Midnight housing also has a problem of the potential premium currency expectation
And another midnight housing problem is it comes after all the competitors have digged in with a more in-depth housing system, that have castle building and sieges etc, and WoW itself used to have a more developed housing system (garrison).
An analogy for this is something like TDU, MMOracer, which had a housing system in TDU2, that got cut down towards the newest part TDU SC.
Fanbase WAS NOT happy.
But then people were somewhat ok with original TDU2 housing.
In wow many folks were initially really critical about the original housing system garrison, saying it’s undercooked, not all promised features are there, there is no racial choice, no location choice etc.
And now blizzard is releasing housing , that is cut down, but Also has the same issues.
So it’s not TDU case, it’s much worse.
And another complication I would mention, is pets and garrison were thrown into the new expac.
Midnight housing is in a VERY old zone, that a lot of people are really tired of by now. So it is also carrying Elwyn/durotar around its neck…..
So at this point with so many complications, it’s just very hard to project, how fast this thing will collapse
But it’s very fun to do, even if sad, so if you can give me your calculations, I would be very happy if you share
Nothing was confirmed yet,i would just wait. Either it will be a shop or its just new form of tendies. One would be a straightout admission of wanting to milk them wales the other one can just sneakily sell that currency with wristband or a mount bundle :> Both has the same effect: a person obsessing over completion ranking will wale out and they make bank its that simple. Just wait for now ;>
Someone streamed ff housing in dc some time ago,looked cool ngl. I assume you played it its more than a collection simulator no? Only thing i remember was that nobody was home she could go into other peoples houses
Lets take df dragonstuff, they kept on working on it all 4 seasons as well, but instead of the costums you just got a new hardmode for the races to keep them relevant, they also added new races for the old areas + heavy timegating. So creativity wise it died down pretty fast, just more “do something” therapy. And again ofc it had to be tied to acms and good boy rewards so again you cannot make a real engagement statistic.
They know what they are doing
Like with all new things hype till burnout and move on. Hope blizzard keeps on working on this tho,i would like something that has the best of garrisons and housing. specially if it can now actually stay around forever. There’s lots of potential for future patches and hopefully they keep delivering.
You don’t need to satisfy the both extremist ends you have to satisfy the middle
So my question would be,would people who pushed for this to be a thing block future progress lets say i want to have a 2026 stable like garrisons,would you actively vote against it?
I personally think, that the question of what is hearthsteel is a moot question; given blizzard’s history players paying for housing a second, a third and multiple other times is extremely likely, the form of the payment is unimportant.
But that’s something many people haven’t realized yet, and many still don’t understand, that housing is intentionally coming out empty, so blizzard can, if they want, sell us content for extra money, it’s a classical strategy in the industry.
So because that’s something many people still don’t realize, they overconcentrate on hearthsteel and then hearthsteel becomes a public perception problem.
Perhaps, its not a real problem, as you remark, but it’s a public perception problem, and that makes quantifying the breaking point in public attitude towards housing more complicated.
I think, that in a neutral situation, the current hype for housing would change to total abandoning of housing in a year after launch.
But hearthsteel, being a public perception problem, brings that change closer to us, shortening the time until that change occurs, significantly
That’s all I wanted to say. I am not arguing, what hearthsteel ACTUALLY is, because its unimportant.
Yes, I have played midnight housing on test realm, and I have played all kinds of housing in other games, and of course I have player through WOD.
After people have built (and destroyed and infiltrated) castles in Conan, or played the complicated economic strategy that garrison was, midnight housing comes off as demoversion of housing from 2000s.
As level designer tool, its great. It’s on pair with morrowind level designer, that we used in 2000s.
But it in terms of gameplay, there is just none.
You can sit on a chair, close and open the door, turn on and off the light and cook some food.
In 30 years of gaming, as a person with personal collection of 1000+ games, that’s the first time I encounter a housing system, without housing gameplay loops.
Maybe this is innovative genius, but more likely, its blizzard trying to do minimum possible; and look its working very well, midnight is selling.
But I think, when all the hyped players actually try it and encounter it face to face, the supremacy of housing systems in other games and the supremacy of wod garrison will hit blizzard really hard.
That’s another factor, that brings the aforementioned looming change in public perception closer.
Right now its very easy to sell hype and “best houses of November” videos.
