I don't understand why Blizzard are dragging their heels regarding player housing...

[Zoreyai]

Guild housing like in FFXIV would be way better

[UnluckyAmateur]

Garrisons show that they have no idea how to do it even though they have all the art assets available to make basic player housing.

[Wingspan]

Well, but why would I hangout in my house. Not only that but seems a awful lot of resources spent in a gimmicky and comestic thing.

You should not have to hang out in your house any more than you should have to pet battle, collect mounts, or chase transmogs... all of which are also cosmetic and gimmicky. But there is nothing wrong with having all of these things there as an option.


As to resources, it is always hard to say, but logically a lot of the tech has already been developed. They already have the phasing/sharding tech that would allow you to enter your house. They already have over a decade's worth of visual assets that could be used as furniture and landscaping. So for the most part, it should just be building an interface that allows some customization.


Would it be effortless to create? No, but as experimental new features go, it would probably be about as cheap to produce as you could ever hope for.


Would everyone love it? Absolutely not, but I suspect that enough people would like it enough to justify its cost to produce.

[Musta]

Because its dumb feature. Someone had to say it, sorry. Id rather have ANYTHING ELSE than player housing. If you want a house, go play the sims.

[Aurabolt]

On the one hand I'd like to see Player Housing. On the other hand, I don't want to see anything like what we got in Garrisons and Order Halls. Blizzard knows exactly what players have in mind in regards to Player Housing or at the very least, they have a good idea in that regard. Clearly, they don't want to go there for whatever reasons. My theory is the resource and time commitment needed to do it right.

Their first crack at it -- garrisons -- didn't work out. It's not that difficult to understand why it doesn't have a high priority. Infinite customization is not their thing.

I agree. Garrisons failed massively due to poor execution. Blizzard made it hard for most of the playerbase to resist leaving to do other things. The massive nerf with the launch of Tanaan + HFC came too late in my book. Should've been done much sooner.

The Mine + Herb House + Salvage Yard broke the economy gamewide within a few weeks. The Profession shacks were WAY too OP overall. They could've been handled them much better. Same with Apexis, which was prettymuch irrelevant until Tanaan was added to the game.

I would say the issue with garrisons was less the customisation, but more how much they offered.
They were something hard to pass up, which again class order halls suffer from.
Off-Profession accessibility via buildings was too great.
Mission durations way too short, demanding attention far too often to get a good part of the potential returns.
Again something class order halls are doing wrong.
And its progression as gating other content.

Something like that should be more a novelty, than a core requirement for so many other parts.

World quests are I think a step in the right direction away from completely passive missions.
Though with the pet battle dungeon idea, a souped-up celestial tournament then I wonder if there is room for a simplistic encounter format to be playable through a pet-battle-like UI, where you counter or deal with mechanics using a basic selection of abilities.

So much all of this.

I agree 100% with the parts I bolded. Blizzard's making the same mistakes with Order Halls as they did with Garrisons: Missions shouid not be tied to progression like the Shipyard Missions were. Extending Mission Lengths does little to distract from this problem. Honestly, I'm at the point where I think the concept should be scrapped entirely after Legion.

[Wingspan]

Because its dumb feature. Someone had to say it, sorry. Id rather have ANYTHING ELSE than player housing. If you want a house, go play the sims.

How about mandatory (Wrathgate-ish) single-player raids that offer the best gear in the game after a healthy grind in them?

Would you choose this over housing?

[Lady Dragonheart]

They attempted a form of player housing with Garrisons, the biggest issues being a lack of customization and that it felt forced on players.

Proper player housing should be completely optional, a vanity for those that want something to do outside of everything else, and have it based around the entirety of one's character. Tying achievements, professions, AH marketeering, the BMAH, rare drops, pets and pet battle items, and even promo items would be an excellent ways to tune real player housing.

[Irian]

I'd like to see it, but I don't consider it a huge priority. FFXIV's player housing is IMO the absolute perfect example of player housing done right. Pre-set instanced but free-roamable residential areas with roughly ~20 plots of land that can be purchased and decorated with freely-placeable outdoor and indoor furnishings and minor conveniences like an auction house, bank and mailbox able to be used. It's such a large part of that game and such a popular aspect, people are constantly hanging around yards and on big servers having active neighbors has led me to making friends when they ask me to go along for assorted stuff. People have paid me to decorate their yards, even.

