vs Tarren Mill was a slide show at times.

Remix has it’s moments too with big raids in Siege when people fill a group with 30 people and all their gems are going off at once.

No one is likely to forget Shadowlands lag if the zone you were in hosted a world boss.

This is also why we have such aggressive sharding now. Which, ironically, makes the world quieter.

[Eliquís-silvermoon]

@Jito-turalyon

So as far as facts and conclusions are concerned

None of this are fact just your view unless you can point out facts from blizzard in recent years IE last 2 to 3 they are not going to do it.

[Eliquís-silvermoon]

@Tosemist-stormscale

Tmog last evergreen

Also

Time walking always changing
Tradepost
dragonriding
collecting as a whole is getting bigger and catered for, the ones saying no and going back to classic just do not want there game changed and stuck in past years.

[Jito-turalyon (Jito)]

@Tosemist-stormscale

@Jito-turalyon

There is nothing that indicates that Blizzard has a working design for Housing in WoW.

There is nothing that indicates that they have “Now”

That doesn’t make any sense.

@Tosemist-stormscale

@Jito-turalyon

There is nothing that indicates that Blizzard intends to implement Housing into WoW in the immidiate or near future.

That’s actually was asked by one of the content creators in a month old interview i don’t remember which one of them because there was tens of them , and they said “We are looking into housing and its definitly something we want” it could be any time it could next expansion(Midnight) it could be (last titan) it could even be after we end the “World soul saga” that we can’t know but the fact stays the same They said they do want and they are looking into it + they have separate teams for evergreen features that they didn’t have before DF.

None of what you said refutes my statement. You just made some loose guesses, wrote some wishful thinking, and did some hopeful extrapolation of vague comments by Blizzard. None of that supports any indication that Blizzard intends to implement Housing into WoW in the immidiate or near future.

@Tosemist-stormscale

@Jito-turalyon

That’s not argumentation based on logic – logos. That’s entirely based on your feelings on the matter – pathos.

as already said but will say again “We want player housing we are definetly looking into it” “We have separate evergreen development teams” (in past month interviews)
as also they said they do want to update the guild system and not be a pure “Raid rooster”.

Wanting player housing and looking into player housing is not a confirmation of player Housing happening. Those are basic media answers to support community wishes and ideas without confirming or commiting to anything.
And having seperate development teams for expansions and patches and systems and content is nothing new. Organizational changes is not an indication of Housing.
And updating the guild system is also not Housing.

@Tosemist-stormscale

@Jito-turalyon

If Housing has always been such a great idea and Blizzard have always said they would like to do it, then why haven’t they done it by now?

@Tosemist-stormscale

its all their different priority list , or you can say maybe because they were part of Activision but now they are part of Microsoft or because Bobby isn’t there anymore so they have more freedom of development so we see new things like Dragon riding/Plunderstorm/remix/delves and a lot more experimentation then in the past from cata(2011) Tmog last evergreen feature we got into wow besides M+(legion) till now times.

If it’s because of a priority list that we don’t have Housing, then there’s nothing that indicates from Blizzard that the priority list has changed in favor of Housing. They have not said anything to that end specifically about Housing.

If it’s because of Bobby Kotick and Microsoft that features like Dragonriding/Plunderstorm/Remix/Delves have come about, then there’s no logic that supports that Housing would be next. That’s just wishful thinking.

[Jito-turalyon (Jito)]

@Eliquís-silvermoon

None of this are fact just your view unless you can point out facts from blizzard in recent years IE last 2 to 3 they are not going to do it.

That’s not the argument.
The argument is that they haven’t done it in the last 20 years, and that’s because there are challenges and problems with making it. If there weren’t, then we would already have had it.

His argument appears to be that it’s a great idea, it’s easy to do, lots of other games have done it, Blizzard have plenty of developers, there’s no issues, and so on.

To which I simply say: Why haven’t they already done it then? Why haven’t they announced it for The War Within if it’s such a perfect and easy feature to make?

(Maybe because it’s not so perfect and it’s not so easy, and some of the remarks that people have pointed out in this thread is valid critique)

[Ishayo-tarren-mill]

@Tah-earthen-ring

Are we playing the same game?!

I think so?

If you put houses near where they would normally gather, but they are instead in their houses, then they are spread out more, leading to less load.

Further, WoW doesn’t actually have a big issue with many players gathered in one spot. What it has an issue with is when many players gather in one spot and begin fighting.

