It is f***ing BANANAS WoW still doesn't have a Housing system

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

houses honestly serve no real purpose, apart from a gold sink they just lock content away from elsewhere. you can make your barbie/ken mansion sure but it would detract what little is left from the mmo because people would afk in house rather than afk/run circles around the major hubs innkeepers

[clownpenisfart]

Seriously; Blizzard is more than happy to rip-off good ideas

exactly

/10chars

[Vorkreist]

I hate player housing in most games and it's something I have never wanted resources wasted on. I'm glad they continue to shitcan this stupid idea

I'm just curious what kind of quality solo rp is the target for such stupid feature ? Do you imagine your lvl 999 Titan slayer character plays with barbie dolls inside that cute virtual house ?

[bloodmoth13]

I like the idea but it has no purpose to it. Its the opposite of what an mmo needs, mmos need more player friction, not less, housing just isolates the playerbase.
Garrisons were likely a test candidate for player housing and they failed to hit the mark.

[qwerty123456]

And its a HUGE WASTE OF DEVELOPMENT TIME FOR MANY GAMERS. All the other mmos you have mentioned have crashed and burned with the exception of FF. One could argue that they should have spent more time building a compelling and interesting game that functioned correctly, instead of spending countless hours allowing us to hang some pictures in a silly little building.

Garrisons were unpopular for many reasons, but one very common theme was it killed the open world mmo feeling, with people just spending all their time running around a silly little instanced area with no other players.

And raids are/were a huge waste of development time for many gamers which they tried to justify by adding lfr. And just like pvp/pet battles/etc is for other players. Just because there are some players who wont use X doesn't mean that it wont increase other players engagement.

Wildstar survived much longer than it should have due to its housing system. And ESO has proven there is still a demand for housing when they are still continue to develop and sell 100$ homes.

[Wramp]

i've always viewed my garrison as my player house, it isn't much, but it's mine.

[Omedon]

All I want to add to this thread, besides a resounding agreement with the OP, is that my idle "summon and level your army of collectible characters that partake in various combative modes" mobile game of choice has customizable housing, indeed housing that is attached to character power, long before WoW has it. That is just an utter insult to WoW that will always make me laugh.

And before anyone gets on me that "it shouldn't be attached to character power," I can have it either way but I'd almost be willing to pitch/tolerate a player housing system where what you have in your house serves as the "conduit/HoA/Legendary" system for an expansion, IF when it gets left behind as such, it loses its power weight and keeps its cosmetic weight, with the slots of the house's furniture able to be "transmogged" so you keep an appearance you want on display but have the power element exist beneath during its relevant expansion, and then loses all power weight once the expansion is legacy. You know, just like cosmetic slots for a system that was "more than cosmetics" for only its first two years. That, in all honesty, is the only way I see housing ever happening. It likely has to spend two years as the "borrowed power" system, with a visible customization element, then remains just a customization element once it's no longer the relevant expansion's borrowed power. (And no that's not what garrisons were. I'm talking "this chair placed in your living room gives you X power." Not "you have this completely jarring building with no visibly customizable parts that gives you access to X content." No one who knows anything about housing counts garrisons as housing.)

I mean that's basically what covenants are going to be in two years. 1000% cosmetic. After spending two years as more than that.

[Ifeanychukwu]

Wow doesn't need housing if they forget it exists the expansion after it was released.

That's wasn't housing... like, at all.

[Swnem]

In SWTOR, players have instanced housing and instanced ships, yet the major hubs are all still full of people.

Shh! What are you doing telling them the truth? Housing in SWTOR is awesome, but these people like to live in their WoW bubble with their own facts.
The garrison was great. The problem is that in good old WoW faction, everything had to happen through them.

[Halfaheart]

If I was able to have a little apartment in ironforge or a tent out in Mulgore I would 100% love it. If it was some sort of Instanced area inside of a city I think that could work tremendously. It would breathe life back into different locations like Exodar and Silvermoon while still giving the devs the satisfaction of players being inside of the city with that being the only way in/out of your home. Sadly I think the time for that has long passed =*(

[Cosmic Janitor]

1. Blizzard would just fuck it up because they are too arrogant to admit the good parts about the system that everyone else uses and instead would insist their "improvements" are what makes this a great system, while in reality making it another forced progression nightmare.
2. Large parts of the wow playerbase would just bitch about it because they frankly don't understand it, this forum is a good example. It's perls before the..

Ergo, it's a good thing Blizzard hasn't done it yet and it's better if they don't. WoW is also missing alot of the supporting work for it to work, namely someone who actually cares about professions. As long as Blizzard treats all other systems ingame like they treat professions a system like housing has no chance to succeed.

[Apexis]

The concept of the garrison was a big bust. I can't imagine that player housing would not end in the same fate. Player housing would require Blizzard to continue to add features and content to them. Which, in Blizzard terminology of the past means, less content in the game itself for the masses. When Blizzard sinks more into one aspect of the game, they take away from other parts of the game or cut corners. That in and of itself creates an atmosphere of not enough for people to do. For the people who whine about the tedious aspects in the game, player housing would acerbate that problem more.

