Dragonflight Alpha/Beta General Discussion

[Skildar]

I'm late to the party but to me the issue with housing is not much an asset issue or even some UI issues.

These are the two main issues I see :
* Location and access : give some liberty for the player to choose his housing location and not have everyone overlap or go in garrison style housing : phasing where you need to indicate in the menu which player housing you want to visit which breaks immersion. FF XIV solution to me is one of the worst, having instanced neighborhoods bringes nothing of value to the immersion.
For instance, if every city in the game could have a few houses and if you could settle in one of these or if you could even set up shop next to the ravenholdt manor or waycrest manor. Then on a small populated realm, it's all good and fun vut you rarely see any player housing and on a very populated one, it's a diabolical mess.

* Housing reward and drive : A game like sims or animal crossing have the housing at the center of their gameplay. how do you spread the reward else than "reputation can sell you a chair, a table and a lamp". What use is there to invite a player to your home? Do you limit it to a house per guild or per player? if guild, then who can modify it? What different interaction with the world does it make to be in this or that location, to have this style or that style of house to fill it with this rare piece or that rare piece, to have this utility or this one, etc.

There are thousands more questions that goes into what to do to do it right, and from looking at it there is no right answer for the first issue and I can only trust blizzard to find some new way of gameplay and reward for the second issue.

[Revamp Man]

I could see them re-using old raids and dungeons for some sort of premium player housing. That said, I don't see it ever happening unless its a heavy cash $hop feature

That’s where extremely rare items come in at because you will have people shove them on the AH and then the whales will buy tokens

Housing customization is something a ton of people will waste hours on

[therumblings]

I remember Blizzard was proud to say the Garrison was part of the zones, and wasn't in some instanced corner of the world, but when it comes to player housing I'd probably prefer that. I think it would be cool to be given your own Island or something.

[PhillyCheese]

I think people haven't been paying attention to the sheer amount of random props and doodads Blizz have been adding in recent expansions. They would all easily make for good furniture.

[Wangming]

Housing customization is something a ton of people will waste hours on

That's what I've been trying to tell them the whole day

[therumblings]

I think people haven't been paying attention to the sheer amount of random props and doodads Blizz have been adding in recent expansions. They would all easily make for good furniture.

They could even add an entire profession based on woodworking or building furniture as well.

[Marlamin]

Its more that we know a feature like that is HUGE and to make it fun and broad it just needs alot of optiions. Garrisons had the setup but ended up being extremely limited in so many ways. They told us we were free to place it for example.. it was probably cut in many corners, anyway.. it would cost so much time and the outcome would probably still feel dissappointed. I dont see it succeed if I have to be honest.

In so many ways.. this feature feels like: you think you want it, but not really.

Garrisons failed at that because they didn't put enough time into them. A lot of the customizability for them was scrapped, just like most of WoDs features being made smaller/scrapped to some extent due to terrible time management.

I'm late to the party but to me the issue with housing is not much an asset issue or even some UI issues.

These are the two main issues I see :
* Location and access : give some liberty for the player to choose his housing location and not have everyone overlap or go in garrison style housing : phasing where you need to indicate in the menu which player housing you want to visit which breaks immersion. FF XIV solution to me is one of the worst, having instanced neighborhoods bringes nothing of value to the immersion.
For instance, if every city in the game could have a few houses and if you could settle in one of these or if you could even set up shop next to the ravenholdt manor or waycrest manor. Then on a small populated realm, it's all good and fun vut you rarely see any player housing and on a very populated one, it's a diabolical mess.

* Housing reward and drive : A game like sims or animal crossing have the housing at the center of their gameplay. how do you spread the reward else than "reputation can sell you a chair, a table and a lamp". What use is there to invite a player to your home? Do you limit it to a house per guild or per player? if guild, then who can modify it? What different interaction with the world does it make to be in this or that location, to have this style or that style of house to fill it with this rare piece or that rare piece, to have this utility or this one, etc.

There are thousands more questions that goes into what to do to do it right, and from looking at it there is no right answer for the first issue and I can only trust blizzard to find some new way of gameplay and reward for the second issue.

I think a lot of those questions could have been answered with garrisons, but they failed to deliver on that and abandoned the concept pretty hard. There's no reason for garrisons to be tied to WoD at all and seeing they've been constantly using garrison missions and talents every major patch since they were added, it's a shame to see the actual garrisons feature itself go to waste. Our only "home" is currently perpetually stuck in an alternate timeline that is canonically closed off. I would've been perfectly fine with having class halls, covenant hubs or even a part of Boralus be more garrison-like, provided they kept developing them more and finished some ideas they scrapped during WoD and in turn having it turn into "proper" player housing. They would've easily been able to answer most of the questions you put up by now.

I think people haven't been paying attention to the sheer amount of random props and doodads Blizz have been adding in recent expansions. They would all easily make for good furniture.

I've definitely paid attention to this, and so have many other artists/dataminers and it's kind of sad to see a complete set of themed doodads be limited to one patch of use to never be used again, or, in other cases, assets never being used at all.

[Zulggun]

Nah, Blizzard wont be able to make good enough for players to be happy with it. And updating it through the course of the expansion? (No even after expansion ends) Forget about it. Did we ever get updates for garrisons other than mission table 1.5 (shipyard)? Did we ever get updates for class halls?
I'm a blizzard fanboy but I simply don't see how they could achieve the level of housing players hope for. If you hope for housing you are in for disappointment.

