After analyzing the Housing PTR experience further, I have come to a pretty shocking revelation. Let me convey it via presenting Midnight housing as a train.
Housing is a train with magnificent, high-tonnage modern cars:
Endeavors
Farming lumber
Farming old crafting furniture
Farming old reps, old dungeons, old raids, old questlines
It’s an enormous and IMPRESSIVE structure — a hundred brilliant cars of content.
But to pull that weight, you need a powerful engine.
And right now, the Midnight housing engine is:
Walk in, design your house
Sit on a chair, light a torch, open and close the door
Walk out
That’s TWO HOURs of content, maybe one day at best.
You are trying to pull a thousand hour-long farm with a 2 hour design gig.
Farm for a year to spend 2 hours inside your house.
IN 30 YEARS OF GAMING, THIS IS THE 1ST I MEET A GAME, THAT TRIES TO PULL HOUSING WITH JUST A DESIGN MODE/ADVANCED PHOTO MODE.
TLDR
Folks, MIDNIGHT HOUSING IS A SHINKANSEN NOZOMI TRAIN – a modern bullet train - BUT WITH A 1800s CENTURY ENGINE.
YOU’RE TRYING TO PULL A MASSIVE, ARTISTIC, BEAUTIFUL FURNITURE-FARM SYSTEM WITH A TWO-HOUR APARTMENT DESIGNER/CHARACTER PHOTO BACKDROP DESIGNER.
We REALLY need to put something under the hood here.
Artistically, its impecable. But it runs on fumes.
If this only takes 2 hours for you, housing may not be for you and that I say as someone for whom housing just isn’t it.
Designing, redesigning, collecting cosmetics is the whole experience - isn’t it? That is the journey. If you just want to slab two wooden planks together and call it a day, then this is just not it.
What do you want? I translate your request as; put player power into housing. A Garrison 2.0? Which is a big no-no to me.
But objectivelly, for the future of the game, i must warn blizzard.
Yes, some people iron for 15 minutes, some people iron for an hour.
Its not the point.
Imagine, a Player buys midnight, logs in, designs house for n hours, done. Wants to keep playing, keep interacting with the house, but after the design is done, nothing to do.
The point is THIS will hit Blizzard EVERYWHERE
Interaction wall
A player logs in to play with their house, cant (no gameplay after design), feels frustrated, logs out
20-year promise collapse
This is catastrophic emotionally. I have played since classic and read the interviews – even back in 2006 housing was already the white whale of wow.
People waited for 20 years, thinking “when Blizzard finally does it, it’ll be LEGENDARY”
Now, after Minecraft, sims, skyrim, lotro, etc. – a player goes “Wait, I waited for 20 years for a n-hours design minigame?”
Its disillusionment 101
Structural drag: carrying a dead feature
Mid-midnight the participation will collapse by 90% or so. But Ion said its evergreen. Now blizzard will have to either sunset, or drag a dead feature.
Reputational cost
When game designers appreciate housing in midnight, this will be bad for blizzard reputation as the genre leader. Professional designers will say “wait, we have seen this 20 years ago in lotro”. It goes from “Blizzard can do housing, but don’t want to” to “Blizzard cant do housing”
Not Garrison 2.0, but instead Garrison 0.2
It’s a classic problem, when you release a new Sims or if you want an mmo TDU SC and it has less housing features, than the previous installation, and people need to wait and buy dlcs to get some of the features back. It’s not the best move.
Right now, everyone is hyped, reddit has 2-days worth of “look at my home, it looks so amazing”, and youtubers are farming the hype wave like crazy, but think 5 years down the line.
Yes, this is good for the shop, yes, its good for midnight sales. Yes, later this can be reworked into players alleviating developing costs by creating some wanky timeways dungeons. Yes, collectionist minority will be happy.
But big picture, long-term, this needs a fix.
You wont be able to wish it away with “housing is not for you”, sorry. There is a designer niche, but there is also everyone else. Wishful thinking is just not how real world works.
Considering the long dev time, we need to start fixing it as early as possible.
You are talking about how people feel now. I am talking about how people will feel a year in
This is quite literally the case for every game and game-feature out there. You’re done with what you wanted to do? Find something else to do.
I don’t want to be that negative, but those players they could not ever completely satisfy. You don’t fulfill 20 years of waiting with this feature, impossible. I’d even say that this feature won’t be for them.
This is also part of the issue, isn’t it? People are already saturated before the feature is released…all these influencers (or whatever we call them) are the cancer of modern day game development. They suck every bloody bit dry, steer design decisions wrong, and so forth. The earlier we get rid of their influence the better. Players don’t know what they want - and redditors/influencers are no different.