[Steelcryo]

"Housing is pointless, it just takes players away from the world!" - Except the part where it gets players to go out into the world, especially old content, to collect items for their house. If anything, it'd encourage less people to just idle in cities waiting on queues to pop and actually venture into the open world and play the game. It would also give people more reason to log in outside of their weekly dungeons/raids. Nearly everyone I know only raid logs once they've finished the current quest content, giving them more reason to log in to do other things would be a great thing.

"What's the point of a purely cosmetic house?" What's the point in anything in a game? What's the point of gearing up to kill bosses to get more gear to kill stronger bosses? It's fun! It might not be fun for you, but it is for plenty of other people.

"I dislike it, so they shouldn't waste resources on it" - I dislike Mythic raiding, Arena's and PvP in general, so by that logic, that should all stop being developed too. This is probably the dumbest reason against housing.

"It'd be abandoned after the expansion it was added" - That's one of the huge positives of housing, it can constantly be added to each expansion. New items, decorations, achievements to show off. It's something we can always go back to. We already ditch hard earned gear, entire continents, power systems etc. at the end of each expansion, it'd be nice to have something that comes with us that we can always go back to.

Frankly, it's one of those things that has a much higher possibility of adding a lot to the game, drawing players back to the game, increasing the time people spend in game and giving some life to old content. There is much more reason to do it, than not do it, assuming they do it right. Which is the only reason I can think of that Blizzard hasn't done it for, they don't have confidence they can do it well. Especially after the shit show that was garrisons, that probably knocked their confidence on doing housing a lot.

[Syegfryed]

Quite sad that we don't have, always wanted a small house in orgrimmar or Razor Hill, the Garrison is cool and all but the lack of customization is a big problem, plus, the place is too big, there is a random of nobodies there i can't kick, i have no control at all

i think blizzard don't want to implement because they don't want to admit that they are wrong and this could be a good thing.

Well, why waste resources on this when we can waste resources in borrowed power and other other shit, isn't like they are saving for important stuff, class design and balance is dogshit by 3 expansions now.

Imagine caring this much about a virtual apartment in a video game.

imagine playing a video game

[Niwes]

I hate player housing in most games and it's something I have never wanted resources wasted on. I'm glad they continue to shitcan this stupid idea

adding me to that opinion.

will never get why ppl want that shit. housing is the only thing, when i really would agree to Allen J. Bracks „ You think you want it, but you dont“. imo, if wow would trade off a majority of development, in an xpac, for that stuff, that xpac would become the least selling xpac in history. because everyone would sit in their new cool housing appartment, look around and go like „cool stuff“. then they go out and see „no raids, no dungeons, less to do than WoD“. and thats the moment they go „quit.“. forever.

nah, better keep that time wasting shit out of wow. for my taste even all that new character customization options where a huge waste of time. that arts and design team could do more and better content in that time. i personally give a fuck how unique my char is and if i combined 5 eye brews with 5 bearts or 100 with 100. as long as i have a few options and give my char some drive into the direction my fantasy for this char lies. do not need a trizillion combinations for that.

so, in the end of the day, i appreciate every single minute that has invested into more content and foremost into quality of content. but thats maybe just me.

[unbound]

Blizz was attempting it with Garrisons. You were supposed to be able to build your garrison at multiple locations.

Why did we end up with Garrison nonsense instead? $$$$$

Blizz has been cutting corners for every expansion since (and possibly including) Cata. The stingy bug bit very hard with WoD...and not just with the Garrisons.

Don't blame the devs; blame the upper management.

[Doffer]

I really want housing in WoW, but I want it to be done RIGHT! As in, unlike Garrisons, we get more choices. Choose between many different zones and many different styles (Human buildings could vary between Stormwind style, Gilnean, Kul Tiran) (Dwarven styles could include the standard Submerged stone-house, wildhammer hobbit holes from twilight highlands)

The problem with Garrisons was that it was tied to the main story and the major mechanics of the expansion. Housing needs to be like transmog or pet battles, complete optional! No Mission tables, no bonuses to current-expansion-professions, no bonus roll seals or an extra gold income.
It would be a feature that would revitalize old content, much like what transmogrification did. Get woodworking as a new secondary profession allowing us to craft furniture. Unlock recipes, new styles and house additions from old raids, dungeons, archaeology, old reputations, old achievements, secret wandering traders.

It would be a creative outlet for WoW players. It could make us feel like we can carve out a home in our favorite zones, using our favorite racial artstyles, decorate it with your transmog and weapons, collectibles, toys, trophies of hard-earned achievements, Class-specific building additions (Druid -grove, Paladin - Altar like the new Uthers tomb, mage tower for mages , much like the garrison one in style), and a place to let your favorite pets and mounts roam.