That being said, WoW's community is so bellicose and unfriendly towards RPG game elements that I don't know if it would really end up being used. FFXIV also has the advantage of cost-based teleportations with no cooldown, so using your house as your "main base" isn't a particularly big deal like it would be in WoW where all forms of movement have a cooldown except some portals. And to be blunt, after they said Garrisons were "WoW's take on player housing" I don't know if I ever want to see them try again...

[Eleccybubb]

I'd like to see it, but I don't consider it a huge priority. FFXIV's player housing is IMO the absolute perfect example of player housing done right. Pre-set instanced but free-roamable residential areas with roughly ~20 plots of land that can be purchased and decorated with freely-placeable outdoor and indoor furnishings and minor conveniences like an auction house, bank and mailbox able to be used. It's such a large part of that game and such a popular aspect, people are constantly hanging around yards and on big servers having active neighbors has led me to making friends when they ask me to go along for assorted stuff. People have paid me to decorate their yards, even.

That being said, WoW's community is so bellicose and unfriendly towards RPG game elements that I don't know if it would really end up being used. FFXIV also has the advantage of cost-based teleportations with no cooldown, so using your house as your "main base" isn't a particularly big deal like it would be in WoW where all forms of movement have a cooldown except some portals. And to be blunt, after they said Garrisons were "WoW's take on player housing" I don't know if I ever want to see them try again...

FF14 is not the perfect example. Limiting it should never be part of it. Wildstar and Rift have the perfect ones because anyone can access it. Housing should be available to everyone not people with deep pockets or who got there on time. Especially when some servers suffer from assholes buying houses on alts to resell which is just disgusting.

[Irian]

FF14 is not the perfect example. Limiting it should never be part of it. Wildstar and Rift have the perfect ones because anyone can access it. Housing should be available to everyone not people with deep pockets or who got there on time.

Well, I should clarify that FFXIV's is a perfect example on a server without overpopulation. The recent patch that freed inactive spaces means that only Balmung and Gilgamesh on the US server (unsure of EU) have any kind of space issues. Also, the condensed nature of the houses all being relegated to three areas is something I consider a very good thing because it allows players to easily find and access others' houses.

I realize some people have an issue with it but the semi-high cost of housing and furniture is actually a huge appeal of it to me. It gives something for players to aim for and as such gives a personal attachment to it. When personal housing came out my immediate mission became "get enough to afford a plot." it actually felt a lot like the old BC-level epic flight training grind all over again and it was satisfying to finally get it (and this is admittedly much, much easier to accomplish).

That's all just subjective, but FFXIV's housing system is how with some large differences - like more achievement-related furniture and gold-related furniture and less crafted furniture - I'd imagine WoW making player housing if they ever did.

[ls-]

FF14 is not the perfect example. Limiting it should never be part of it. Wildstar and Rift have the perfect ones because anyone can access it. Housing should be available to everyone not people with deep pockets or who got there on time. Especially when some servers suffer from assholes buying houses on alts to resell which is just disgusting.

Why assholes? And why disgusting? It's kinda viable thing to do if you want to earn even more money It's not that different from AH flipping, you know...

[Musta]

How about mandatory (Wrathgate-ish) single-player raids that offer the best gear in the game after a healthy grind in them?

Would you choose this over housing?

Yes, and you dont understand sarcasm apparently.

[Project 501D13R]

We had player housing, it was called the garrison, and a lot of people will agree that it was one of WoD's big problems.

[FelPlague]

Here is some of the main reasons

Section A: Use

either it is usless, other then showing off and social, then it will only be used by a small amount of the community, as very few players will find the time investment worth it if no one is going to see it

or it will have uses in it like a mine and a herb garden and become required like the garrison again

Section B:How to customize

Either like wildstars where you can do anything and everything, the issue with this is because of that it becomes very complicated and means that only the pros will be able to make anything that looks even slightly good...

or predefined like starwars, extreamly limiting but has tons of predefined items and locations, allowing you to choose what you want and where ,but still very limited

Thing is wow is not a SUPER SOCIAL MMO like other MMO's, its a teamwork MMO not a Social MMO, people dont hang out in eachothers garrisons, or hang out in a inn together... (well yes some people do, but a VERY SMALL AMOUNT) so what says how many people will do it in their houses?

why hang out in your house with your freinds, when they, or you, could be farming or playing

thats the thing, how many guilds gathered in the garrison hall? how many friends chilled together in their inn? very very few...

