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

[arkanon]

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.

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 dont have to go out of their way to make new furniture when they're making new furniture anyway.

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.

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Should also add that if blizzard DOES take time to add housing specific stuff that too is a good thing since they could use said materials for other content too. For example, blizzard has a LOAD of troll themed doodads sitting around because they made a lot early on for vanilla. End result? We kept getting troll content because they already had the material made for them. Another example of that in WotLK they made a lot of half made human/stormwind themed material, which had the misfurtunate consequence that a lot of human settlements afterward were always in the process of being built because house frames were what they had.

This is all conjecture from extrapolation ontop of more conjecture. You have two crumbs and pretend to know the recipe of the cake. The fact the housing was one of the few "good" parts of wildstar is literally the point I'm making - they spent far too much time on silly little side projects like housing and cinematics and voice acting, and forgot to build a balanced and functioning game with good progression at a good pace. Like I said, maybe if they had ignored the housing and other mindless crap, and focused on the core game instead (budget wise I mean) wildstar would have been a success. It oozed potential, but clearly was not enjoyed by the majority who tried it.

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That argument is on the same level as "You can play csgo if you want to play pvp".

First of all not having a house while being a champion is kinda immersion breaking. Imagine killing titans, gods, ancient evils, surviving cataclysms etc and still not owning a house.

Second it serves as time and gold sink the same way pet battles are adding value to the game, just because you don't want it doesnt mean it wouldn't add value to game.

Third, its actually fairly easy to implement and can give a value to old content - running old content can drop decorations.

So as for time to implement vs value gained its actually one of the best features to add to game. And it would survive more than one tier.

So not having a house is "immersion breaking" but getting a full size dragon in the mail is fine? And that dragon is in every mailbox in the known universe at the same time, even in parallel universes and altered timelines! Additionally, when I retrieve my full size dragon from one of the mailboxes (maybe one of the mailboxes on a spaceship? Yeah, one of those ones) all the other dragons that were apparantly hiding in the other hundreds of mailboxes ......poof! They vanish.

Or carrying over a ton of equipment, sometimes including a dragon, in my 5+ backpacks which I carry all at once, while riding a flying horse with sparkly rainbow wings.

Or the fact that I kill the world ending threat on Tuesday, and the other hero's congratulate me, and we all celebrate and have a great time. Only to learn on Wednesday that his head...grew back? And everyone has forgotten of my mighty deed, and I must do it all again!

But no, you are right, it's the fact my character doesn't have a home that ruins "immersion".

The immersion argument is complete rubbish because it's always used while ignoring the other dozens and dozens of far more egregious examples.

[agentsi]

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?

I saw an article a few years back about player housing, and a couple of MMO's lent their data and it showed a vast disparity between players who used it and the cost/resources needed to create it.

I will search for it, and update this post once I find it.

I just know Blizzard tried it with Garrisons, and people ended up never leaving them, and cities felt underpopulated. Which in turn, hurts the game if you think no one is playing it.

[rrayy]

That argument is on the same level as "You can play csgo if you want to play pvp".

First of all not having a house while being a champion is kinda immersion breaking. Imagine killing titans, gods, ancient evils, surviving cataclysms etc and still not owning a house.

I can imagine it becuse I am a guy so busy fighting I don't have time to have a house. There is no down time. You down one threat. The next one pops up.

Second it serves as time and gold sink the same way pet battles are adding value to the game, just because you don't want it doesnt mean it wouldn't add value to game.

You wanting it does guarantee it will add value. Pet battles aren't really adding value to the game either.

Third, its actually fairly easy to implement and can give a value to old content - running old content can drop decorations.

And you know that how? Are you a programmer? Because Garrisons already showed how difficult housing can be to implement. It is naive to think it is easy to implement.

So as for time to implement vs value gained its actually one of the best features to add to game. And it would survive more than one tier.

your opinion, not fact. It won't gain the value you think it will and it is far harder to implement than you think it will.

[Spike`]

Garrison failed because it had professions on it and self farm, no need to players go outside and this was Blizzard biggest mistake with Garrison, 2º one was adding free easy money from table

Player Housing will bring a new life to the game and gives what Blizzard wants now for their share holders, player logged time

It can be easily be in some section on major citys, when a player needs something he will need to go to the world or simply the city its in

Players will farm old content and current one and when a new expansion is released the players will have new content again for their houses, its really a feature easy to maintain by Blizzard across expansions

[crakerjack]

Wow doesn’t need player housing. If that’s the type of content you want, there’s other games out there.

