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

[seleri]

However, being ignorant about the thing you critique isn't reasonable; especially if the point is that players would want "real housing" with non-gameplay customizations when players don't recall the non-gameplay customizations of garrisons - and only remember the gameplay customizations.

Plenty of people, and I'd wager most people that actually want housing, do remember all of the non-gameplay parts of the garrison. They weren't lackluster because they didn't affect gameplay, they were lackluster because they offered little choice.

Two sets of holiday decorations, with five items each for a total of ten.
One race of guards, with banners that match whichever race you choose.
Three statue locations with seven statues to choose from.
Thirty-nine pristine artifacts with pre-determined display areas, if you have archaeology.
Jukebox that's fixed in place.

[Briselody]

The houses were likely made as their own asset instead of made as part of the map itself. but i cannot really be sure of that. And until i see you have some proof, neither can you.

I really don't know what you're trying to say here. Do you think that Suramar houses are made entirely of one model, with all furniture attached to the buildings? That seems extremely unlikely if you have any concept of how 3D modelling works.

I don't think the housing should be in Alt-draenor because it made sense in story, my point is that housing will likely never make sense in context anyways, so it might as well just be an upgrade on the Garrison for all it matters.

How will housing never make sense in context? We can buy 30ft tall dinosaurs carrying their own marketplace, it doesn't seem too extreme to imagine we can buy a goddamn building. Sure they can't have the landscape full of randomly placed houses, but with some use of neighborhoods and phasing it wouldn't be too difficult to have lore-friendly housing. Here you once again present your attitude of "if it can't be done perfectly then fuck it".

[kieraTM]

I don't know about the software behind it, but SWtOR has a very prominent housing system. Each house is instanced, which I presume would solve any sort of lag issues experienced by other players?
The other huge side is the in-game economic impact. Playing the game has a change to reward certain decoration items, but many are sold in the cosmetic in-game market, which can be turned into in-game currency on the auction house. It's this reason that I find it most surprising that Blizzard hasn't implemented it. I imagine they could make a lot of money through selling decorations or bundles in the in-game market.
Even guilds have guild-wide houses (flagships) in the game.
They also add a nice place to RP for those that want to, or just a timesink.
I suppose the difference between WoW and SWtOR is that it has a much larger playerbase and probably enough activity to do already.

[Claymore]

It is always very easy to say what should have been replaced with housing in hindsight. But take a moment to really consider the implications of that.

Do you think anyone in Blizz dev team thought ot themselves: "Let's make an homage to the RTS games Warcraft started as, but let's make them shit." Or, "Let's make a framework for genuinely fully explorative infinite content, but not make them varied enough"

Blizz devs always go out to attempt to make new content as good as possible, not doing so would just be a terrible business move from every angle.
Secondly, let us assume Blizz had made housing in BfA, instead of Warfronts and Islands. Are you really confident enough that Housing is such an awesome idea on its own that there would be no problems arising from it being the sole new selling feature?
Do you really think the forums would be any less annoyed at Legion 2.0 just because there was a new housing feature that might not even have time to fully blossom into what it should be until next expansion, or even the one after that?


tl;dr: It is easy to say housing should have been added in hindsight, but you have no guarantee that the houses we would have gotten would even be remotely as good as you imagine them to be, and suddenly Blizz is left with nothing new to build upon in the next expansion.

I feel like this topic is getting a bit repetitive, but wanted to take a moment to say that you do bring up a very good point, about it's not like Blizzard sets out to make underwhelming features.

Fair point; I take that one on the chin.

So, I suppose I'll elaborate on what I think the issue with Garrisons was.

See, *I* feel like it was designed by people who didn't really "get" the appeal of Player Housing, but they knew it was something players had been demanding for years. Whether they were genuinely excited about what they designed, or whether it was just "ticking a box" for them, I think the ultimate product was simply misguided.