But when people actually play this for a couple of months and start comparing it to other games or to old wod blizzard, oh boy
Thank you for this comparison, I totally agree here
Yes, there is a lot of potential, and the game has a lot of potential, but I don’t think blizzard is trying to realize it right now.
Example. Making a crafting table for the midnight housing is like 2 days work.
Yet, its not in the game, and launch is next month.
If Blizzard were really working hard to realize the potential of housing, it would have been done in summer.
I think, the middle will be very dissatistified. Here is why:
They are accustomed to some basic level of housing in other games, be it skyrim or Minecraft, or project zomboid or tdu or eso or whatever whoever is playing. And the most basic the most miser level is something like a storage chest and a crafting table.
And then they pay 50+ eur for midnight, they login, and wow house don’t even have that.
This just sounds like a refund situation
I think wow in 2025 a game for the raiders by the raiders. Blizzard really listens to mythic crowd a good lot. And in that bubble, there is a strong feeling, that housing is a waste of blizzard resources.
I personally think, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If someone thinks housing is bad for WOW, they are wrong, but I can respect their opinion.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of folks in this discussion, who pretend to be pro-housing, but actually lobby very hard for blizzard to put as little resources into housing as possible and make it as impossible to run gameloops in your house as possible.
So with that dynamic of anti-housers posing themselves as housing fans to sabotage housing, and a good part of mythic crowd being against housing, the discourse on forums and youtube will be very anti-housing generally.
It will be like, “you can have your housing, but as long as its shallow and empty and you cant do anything there”
However, from an average player perspective, stables is something a plurality of players want. And from industry perspective, making stables is a no-brainer move.
However, industry professionals don’t really opine on this forum, and average player never goes to this forum. So that’s something you would not hear all the time, even though it’s a popular opinion, that stables should be there. Still, you hear it a lot
As for my personal opinion, I don’t think blizzard today is wod blizzard. If you compare housing to garrison, or if you compare boralus with its kill 10 seagulls wqs to classic stormwind, its clear that blizzard may remember how to do boss encounters, but they largely forgot how to do non-combat gameplay.
And housing sorry to say is exactly the most commonspread sphere of non-combat gameplay
So no surprise they had to hire a separate team. And no surprise, that that’s not enough
So considering that blizzard are struggling with non-combat gameplay, I would advise to just scale everything, as a temporary measure.
Its dirt cheap, and its extremely effective. Think SL-prepatch.
In SL-prepatch, they shrank everyone to level 50, so chromie time covered the whole playerbase. So then every max level character could do garrison
That’s the quickest best fix to wow housing problem blizzard could do right now.
Because at the current rate, building up midnight housing so it compares with garrison, will take blizzard like 4 years, which is just not happening, when you can just easy put up a chair reskin on shop and Tah will buy it.
So I know, that midnight housing was a hope for many, that housing is coming back to wow, but I don’t think so. It will be best case scenario 2% of what garrison was, and later, and for extra payment
Our best hope for housing in wow, is if blizzard makes chromie time cover the whole level range again.
That’s my prognosis at least, feel free to correct it, Yashiro
Look at the blizzard threat regarding that currency. There came one earlier. And this is also what i thought look at the alpha the building plot you get is small it doesnt really leave out much “future” interpretations of what is about to come, for now at least. Like maybe a small petting zoo maybe barely enough for a mini stable with 1-2 mid sized mounts. In theory this means:
Sell people the option to widen their existing plot,sell premium “whale” spots where you can literally have a double/triple the size, Prey on people like us who simply are not satisfied with a “dead” dollhouse and want more specially on the outside.
I’m currently more shocked they didn’t paddle on this and straight out admitted it. I think you know the south park freemium episode and whom this preys upon. This isn’t good at all. Realistically you wouldn’t even need a currency if theres just very few items planned either,you could have made just bundles every 5 months for bnet currency.
They are not making all the announcements yet or making limited careful announcements, because they need to sell midnight.
Preorder of midnight gives you access to housing via beta in november, and then the actual housing on retail in december. Thats what they are trying to sell right now.
Thats why we had PTR. (not just because blizzard are prepping for servers failing, once people start mass creating houses). They gave people a taste of housing and immediately have taken it away - you want to keep playing buy preorder
When the task of selling midnight is complete, than their hands wont be tied anymore or not to this extent
And then they can start making the full extent of announcements they want
Announce hearthsteel item catalogue, or announce special large house plots, or announce stable item on shop for 30 eur etc.