Good idea to look forward. But I still fail to see what you suggest? Just more Housing-related grind content?
No, what I suggest is yes, we acknowledge short-term success for collectionists and designers and game sales:
Collectionists have a year (or a month for some) of farming ahead. Shop revenues increased
Designers can redo their house 100 hundred times, very good design app.
Hype sells midnight pre orders
Great. But collectionists and designers are a niche. They depend on other player to engage with via feature long-term.
They need an average player to engage with the housing beyond the design process, that for most people will be several hours.
Right now, Blizzard have built a furniture farm system, that could engage an average player for a thousand hours, farming furniture.
But there İS NO REASON for an average player to farm it, if he does not go to their house.
There is no reason to farm out an entire Dornogal set for a house, where am average player spends 2 hours a year.
So for the good of you, and the collectionist players, and the design enthusiasts, and the game , and blizzard and everyone
We need to add some gameplay into housing beyond initial setup (design).
İ have a collection of over 1000 games, I have played over 30 years, I have played pretty much all Sims.
This housing PTR is the first I repeat the first and only instance where I played housing, that don’t have any gameplay beyond initial setup.
I repeat. Let that sink in.
THE ONLY HOUSİNG WİTH NO POST-DESİGN GAMEPLAY
İf that’s not a red flag, I just don’t know what to tell you friend.
I am not throwing shade here, i love wow I love housing and I am saying, we need to step out of our subjective shoes and our hype moment, and think long-term
So to use my train analogy, answering your question, more furniture farm is just more train carts. We need a stronger train pulling engine.
We need something, that an average player can do inside the house, so then they keep returning to the house, so then they keep farming furniture out, so then the housing system keeps prospering for everyone, including design enthusiasts.
Being able to design your house is just the first movement burst so to speak.
But we need housing to go for a long haul.
We need İN-HOUSE POST-DESİGN gameplay.
And if we want for it to come out mid-midnigbt, it’s already almost late to start developing it
Solution is simple: if we can’t come up with original ideas, check out what players do in other popular games inside their houses, let them do it in wow.
Red flag, a design choice you don’t agree with, it’s a fine line. And calling the latter for the former is a bit “ugh”.
Players can earn rewards through a variety of sources, whether you’re buying from someone on the Auction House, you’ve completed achievements such as defeating Onyxia in her lair, making something using a profession, or just through adventuring; you’ll have plenty of ways to add to your collection.
Decor should come from everywhere and everything! We want you to find decor rewards in all sorts of gameplay, not just a single avenue. For example, while a specific jade-inlaid bookshelf might come from a particular quest in Pandaria, other bookshelves could come from vendors, professions, or other varied forms of content.
Keeping WoW players pointed to already existing (or new but not-housing related) activities seems fair for this game. Don’t want to drag away players too much into the void, more than already is the case.
Optional and cosmetic-only seems to be the design-philosophy. You can disagree with it, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
I think you’re just looking at the result of an Blizzard-internal compromise that had to be made to get Housing into the product called World of Warcraft.
The concept of player housing surely isn’t innovative. Implementing it in a unique way, well, neither - that’s just expected. Whether it’s enough in the long run, we’ll see.
So far they managed over 20 years while facing endless of “WoW killers”. They do something right. I’m sure they thought about this, for long.
Well, with all due respect to blizzard, I don’t think every decision they ever made should be taken as scripture.
So far we, simple players, can observe there are indeed strong incentives to do housing this way: good midnight sales, good shop revenue, positive publicity from the housing hype. But this is short-term.
Eventually this tech might* allow players to make there own multiplayer content, something both ubisoft and rockstar have implemented long ago. That’s a tangential side benefit.
Mid to long-term is another matter. I have asked around. Noone could give me Rational reasons Blizzard might possibly have to do it this way. To be frank, everything I have heard was rehashing what large YouTube channels are saying, nothing I would mention in a serious conversation.
maybe you can enlighten me, idk
The only reason humble me can possibly imagine, is short term. blizzard need to do housing for financial reasons, so they do it as a niche activity, but they also understand ,that done THİS WAY, it will NOT be long-lived, so they do it in a way, that they can easily be discontinued or put in low maintenance down the line. But that theory straight up contradicts official statements.
Hence the topic.
The initial setup (design) stage will be a good initial burst. A 2025 win.
But it can’t pull the train long-term. A 2026 loss.
And frankly, the fix is not that hard.
Come up with activities for normies to do inside the house, or steal these activities from other games.
There is a universe of games out there to borrow from.
Heck, there are topics on wow forums, where people straight up tell you what they want inside the house.
Failing that, just go to some popular Skyrim house mod page.