"Housing" is kind of a nuanced thing to discuss, but I'll try to frame it as best I can, if only so those who don't see the point can at least understand what it is we're looking for, and where we feel Garrisons missed the mark.

Garrisons were "your house" only in the sense that they were places that your character *technically* owned. But you got a singular location (based on your faction), with a couple of interchangable buildings. The buildings themselves couldn't be customized, and retained the same uniform art-style of your faction (which was either Human architecture, or Orc architecture, both of which many players had been sick of looking at anyways).

Now, I'll say this; being able to acquire Music Rolls, and change the Guards to a different race? Those were nice touches. And the Halloween and Christmas decorations, while they were pretty minimal, at least showed promise that "Hey, maybe Blizzard is catching on!".

However, generally speaking, one person's Garrisons was virtually -- if not *literally* -- identical to another's. So there was no "pride" to be had in your Garrison, nor was there really any sort of exciting means of "progressing" your Garrison. Even the "Trophies" you could acquire were locked to three individual locations, and there were only a handful of different designs, none of which made any sort of impact on the visuals of your Garrison.

Now, the reason many players HATED Garrisons were because they had the dual effect of being *INCREDIBLY* useful. I remember there was a time when sitting in my garrison was literally more productive than actually raiding with my guild, because we kept having trouble with certain bosses, and Garrisons provided an easy (albeit random) means of acquiring better raid-gear. In addition, you could gather all your resources (including resources you didn't actually have gathering skills for), all without ever leaving the confines of your Garrison.

In many ways, I think it would be fair to say that Garrisons were quite literally the opposite of what a proper Housing system would be; cosmetically unique, and purely optional.

What makes "Housing" so appealing, is it gives you a means of sort of "showcasing your personality within the game". Not unlike Transmogging, to be honest.

Chances are, most players would wind up with a hodge-podge of items, and just lay them down willy nilly. Here's one such example:

https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/up...iv-housing.jpg

But, maybe you decide "Actually, I want my character's house to be something cool, like a safe refuge":

https://66.media.tumblr.com/089b711e...1to10_1280.png

Or, maybe you think "I want my place to be a fortress, that showcases how BADASS my character is...":

http://www.csartcolorado.org/cdn_bl1...decoration.jpg

I mean, just speaking purely for myself?

I kind of like the idea of creating a gothic, frozen keep for my Death Knight. Maybe I would have to spend a lot of time farming dungeons and raids in Northrend, eventually acquiring a "frozen throne" of my very own. Or maybe for my Rogue, I would try to go for a more "fun" sort of ribe, with bright neon lights and kind of a Carnival theme from Darkmoon Faire. Or maybe for my Hunter, I would go for kind of a "tropical tiki-bar" sort of vibe.

Point is, those choices would be at my discretion, and taking the time to pursue them would hopefully make mine stand out. In addition, it would give me "stuff to do" again. Like I'm sure many other players, I've collected so many Transmog sets, I honestly doubt I ever need to go out of my way collecting gear ever again. As far as I'm concerned, Blizzard still hasn't topped the Blue Scourgelord (DK Tier 10) set, and the only close contender would be the Mythic Dreadwyrm (DK Tier 19?) set. And I can't solo Mythic Nighthold, so it doesn't leave me with a whole lot to do, nothing I'm *excited* about doing, anyways.

But going through all the many Raids and Dungeons WoW has, going after specific items I think will match the "theme" of the house I'm trying to make? That's something I would deem "exciting" and worthwhile. It could also prove a great way to get players like me inspired to actually start Raiding once again, by making some *REALLY* cool house-items (I actually haven't done a single Raid, not even LFR, this entire expansion, and zero interest currently). Maybe do things similar to Mounts, where "current" content has greatly increased (like 50% or higher) droprates for cool house items, but once the next expansion releases, they drop it all down to 1%. That would give me a real push to at least keep up with raiding, even if I was never on the bleeding-edge again.