The amount of procs and small hits in WoW is outrageous at this point, and that’s what the servers can’t handle. Vanilla runs fine even with 150+ players gathered in one giant battle. We saw that in Classic vanilla before BG’s. Ran perfectly.

@Tah-earthen-ring

Everyone shares the same ‘front door’ so to speak.

Isn’t that weird though? Doesn’t feel much like a personal space to me.

@Tah-earthen-ring

I explained my reasoning for doing so. So suggesting another reason serves what purpose?

Getting a better reason out of you. I think your reasoning is pretty poor

@Tah-earthen-ring

Anyway; I simply don’t see it as a problem if you see a few less people around. This issue already exists to a large extend with lots of people only hanging around in ‘insert whatever the relevant current hub is’ waiting for their queue to pop or something similar. Whenever I roam around the zones (which I do relatively quite a bit), I see people at current weekly questing locations, but not much else.

Like I said, it’s a flaw that have been created over time. I don’t think they should make it worse, I think they should fix it.

@Tah-earthen-ring

And that’s also many, many years ago. Things change.

snorts

Yeah, but not always for the better. Sometimes things really ought to change back. For example, we used to live in a world where your operating system didn’t snatch all your personal data into the cloud by default and without your explicit consent. Would be nice if it stopped once more.

@Tah-earthen-ring

I don’t put much stock in what a dev said so many years ago.

Then find a reason why they’re wrong. A good reason.

I mean, I know I’m sitting here being the judge of whether it’s a good reason from my point of view. If you think it’s a good enough reason, fair enough - but I don’t, and I, too, have explained why.

So I guess Blizzard will be the ultimate judge, having seen both sides (and I know they have already, believe it or not) and… well…

there’s no housing.

[Tah-earthen-ring]

@Jito-turalyon

The argument is that they haven’t done it in the last 20 years, and that’s because there are challenges and problems with making it. If there weren’t, then we would already have had it.

For the vast majority of those 20 years WoW has been a game that focussed on a system for the lifespan of an expansion. THAT was the issue. Creating an actual housing system and then abandoning it after the current expansion is of course not worth the time and effort it would have taken.

Since DF they’ve changed their stance and they’ve shown their commitment to this new design philosophy.

I believe that makes all the difference for them. Creating an evergreen system can require a longer development time and its own team while it’s actively being developed. They have the means AND the design philosophy now. They didn’t before.

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

Isn’t that weird though? Doesn’t feel much like a personal space to me.

No it’s not weird.

It’s exactly the same when you go to the entrance of a dungeon. When another group enters, they go to another dungeon; not yours.

Same thing.

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

Getting a better reason out of you. I think your reasoning is pretty poor

That’s fine to think that. It was my reasoning, regardless.

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

Like I said, it’s a flaw that have been created over time. I don’t think they should make it worse, I think they should fix it.

We’ll have to agree to disagree then. I don’t think it’s important enough to focus on.
If people want to be near other people, they will be. If they don’t, they won’t.

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

snorts

Yeah, but not always for the better. Sometimes things really ought to change back. For example, we used to live in a world where your operating system didn’t snatch all your personal data into the cloud by default and without your explicit consent. Would be nice if it stopped once more.

Sure, not all changes in the world are good. But the changes are there.
That was my point.

@Ishayo-tarren-mill

Then find a reason why they’re wrong. A good reason.

I’m saying that what they said was based on how things were back then.
We already agreed that things have changed, right? Well, there you go.

Also, see my answer to Jito at the top of this post.

[Ishayo-tarren-mill]

@Tah-earthen-ring

No it’s not weird.

It’s exactly the same when you go to the entrance of a dungeon. When another group enters, they go to another dungeon; not yours.

Same thing.

I mean that is sort of a good point, but that is someone else’s space you’re invading, not your space.

I’ve never been particularly happy with instance portals in general. I get it. The alternative is things like that huge dungeon in Felwood. But I can live with because it isn’t my space. I don’t feel an ownership of it of the location.

Although I would at least like for them to kill the loading screens. We all know they can - they’re doing it with Delves now.

Soon, hopefully.

@Tah-earthen-ring

That was my point.

And my point is undo these bad changes instead of accepting them as a prelude to make even more bad changes. :'D

I mean that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. That’s where our disagreement stems from. I think they should make the world more consistent in terms of where players are located and the community size should be reflective of how much space we’ve got to work with, which means we should avoid phasing as much as we possibly can, and you don’t.