İt’s really not that hard to come up with ways to incentivize average player to visit their house.
i mean, that’s what blizzard usually do, borrow from other games , that’s how classic wow came to be - and blizzard have done a magnificent job. Back in the day, they would take someone else’s idea and implement it better, that’s the gist of wow basically.
But what’s so unique about this situation, is they are doing something very opposite to what everyone else is doing.
So you think, they took Andy, John and Mark, average guys, and observed, how they played housing for 100 hours proving longevity? I am not sure somehow.
I have witnessed blizzard let a bunch of YouTubers make some money off of exclusive access to housing, and in all the reviews there was not one word about the elephant in the room:ok, we have done the wallpapers, design stage is over, what’s next?
Lets hope, it’s because YouTubers are concealing some big reveal.
Not because there is actually
Nothing next.
Brother, what are these post-design gameplay ideas you are avoiding to describe? A lot of words with nothing for the reader to take away.
Housing space seems quite unrestricted, plots seem well integrated into shared space. With the current features, I imagine there will be lots of player-generated content as we have seen in other games.
Besides, Blizzard seems to have rightly chosen to focus on the community aspects with dynamic content in neighbourhoods - it’s an MMO not the Sims. Although all they need to have lots of players rebuilding is custom build templates.
yes, this topic is pretty involved. let me rephrase
There is no point, in community aspects, or as you want to speak directly, lets speak directly - when we say community aspects, we mean furniture/house capacity farm - there is no point in this farm, if you cant get the average player into the house in the first place.
Thats what this whole post is about.
First, build inhouse post-setup (post-design in wow case) gameplay, that assures an average player REMEMBERS he has a house 1 year into new expansion.
Again, since you want me to use more direct phrasing - lets first create something for an average player to do inside the house.
THEN, build furniture farm systems, that further keep said player engaged (i.e. time sink), when he is out of the house farming, preparing for gameplay inside the house.
Not the other way around. Right now, blizzard is trying to set up the farm for furniture, but without the need for that furniture in the first place. Its like building up the roof, before the foundation has been laid.
And if your argument is, that the players have to be putting the foundation - oof, brother, we are light years away from that.
because if you want players to build their own gameplay inside houses, you should know, thats even a more complicated issue. it needs EVEN MORE usable items, than straight up giving players fabric-made gameplay.
Again, this is an involved topic, but in games where players build their own housing gameplay, that requires a ton of usable house items, up and including to logical circuits.
Considering, that right now we have the following usable items:
-door, open close it
-light source, on off swithc
-chair, sit stand
-cooking pot
(and that obviously, no gameplay can be built with this)
lets not shoot for the stars of creating as many usable items, as to empower player to create their own gameplay
Lets start simple by giving average players premade gameplay, something devs came up with for the player to do inside the house . thats easier to start with, ok?
First in-house gameplay, THEN furniture farming
First the locomotive. THEN the cars
And THEN we can talk about player-created gameplay. Frankly, its fine if you push for it, but that would be a major separate issue, so lets not put the cart before the horse.
The horse (a couple of hours design minigame) is already trying to pull a modern bullet train (profession furniture farm, achievement furniture farm, raid f. farm, timber farm, etc. etc.)
TLDR.
I will try to be a little more clear, direct, concise, simple.
WoW is a game based on private instances. Raids, dungeons, delves, BGs, WFs, Mage Tower, Island expeditions, Arena, Torghast etc.
Midnight house is another private instance, just owned by the player.
However, where in all games player house has 2 legs:
-setup leg loops (level character, gather money/resources, complete quest, build and design your house)
-post-setup leg loops (large variety of options, but some ubiquitous ones are storage, crafting, portals, herbs growing etc.)
WoW midnight housing we have witnessed in PTR – and this is the key point to understand – DOES NOT HAVE THE SECOND LEG
Or if you want to be extremely precise, Midnight housing has a very large first leg (raid furniture farm, achievement furniture farm, wood cutting, DESIGN MINIGAME etc.).
And a very deficient second leg (cook some food, sit on a chair, close and open the door).
It can stand in the fire, but its probably not going far.
You’ve clearly highlighted that you do not play games games or features where house building is the forefront and that this feature is not designed for you. I’m thinking Sims, Minecraft, Palia any mmo with a decent housing system.
Those of us that do play these types of games for house building and design will 100% not be done after 2 hours and really don’t care if you feel that all we can do is sit down. it’s not anything about the gameplay after the house is built, building and designing the house -is- the game play and we will sink hours/days/months into perfecting our homes. and when it’s maybe considered done, we will do it all over again with a different theme etc. The tiny kitchen i designed in the PTR took longer than 2 hours by it’self!
İ see clearly, that you have never played Sims or Minecraft.