[Wolfrick]

Exactly. How many of us have favorite spots to logout / hangout while afk? I've been chilling in thunderbluff for over a decade now. Give me the ability to customize a spot and call it my own to do the same.

To this people would say that, then there would be no one left in the cities... but its like real life... someone like to stay at home and others like to go to the cities...

Been wanting this since 2005... always tought the World of warcfrat houses and buldings... so in my HEAD--Lore I always used houses in game as my characters houses.


and I would agree that make the Houseing just Housing.. no portals... Housing Heartstones... and stuff like that... just make it a palce you can travel to and only that... by foot, by mount, by air, nothing else

[Forogil]

Plenty of people, and I'd wager most people that actually want housing, do remember all of the non-gameplay parts of the garrison.

Considering that people earlier missed that they existed, and sometimes even suggested that they should have been added (!) shows that you already lost your wager.

They weren't lackluster because they didn't affect gameplay, they were lackluster because they offered little choice.

The simplest explanation is that people didn't care about the choices. There is nothing suggesting that merely more choice would have made a difference.

[Raelyn]

+1 from me. Part of the reason I always end up going back to FFXIV is the housing. It is extremely well done.

Other MMO's that have housing (and that I've played) - LotRO, ESO (good system) and SWTOR.

[Swnem]

You literally just contradicted yourself. Thank you!

The argument was that the time spent cost us a tier. And if you take all of those systems you've mentioned, then backtracked on. The time spent collectively is more than a raid tier.

CoS should've been larger, two bosses? Please. That was clearly rushed. And knowing that 8.2 isn't the end, and 8.3 might not be either, we are still doing okay raid tier wise.

I also never mentioned it being a bad thing if we missed a tier, I was only referencing the time spent. So, thanks again!

Deary me. This is why it's hopeless to debate with people on mmo champ.

That was YOUR argument not mine. I pointed out YOUR contradiction if we went with YOUR logic.

My argument is that it's completely unrelated, wich it is. Thank you, don't come back cause idc anymore.

[Sondrelk]

I really don't know what you're trying to say here. Do you think that Suramar houses are made entirely of one model, with all furniture attached to the buildings? That seems extremely unlikely if you have any concept of how 3D modelling works.



How will housing never make sense in context? We can buy 30ft tall dinosaurs carrying their own marketplace, it doesn't seem too extreme to imagine we can buy a goddamn building. Sure they can't have the landscape full of randomly placed houses, but with some use of neighborhoods and phasing it wouldn't be too difficult to have lore-friendly housing. Here you once again present your attitude of "if it can't be done perfectly then fuck it".

I suppose if you mean interior furniture models, then sure, most of it is copyable assets. I was more so talking about the houses themselves, of which only Boralus really has solid evidence of being modular.


The caravan brutosaur is really exactly what i am talking about when you claim that is something that happens in lore.


I don't think that Blizzard shouldnt try to make something new, i just want to point out that making houses is more of a risk than people seem ot want ot admit to themselves, and it annoys me when people seem to imply that their perfect vision of what housing should be is exactly what Blizz would make, and making it would be easy.

- - - Updated - - -

I feel like this topic is getting a bit repetitive, but wanted to take a moment to say that you do bring up a very good point, about it's not like Blizzard sets out to make underwhelming features.

Fair point; I take that one on the chin.

So, I suppose I'll elaborate on what I think the issue with Garrisons was.

See, *I* feel like it was designed by people who didn't really "get" the appeal of Player Housing, but they knew it was something players had been demanding for years. Whether they were genuinely excited about what they designed, or whether it was just "ticking a box" for them, I think the ultimate product was simply misguided.

"Housing" is kind of a nuanced thing to discuss, but I'll try to frame it as best I can, if only so those who don't see the point can at least understand what it is we're looking for, and where we feel Garrisons missed the mark.

