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

[Ifeanychukwu]

As a fellow xiv player I have to disagree. Interaction overall with strangers is weirdly less in xiv outside the occasional trolling on yell or shout than it is on wow, and your argument that people socialise in the FC house isn't ideal either because all that's doing is taking dialogue that would end up in FC chat and instead moving out to the house, where people outside the house cannot see or participate.

Chatting in an mmo it's socialising -- doesn't have to be "character face to face" to count, and that serves to compartmentalise social encounters.

Ultimately, any instanced plot system will inadvertently make the outside game world feel less busy, and I much prefer cities busier because numerous folk aren't off hiding in some instanced housing instead.

That must have something to do with your world then because it's the complete opposite on mine. I disagree with your second point completely as well. FC chat still happens while people are socializing in the FC mansion. My FC had around a hundred people online at any given time and there was always something going on in chat, at the FC and in instanced content. Even out in the world and among strangers people are always socializing. Every single city aetheryte has TONS of people just standing around and chatting, bards playing real world songs and even FCs that do nothing but hang out and RP in different locations. This isn't even on one of the more populated worlds. Socializing covers a pretty broad spectrum so trying to define it as one thing doesn't really work.

[tyrlaan]

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

I know right? It's almost as ridiculous as caring enough to drop a shitpost like you did

[1st Heka]

I know right? It's almost as ridiculous as caring enough to drop a shitpost like you did

completely agree, it's funny how people discredit the things they don't like.

[Edward Wu]

I know right? It's almost as ridiculous as caring enough to drop a shitpost like you did

Yeah it's real comparable dropping a spicy one-liner compared to a gigantic wall of text in the OP.

[Claymore]

Yes and the housing was good but... if the game is not, just play the sims it's a lot better for housing

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Please tell me which game has the same amount of high end raids, scalable dungeons (mythic+), and (well...), the DPS-TANK-HEAL trinity where they at least try to balance things. I only know WoW.

FF14 ? I play it a few months every xpack, but seriously, the extreme / brutal mode are totally different from wow bosses. And it's mostly 1 room with a boss, it doesn't even count as a raid (and 8 people max).

100% agreed on the first point; even the best Housing system isn't going to "save" a failing MMO. Fortunately, as much as we all like to complain sometimes, WoW is still a VERY good game (I'm still constantly astounded how smoothly it plays, way more than any other MMO).

On the second point... well, WoW didn't *start* with ANY of those things, other than PvP. Raids weren't there at launch, even the Trinity system is something players kind of settled into, as early-Vanilla showed a lot more signs of attempts to have actual Hybrid characters (I still remember being a Ret Pally who could serve as a pretty competent healer or tank, at least long enough to finish killing a boss if he was close).

I mention that, because the Transmog system, for example, is something that people also claimed would be a "waste of resources". I think most would agree, it hasn't been, and in truth it would be hard to imagine WoW without it anymore. Housing would obviously take FAR more resources -- I don't think anyone could reasonably deny that (even though I do think, from a purely technical sense, Garrisons at least laid a bit of groundwork) -- but I think it would be a pretty organic feature once added.

SWTOR is an example of a universally failed MMO that, since adding Housing, has clearly seen some great success with it. It's just about the only feature they consistently add content for, and it proved to be fairly ambitious with its housing system. Not necessarily the one I would personally choose to model it after (WildStar would be my first pick, FFXIV my second), but for a "studio" that clearly is given very few resources to work with, they're managed to stay afloat, between Housing and its microtransactions.

Like I said, I definitely realize it's not going to appeal to absolutely every player. But I think it's pretty clear it would appeal to *many*, and that at least warrants consideration. With fewer players engaging with Raids or PvP, I imagine it would also be a pretty smart move, as it gives the solo-oriented player more to do to stay busy. I'll probably never be a hardcore raider again, but I could definitely see spending a lot of time running old content, trying to get all kinds of cool items for a house. Even if others are less enthused than myself, I imagine it's something many would tinker with, for those times you log into the game but don't have anything in particular to work towards by yourself.

[tyrlaan]

Yeah it's real comparable dropping a spicy one-liner compared to a gigantic wall of text in the OP.

It's about as spicy as tap water, and it's not like I expected you to get my point.

[InfernalDark]

Sounds like a waste of fucking time

True.

Having sex > inventing stupid housing system

[Ifeanychukwu]

You are not the sole arbiter of what housing is. Garrisons are housing no matter hwq you try to twist the definition to discount it.