Housing items there are usable, hence the gameplay, including the player -made gameplay.
İn midnight housing, the following items are usable: light source, door, chair, cooking cauldron, light source. Plus minus one
That’s why no player -made gameplay or just gameplay possible.
None to speak of anyway
But if you have not played Sims or Minecraft, or other games, where housing is forefront
İt’s easy to overlook
This minor detail
But please don’t misinform people, who have not played Minecraft/Sims as well
Thank you
Yes, some housing items in both are usable, i have played both extensively and there is a -massive- player base in both games that exclusively play it for the design element and have no interest in any usabilty of the items, so please do not act like this is not the case and stating so is misinformation.
Not to mention, the impact this has on the roleplaying community. Those that currently spend hours and hours in game, in stormwind or other places that thye can find to set their scenes, this is now opened up greatly by the neighbourhoods. players can hold parties, events ect. sometimes the game play is what the player base make for themselves and it’s a bit narrow minded to say it will be a failure because you can’t see past clicking a block for it to do an action for you.
clearly the housing feature is not aimed at you and you have difficultly understanding why those of us that are excited for it will enjoy it regardless of the “some” or “hundreds” of useless items that other games have that function.
rather than crapping on everyones else’s excitement of a feature you clearly can’t understand and be rude to those trying to educate you as to why we will, despite your issues, enjoy it. Just move along and say “house building clearly isn’t a feature with me in mind.”
This topic is above your head
Housing systems deeper than a pretty flower are above your head
To your mind, ptr housing system is amazing.
you are angry and confused, about what is being discussed here about the future of your doll house.
You think, that by shutting this topic down with spam, you can change the outcome.
Sorry. That is even more useless, than my analysis here.
What I am really doing, is more of a postmortem, a year in advance. For everything I and others have said on this topic will be unheaded. For reasons I have not mentioned so far. but it’s my responsibility to warn anyway, even if in vain.
What you are doing, is wishful thinking.
But don’t bother with it, go change the colour of your wall
i’m not angry or confused at all and being a rude entitled dick, acting above your station, doesn’t win you any friends XD.
What you did in your first post was greatly minimise the experience for anyone that will enjoy this feature. You have proved that in your response to myself where you act like i can’t understand the “Highly inteligent analysis” you started this post with because i have experience with games where house design and building is what a vast majority of the player base exclusively do regardless of the other options, and i am only interested in “flowers and wallpaper”.
You think you have won some point because you choose to belittle me with condescending language. Which says a whole lot more about you than it does me or my understanding.
Yes, for those sweaty gamers that like to be highly competitive and sit in mythic raids and dungeons telling everyone else how bad they are at the game (i get the impression you have more in common with these people than the ones that housing is aimed at), they may log in, claim a plot, stick down everything they got in legion remix, make a jumping puzzle and go back to the competitive play the game has to offer. but for others it opens up a great deal more game play options to enjoy and hour upon hours of feature to get lost in between the rest of the end game content.
In minecraft, i may log in and want to automate with mods and build contraptions with create etc. or i may just want to kick back and spend time making a fully cosmetic not all that functional, fully furnished house with the likes of little bits. same as in warcraft i may want to go do some mythics, or catch up on achievement hunting or adding to my collections or i may just want to chill out and decorate a room. I may decide when i’m just chilling out with friends over discord where i can spend hours just sitting around in Dornogal jumping over paving stones, to be in my house tweaking and designing a new room.
There are features planned such as community events in neighbourhoods and this is just a first release, things always progress and evolve. To minimise it to the extent you have from the first iteration and claim that it is currently 2 hours content and blizzard needs to be thinking of adding new features now because they haven’t the time to work on expanding the feature is so narrow minded.
I’m sure you’ll have something you think is witty or clever or just downright condescending to reply back, but i have a lot to do in prep for housing early access so i’ll probably be too busy to care
Exactly, you need to farm furniture.
That’s our assigned grind in this business quarter, I understand.
İ also fully realize, that you dislike the tone, but its your fault.
İf you did not come in flaming with disrespectful spam, I would just calmly explain, that this discussion is about design, not your personal feelings.
Another crucial detail.
…
Look… from this two minute "conversation ", I don’t think it’s a good time investment for me to explain everything I will have to explain, in order for me to make you fully realize the issue and what’s the point, if you are without basics.
Even starting to explain something so basic like the difference between roleplayers, who make authentic tools and clothes, and preserve craft, and enact battles with replica weapons, versus people, who just like to play dolls, and pretend Ken is kissing Barbie…and are mostly too young to play wow to start with…will probably be a two hour lecture from me on itself.
and that I say as someone for whom housing just isn’t it.