Garrisons were "your house" only in the sense that they were places that your character *technically* owned. But you got a singular location (based on your faction), with a couple of interchangable buildings. The buildings themselves couldn't be customized, and retained the same uniform art-style of your faction (which was either Human architecture, or Orc architecture, both of which many players had been sick of looking at anyways).

Now, I'll say this; being able to acquire Music Rolls, and change the Guards to a different race? Those were nice touches. And the Halloween and Christmas decorations, while they were pretty minimal, at least showed promise that "Hey, maybe Blizzard is catching on!".

However, generally speaking, one person's Garrisons was virtually -- if not *literally* -- identical to another's. So there was no "pride" to be had in your Garrison, nor was there really any sort of exciting means of "progressing" your Garrison. Even the "Trophies" you could acquire were locked to three individual locations, and there were only a handful of different designs, none of which made any sort of impact on the visuals of your Garrison.

Now, the reason many players HATED Garrisons were because they had the dual effect of being *INCREDIBLY* useful. I remember there was a time when sitting in my garrison was literally more productive than actually raiding with my guild, because we kept having trouble with certain bosses, and Garrisons provided an easy (albeit random) means of acquiring better raid-gear. In addition, you could gather all your resources (including resources you didn't actually have gathering skills for), all without ever leaving the confines of your Garrison.

In many ways, I think it would be fair to say that Garrisons were quite literally the opposite of what a proper Housing system would be; cosmetically unique, and purely optional.

What makes "Housing" so appealing, is it gives you a means of sort of "showcasing your personality within the game". Not unlike Transmogging, to be honest.

Chances are, most players would wind up with a hodge-podge of items, and just lay them down willy nilly. Here's one such example:

https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/up...iv-housing.jpg

But, maybe you decide "Actually, I want my character's house to be something cool, like a safe refuge":

https://66.media.tumblr.com/089b711e...1to10_1280.png

Or, maybe you think "I want my place to be a fortress, that showcases how BADASS my character is...":

http://www.csartcolorado.org/cdn_bl1...decoration.jpg

I mean, just speaking purely for myself?

I kind of like the idea of creating a gothic, frozen keep for my Death Knight. Maybe I would have to spend a lot of time farming dungeons and raids in Northrend, eventually acquiring a "frozen throne" of my very own. Or maybe for my Rogue, I would try to go for a more "fun" sort of ribe, with bright neon lights and kind of a Carnival theme from Darkmoon Faire. Or maybe for my Hunter, I would go for kind of a "tropical tiki-bar" sort of vibe.

Point is, those choices would be at my discretion, and taking the time to pursue them would hopefully make mine stand out. In addition, it would give me "stuff to do" again. Like I'm sure many other players, I've collected so many Transmog sets, I honestly doubt I ever need to go out of my way collecting gear ever again. As far as I'm concerned, Blizzard still hasn't topped the Blue Scourgelord (DK Tier 10) set, and the only close contender would be the Mythic Dreadwyrm (DK Tier 19?) set. And I can't solo Mythic Nighthold, so it doesn't leave me with a whole lot to do, nothing I'm *excited* about doing, anyways.

But going through all the many Raids and Dungeons WoW has, going after specific items I think will match the "theme" of the house I'm trying to make? That's something I would deem "exciting" and worthwhile. It could also prove a great way to get players like me inspired to actually start Raiding once again, by making some *REALLY* cool house-items (I actually haven't done a single Raid, not even LFR, this entire expansion, and zero interest currently). Maybe do things similar to Mounts, where "current" content has greatly increased (like 50% or higher) droprates for cool house items, but once the next expansion releases, they drop it all down to 1%. That would give me a real push to at least keep up with raiding, even if I was never on the bleeding-edge again.

My point of Blizzard not setting out to create underwhelming featues is kind of my point with calling Garrisons housing.