[Pantalaimon]

As title says I don't understand why Blizzard are dragging their heels regarding player housing... Wildstar despite its many flaws possibly had the best player housing in any MMORPG, hell even WoWs biggest competitors FFXIV and SWTOR has player housing and that's almost universally praised by the players. Instead Blizzard gave us two poor-man's housing in the form of garrisons and class halls that didn't give much if any customization and get abandoned. Player housing could actually be an expansion feature designed to last unlike the garrison, class hall and artifacts that are obsolete a year later.

I find the argument "we don't want people not in the world" argument BS. I would rather a personal hub I can invite friends to, not some class hall surrounded by strangers not even talking! I also don't believe the "WoW doesn't have the technology" argument. Obviously some people aren't interested in player housing like some people aren't interested in PvP or Raiding but it would give us a new form of content to do at endgame be it crafting decor, running dungeons for decor, buying decor, etc!

Garrisons pretty much were a personal hub that you could invite friends to. You invited them and your friends phased over into your own limited customized player housing.

If we're going to have permanently updated player housing why even have capitol cities? If it did end up a big hit the capitol cities would more or less be a waste of resources outside of Blizz putting the only portals/banks for current content in them.

Personally I don't find the argument of having people in the world being a BS excuse. One of the reasons players even complained about garrisons is because you didn't have a reason to go out into the world & you were phased into some pseudo dungeon where all you did was upkeep the garrison in various ways. How does player housing offer anything different than the complained about problems garrisons provided? All you would be doing after finding player housing decorations is, you guessed it, upkeep your garrison (I mean player housing). Sounds very similar if you ask me. The only difference is that the player housing would have more customization than garrisons.

One last thing. How does player housing even fit the theme of WoW? Sure, we do have mini game like content in the end game, but in the end the game is completely built around doing stuff out in the world or pretending that instanced dungeons & bgs are us still being out in the world. I don't see how making Warcraft into Simcraft really makes much sense from a gameplay perspective. From a lore perspective it doesn't make much sense to have player housing either, well at least not constantly updated player housing that constantly moves across continents/worlds. Eventually your characters would have to live permanently somewhere unless they're simply on duty literally 24/7 or are nomads.

[Traveler Voltin]

Doomed to be hobos forever.

[ComputerNerd]

The only way to do player housing imo is like rift does where its in a completely different instance. I believe Blizz could do it but instead of taking away from content generation they would need to set a team aside to focus on it specifically. While Id personally love to have player housing it doesn't make or break the game for me.

A guild hall would be cool too. Along with what the dev's have said about making a guild hall the issue with that is who gets to decide how its setup? My thoughts would be to make a guild hall that is generated for the guild and as it progresses different things unlock or decorations show up as the guild progresses. Sort of like a trophy wall that would gain trophys as the guild earns them. Clear a raid get a new feature etc.

Yes, I think removing the player control over it is the only way that can be done properly.
I like the idea of progress dictated expansion.

[High Marshal Sigismund]

I get you OP, I'm with you 100%. But unfortunately, housing and Blizzard do not mix.

Blizzard likes to put any major feature into the game and then immediately tie it into every other core system of the expansion. They can't just make something you do for fun as a side thing. It's gotta tie into the whole grind. Garrisons, Order Halls, it's the same deal.

I would love to be able to make my own house anywhere in Azeroth, buy and place furniture, hire NPCs and the like. Guild housing is yuck. No thank you.

[Alopex Major]

I love all the people saying they wouldn't use it/it's a waste of time. Know what is more popular than raiding? Pet battles. Casual players can and will spend hours and tons of gold on their housing. They could incentivize it further by making decorations/trophies drop from dungeons or raids. The garrison assets could easily be modified for some basic housing and would only require the UI system. Which, admittedly might be difficult for the WoW engine, I'm not a programmer.

But I spent an immense amount of time on my SWTOR house, as do many many players there.

[schwarzkopf]

Garrisons = player housing, and look how they turned out.