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

[Toybox]

Engaged how? Sitting in your mobile game playing Wow by yourself and decorating?

Yeah, sorry. Housing champion isn't WoW. Go play some mobile games if you want to be engaged with housing. I prefer those dev resources actually going into ways that make WoW better for more people, than just some stupid housing crap that only some people will truly get a level of engagement from, and that number being far lower than the number of dollars spent to achieve what you seek.

I mean they can make it interesting. Send you all over the world gathering recipes/materials etc, get me revisiting places I've had no reason to go to for 10+ years.

You speak as if the majority of this game are in raiding guilds doing group content with friends - they're not. They're playing a single-player Sims already, farming transmog & mounts because that's their end-game. Hell, I've read posts from people on this very forum who are looking forward to Legion raids being truly soloable moreso than anything else that comes with Shadowlands Now I don't get that personally, but heyo.

I'd not spend a single real £/$/€ on it if it were added though, so I'm definitely not the target market. Not bought a store pet/mount since Cataclysm, & I'm definitely not starting now.

[nacixems]

Maybe, but also showed they had wrong priorities. If they had skipped housing stuff and worked on other more important things maybe it could still be alive... Maybe not, who knows.

Very true. great point.

[DSRilk]

Personally, I think housing would be far better if you could obtain not just furniture, but also enemies that visitors could attack. Add in a minimum amount of scripting capability and allow people to create mini-dungeons/stories instead of just housing.

[rrayy]

Wildstar didnt crash and burn because housing. Infact, housing was one of the few things that kept it alive.

Housing in just about any MMO that implements it ends up being a major feature for said MMO to the extent that it alone keeps many of them going.

Yet WoW is still far more popular than any of them despite no housing.

Nor does it take much dev time to keep it going after the initial implementation since new updates to the game naturally add to the housing system with new material being made for a patch working for housing on its own. They don't have to go out of their way to make new furniture when they're making new furniture anyway.

And you know that how? Garrisons pretty much prove you wrong. There was almost no other content in WoD because they had to spend a ton on Garrisons. In fact they had to scrap patrs of it just so they could release it because that would have required even more time and resources than they had available.

There is absolutly no downside to player housing and any argument against it tends to be easily countered by just pointing to other MMO which have it.

And this argument can be countered by pointing to WoD and to the fat that WoW is far more popular than every MMO that has housing. That is proof alone that WoW does not need it. And as has been said many time. Housing means other content will not be able to be created. Less raids, dungeons, things like Torghast etc. That is a massive downside no matter how much you try to claim otherwise.

[Biglog]

Garrisons were Blizz's attempt at housing, and a good example of the struggles of wow devs in the tug-of-war between a wide range of different players. Garrisons during development were much more customizable, unique, and robust. They were much more like real player housing. Garrisons could be placed in many different locations in different zones, for example. That was removed as being too difficult to maintain and too confusing for players. So during dev garrisons got neutered to the ground. Little by little customization options were removed until what it ended up as, which was the absolute minimum of customization.

The problem is kind of like in the classroom, the teacher often has to teach at the level of the lowest common denominator student in the room so everyone can keep up. Blizz devs run into the same thing, that while many hardcore players would have no problem with complex housing, Blizz is very cautious (maybe too much) to not upset the wider playerbase that includes many casual players. So that is what lead garrisons to go from player housing, to be nerfed into what it became, a phased and barely unique base. Personally I was so desperate for player housing that even in it's limited way I liked the garrisons. Especially on pvp realms it was kind of fun and added an element of danger to pop in and out of your garrison looking for enemies.

Now that phasing is more mature and they learned some lessons from garrisons, maybe there's an opportunity to redo the garrison/player housing idea in a better way at some point.

[Unholyground]

Simply do guild halls like every other MMO and you can vote on things to earn for it and maybe have some cool things you can only do within it.

[Razorice]

The only housing I'd support in WoW would be OSRS style housing.

Edit: Also, Housing could work as a gold sink in the game.

[rrayy]

Garrisons were Blizz's attempt at housing, and a good example of the struggles of wow devs in the tug-of-war between a wide range of different players. Garrisons during development were much more customizable, unique, and robust. They were much more like real player housing. Garrisons could be placed in many different locations in different zones, for example. That was removed as being too difficult to maintain and too confusing for players. So during dev garrisons got neutered to the ground. Little by little customization options were removed until what it ended up as, which was the absolute minimum of customization.

The problem is kind of like in the classroom, the teacher often has to teach at the level of the lowest common denominator student in the room so everyone can keep up. Blizz devs run into the same thing, that while many hardcore players would have no problem with complex housing, Blizz is very cautious (maybe too much) to not upset the wider playerbase that includes many casual players. So that is what lead garrisons to go from player housing, to be nerfed into what it became, a phased and barely unique base. Personally I was so desperate for player housing that even in it's limited way I liked the garrisons. Especially on pvp realms it was kind of fun and added an element of danger to pop in and out of your garrison looking for enemies.