As much as people do not want to accept it. Garrisons do have several features players wanted in housing, it does have customization.
When you talk about what housing means to you, that is exactly my point. What if Blizzard does not have all that?
Garrisons were supposed to have a potential location in each zone, initial talks surrounding it seemed to imply before then it might have been considered to be placed literally anywhere on the map. Same with customization options like different building styles and layouts.

If Blizz attempts to make "real" housing you can no guarantee that it will become everything you dream about. It might be, sure. But if Blizz commits fuly to making good housing they could fall into some pretty common pitfalls WoW expansions tend to try to avoid.
Like not having enough time to flesh out raids, or dungeons, or armor sets.

I pointed this out in an earlier comment, but let us consider that housing becomes pretty elaborate, for all we know the effort taken by the programmers to make a GUI for the house might mean we only get a half-baked talent revamp, or the class overhauls we get each expansion might suffer.


To bring a down a bit though. I would also love to create a hunters lodge type area for my main with space for all my cool weapons and custom armor sets, but this might not even be remotely what Blizz will end up doing on the first go, they might end up creating Garrisons 2.0 except no gmeplay features, smaller and only a tiny bit of customization.

I would also love for Blizzard to have an expansion with major transmog overhauls, where my hunter can finally transmog all armor types to create the perfect set, and each hunter set from raids is finally catering to specific ideals of what i want my hunter to look like.

The second has been possible for over a decade now, but both are my idealized version of what i want.
I am sure Blizz has art designers that consider what a mail user would want for transmog, but sometimes they just create shit.


I would love to imagine that when 9.0 or 10.0 rolls around and housing is finally available, it will be the shining example of forum begging paying off in a major way, in which Blizz managed to micromanage well enough that nothing else in the game suffers from having it added.
But it could also be a shittier version of garrisons placed behind the Blacksmith in Goldshire whole sole customization is where to place the chairs and which of 3 boss heads you want to mount to a wall.


Again, i don't want ot come across like i completely hate the very concept of housing, it is a solid enough idea with a good basis for exisintg, i just don't want us to get an expansion that focused hard enough on housing to be a detriment to the rest of the game.

[Shuji V2]

The reason we don't have housing is because the engine needs too much work in order to support that. Just look at how garrisons turned out. Housing is not what is gonna safe WoW, so it will take some time before we even get anything remotely close to that. Housing is somewhere at the bottom of the priority list.

[Sondrelk]

tl;dr: You say you want a house that you can customize to the extent that it ends up looking like your idealized version of your death knights house. But it might very well end up being a dingy cabin in Goldshire where the extent of your death knight flavor is that you can hang up the Legion artifacts on the wall to admire.

Blizz might of course improve it over time of course, but ask yourself first if you are willing to accept pretty shitty housing that might take years to get to a point where you want it to be?
Or do you want Blizz to commit fully to it, and most likely end up letting all the other systems crash and burn?

[seleri]

Considering that people earlier missed that they existed, and sometimes even suggested that they should have been added (!) shows that you already lost your wager.

Because this thread, and the MMO champion crowd in general, is such a great sample size, right?

[KaPe]

The reason we don't have housing is because the engine needs too much work in order to support that. Just look at how garrisons turned out. Housing is not what is gonna safe WoW, so it will take some time before we even get anything remotely close to that. Housing is somewhere at the bottom of the priority list.

No singular feature is going to "save" WoW, unless it's something completely new, never done before in any other MMO - which has exactly zero chance of happening. And sure, making housing work would be a massive undertaking, far larger than any single other feature they have added over the year. Still, there's a reason why nearly every other game in the genre has it and few people complain about it. It's something that becomes an integral part of the game, not a system that's obsoleted after expansion is over. Once it's made, it can be built up across patches, lasting until the very end of the game.

'Course, I highly doubt it will happen. It's been over 15 years and Garrisons were just a pale imitation of the real thing. Unless they announce it on this Blizzcon, it won't be coming for a looong time - if ever.

