Wow housing

[Swnem]

Has there even been player housing in any game at the scale of World of Warcraft? They'd have to consider millions of homes created and managed,

Jesus. What impatience! Do you think the features launch with everything already available? Have you ever even played a housing system on an mmo? That is very silly to say. Having housing doesn't mean you are gonna have a housing ward on every zone in the game. Blizzard chooses where they want it and they give a number of customization that fit with that theme. That's it. In time the features gets expanded to new decorations and new wards.
If SWTOR, FFXIV and ESO can do it and people love it, it is beyond me why WoW players are so stubborn about it except ignorance of how the system works. Housing gives activity to the whole game. Reputations, classic dungeons/raids/pvp and current iterations. It adds more rewards and more objectives while in now way forcing anyone to do it.
It would massively drive engagement and it's evergreen content.

[TheRevenantHero]

Why not both. Nothing wrong with crafting, and nothing wrong incentivizing Blizz to make awesome things, aka store mounts

Once again, there is not a chance in hell that Blizzard wouldn't make the majority of housing materials microtransactions. And games with massive amounts of microtransactions are garbage because more focus is put on the cosmetic store than anything else. And those games typically have the only way to get the majority of items is through said store. If there was something like Destiny 2 where there was a part of the store that lets you use in game currency to buy cosmetic items from the store, that'd be fine. But Blizzard/Activision would NEVER do that. So housing would just be a massive cash grab and any player that didn't spend real money would have nothing but garbage bare boned housing.

[Arkthugal]

Player housing is a waste of dev time.

[XDurionX]

That's the argument of a child.

Housing has been in most major RPG's since forever. One of the biggest mod sections for oblivion is for custom housing, despite being able to buy regular housing. Skyrim designed an entire DLC around this.

But sure let's dismiss it as a dollhouse.

Yep, and it was a shit DLC.

While were at it, let's add racing to WoW, racing games are popular. Oh, and a shooter, people like these, right? And clicker games!

[Doffer]

You did not get Garrisons at all. Did you even played WoD?

Housing should be a side activity, merely an aesthetic and fun feature of the game that you can choose to do or ignore if its not your cup of tea, like Pet battles.
Blizzard chose to funnel all the main content through the Garrisons in Warlords, making it impossible to skip if you wanted to play the expansion. This isn't what housing is supposed to be.

To be honest, Blizzard hasn't added a gamespanning feature since cataclysm and it shows.
Scenarios were abandoned after MoP, Garrisons after WoD, Class halls and the Mage Tower after Legion, and after BfA they will abandon warfronts and island expeditions (thank God)

What WoW could use right now is a new piece of content that isn't grounded in a single expansion, something that would add countless hours of content to do, like the Transmog system. A side activity that isn't necessary for progression or story development.

Transmogrification is a feature that gave new life to older content, dungeons and raids, and is responsible for the passing of SO MUCH gametime. However its purely cosmetic, and therefore optional. If you don't care about the Tier sets from Tomb of Sargeras, then you don't have to do it.
This is what housing should be like. A place to call your own that you may design, decorate and play with but doesn't give you a leg up on professions, raiding, mythics or pvp.
This is a feature that could breathe new life into the game for a lot of players, both old and new, and add months if not years of new activities.
It could attract new players to subscribe which would benefit the health of the game.
As long as its added as an optional feature housing would bring nothing but good to World of Warcraft

[Bbrigham]

Once again, there is not a chance in hell that Blizzard wouldn't make the majority of housing materials microtransactions. And games with massive amounts of microtransactions are garbage because more focus is put on the cosmetic store than anything else. And those games typically have the only way to get the majority of items is through said store. If there was something like Destiny 2 where there was a part of the store that lets you use in game currency to buy cosmetic items from the store, that'd be fine. But Blizzard/Activision would NEVER do that. So housing would just be a massive cash grab and any player that didn't spend real money would have nothing but garbage bare boned housing.

Respectfully, I disagree. I think player housing would add to WoW's lifespan

[ReleaseDay]

Nothing wrong with that

Everything is wrong with that

[TheRevenantHero]

Respectfully, I disagree. I think player housing would add to WoW's lifespan

Except...it wouldn't. Because Blizzard doesn't do game mechanics that last past the expansion they were introduced in anymore. They think they need to make something new each expansion to keep the game "fresh" but drop it for the next expansion. So either housing would be around for one expansion OR it would be purely a microtransaction feature. Either option would infuriate the community and would just cause the number of subs to plummet even further.

[ReleaseDay]

Other games did it extremely well, so why not WoW? And Garrisions were ok the first few months of WoD, but they started to become boring

Agreed, BDO being an example of it (except for the ptw shop obv). Garrisons were something else, if you think of that as player housing then yeah, you'll be disappointed.

I assume it will come eventually, its too big of a thing to miss out on. They probably have a lot of ideas on how to do it.

