9.0 & Player Housing

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

This is entirely inaccurate. XIV does have Market Boards (AH's) within housing districts. And yet the cities and end game hubs are still vastly more populated.

Usually the main reason for that is cities have other services players want. Endgame gear vendors, tomestone (their valor/justice point) exchanges, trainers, materia (their gems) melders.

Also the game doesn't have "global chat" like WoW has LFG so it's a great place to communicate with other players.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Here's some relevant and unapologetic spam:

[ro9ue]

In skyrim you use your house for active storage of items, to sleep, for easy and quick access to crafting stations, depending on mods it also acts as a hub for your companions, etc.

Unless your plan here is to remove all that shit from capital cities and have the house be the bank/forge/etc. you aren't talking about equivalent features. Not to mention that Skyrim is 100% a single player game, so its homes are seamless with the overall gameworld, as opposed to MMO player housing where you literally stop playing an MMO and enter some weird instanced construct that completely breaks immersion.

You don't remove anything from capital cities obviously. You wouldn't have a lot of features found in cities, like an AH. You would be able to display physical items, trophies and achievements, maybe have access to some crafting stuff, and potentially a personal vault, armor and weapon racks, etc.

Could also encourage different things like any toys used in player housing have no cooldown for people if they want to hang out or try to be creative with their friends.

I don't like instanced stuff, I don't like phasing, but in World of Warcraft it definitely wouldn't feel out of place given how much of it already exists in the game.

A couple of features are must haves for me:
- Being able to choose the plot where you're housing is. Whether it's an apartment in Stormwind or Boralus or a small hut in Durotar, I'd like to see dozens of potential spots to set up a home.
- A separate unique hearthstone to this place
- Being able to give friends access (even if you're offline)
- A reasonable gold cost for at least entry level plots. Small door on a building in Boralus - anyone with decent gold can get, but a giant castle like your own Waycrest Manor should be pricey.
- Achievement based system where you get trophies and such from cheeves and can place things.
- Armor racks and weapon racks to display your favorite transmogs.

That's off the top of my head.

[Hitei]

You don't remove anything from capital cities obviously. You wouldn't have a lot of features found in cities, like an AH. You would be able to display physical items, trophies and achievements, maybe have access to some crafting stuff, and potentially a personal vault, armor and weapon racks, etc.

Could also encourage different things like any toys used in player housing have no cooldown for people if they want to hang out or try to be creative with their friends.

I don't like instanced stuff, I don't like phasing, but in World of Warcraft it definitely wouldn't feel out of place given how much of it already exists in the game.

A couple of features are must haves for me:
- Being able to choose the plot where you're housing is. Whether it's an apartment in Stormwind or Boralus or a small hut in Durotar, I'd like to see dozens of potential spots to set up a home.
- A separate unique hearthstone to this place
- Being able to give friends access.
- A reasonable gold cost for at least entry level plots. Small door on a building in Boralus - anyone with decent gold can get, but a giant castle like your own Waycrest Manor should be pricey.
- Achievement based system where you get trophies and such from cheeves and can place things.
- Armor racks and weapon racks to display your favorite transmogs.

That's off the top of my head.

You have to remove those things to give the housing value. That is my point. In skyrim player housing serves an invaluable purpose because the game involves picking up large, large amounts of items you want to hold onto for various reasons with very limited, weight-based storage.

An armor rack in Skyrim is where I can stick my caster set and staff so that it isn't weighing me down and taking up space in my inventory and then can come back and grab when I need to go do caster stuff, or where I can put sweet looking gear/weapons that have worse stats than what I'm wearing. An armor rack in wow is a thing I set to some transmog set I like and then don't interact with again, because I'm not going to store an offset in an instanced location when I can just keep it in my bags, and I'm not going to put sweet looking armor that has worse stats than what I'm wearing on a rack, because I can transmog to wear that stuff.

It's a significant amount of work for a glorified trophy room, and I'd rather they put that into something I can actually play with. I'd rather have trophies on my character or mount than in some building in Boralus, a city completely out of the way to me when 9.0 hits. I'd rather have customization for mounts via armor or banner recipes dropping than "here is a dummy you can put a transmog on" or a boss dropping [Sindorei Dressing Mirror].

[ro9ue]

You have to remove those things to give the housing value. That is my point. In skyrim player housing serves an invaluable purpose because the game involves picking up large, large amounts of items you want to hold onto for various reasons with very limited, weight-based storage.

An armor rack in Skyrim is where I can stick my caster set and staff so that it isn't weighing me down and taking up space in my inventory and then can come back and grab when I need to go do caster stuff, or where I can put sweet looking gear/weapons that have worse stats than what I'm wearing. An armor rack in wow is a thing I set to some transmog set I like and then don't interact with again, because I'm not going to store an offset in an instanced location when I can just keep it in my bags, and I'm not going to put sweet looking armor that has worse stats than what I'm wearing on a rack, because I can transmog to wear that stuff.