[Claymore]

tl;dr: You say you want a house that you can customize to the extent that it ends up looking like your idealized version of your death knights house. But it might very well end up being a dingy cabin in Goldshire where the extent of your death knight flavor is that you can hang up the Legion artifacts on the wall to admire.

Blizz might of course improve it over time of course, but ask yourself first if you are willing to accept pretty shitty housing that might take years to get to a point where you want it to be?
Or do you want Blizz to commit fully to it, and most likely end up letting all the other systems crash and burn?

Fair enough, although to your point, I would totally accept the "shitty housing" if Blizzard continued to refine it. Hell, if they wanted to literally use the existing Garrisons to begin expanding it, I think that would actually be a great start. They're functionally useless by now anyways, and I feel like the *foundations* of a Housing system are already there (not to mention, we already have Garrison Hearthstones without needing yet another). I personally thought Frostfire Ridge was a bit bland, but Shadowmoon Valley is still among the most incredible zones in the game, and being able to *truly* customize your Garrison would definitely appease my desire for Housing.

I feel like it would be as simple as saying "Okay, we're going to add a 'theme' based on each of the core races, which changes the look of each building (Humans and Orcs notwithstanding, since their architecture is the default)", and maybe two or three "neutral" themes just to mix it up (ie. a Pandaren theme, maybe a Darkmoon Faire theme, and maybe something else).

That would still be A LOT OF WORK, by no means is it a trivial thing I'm suggesting. I'm just saying, it's something they could do, it would kind of let them build off of the work they've already done.

Then, if players respond positively, maybe they start offering new locations you can "relocate" your Garrison to. They could be "neutral" locations (ie. maybe off the coast of Strangethorn Vale), or just outside existing capitals (I'd personally dig an excuse to revisit Gilneas, or maybe build a new Night Elven Garrison in Moonglade?).

What Garrisons were, just wasn't "Housing". Not really. But if Blizzard wanted to build upon them, and actually add real Housing features to them? I'm all for it. "Garrison" sounds a lot cooler than "House", anyways. But it would need to be a fundamental shift, none of this "easy resource/gear farming" or "quality-of-life features". Just make it purely cosmetic.

[Sondrelk]

Fair enough, although to your point, I would totally accept the "shitty housing" if Blizzard continued to refine it. Hell, if they wanted to literally use the existing Garrisons to begin expanding it, I think that would actually be a great start. They're functionally useless by now anyways, and I feel like the *foundations* of a Housing system are already there (not to mention, we already have Garrison Hearthstones without needing yet another). I personally thought Frostfire Ridge was a bit bland, but Shadowmoon Valley is still among the most incredible zones in the game, and being able to *truly* customize your Garrison would definitely appease my desire for Housing.

I feel like it would be as simple as saying "Okay, we're going to add a 'theme' based on each of the core races, which changes the look of each building (Humans and Orcs notwithstanding, since their architecture is the default)", and maybe two or three "neutral" themes just to mix it up (ie. a Pandaren theme, maybe a Darkmoon Faire theme, and maybe something else).

That would still be A LOT OF WORK, by no means is it a trivial thing I'm suggesting. I'm just saying, it's something they could do, it would kind of let them build off of the work they've already done.

Then, if players respond positively, maybe they start offering new locations you can "relocate" your Garrison to. They could be "neutral" locations (ie. maybe off the coast of Strangethorn Vale), or just outside existing capitals (I'd personally dig an excuse to revisit Gilneas, or maybe build a new Night Elven Garrison in Moonglade?).

What Garrisons were, just wasn't "Housing". Not really. But if Blizzard wanted to build upon them, and actually add real Housing features to them? I'm all for it. "Garrison" sounds a lot cooler than "House", anyways. But it would need to be a fundamental shift, none of this "easy resource/gear farming" or "quality-of-life features". Just make it purely cosmetic.