[prwraith]

Yep, and it was a shit DLC.

While were at it, let's add racing to WoW, racing games are popular. Oh, and a shooter, people like these, right? And clicker games!

So basically don't add anything if you don't personally approve of it, despite historically being involved with both MMO's and RPG's ?

[MrLachyG]

I mean if it was purely cosmetic then yeah it would be cool - your own space somewhere in Org/Stormwind (or any capital city of your choosing where you could visit). your pets would be wandering around; you could have a raid/dungeon room which had the head of the final boss of a raid you had cleared. I dunno what else they would add to it but it wouldn't be anything like Garrisons. and because it's not part of the gameplay experience for an expansion, it can continue through multiple expansions.

[ReleaseDay]

Except...it wouldn't. Because Blizzard doesn't do game mechanics that last past the expansion they were introduced in anymore. They think they need to make something new each expansion to keep the game "fresh" but drop it for the next expansion. So either housing would be around for one expansion OR it would be purely a microtransaction feature. Either option would infuriate the community and would just cause the number of subs to plummet even further.

That's just your idea of it, which is a confused one.

There are many things that last over expansions, transmogging being one such thing. Player housing could easily be a feature that could come with the next expansion and continue to exist from there on out, with it being improved further with every update.

[Alroxas]

Because Blizzard doesn't do game mechanics that last past the expansion they were introduced in anymore.

Transmog would like to say hi. M+ would like to also say Hi. AP stuck around for BFA even when introduced in Legion (hopefully it goes away in SL).

[McNeil]

Player housing if done well could be a neat feature that doesn't get irrelevant after each expansion. It would need a lot of customizable options like having aethestics for every race (I don't want my blood elves and nightborne to reside in a generic orc hut), opportunities to make it larger and getting to decorate every room to your liking. And ofcourse allow every house to be placed anywhere on the world. I would love to have mine in Grizzly Hills, probably close to the road and between some pine trees with a good look over the zone. I mean all of our characters are old veterans at this point.... we all need our retirement homes.

Garrisons is not player housing. They have cut so many corners that it ended up feeling barebones, having only 1 location and everyones garrison looked the same with the only exception being some buildings switched around. It was also integrated way to much into the main story if you wanted to progress, making it impossible to just skip the garrison entirely if you wanted to go further. Player housing should be 100% optional and allow players who like to collect things and decorate to do so.

[TheRevenantHero]

Transmog would like to say hi. M+ would like to also say Hi. AP stuck around for BFA even when introduced in Legion (hopefully it goes away in SL).

Transmog isn't really a game mechanic. M+ is NOTHING like what it was when it was first introduced. It's changed every expansion since it was introduced. As for AP, even that isn't the same in BfA. My point is, they don't keep game mechanics stable for multiple expansions anymore. They always change it to the point where it's either dropped entirely or nothing like what it was when it was first introduced.

- - - Updated - - -

That's just your idea of it, which is a confused one.

There are many things that last over expansions, transmogging being one such thing. Player housing could easily be a feature that could come with the next expansion and continue to exist from there on out, with it being improved further with every update.

Transmog isn't really a mechanic and Blizzard didn't really have to do much at all to implement it. They're just letting you change a piece of armor to look like something else already in the game files. Player housing would require A LOT of time to make because the only way to make it possible would be to make each player house a separate instance. Much more complicated than simple transmog.

[Alroxas]

M+ is NOTHING like what it was when it was first introduced.

As for AP, even that isn't the same in BfA.

they don't keep game mechanics stable for multiple expansions anymore.

That's not true or rather you're being to specific instead of looking at the generality of the game system.

For instance, M+ is generally summed as a dungeon with a timer and gets more difficult as you do higher keys. Now affixes have been shuffled around (some don't even exist anymore) and tuning of M+ has changed, but the overall concept remains the same: a dungeon with a timer & gets more difficult as you do higher keys

AP is generally the same (up until 8.3) where players do activities which reward AP that progressively gives characters more power as they rank up. Again there are differences in Legion versus BFA, but the general concept again is the same.

And when talking about game mechanics, sure if you want to be pedantic about it, sure nothing has stayed 100% the same from expansion to expansion but in general there are a lot of systems that have remained fairly similar that they haven't really changed that much.


So moving back to Player housing, it's entirely possible for it to exist and stay stable in WoW but only if Blizzard thought it was worth adding to the game. And that's the real problem, you gotta sell player housing concept/mechanic to Blizzard devs.

Who knows maybe in 2~3 years, we'll get player housing because the Blizzard devs were all playing Animal Crossing during the pandemic.

[TheRevenantHero]

That's not true or rather you're being to specific instead of looking at the generality of the game system.