It's a significant amount of work for a glorified trophy room, and I'd rather they put that into something I can actually play with. I'd rather have trophies on my character or mount than in some building in Boralus, a city completely out of the way to me when 9.0 hits. I'd rather have customization for mounts via armor or banner recipes dropping than "here is a dummy you can put a transmog on" or a boss dropping [Sindorei Dressing Mirror].

Your character though isn't really a significant enough 'trophy'. It's one set, one weapon one mount. If you had your own personal house you can show off a ton of stuff. Mounted heads on walls, many sets of armor, many weapons.

I get your point about the functionality. But there's a whole other side of the game that serves players interested in achievements, collections, cosmetics and RP.

[Sondrelk]

Arguing with people over Player housing invariably falls into the same pattern, and i have yet to see someone properly refute it.

Player 1 wants player housing.
Player 2 says it probably won't happen because Garrisons did not work
Player 1 protests that Garrisons were not player housing because of vague unexplained reasons, usually customization
Player 2 says that Player housing will likely end up being pretty boring, or take too much development time from other systems if it is to have almost any level of quality
Player 1 gives vague remarks stating it wouldnt be difficult because of some system or another, usually Garrisons having lots of assets
Player 2 asks Player 1 to consider housing not having customization, and whether they would be okay with player housing if it ruins the rest of the expansion
Player 1 refuses to give reasons against this

Topic ends up going nowhere

- - - Updated - - -

Really the main problem with housing is that the biggest argument for having it, customization, sounds about the same as players arguing that raids would be better it they had twice the amount of bosses.
You are not wrong per se, but you fail to consider the possibility of it simply not being the case.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Arguing with people over Player housing invariably falls into the same pattern, and i have yet to see someone properly refute it.

Player 1 wants player housing.
Player 2 says it probably won't happen because Garrisons did not work
Player 1 protests that Garrisons were not player housing because of vague unexplained reasons, usually customization
Player 2 says that Player housing will likely end up being pretty boring, or take too much development time from other systems if it is to have almost any level of quality
Player 1 gives vague remarks stating it wouldnt be difficult because of some system or another, usually Garrisons having lots of assets
Player 2 asks Player 1 to consider housing not having customization, and whether they would be okay with player housing if it ruins the rest of the expansion
Player 1 refuses to give reasons against this

Topic ends up going nowhere

- - - Updated - - -

Really the main problem with housing is that the biggest argument for having it, customization, sounds about the same as players arguing that raids would be better it they had twice the amount of bosses.
You are not wrong per se, but you fail to consider the possibility of it simply not being the case.

I can boil your cycle down further.

Someone starts a housing thread. Someone co-opts it to be about Garrisons. The thread is now about Garrisons and not housing.

[formerShandalay]

I think housing is great, player housing and guild housing both.

First of all, you can make players go out and collect stuff, for which you could use all available content to tie that to. Give players something to collect for their house in every dungeon, for puzzles, for achievements, trophies from raids and so on, then give professions something to craft for houses, furniture, pictures, vases.. everything, several things for every profession. Of course you need to collect all of this and the resources for it by going out into the world.

If they want to take it a step further they can make houses that can be made into private battlegrounds or rather arenas for player made content.

If players want to then use their house for roleplay, as a tavern or whatever is their own choice, let them make it public, so others can visit, or private that only groupmembers can visit.
It is simply another thing that you can tie to your character, that you can keep for your own, that doesn't need to go away after the next content update, it can be expanded and get new customization options every expansion.

[Shockramen]

Make Orgrimmar great again!

[Sondrelk]

I can boil your cycle down further.

Someone starts a housing thread. Someone co-opts it to be about Garrisons. The thread is now about Garrisons and not housing.

It usually ends up beign about garrisons because that is the closest approximation.

If having your own garrison that is specific to you and which can eb customized to some extent with various trophies, and also shows your mounts walking around if oyu ahve a stable and Battle pets darting about.

When we argue that Garrisons are player housing we usually do not get a good counterargument beyond lack of customization and it being tied to an expansion.
While the second argument can be considered valid, the first one really is just an empty argument, because it relies solely on the idea that the system you are imagining is exactly the thing you are expecting, and not something else.


Again, let us consider that maybe 9.0 has player housing.
What if it isnt everything everyone ever dreamed of. What if development time for raids and outdoor areas had to be rushed because of a problem with the housing. What if the entire expansion goes down the drain worse than WoD because the player housing system failed. What then?

[ro9ue]

Arguing with people over Player housing invariably falls into the same pattern, and i have yet to see someone properly refute it.