[Monster Hunter]

I assumed you were among the "nothing to do"-mob. Seems we were talking about different kinds of content missing.
You are completely right in the statement that a lot of content was cut from Cata and WoD. But all expansions will get ideas cut, that's just how it is.
WoD did have 3 raid tiers, not 2. Highmaul, foundry and citadel.

i raided mythic in wod as i have done most tiers.

what content precisly are you claiming i some how missed that would have made wod some how better than expansion price for 2 decent raids ?

[Oneirophobia]

I recommend animal crossing or the sims for your virtual apartment needs.

[Claymore]

I saw an article a few years back about player housing, and a couple of MMO's lent their data and it showed a vast disparity between players who used it and the cost/resources needed to create it.

I will search for it, and update this post once I find it.

I just know Blizzard tried it with Garrisons, and people ended up never leaving them, and cities felt underpopulated. Which in turn, hurts the game if you think no one is playing it.

Definitely do; I'd definitely interested to read. Given every other MMO I'm aware of has a Housing system, I'd definitely be surprised to see evidence otherwise.

As others pointed out, Garrisons just weren't a proper Housing system. Not only did they lack customization, but they also gave you literally everything you needed. You could gather all your mats (even for tradeskills you didn't have), you could acquire Raid gear, access Auction House... There was no reason to leave, and ENDLESS reasons to STAY there.

A good Housing system is ONLY cosmetic and COMPLETELY optional.

[arkanon]

That can be fixed pretty easily with player housing.. just don't include the AH, Mine, Herb Farm, Etc in the house...? People stayed in their garrisons because they had EVERYTHING mechanically in them. Just don't put that in the housing, making it a cosmetic/trophy place and it'd be something for people to do in their spare time like mog farming/etc.

Idk where people can bring up it being a waste of development time when they spent time, money and resources bringing a boring, outdated, incomplete 15year old version of the game back only for people to kill the super easy raid bosses and realize there is literally nothing else to do.

That 15yo game brought in subs - i wont claim to know their financial situation, but i doubt it was a loss for them. I dont see anyone who isnt subbed to the game subbing long term because they added a house - as others have mentioned, there are plenty of other games to play if thats your thing.

[ElDoorO]

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

It's an MMORPG. So.. yeah, that's kind of a big deal.

[Absintheminded]

Housing is lame, go play FF or TESO

[arkanon]

There's plenty of MMO's to play if that's your thing
There's plenty of games with raids to play if that's your thing
There's plenty of games with PvP to play if that's your thing
There's plenty of games with cosmetics if that's your thing

The thing is, none of them are WoW and what people want is housing in WoW. Just like you want to raid in WoW. That's so fucking obvious I can't believe people are spouting this "go to another game" drivel.

Plus, I highly doubt Blizzard is on the "go play some game other than ours" train. I mean, actively telling people to play something else because you don't like the things they like is pretty damned immature.

You misunderstand. WoW already has those things, so i dont need to go play another game. Im not the one asking for a game to be changed to suit my requirements - im suggesting if wow doesn't fit your needs - go find a game that does. I cnat believe im having to explain something so obvious.

[Aurabolt]

The real reason Blizzard won't do Player Housing--and I think they finally admitted it after the blowback from Garrisons--is they just don't want to. It's not even about the work that would be involved to do it. They simply don't want to do it.

Honestly I'm at peace with Player Housing never being a thing in WoW at this point. The potential is obviously there and has been since Day One but given they missed three big moments to do it post-Cata, I don't see it happening ever. The first big moment would have been during Cata. The second would have been during WoD obviously. The third was during BFA. All missed opportunities. Blizzard simply does not want to do it is all I want to say.

I mean shit--no one asked for Pet Battles and yet...LOL.

[LemonDemonGirl]

ESO, EQ2 and SWTOR do it really, really and I don't see why Blizzard couldn't do housing for WoW. I think it would be cool if your alts could be npcs in your house/live beside your main's house. You could have a neighborhood full of your characters!