Personally, if i was in charge of a hypothetical WoW house board, i would go for essentially making garrisons on the island expedition maps. Not all of course, but at least the verdant wilds and ice one. It would be a fairly satisfying way to have it instanced, and they could build upon it by potentially allowing you to enter it from each new zone added if they have a dock.

[Claymore]

Personally, if i was in charge of a hypothetical WoW house board, i would go for essentially making garrisons on the island expedition maps. Not all of course, but at least the verdant wilds and ice one. It would be a fairly satisfying way to have it instanced, and they could build upon it by potentially allowing you to enter it from each new zone added if they have a dock.

That would certainly make a lot of sense, and let them get a lot of mileage out of the feature. Heck, you could even tie in directly back into the feedback loop, and say "Hey, prove your mastery of each Island Expedition, and you'll unlock that as an island you can relocate your Garrison to".

Would be kind of the best of both worlds, while also taking advantage of a significant amount of work they've already done.

The more I think about it... that's actually a pretty damn good idea.

[Wolfrick]

Fair enough, although to your point, I would totally accept the "shitty housing" if Blizzard continued to refine it. Hell, if they wanted to literally use the existing Garrisons to begin expanding it, I think that would actually be a great start. They're functionally useless by now anyways, and I feel like the *foundations* of a Housing system are already there (not to mention, we already have Garrison Hearthstones without needing yet another). I personally thought Frostfire Ridge was a bit bland, but Shadowmoon Valley is still among the most incredible zones in the game, and being able to *truly* customize your Garrison would definitely appease my desire for Housing.

I feel like it would be as simple as saying "Okay, we're going to add a 'theme' based on each of the core races, which changes the look of each building (Humans and Orcs notwithstanding, since their architecture is the default)", and maybe two or three "neutral" themes just to mix it up (ie. a Pandaren theme, maybe a Darkmoon Faire theme, and maybe something else).

That would still be A LOT OF WORK, by no means is it a trivial thing I'm suggesting. I'm just saying, it's something they could do, it would kind of let them build off of the work they've already done.

Then, if players respond positively, maybe they start offering new locations you can "relocate" your Garrison to. They could be "neutral" locations (ie. maybe off the coast of Strangethorn Vale), or just outside existing capitals (I'd personally dig an excuse to revisit Gilneas, or maybe build a new Night Elven Garrison in Moonglade?).

What Garrisons were, just wasn't "Housing". Not really. But if Blizzard wanted to build upon them, and actually add real Housing features to them? I'm all for it. "Garrison" sounds a lot cooler than "House", anyways. But it would need to be a fundamental shift, none of this "easy resource/gear farming" or "quality-of-life features". Just make it purely cosmetic.

If you ask me what you are talking about would be Perfect as a guild Garriosn... since something as huge as a Garrison should involve more people... make it so that there could be alot of Guild events (example: Guild Garriosn Invasions), since Guilds really needs something more then just to be a "window chat in world of warcraft"
Everything you said would be amazing... for each expansion or patch there could be an entire new race Garrison "make it look more like Blood elf, Undead... Ecc... and later would end up having more places the guilds could decide to build Their guild garrison.

PS: I am all for players housing but it has to stop at housing (Example: check out Player Housing in Elder scrolls Online, its just perfect and simple) something like that in world of warcraft... but something I think is that we need an Azeroth revamp then different places to have some Player houses around the world.

[kappalol]

Character housing is pointless. Maybe some guild hall or something like that could be cool.

[Cobman]

What to do in your house anyway? Decorate it? And for how long does it keep me entertained? It would feel like endless transmoging.
Only to please 2% of RP population is useless.

[KaPe]

What to do in your house anyway? Decorate it? And for how long does it keep me entertained? It would feel like endless transmoging.
Only to please 2% of RP population is useless.

And yet transmogging is now integral part of the game, somehow pleasing more than 2% of population. If anything, game needs more such mechanics, which aren't directly tied to any specific patch/expansion but instead become core features.