[bullseyed]

I think Arthas send off was good. What else should happen? A ghost of him appear and go like "lol forgive me"? Or more Garrosh style "I regret nothing"? Get him send to Arbiter again for some happy lil redemption? A battered, amorphous soul remnant dissipating to a moody melody was great and did not ruin his ending from the past. Now, if it only was not Sylvi who did the send off...

Sylvanas was the primary nemesis of Arthas. Why wouldn't it be her?

[Marlamin]

Nah, Blizzard wont be able to make good enough for players to be happy with it. And updating it through the course of the expansion? (No even after expansion ends) Forget about it. Did we ever get updates for garrisons other than mission table 1.5 (shipyard)? Did we ever get updates for class halls?
I'm a blizzard fanboy but I simply don't see how they could achieve the level of housing players hope for. If you hope for housing you are in for disappointment.

I think it'd be cool if done right, but hoping for that or any other large feature is generally a bad idea/a pipe dream. Same goes for making bets/assumptions/setting expectations.

[Revamp Man]

That's what I've been trying to tell them the whole day

I loved the housing system in Runes of Magic
Technically not much in terms of customization but I enjoyed putting sets of gear up for display

Guild castles were awesome too
Guild contributes gold and mats and then the higher ups put in things like stables or alchemy buildings and you could even have dailies. PvP was also fun because you could set up defenses and even level 10 characters could contribute

[bullseyed]

I've never met a playerbase in any mmo that was so adamant against it like the one of WoW, the post right below yours was a shining example of the usual mental limbo when it comes to the topic, so I stand by it, the WoW playerbase doesn't deserve it.

As for the rest, the designer was included between the engine dev and the guy for the GUI, hence the vehicle controlls comment, as that would be the easiest way to implement it. A proper custom GUI would be nice, but it's not really neccessary

The playerbase of WoW likely skews older than other newer games, ergo they aren't as interested in playing with dolls and dollhouses.

[therumblings]

The playerbase of WoW likely skews older than other newer games, ergo they aren't as interested in playing with dolls and dollhouses.

Transmog is one of the most popular things in the game, people love dressing up and customizing their stuff.

[bullseyed]

I dont know why so many people want every mmo to be the same, have same features, be homogenized like this. You have things in other game? Enjoy them there, why you have to have them in every other game you play?
Besides, housing is not "make or break" for a game. We have FF which is very popular now (tho arguably not BECAUSE of housing) and you have Wildstar where housing was well recived but game itself failed horribly. For me it's too much of undertaking to risk. Fix the core game first, and THEN try gimmicks.

Also I cannot fathom Blizzard not abandoning housing after one expansion as they always do. Again, makes it even more of unnecessary risk.

Not abandoning, just won't be a way to add "meaningful" updates to housing once implemented.

Every expansion the body-pillow-fans will want an entirely new housing system while also not losing any of their previous investment... which is impossible to implement. The new expansion would be "here is 50 new pieces of furniture and a new room skin" and people will cry on the forums for months.

[Khaza-R]

Transmog is one of the most popular things in the game, people love dressing up and customizing their stuff.

To be fair, customizing your character that you see every second you're logged on appeals to most players (perhaps just not Ion). Customizing a house does not appeal to every player. I wouldn't say they are equivalent in that regard.

[Raetary]

The playerbase of WoW likely skews older than other newer games, ergo they aren't as interested in playing with dolls and dollhouses.

If that was the case Blizzard wouldn't put so much effort into mounts, mog and character customization.

[Sondrelk]

I think it'd be cool if done right, but hoping for that or any other large feature is generally a bad idea/a pipe dream. Same goes for making bets/assumptions/setting expectations.

Housing would be great if it was done well. However the same is true for a lot of stuff. The game would be amazing if every zone, dungeon, and raid was in some way useful at endgame as well.

Banking on an idea that only truly works if it's either amazing on the first attempt, or requires reworks over a longer period of time, potentially even several expansions, just seems like it's doomed to fail.

WoW definitely has the pieces needed for a great housing. But the same is true for giving us a revamped raid every single patch.

[Celement]

Housing would be great if it was done well. However the same is true for a lot of stuff. The game would be amazing if every zone, dungeon, and raid was in some way useful at endgame as well.

Banking on an idea that only truly works if it's either amazing on the first attempt, or requires reworks over a longer period of time, potentially even several expansions, just seems like it's doomed to fail.

WoW definitely has the pieces needed for a great housing. But the same is true for giving us a revamped raid every single patch.

I think the realistic problem with housing is it is a massive strain on the server storing that much data for what really is a cosmetic thing. Add to that how heavily themed wows environment objects are and it would require a massive retooling of assets to work properly.

[therumblings]

To be fair, customizing your character that you see every second you're logged on appeals to most players (perhaps just not Ion). Customizing a house does not appeal to every player. I wouldn't say they are equivalent in that regard.

No, but saying player housing is totally a brand new concept that is akin to playing with dolls is just false. It's another avenue of player customization, like transmog, mounts, pets, the garrison as well. A place to put stuff and customize.

[draugril]

No, but saying player housing is totally a brand new concept that is akin to playing with dolls is just false. It's another avenue of player customization, like transmog, mounts, pets, the garrison as well. A place to put stuff and customize.

I've always seen it as an extension of character customization, myself. I have never created something in these systems according my my own preferences - I always try to base them entirely on the character it belongs to. You should know exactly the type of person that would live there based on how it looks.