Edit: Nevermind. This was a really dumba** idea of mine

[breadisfunny]

didn't they try something like this with garrisons?

[kaminaris]

So not having a house is "immersion breaking" but getting a full size dragon in the mail is fine? And that dragon is in every mailbox in the known universe at the same time, even in parallel universes and altered timelines! Additionally, when I retrieve my full size dragon from one of the mailboxes (maybe one of the mailboxes on a spaceship? Yeah, one of those ones) all the other dragons that were apparantly hiding in the other hundreds of mailboxes ......poof! They vanish.

Yes it is actually more ridiculous to not have house. You also shot yourself in the foot without comparison as both shrink and stasis magic exists within WoW universe.

Or carrying over a ton of equipment, sometimes including a dragon, in my 5+ backpacks which I carry all at once, while riding a flying horse with sparkly rainbow wings.

Pocket dimensions, portals, magic bags, another shot in the foot.

Or the fact that I kill the world ending threat on Tuesday, and the other hero's congratulate me, and we all celebrate and have a great time. Only to learn on Wednesday that his head...grew back? And everyone has forgotten of my mighty deed, and I must do it all again!

By the lore it only happened one time. Rekilling bosses is simply must have because of gamplay reasons.

But no, you are right, it's the fact my character doesn't have a home that ruins "immersion".

The immersion argument is complete rubbish because it's always used while ignoring the other dozens and dozens of far more egregious examples.

Your arguments have been absolutely demolished. Yes it is far more immersion breaking to not own a house.

[Tronski]

i raided mythic in wod as i have done most tiers.

what content precisly are you claiming i some how missed that would have made wod some how better than expansion price for 2 decent raids ?

My initial post and claim was this.

Untrue. 100% false. Cata and WoD had faster power progressions that let you finish content in 3 months instead of the 9 months it took you to farm enough corruptions / resistance and essences to kill mythic N'zoth.

The only mistake of WoD was that Blizzard didn't milk the content for longer by having less gear drop.

I'm calling it right now, in 12-18 months we're gonna see the exact same complaints about Shadowlands.
"I finished the raids and had nothing to do for 5 months, worst expansion since Cata! Rabble rabble"

My claim is that your kind would have loved WoD if you could have spent 5 hours a day grinding corruptions, essences, titanforges, artifact power and the likes for the same amount of time as you did to be able to kill N'Zoth.

In your kinds mind, that's content.

It was just too easy to get gear in WoD and you finished too fast. And as the humans you are, not getting burned out disatisfy you.

And if they'd spent a week making an Ultra raid tier above Mythic, so you could start the cycle all over again and grind even stronger gear, you'd gobble that shit up for another 4 months each raid tier as well.

Now that would have been content!

[lionofwar87]

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...

My garrison is still my home

[sweatshopkids]

You can't just lump bananas in with your wrong opinion.

[kaminaris]

I can imagine it becuse I am a guy so busy fighting I don't have time to have a house. There is no down time. You down one threat. The next one pops up.

Then you die due to exhaustion so not really, hard to imagine not sleeping and not having a place to stay.

You wanting it does guarantee it will add value. Pet battles aren't really adding value to the game either.

Yes it guarantees it, and pet battles have added tremendous value to game either whatever you like it or not, proof is the amout of work people put into making strategies, combos, external websites, addons etc. This is value and it means it draws people in.

And you know that how? Are you a programmer? Because Garrisons already showed how difficult housing can be to implement. It is naive to think it is easy to implement.

Yes, 15 years professional senior developer. Garrisons weren't focused on having blocks of decorations put in in square places, garrisons were completely different feature.
Easiest way to implement housing is to have a grid of AxB blocks that you can put prefabs on, maybe with specific rotation, system that indie developers do themselves in free games.

your opinion, not fact. It won't gain the value you think it will and it is far harder to implement than you think it will.

it is a fact, not opinion. It would give tons of value as most other games that has similar systems showed and it is easy to implement because I actually know how to do it.

First of all WoW has tons of prefabs already in game such as chairs, tables, drawers, beds, rugs etc. So that part is basically done.
Second part is editor system that allows players to put specific prefab (or model) into a predefined squares into map.

And its neither complicated nor hard to implement.