I'm just gonna say it; Blizzard is being stupid by NOT implementing a Housing system

[clevin]

The nice part of housing is that if you aren't interested, you can just not participate in it, and your toon(s) won't be any less powerful for that. Much like xmog or pet battles, it would be a nice, harmless side activity.
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Which I don't theoretically mind, depending on the resources taken from other things in the game. Pet battles and transmog feel like they took minimal resources. A good housing system feels like it would take many more resources. That said, your answer doesn't provide a justification for why people want this aside from 'I want it because I want it!' I simply don't think more than small minority of people will really do much with their housing and so I don't think it's a good idea to spend significant resources to create.

[Briselody]

which means it would use up a not insignificant amount of resources that I'd also prefer spent elsewhere.

This argument against housing has always been a tired one. They have different teams for different things. And besides, why are your wants more important than mine? I could give a shit and a half about new raids that I won't bother seeing until an expansion or two later, and even less than that about new battlegrounds or arenas but they keep using resources on that.

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Which I don't theoretically mind, depending on the resources taken from other things in the game. Pet battles and transmog feel like they took minimal resources. A good housing system feels like it would take many more resources. That said, your answer doesn't provide a justification for why people want this aside from 'I want it because I want it!' I simply don't think more than small minority of people will really do much with their housing and so I don't think it's a good idea to spend significant resources to create.

Reasons to have it:
- customizable and permanent per-character environment (like transmog but better)
- roleplaying elements that are sorely lacking in this supposed RPG
- visual display of achievements, rather than just a boring tab
- revitalizing a profession system that is generally considered to be one of the worst in the genre
- goals that can be worked toward with time invested instead of spinning the RNG wheel

[Claymore]

Solo mog runs aren't much comparable given that they were multiplayer content at some point previously. Housing would be content 100% made for solo players, and if it is done I'd rather it not be half-assed, which means it would use up a not insignificant amount of resources that I'd also prefer spent elsewhere.

It's only an up-front development cost, though.

Once implemented, it becomes the easiest thing in the world to add new house items. They could literally recycle assets they already made (or will make) for new content, basically getting FAR more use out of all the many art-assets they already have.

Hell, they could even go so far as let you get the assistance of a powerful Druid or Shaman to change the landscape of your own personal island (ie. maybe you want your island to be more akin to a sandy oasis, or want to create a mountain, or an underground cavern). Like Garrisons, you could collect different kinds of music, maybe hire a powerful Mage or something to change the skybox of your personal island.

It could also double as a gold-sink. Maybe you could pay a Shaman to pull more land to the surface for you to build on, or build a pier and buy different sorts of boats to dock there, all kinds of crazy ideas.

And hell, given Dalaran was literally "pulled out of the ground and teleported all over the place", it's not insurmountable to think your "house" (or whatever they wind up calling it; "Keep", maybe?) could be "relocated" to different environments, or even placed in "settlements" with other players' houses.

There's just a lot you could do with it. And, much like Battle Pets, they could continually add items (again, using already-existing art assets) to all kinds of content, adding that much more replay-value for old instances.

[Soikona]

I'm totally aware that it would require a lot of work, but... There's already a metric ton of doodads and decorations used in the in-game structures. A lot of them could be used in a housing system. Some actual building models and assets used to create them could be used as well. Of course they'd have to add quite a bit of new stuff to make it interesting, but I don't think it's as bad as you make it sound, at least not on the art side of things.

And while I think art-wise creating a decent starter pack for a housing system should be possible, the main concern I have is developing an actual system that would allow a player to not only have his own house, but also have the creative freedom to place these decorations as he sees fit. I'm not a tech guy, so I can't really say, but I imagine WoW's engine wasn't build for anything even close to this, so adding it would likely require a ton of work.

Still, the main advantage of the system is that once the initial work was done, it would be fairly easy to add more content for it with each patch. They're already developing a ton of art assets for each zone - some of them could get added to the pool of decorations available for player housing. That's one thing. The other is - creating mostly static doodads (e.g. furniture, banners, paintings, etc.) is much easier than making armor and weapons that have to work with a lot of other models or creating fully animated mounts. So in that sense, adding to a housing system could actually be considerably easier than adding to mounts or transmog.