Now that phasing is more mature and they learned some lessons from garrisons, maybe there's an opportunity to redo the garrison/player housing idea in a better way at some point.

The issue wasn't confusion to players. THe issue was time and resuorce available to implement everythign they wnated to do. They realized that they did not have the time or resources to do it the way they originally wanted dot. Blizzard publicly stated this at the time. It was NEVER about being too confusing for players.

[Jeethi]

I don't agree that this is something WoW needs. I think there are other games that give you this.

[rrayy]

[QUOTE=JavelinJoe;52681979]Lets be honest dude, anyone with logic and 99% of people would agree. If you went to any gamer on earth and told them WoW is $49.99 every 2 years, plus $15 a month AND has an ingame store, they'd say that was wrong. Not gonna argue the toss with you literally go on youtube, watch any video game channel they've all spoken about this, its greed. Stop being deluded.[p/quote]Prove it. You are doing nothing more than making up numbers to validate your opinion into fact. Also, the opi9nion of Youtubersdoesn't mean squat because they will say whatever they have to to get clicks from people like you. I'm not the one being deluded here. That goes to the one who is trying to claim that everyone agrees with him.

No I didnt imply it actually thanks very much. I never said I get to dictate what others spend their money on nor do I think that, stop putting words in other peoples mouthes. Im entitled to an opinion on how any company should run too thanks. Thats the great thing about opinions. You cant tell me that I cant say that Blizzard triple dipping peoples pockets is greedy.

Yes you did imply it because you constantly delacre your opinion fact and talk down to, and demean, everyone who isn't in lockstep with you. There is a difference between an opinion of how a business should be run and you declaring how a business should be run then demeaning anyone who doesn't agree with you.

So what you're saying is theres an entire division of talented artists just trying to squeeze even more money out of the players? I dont see how you can say ideas arent being used up, thats just objectively false.

Yes. They were hired with the intent of creating items to be used across all their games. Notice how none of the things in the cash shop are relevant to actual game development. IF the cash shop does not exists, the resources used to put things in the cash shop disappear. The work on the WoW mounts for the cash shop does not come out of WoW's budget. That comes out of hte cash shop budget. The only thing that is objectively false is the claim that the resources use int he cash shop they would go into the game if the cash shop didn't exist.

All of the wow store mounts tie into whats going on in the game/world.

No they don't. They have zero bearing on the in game world. They are just themed to fit.

You're a bit of a broken record arent you Rrayy, jeez. Ill say it again anyway. I know its my opinion, I know others like you dont share my opinion. Stop telling me that I cant have one nor post it. I already addressed your accusations out of thin fucking air on me trying to dictate anything. I shared my opinion on how insidious the practice is, stop trying to tell me I cant post it.

I never said you can't post your opinion. Posting your opinion is not what you are doing. What you are doing is trying to dictate how the game should be run then you are insulting and demeaning anyone who is fine with the cash shop, all while looking downj your nose at them. If you were merely posting your opinion, you would't be demeaning or insulting anyone.

[Claymore]

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.

As WildStar proved, a cool Housing system isn't going to SAVE an otherwise failing MMO. That's definitely true.

That doesn't mean it isn't incredibly useful for player-retention, though. The fact that virtually (if not literally) every MMO on the market not only has a Housing system, but has continued to add to theirs, is evidence that they are clearly very well received by players.

You mention "in every game metric [you've] every seen"... what metrics *have* you seen? I'm admittedly big into data, so if you have seen any stats on the subject, I'd genuinely love to see! Without hard data, though, all we can do is extrapolate based on what we've seen OTHER MMO's do with their Housing systems. To which, I point back to the previous paragraph.

Personally, I would say the best solution is you still have individual housing, but the Guild Master is able to tag any guildmate's house as their "Guild Hall", creating an easy access point for your guild to meet. That way, players can still have their individual houses, but still also have that benefit of "this is where the guild can meet to hang-out". At the risk of adding a "gameplay feature" to housing, maybe whatever house is marked as a Guild Hall could also provide guildies a teleport/hearthstone to it?

[Hctaz]

Clearly, Housing isn't going to save a failing MMO, that's absolutely true. But it's also very obviously that, when you see every MMO that does have Housing, suddenly devotes a ton of resources towards expanding it? It must be met with some measure of success.

It's not as though a Housing system is going to come in lieu of everything else. Resources are finite, but it's a bullshit argument to suggest "anything spent on something I don't like is wasted resources/development". In my experience, most players either only enjoy PvE, but that doesn't mean they need to cut PvP (although admittedly, I think "World PvP" just isn't going to take off).

Garrisons were terrible, but context is also hugely important; Garrisons provided you all of your gathering resources as well. Unlike proper Housing -- which is entirely optional -- Garrisons were MANDATORY. Hell, a lot of your GEAR came from them, too, because of the "Mission table".