Player 1 wants player housing.
Player 2 says it probably won't happen because Garrisons did not work
Player 1 protests that Garrisons were not player housing because of vague unexplained reasons, usually customization
Player 2 says that Player housing will likely end up being pretty boring, or take too much development time from other systems if it is to have almost any level of quality
Player 1 gives vague remarks stating it wouldnt be difficult because of some system or another, usually Garrisons having lots of assets
Player 2 asks Player 1 to consider housing not having customization, and whether they would be okay with player housing if it ruins the rest of the expansion
Player 1 refuses to give reasons against this

Topic ends up going nowhere

- - - Updated - - -

Really the main problem with housing is that the biggest argument for having it, customization, sounds about the same as players arguing that raids would be better it they had twice the amount of bosses.
You are not wrong per se, but you fail to consider the possibility of it simply not being the case.

Way to reveal any biases you have. Somehow it's the same as people arguing that doubling the raid boss quantity makes it better? Those are not analogous at all. Maybe the reason you have yet to see someone "properly refute it" is because it's impossible to even address such a nonsensical premise as yours.

[Sondrelk]

Way to reveal any biases you have. Somehow it's the same as people arguing that doubling the raid boss quantity makes it better? Those are not analogous at all. Maybe the reason you have yet to see someone "properly refute it" is because it's impossible to even address such a nonsensical premise as yours.

Then give me a counterargument to why garrisons are not player housing that does not mention the lack of customization.
Because if you awnt to champion player housing you have to consider the possibilities of it being shit, and ruining the rest of the expansion just like the Garrison did.

[Steelcryo]

I'd love player housing if they did it sort of OSRS style. Where the house can offer benefits without being the first place you want to head when not doing other content.

So maybe you could have a portal room that allows one portal to a major city, a profession room with an anvil or something, a kitchen with a stove that sort of thing. Could even offer benefits, so could have a first aid station where your crafting speed of bandages is increased by 50% or something. All things that are nice to have, but not a necessity or somewhere you'd need or want to spend a long time.

Add to that the customisation options you could have, as well as collectibles you could display and I think player housing has a place in WoW. The balance would be making it interesting enough for people to want to do, without making it either where players spend all their time (so cities are empty) or making it something players feel they have to do if they don't want to.

[dess]

I assume the biggest hurdle for Blizzard when it comes to playerhousing is generating the art assets to use as an expansion feature. But if you think about it, it's possible they've been slowly building towards it over the years.

Orc - WoD Garrison, Ashran and Draenor, BFA new portal hub and the Arathi warfront.
Troll - (missing) but there are a few things like the Arathi witherbark huts
Tauren - Legion Highmountain
Undead - Darkshore Warfront
Goblin - Random goblin assets in BFA, Motherlode dungeon, Darkshore Warfront
Human - WoD Garrison, Ashran, BFA Stromgarde Warfront
Dwarf - (missing) but there are a few items. Hasn't really seen a massive update since Cataclysm.
Night Elf - Legion Suramar, Val'sharah, Tomb of Sargeras, Azsuna... BFA Nazjatar... elven is widely available
Gnome - Mechagon obviously!

Player housing doesn't even necessarily need to be tied to a racial capital. I think it could be cool to see Dalaran have a few housing plots available. For me even, I still have a little sentiment towards the Legion class halls. Just being a citizen in a big city is cool if you're visiting or trading, but if you're a DK being in a necropolis or a Hunter being in a remote lodge, that just feels way better as a place where you hang out.

Will we see player housing?

No.

There was a poll here a while back and guess what... the majority said NO. Just deal with the fact the majority says NO!

[Arvei]

If they did player housing akin to Path of Exile hideouts, I think it could be a really good feature. Unlock decorations by completing achievements through all content. Imagine trophies for getting AotC in a raid, or a certain rating in PvP, or even just for slaying x amount of players in war mode (like Bloodthirsty title).

Maybe have some useful things you can do in the hideout too, but make it far more limited than what existed during WoD so players aren't always just sitting in their garrisons. I understand why players feel burned by WoD garrisons, but if done right, player housing could be an amazing addition.

[Weatherwax]

I don't want player housing.
I want Class Halls to return, with their own Hearthstone so we can log out in them, and the ones that already don't have one, get a few regular bedrooms so the players who want to can do their /sleep RP in them.

[TwoMana]

I don't want player housing.

[tmamass]

Will we see player housing?

if you want a single player game, play one and not an mmo

[Voidism]

I'd love player housing. Gives us more to do if we wish to, and can span over expansions. Just don't make it obligatory like garrisons.

[Th3Scourge]

Would would you want a mini garrison to hang out by yourself? It was horrible in WoD. This would be no different