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So... yes, it would have to be an expansion feature as it's definetely too much work to add something like this mid-expansion, but I don't agree that it's such a titanic endeavor that it couldn't be done or that it would cost us a raid tier. I'd say adding player housing would require a similar amount of work as garrisons or warfronts, so... yeah, I think it's totally doable - the only question is whether it's actually worth the effort to make a purely cosmetic system an expansion's main feature?

Here I have some doubts. As much I think housing has a ton of potential and I'd like to see something like that added into the game, I think that actual gameplay features currently need more help than player customization and thus I'd rather have the engineers and designers (with support from the art team) work on that rather than develop a big new cosmetic system.

Especially considering the biggest issue with any player housing - i.e. how to make your house visible enough to other players so that the player expression and customization you get through it actually matters?

The problem though, is what would we lose to gain it. I believe that is the bigger problem here, not more so if it can be done.

Look at how much content we lost because of garrisons, I am not going to lie, its not a risk I would be willing to take.

[clevin]

Reasons to have it:
- customizable and permanent per-character environment (like transmog but better)
- roleplaying elements that are sorely lacking in this supposed RPG
- visual display of achievements, rather than just a boring tab
- revitalizing a profession system that is generally considered to be one of the worst in the genre
- goals that can be worked toward with time invested instead of spinning the RNG wheel

Good points. I don't have a problem with it as a feature (though I doubt I'd use it) as long as it's not a tentpole feature where we lose other core gameplay things. To me, it's like pet battles, transmog and the like - as long as we're not distorting the game to add them, go for it. If they said - "you're getting this but we only get 1/3 of the 5 mans at launch and no more during an expac" then I'd have issues.

[RobertMugabe]

Not just "I want Housing", or "I think it would be a good idea..."

No.

I think Blizzard is being STUPID.

Everyone wants to point to Warlords of Draenor, like it was some sort of "real attempt" at a housing system. It wasn't; it was half-assed, and anyone who has even TOUCHED another MMO could look at Garrisons and see, there was zero passion behind it. Nothing about it was fun or interesting, it didn't offer any ACTUAL personal customization. Everyone's Garrisons were identical.

I think a real, legit Housing system -- especially something that allows you to see other players' houses easily (like FFXIV's system, albeit fairly restrictive) -- would not only satisfying a real, long-standing demand players have had, but would actually attract players *back* to WoW.

Hell, you could even springboard an entire profession off of it, like Carpentry (hell, even introduce Lumberjack/Woodcutting as a new gathering skill), focused exclusively towards building tons of house-items. And of course, you could have various bosses throughout the entire game drop new items, trophies, even leverage something like Archaeology for additional stuff.

Personally? I would give each player a single "island" to build their house and decorate to their hearts content, and have a limited number of "premium" houses throughout the game, which would be unique to that server. So maybe, while everyone has access to a house of SOME kind, the coolest houses would be ones based in specific locations, like Hrothgar's Landing (just north of the Argent Tournament in Icecrown), or maybe one of those previously-inaccessible houses places somewhere in the mountains of the world.

But even if it's just totally instanced-off "islands", I still think there would be a huge draw. Just let players visit the "islands" of other players, either in their guild, friends list, or even a "visit random house".

I dunno. I just really think Blizzard is fucking up by NOT adding a proper, fully-fledged housing system. It might not be EVERYONE'S cup of tea, but I think the MMO industry has proven that Housing, as a feature, is here to stay and not a fluke. It would just give players an additional layer of "things they can do" when they log in.

Just... don't add any GAMEPLAY-affecting reasons to have a House. No "buffs", no "free/extra resources", just an ENTIRELY OPTIONAL thing. Because nothing makes things less fun that feeling *obligated* to do them.

The main issue that everyone misses about housing is that it's a technical difficulty. I am fairly sure that the Garrison took way too much time to develop and it's basically just a phase than can spawn static buildings. Proper housing where you can customise and place all kinds of stuff is a whole different level of complex.

This game is very old.

[Briselody]

Good points. I don't have a problem with it as a feature (though I doubt I'd use it) as long as it's not a tentpole feature where we lose other core gameplay things. To me, it's like pet battles, transmog and the like - as long as we're not distorting the game to add them, go for it. If they said - "you're getting this but we only get 1/3 of the 5 mans at launch and no more during an expac" then I'd have issues.