For instance, M+ is generally summed as a dungeon with a timer and gets more difficult as you do higher keys. Now affixes have been shuffled around (some don't even exist anymore) and tuning of M+ has changed, but the overall concept remains the same: a dungeon with a timer & gets more difficult as you do higher keys

AP is generally the same (up until 8.3) where players do activities which reward AP that progressively gives characters more power as they rank up. Again there are differences in Legion versus BFA, but the general concept again is the same.

And when talking about game mechanics, sure if you want to be pedantic about it, sure nothing has stayed 100% the same from expansion to expansion but in general there are a lot of systems that have remained fairly similar that they haven't really changed that much.


So moving back to Player housing, it's entirely possible for it to exist and stay stable in WoW but only if Blizzard thought it was worth adding to the game. And that's the real problem, you gotta sell player housing concept/mechanic to Blizzard devs.

Who knows maybe in 2~3 years, we'll get player housing because the Blizzard devs were all playing Animal Crossing during the pandemic.

Mythic Dungeons are nothing like what they were when first introduced in MoP. they've undergone changes in every expansion since.

AP is the same to a degree but the way it's used is much different. In Legion you basically had another talent tree for various different weapons. In BfA, AP is more used to activate abilities rather than being talents.


As for player housing, I've wanted it for a long time. But after seeing the disaster that was Garrisons and how greedy Activision is? I don't want it in the game. Because it would either be a trainwreck and not function properly OR it would be nothing but a cash grab through microtransactions. This would cause it to be poorly received and Blizzard would abandon it like Garrisons, Mage Tower, and Scenarios. At this point, I'd rather housing never be introduced than see it be absolutely fucking terrible then dropped in the next expansion.

[Lefrog]

Transmog isn't really a mechanic and Blizzard didn't really have to do much at all to implement it. They're just letting you change a piece of armor to look like something else already in the game files. Player housing would require A LOT of time to make because the only way to make it possible would be to make each player house a separate instance. Much more complicated than simple transmog.

They already have location based individual phasing (see Garrison). From my extremely limited WoW knowledge, when a player enters the area, all assets despawn, static garrison assets load based on garrison progression data, and the variable buildings/statues load based on your garrison customizable data. The main issue being loading customizable data, which is why they streamlined choices.

They already have a huge library of building assets to choose from too.

The tech is there and they have it. I personally believe they just want to do it right and better than simply loading existing assets into a private phase. They want to make it engaging and worth the resource hog that it is.

[pinkz]

garrisons...the daily farm of garrison for herbs, mines, work orders for professions, and mission board was fast and simple. garrisons failed and were damaging to WOW's social aspect for the following:

- trade chat was enabled
- auction house ability

trade chat being enabled inside garrisons was imo, the top reason players stayed in garrisons. once you had a auction house set up in garrison this was like hanging out in a capital city.

- full communications with all your faction capital cites
- faster access to your bank
- access to a mail box

the original garrison concept was not released as first mentioned, portable could be set up in various zones, i believe that blizzard made the garrison too complex with too many systems, making the portable mini housing concept over bearing data wise, programming, etc. to be allowed to be moved zone to zone in WOD

i still to this day, on any new 90+ player make a basic garrison, which gives a additional hearthstone for faster access to WOD

the https://www.wowhead.com/item=163042/...avan-brutosaur, while players can access AH from a no trade chat location, use a small city mailbox, limited bank access from racial, proff, or a town like rachet. etc. this mount does not disrupt social interactions thru the ability to communicate in trade chat, outside of capital cites (unless parked in a garrison). majority of the players i see using this mount are generally in main cities right outside or at a bank with a mailbox nearby

[TheRevenantHero]

They already have location based individual phasing (see Garrison). From my extremely limited WoW knowledge, when a player enters the area, all assets despawn, static garrison assets load based on garrison progression data, and the variable buildings/statues load based on your garrison customizable data. The main issue being loading customizable data, which is why they streamlined choices.

They already have a huge library of building assets to choose from too.

The tech is there and they have it. I personally believe they just want to do it right and better than simply loading existing assets into a private phase. They want to make it engaging and worth the resource hog that it is.

The thing with that is that it's pretty much static. The coding for it was created so that EVERY player basically had the same garrison. Housing would be much more complicated. But if they went the route of garrisons and made them all look the same, people would flip the fuck out. Because it wouldn't be housing. It would just be garrisons 2.0 and NOBODY wants that.

Yes they have the assets but allowing players to use any of those assets is another monster. Transmog is one thing because it's just armor and weapons. That's small. Letting players choose from a library of buildings, furniture, and other decorations would be HUGE. Garrisons was them testing the waters and players hated it. So they're probably just going to use that as an excuse going forward to NOT implement housing so they have a convenient reason to not devote time and effort to housing.

This is the same company that, FOR years, claimed they couldn't give Alliance players quel'dorei which would have just been a simple eye color change for blood elves. I don't see them ever adding housing.