They cant be doing that YET, because it will ruing the preorder sale.
Blizzard are afraid, that people will feel, that wow is becoming a free to play
Blizzard is also afraid, that antihousers will say housing is getting a stable, therefore its growing in scope, therefore its eating resources, therefore its time for another antihousing campaign under slogan housing is garrison 2.0, altho in fact its garrison 0.2.
“Housing shoulkd not be garrison 2” is the favorite slogan of antihousers, so as soon as they see stable, they will pounce.
Look how they are fighting crafting tables with foam at their mouths in this and other topics.
So to avoid that negativity during preorders, blizzard limit announcements rn.
I was asking in the german forum what else seems to be at least planned green person wrote about skybox,new housing zones with different themes for example snow. It was teasered that we get a pond which is good tbh,pond=fish= Life. They also planned something for pets and mounts so there seems to be hope.
And since 1 person with ai could just keep the deco inflow afloat in the future patches,them keeping that team must mean something more than this.
I was also amused that this 9m sub lie,from some influencer, seems to be parroted along, as if noone ever looked how much current players/monthly active players there have been throughout this addon.
Yeah, if they are keeping the team, let’s see, why.
I also thought about it.
My opinion, is this: housing is essentially a design tool. So now that it’s out, they need to leverage it into where players create content for blizzard
That’s something GTA online had almost from the start. GTA online players were given a design tool to create their own missions/races etc., thus they create content for the game, thus rockstar can spend less on production.
This have been replicated many times in other games as well.
Maybe* blizzard is planning that as well. Basically the tool is already there.
Allow players to put mobs instead of furniture - and players can make dungeons, instead of blizzard.
So to rephrase it in economic language.
By paying for housing, players are paying for a tool/mean of production/capital assets, that they will later use to work for blizzard by producing free content for blizzard
But hey, that’s my take, I maybe wrong on this.
My big takeaway, is that I have been able to further narrow down on the mechanism here.
1.Blizzard announces housing as a glorified 3-d menu for digital assets
2.People approve, which confirms to blizzard there is a cohort of players, who are willing to collect/buy useless infinitely replicable digital assets, just because of their hoarding disorder. Like a make-believe chair, that’s only purpose is to take memory space by standing in a dark corner of never-visited house.
3.Satistically speaking, some of those people should be whales
4. Blizzard launches the feature, knowing whale hoarders will support it financially , and the rest of hoarders will carry it morally, protecting it with arguments like “you are just not creative enough you don’t understand the feature”
5. They monetize it via hearthsteel further. The announcement of hearthsteel shows that the cohort of players they targeted in step 2, still has not understood anything, so Blizzard is free to push on
Result: Normal players, who waited for housing, remain with demo version, they paid 50 EUR for. Hoarders are very happy. Blizzard got their money by squeezing whales.
So short-term, its a boost in income, so a lot of people get premiums.
Long-term? Who cares, because this subgenre of mmorpg is dying anyways.
As a money making endeavour, housing is a complete success.
our game characters now live in what is essentially a 3-d shelf of the battle net shop/a 3-d display of battle net shop, and players have accepted that.
Ye, my crime doc yt creators have sponsorships for these “creative” handygames which literally run the same foundation create something from scratch be it a house, a house+shop or a city with its own daylie life you keep on delivering to them. Almost certain theres like real games like this too minus the micro transactions. These real games running good for their limited graphics or simply their age was kinda opening the gates for the same stuff happening with mobile games copying this and filling it with micro transitions. If it were me we would have stopped with them handys you clap shut. And keep gaming to pc and consoles.
This modus of the game yes. Maybe someone running wow on his steamdeck can later on stream this without that consoles buttons but by tapping the screen(in case it supports this) maybe it will click.
Its fine tho, not a fan with this currency but i really hope something more will come. My prediction judging by the past is > midnight launches > the one season you actually paid for with addon price will be the most engaged with,people will live out their creativity and what not.
They will start working now on the last part of that trilogy, have some people creating season 2 content and the rest will be housing news which is good. One thing that really did strike me off is this constant influx of news about the next addon starting so early instead of news of the current on/follow up seasons. With housing and its ever evolving ability this weirdness is cut half now and you don’t feel hmm i’m in s1 and the addon seems to be already over.