I can agree with this. It should be implemented in the same way that pet battles were, honestly. A separate system that has no bearing on unrelated gameplay, but can be retroactively added to past content as well as expanded upon in new content.

[Soon-TM]

The main issue that everyone misses about housing is that it's a technical difficulty. I am fairly sure that the Garrison took way too much time to develop and it's basically just a phase than can spawn static buildings. Proper housing where you can customise and place all kinds of stuff is a whole different level of complex.

This game is very old.

Hasn't the engine supposedly gone through a lot of modernisation though? I remember Brack (not sure though) saying that if they ever wanted to do e.g. a World of Starcraft, they'd just use WoW's "modernised" engine.

[MrKnubbles]

I don't see the point in player housing. Like, what does it do? What can you tell me about player housing that would get me excited about it?

[Briselody]

I don't see the point in player housing. Like, what does it do? What can you tell me about player housing that would get me excited about it?

See:

Reasons to have it:
- customizable and permanent per-character environment (like transmog but better)
- roleplaying elements that are sorely lacking in this supposed RPG
- visual display of achievements, rather than just a boring tab
- revitalizing a profession system that is generally considered to be one of the worst in the genre
- goals that can be worked toward with time invested instead of spinning the RNG wheel

If none of that excites you, then don't do it.

[huth]

I can agree with this. It should be implemented in the same way that pet battles were, honestly. A separate system that has no bearing on unrelated gameplay, but can be retroactively added to past content as well as expanded upon in new content.

The part you're missing is that the dev cost for Pet battle was very low. The UI team did that mostly on their own. That wouldn't work for housing.

[AcidicSyn]

13 pages and the thread isn't about Guild Housing? I'm impressed.

OT: Yup. I've been wanting housing since they first announced it as a vanilla post-launch feature.

[Faesroll]

We had "housing" with garrisons. Made the whole game feel completely dead cause everyone was camping in their garrison.

[AcidicSyn]

imo Ultima Online is the only MMO to get housing right.

While you're pretty much 100% correct.

Could you imagine WoW players logging in one day after forgetting to lock their door? Not even table walls would work since we can jump in WoW.

(Pac. Trinsic west gate villa. Still the best memories.)

[RobertMugabe]

Hasn't the engine supposedly gone through a lot of modernisation though? I remember Brack (not sure though) saying that if they ever wanted to do e.g. a World of Starcraft, they'd just use WoW's "modernised" engine.

modernising an engine is a phrase that can mean anything or nothing to be honest

[pacotaco]

We had "housing" with garrisons. Made the whole game feel completely dead cause everyone was camping in their garrison.

The problem wasn't the "housing", it was that there was no incentive to go "out there", and there was incentive to stay in.
We also had "housing" with MoP farm, and it never was a problem.

[Frostyfire14]

WoW Servers can't handle Housing. There literally has to be a WoW 2.0 for that to happen.

[Triceron]

I'm not sure about housing, but I'd be down for guildhalls. Something to show off the achievements you've earned in a more social way. Statues you can build, stuff you can decorate and move around, all within a social environment.

Housing itself... meh. Would be nice but I could just play Animal Crossing instead honestly.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I'm not sure about housing, but I'd be down for guildhalls. Something to show off the achievements you've earned in a more social way. Statues you can build, stuff you can decorate and move around, all within a social environment.

Housing itself... meh. Would be nice but I could just play Animal Crossing instead honestly.

Guild/Clan Halls/Housing only work properly as a sub-aspect of housing. It usually boils down to one or two guys having fun with the feature while the rest just has little to no interaction with it. Especially with how fleeting guilds are these days, it would guarantee the feature to be still born, if only restricted to that. FFXIV has the option to rent a room in your guild house, which is imho a valuable way to use them if you can't affort a house yourself.

But overall I still prefer the EQ2 way. Even if you were a newbie you could still get an affortable shitty little room with place for 100 furniture units in the poor part of town. No need to artificially restrict the feature too much, the fact it was just a simple rented room was enough reason to want to try get a better one. The extra housing instances with plots for building were always overkill in my mind. With the EQ2 way you still went through the town and alot of the fake doors actually got some use. Even if there was an unreal amount of players in each appartment, no one really cared about it. You just got to do your thing without having to write bots that attempt to grab a plot of land like the other guys here mentioned earlier.

[Spazlord]

Play the sims already.