Not the argument I am making and just BS you use to demean people who don't agree with you. Iam arguing it doesn't need it because it would be a waste of resources when they should be used on things like Torghast and actual gaming, not so players can sit in their corner and play house. You also ignore all the players who agree with me. So, stop putting words in my mouth.

Ths is WoW not FFXIV. Houising ain't going to encourage anything more than what Garrisons did. The "hanging out" is already being done in game now and resources don't need to be wasted so you can sit a different location than you do now. You are already hanging out. Where your pixels are located is irrelevant.

So, you sayt I have the superiority complex and then you act like your opiniion is fact and I should just agree with you because you are right and I am wrong simply because of your personal preference. The pot calling the kettle black.

I never claimed to be. But garrisons are most definitely NOT housing. By definition a garrison is - the troops stationed in a fortress or town to defend it. It's a collective of troops and buildings meant for a very specific purpose, not personalization and customization. That's what was reflected in game as well. It's a gameplay focused feature rather than the latter.

I'm not demeaning anyone. I'm advocating for a feature that many people would enjoy and you're poo-pooing it because you don't believe it's something that's worthwhile even though there are many people that disagree with you. Not everyone is going to agree on the issue but to be outright dismissive of peoples interests is more demeaning than anything I've said and nowhere near as demeaning as your "playing house", comments that you've made to try and dismiss my points. It's not like I'm advocating for Blizzard to cut development time on other content in favor of housing. I'm advocating for having both, which has been proven to be possible by other MMOs.

I'm sorry if you consider sitting AFK in Boralus while waiting for queues to be hanging out. When do players gather to do things outside of instanced content outside of RP realms? Even while doing world content the vast majority of players completely ignore each other or flat out work against each other.

I've never claimed any of my opinions as fact, other than that Garrisons were not housing. What I was saying is that you completely disregard anything that isn't from WoW as a waste of time because apparently WoW is better because of its lack of housing. You're doing exactly what you're accusing me of as well by completely dismissing any kind of notion that housing would be good for anyone because of your personal preference of not wanting housing.

Let me shift back to advocating for housing by providing some examples of how housing benefits the entirety of the game.

First off, housing items in XIV can be obtained from nearly every form of content in the game. From low level quests and dungeons to end game raids. Not only does this encourage going back to older content to farm for some of these items, it also creates a huge market of housing items for people that would rather spend their time making gil. I have personally made millions of gil from flipping valuable housing items and orchestrion rolls.

Orchestrion rolls are another great example of an aspect of housing that further allows people to enjoy the great music in the game. There are hundreds of songs available and once learned can be added to an orchestrion in a player owned home. Everyone has their own playlist that shows off their taste for the in game music and it's really fucking awesome to just hang out in your home and enjoy some of the amazing music that the game has to offer.

Another great boon of housing is the fact that many of the housing items can only be crafted by pretty much every profession in the game. New patches, even minor ones regularly add highly sought after housing items to the crafting and dungeon loot tables which can fetch ridiculous amounts of gil. Getting in on the rush can result in millions upon millions of gil which can be further used for other aspects of the game.

Lastly and perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of housing in XIV is that it's possible to have tenants with permissions that can be granted to customize the shared home as well. This results in a huge market for professional home decorators to practice their favorite form of content which for a lot of people is housing. People pay tens of millions to have interior designers make their homes look beautiful. Housing is personally one of my favorite forms of content in the game and is the only reason I still have an active sub to FFXIV currently.

Just because housing isn't something that you feel is worthwhile doesn't mean that it wouldn't be for many other players. Being so dismissive about the feature is honestly pretty disrespectful, especially your little "playing house" comments. It's something that some people take very seriously and is a huge draw for more creatively minded players that prefer content that isn't mindlessly repeating the same dungeons over and over again. Just think of the overlap that it would have with players that are obsessed with transmog for example.

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Funny what you describe iw what I have seen on my realm in WoW. I see players all over the place and if in a city, I see a lot of taking when I turn the chat channels on.

Oh, you mean the constant and overwhelmingly disruptive carry advertisements in trade chat?

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

We had a housing system in WoD didn't we? It turned out rather NOT nicely.

[keldarepewpew]

We have garrisons i go there to chill out during arena queues.

[Cierah]

Garrisons != Housing.

Player housing would only enhance gameplay - adding depth into the game, enhancing professions, encouraging content dives, stimulating economies.
Garrisons depressed economies (remember how it destroyed the gathering sector?) and de-socialized the game. The garrison was the de-facto hub for WoD much like Boralus is for BfA.

If done right housing would not serve as a hub but side content that is not mandatory, entirely cosmetic, and does not take away resources from raid/dungeon content creation. Make sure it isn't a rested area, even if it is instanced inside, say, SW and players won't camp there unless they like isolation.