They might also take the approach of "settlements", in which yours isn't the only house in view. Being able to look at other players' houses is a hugely social aspect, and even instanced housing like WildStar still promoted a social atmosphere. Maybe your Guild could mark one player's house as their "guild hall" you could recall to? Not necessarily the GM's specifically, so it's not quite so isolated an experience.

I don't even know why uninstanced housing is so popular either. The whole point of player housing is just cosmetic. It's something that you have the option to go out into the world, do some shit, and make your own personal house look neat.

Tie it into the economy in some regards. Make it a gold sink like Runescape does.

I think the biggest reason why WoW doesn't want to do this is that they don't really keep any content around. Once the new expansion comes out, all of the old content is thrown away and made extremely trivial. The only "evergreen" content we've gotten was the Chromie thing.

I wish there was a way to implement evergreen content into WoW, but I just don't think it's going to happen at this point in time. They have had too many expansions and have fully hopped on the trend of abandoning everything once the expansion is over. They would need to start over from the beginning and find a way to make all content "evergreen" giving some kind of weight to player housing choices, otherwise it's going to be the same thing as we have now. You spend all expansion trying to get the coolest stuff only for it to become trivial the next expansion.

[keldarepewpew]

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.

I still sit in my garrison while queueing for arenas. I wish we had player housing. I want to get away from the busy city life.

[Tronski]

i dont understand how you can deny a factual demostrable statement....

Demonstrate with proof then.

[Monster Hunter]

yea, but there where alot of fun aspects of the game and housing was one of the best. imo.

Aye, I like the idea of player housing.

My main fear is a but like the high elf thing, and classic tbh, you let the community run with idea for long time they start flying off into the fantasy land of what it could be so far that what they get in reality can only be a disappointment, I mean in this thread alone and some of the stuff is things that take multiple mods made over years for skyrim and this is wow which is much much older and nearly buckled and has nearly fallen over due to all the corruption random stuff.

Might just me being a programmer that I get a little irate when ever I see wish listing for games or any software that dosnt consider technical limitations, performance budgets and resource allocation though. But end of the day those are the things that will get in the way and make sure what ever we get will always be much less than what the community is allowed the freedom of fantasy to dream up.

Big example being garrisons, which technology wise aren't far removed from how player housing would work, but the technology issues and problems implementing garrisons were so great not only did it mean garrisons fell well short of what was promised but it had the knock on effect of hampering the whole expansions development.

Which is why my stance on the matter is I wish wow had player housing, and I think the devs know people want it and they probly want it to, but there's technogical limitations that prevent it or overcoming those issues would be to much of a resource investment.

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

Because the game, the world and the back end isn't designed to handle housing.

The game just isnt made for it. The camera is also terrible, imagine putting up a painting and never be able to see it properly unless your'e in first person. Because who the fuck is using first person?

Your "house" would have to be the size of our garrison with no roof. Several floors is a no no

You also couldn't place your "house" out in the world so it would be a boring portal somewhere that teleport you, how fun is that?

Go play minecraft instead.

[seamnstr]

no please, rather have them spend the time on other stuff.

[Monster Hunter]

Demonstrate with proof then.

All wod cut content:

1. The scrapped interior of Karabor
2. The Chronal Spire, Tanaan and Farahlon
3. Fungal Whale World Boss
4. Shattrath Raid
5. Zangermarsh Zone
6. Unfinished Battlegrounds/Arenas
7. All cut Garrison content [From what we KNOW]
8. Bladespire Citadel
9. Ages of War Await
10. Early Gorgrond
11. Blood Elf Models.
12. Yrel's Dark Secret
13. Feral Worgen storyline in Shadowmoon Valley.
14. Maraad & Yrel relationship and more
15. Flying
16. Tabard Tab
17. Ogre Island and Unnamed Large Southern Continent
18. Medivh Cameo
19. Gorehowl Legendary Weapon
20. Grommash Hellscream End Boss
21. Broken Horn Village
22. Unused Hairstyles
23. Kargath Survives
24. Ancient Rylaks
25. Orgrim Doomhammer Plot
26. Trial of the Gladiator and Class Accessories

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...rds-of-Draenor

Thanks @TheramoreIsTheBomb

There was also a whole raid tier missing, a grave stone near the garrison has a memorial to the lost raid tier with the name Ray d tear on it.
@deenman sorry to jump in.

[confety]

Wow does not need that as well as it didnt need pet battles, garrisons, transmog, multiple difficulty levels and a whole list of things the game did not have when suscription numbers where on the rise.

They will do it if they want, the same way they implemented other things to the game some people wanted and some did not.

[HailToTheKing]

I will never understand the desire for player housing. Like, that would just make the game even more anti social? I had to roll on an RP realm just to get people to say "hi" in chat and not be a 24/7 bot spam.