It could also be a source for new activities:
- Fishing Pond - Create and decorate a pond where you and your friends can fish

- Stables - Use your favorite mounts to race different tracks you've unlocked - Includes new mount racing challenges across Azeroth - For instance, complete gold time on the Darkmoon Faire races and you can unlock them to use in your homestead, teleporting you to the track of your choice for you to compete with friends

- Pet Battle Arena - A place not only to keep your battle pets, but also practice your skills battling your own pets. Create an 'enemy' pet battle team from your pet collection, and use them to train new strategies.
Have tournaments with friends and guildies with elimination rounds.

- Duel Arena - An arena where you can fight against powerful adversaries you've defeated in dueling-challenges across Azeroth, including some boss fights from Brawlers Guild. Organize a pvp tournament with your friends.

- Trial of style arena - Have a transmog party with your guildies and vote on the best transmogs, just like in Trial of styles.

With these activities, an incentive to make things more fun would be Prizes!
For all of these activities, the Homesteader (owner of the house) can place a *trophy* item and set a ruleset for it.
For instance, The homesteader places the trophy down and sets a wager on it, filling it with X amount of gold (determined by the homesteader) that each participant of the various tournaments will have to match. The trophy can also be used as a chest, where players can place items as bets to win.
The winner of the tournaments gets the trophy, along with any gold and items placed within it.

For the fishing pond, the contest would be about who is the first to fish up the trophy/treasure chest
For the races - who reaches the finish line first (obviously)
Pet battles/Duel arena - winner of the final round
Trial of Style - Whoever gets the most votes after all rounds.

I truly think having activities such as these would be incredibly fun and even challenging. Something to do besides quests, raids and progression. A way to organize actual social events with structure.

And with hunting down trophies to place in your home, furniture, recipes, completing races and challenging duels across Azeroth, there would be so much more to having a homestead than just sit around it waiting for your queues

[agentsi]

Seriously; Blizzard is more than happy to rip-off good ideas, and usually refines them to be even better than the source of inspiration. But for whatever reason, the closest thing to even an *attempt* as housing was the half-assed Garrisons, which offered nearly zero customization of any kind.

The thing that makes this so crazy to me, is that this is SUCH an easy "Win" for Blizzard.

Think about it; they have over FIFTEEN YEARS of ALREADY-EXISTING ASSETS they could use. No, it's not as simple as flipping a switch, but it's a damn good start.

Just like Transmogrifaction, Housing is more than just "the feature itself", but also represents SOMETHING NEW TO DO. People would immediately begin farming for House-items.

Old dungeons and raids? Tradeskills? Archeology? All of these could be sources of house items.

And hell, they could even add more shit to the Cash Shop, provided it isn't the ONLY outlet for cool shit.

Furthermore, Housing is a HUGELY COMPELLING FEATURE FOR MANY GAMERS. No, no everybody cares about Housing. But there are enough that it's clearly a trend for virtually (literally?) every other MMO on the market to have incorporated one.

My personal advice? I'd track down every single person who worked on WildStar's Housing system and hire them on the spot. WildStar may have failed as an MMO, but its Housing system set a new, unprecedented standard for what was possible in a Housing system.

Blizzard could do whatever they want with the details. Maybe it's a solo-instance, or maybe they do "shared settlements" like FFXIV where you also see other players' houses. Maybe each character gets their own house, or maybe it's one per server or even per account. Maybe they're free, or maybe they cost a ton of gold. Maybe they're limited, maybe they're not.

Point is, it would be a truly meaningful feature to the game, and there is no real downside. At worse, "some people won't be into it". Some people aren't into PvP, either, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't support it.

Like I said, above all else, it just gives people shit to DO again. Even if you aren't great at PvP, or maybe you can't Raid often, decorating your place could be a huge motivation to keep playing and maybe branch out into content you ordinarily wouldn't have.

I will concede that Wildstars housing system was without a doubt, the best I've ever seen. And it made sense, as well as gave a practical purpose to it. No other game has ever done this type of system that well. But then again, the game crashed and burned. So what did it even matter?

No one really wants player housing. It's stupid in just about every game and is usually a total waste of time/resources. In every game metric, I've ever seen, outside of FFXIV, player housing is a wash, and more often than not, a total loss. Players never use it enough, it doesn't serve a real purpose, and often times eliminates the social aspect of MMOs as folks just hide away.

I think guild halls though, would probably be a decent idea. A place for your guildmates to hang out and do stuff. But again, it would go against what WoW wants to do. And garrisons ruined it, as folks just wanted it for its money-making potential.

[Tylanthia]

Seriously; Blizzard is more than happy to rip-off good ideas, and usually refines them to be even better than the source of inspiration. But for whatever reason, the closest thing to even an *attempt* as housing was the half-assed Garrisons, which offered nearly zero customization of any kind.

The thing that makes this so crazy to me, is that this is SUCH an easy "Win" for Blizzard.

I think Garrisons would have been amazing had they gone all in on the housing/customization of it (get to move it, new building art from other races, decorations, etc). But that wasn't the path they took. It'd be amazing to have player housing though.

[stomination]

Personally I'm pretty glad Blizzard hasn't wasted any resources on Housing.

Idk they wasted alot of resources over the years.