[tyrlaan]

Player housing, if implemented, simply needs to be a cosmetic endeavor, which of course it would be.

I'll fully admit to not reading the 21 pages before this post, but I can't imagine anyone reasonably expecting player housing to have any impact on player power at all. It would be completely cosmetic - a place to hang trophies, show off rare things you were able to craft or find, or whatever.

Which leads me to two things:

1) comparing a housing system to garrisons is nonsense. The garrison was directly tied to play "power". It completely eliminated the need to go out and farm materials, craft goods, etc. The garrison was basically a hub replacement + farming station. It had next to zero in the way of cosmetic customization.

2) being dead set against cosmetic options being added to the game is ridiculous. I'm sure plenty of people hate pet battling and don't do it, and that's fine. Just do the same with housing then. Problem solved.

[riptal]

Some housing items exclusively in old content, dungeons and raids? Anytime baby! Very excited about that idea! Anything to give me a reason for doing old dungeons and raids! Why not Blizz?

[Ifeanychukwu]

Garrisons != Housing.

Player housing would only enhance gameplay - adding depth into the game, enhancing professions, encouraging content dives, stimulating economies.
Garrisons depressed economies (remember how it destroyed the gathering sector?) and de-socialized the game. The garrison was the de-facto hub for WoD much like Boralus is for BfA.

If done right housing would not serve as a hub but side content that is not mandatory, entirely cosmetic, and does not take away resources from raid/dungeon content creation. Make sure it isn't a rested area, even if it is instanced inside, say, SW and players won't camp there unless they like isolation.

I agree completely and that's basically what I said in my last post. Peoples view of housing is so narrow and damaged by the disaster that was garrisons and it's really frustrating to read some peoples takes on the feature here.

[NihilSustinet]

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.

garrisons were basically a form of player housing and they were shit.

[kaminaris]

I never claimed to be. But garrisons are most definitely NOT housing. By definition a garrison is - the troops stationed in a fortress or town to defend it. It's a collective of troops and buildings meant for a very specific purpose, not personalization and customization. That's what was reflected in game as well. It's a gameplay focused feature rather than the latter.

This right here, garrisons were not housing. At this point Warframe got better housing system than garrisons ever were. Hell, even subnautica got better "housing"

And because of limitations of engine I would say we still could get something (quite easily) like PoE hideouts.

[Eurhetemec]

Wow has made it's niche in the MMO world, and everyone knows what it is. Play housing does not fit into this niche. And yes, for a majority of the players, it is a massive waste of time. Whether or not people want to agree with it, the majority of players would just simply ignore something like player housing unless there is something shiney in there like gear for you to get.

I think there was a point in time where housing would have fit well into WoW, but I think the last time WoW was "that game" was maybe sometime in MoP, so yeah at this point, there's not a lot of reason.

I do think your comments re: "waste of time" and players "hating" it are overblown. I doubt it would be seen as the former, or hated/disliked, but it's fair to say it's not a good fit for where WoW has been since MoP, hell, maybe since Cataclysm.

You can't have a game where you shove 90% of your players into their own single instance and call it an mmo.

This is somewhat true (though people said the same thing about WoW's approach to dungeons and raids, back in 2004! Hell, I was one of them...), but you don't have to do housing that way, and I think part of the reason WoW doesn't have housing, is that the designers wouldn't want to do housing this way. Games have been doing the "housing as personal instance" since what, Anarchy Online back in 2001? You could get a room in a block of flats in that which was instanced and had a generic entrance. Most games since have some something somewhat similar (DAoC took a somewhat different approach with actual plots of land - I literally met my RL wife for the first time camping a plot so I am biased as to whether than was cool or not lol).

So I think if WoW did want to do housing, they'd want to do something non-instanced, at this point, and that would be both extremely difficult to do, and create problems due to the vast wealth differences in WoW, and the fact that if there's a limited amount of something, someone will try to exploit it, which will cause havoc.

[ZazuuPriest]

youll always have your garrison. Take the win

[Renedric]

Because people believe it'd "take people away" from hubs, like the Garrison did... people were hanging out there instead of in Orgrimmar and Stormwind...

A garrison was more like a city, with NPCs vendors, target dummies and daily objectives. It was basically a hub that provided players the bare minimum of "necessities", keeping them closed in. Housing is far simpler than that

[Edward Wu]

It's about as spicy as tap water, and it's not like I expected you to get my point.

Yet here you are replying to everything I say. I have you wrapped around my finger.