Do you want Player Housing in WoW?

[Kokolums]

Blizzard keeps adding solo and multiplayer content and ignoring social content, so there's every fear that they will screw up housing in this way as well. I mean that's basically the problem with garrisons. It was either solo stuff or just some very bland and boring multiplayer action with no actual social component. People hate that.

Blizz needs to understand there is a difference between people just interacting without talking and then never seeing that person again, and actually building a social world.

[Yusefstrasza]

Yes yes yes

[XDurionX]

If it cost significant rent yes, otherwise no.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I voted no, because as per my sig and the other 142 (at the time of writing) people being against it, I maintain that the WoW playerbase does not deserve it. I don't want to see the feature becoming the scapegoat for everything wrong that is Blizzard's fuck up, but the dipshot fanboys will blame on the "sissy feature" instead. Garrisons already have been put into that spot, we don't need another excuse for the logically challenged; Fuck off with that.

[Pakheth]

Why is the argument against housing, always that it's apparently this absolutely massive behemoth of a feature that'd cost them ressources for like 5 expansions and the first born of all employees. It's basically just gamifying the dev tools to make houses and interiors with restrictions. It would not be as expensive as people make it out to be, because we wouldn't get housing as crazy as people think with their expectations being "i want to build a skull shaped mansion on top of the black temple and have laserpenguins and mechadinosaurs roam on motorcycles while ETC70 plays in my frontyard!"
We have SO MANY optional sidefeatures that people (including you) just ignore if they don't care, from pvpers and pvpers ignoring the ENTIRETY of pvp or pve which ARE big in ressources, pet battles, professions, transmog, achievement hunting, the list goes on.
Why are people so adamant that this ONE thing will apparently kill raid tiers, WoW and anything in the known universe.

If housing actually comes to WoW, it will not be this elaborate feature people think will be (not Garrison levels, but definitely not this ultra mega customization feature) and see interest at the start and drop off quickly after that to rather expected levels. Basically every other MMO on the market has housing, but somehow WoW is the only one that absolutely CANNOT have housing because... reasons. Let people enjoy whatever the fuck they want. Some want to fish all day, some want to down mythic bosses, some farm their perfect transmog and others would enjoy housing (and likely RPing in them)

Well said.
I am never going to understand why housing is the straw that breaks the camel's back for some players.

[Amariw]

Nope. Nothing in that feature seems fun for me.

[Relapses]

Well said.
I am never going to understand why housing is the straw that breaks the camel's back for some players.

Because AFKing in your Warcraft-themed Sims isn't something this game needs.

[NineSpine]

That's true, just like the worst part is you can't used it even if you want, no the apartment is not enough of a substitute

It's almost like Blizzard, a company known for copying the designs of other companies and giving them a level of iteration and polish that nobody else can, could take the core of that idea and really refine it to a point by doing things like nixing the limited number of houses.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, WoW needs to do all the things that "WoW killers" did, before they all failed and went bankrupt. Riiiight.

Cross faction has been in the game for years. You can queue for BGs cross-faction, right now.

WoW has had a mass exodus of players in the last year, and this comes on the end of steady player losses year over year for the retail product.

Meanwhile, FF14 continues to grow every year.

But keep living in your fantasy world where Square Enix is bankrupt and Blizzard is killing it right now.

- - - Updated - - -

Because AFKing in your Warcraft-themed Sims isn't something this game needs.

Ok, I'll be "AFKing" tonight at a party in someones FF14 house with 50 other people who are there for events and contests.

You have a weird definition of "AFK".

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I would like it as a side project that I can use to make a sort of "trophy case" to log in and out of. Dress it up nice. Something to keep me busy. A place people can come over and see and say its coo af or dumb type of thing.

What I don't want it to be is a form of power creep. Like when I put the first couch down an achievement pops up congratulating me and now I can start earning power for my new home power set that earns me raid token rolls three times a week if I continue to keep my house clean by doing the dailies in it.

This way if you are into making a cool house its there for you to do it. If you want nothing to do with it then it is like its not even there.

[VMSmith]

Because AFKing in your Warcraft-themed Sims isn't something this game needs.

The only reason anyone would be "AFKing in their house" is that the rest of the game world was so utterly worthless that there was no point in being anywhere else. Every time someone makes this argument they're essentially saying that WoW is such a terrible game world that most people can't wait to have an excuse not to interact with any of it. This is not an argument against housing, it's an argument against Blizzard's inability to design a worthwhile world for players to enjoy.

It also ignores the fact that in every MMO that has housing this is not a problem at all, further cementing the reality that Blizzard is incapable of designing anything fun other than instanced content for people to compete in.

[Nemah]

In a game like WoW my want for housing depends on the utility of it. Something like the garrison where I can check the AH and maybe make a little money with buildings or stations (like in ESO for example), select a chat channel and that sort of thing? Sure.

By the same token - something like the garrison that's only good for 1 expansion and is ostensibly on another planet (even though travel doesn't matter so much), and so on. Not really.

It would need to be a living breathing continuous part of the game rather than just a feature for me to be interested. Take the idea of the garrison and make it upgradable through each expansion, as a base idea/starting point.

[Relapses]

The only reason anyone would be "AFKing in their house" is that the rest of the game world was so utterly worthless that there was no point in being anywhere else. Every time someone makes this argument they're essentially saying that WoW is such a terrible game world that most people can't wait to have an excuse not to interact with any of it. This is not an argument against housing, it's an argument against Blizzard's inability to design a worthwhile world for players to enjoy.

It also ignores the fact that in every MMO that has housing this is not a problem at all, further cementing the reality that Blizzard is incapable of designing anything fun other than instanced content for people to compete in.

I'm sorry that World of Warcraft doesn't adhere to your rigid conditions for what a MMO should be about. It's about dungeons and raiding. It is not about playing The Sims. If you want The Sims in a MMO, there are plenty of other flavors of MMO for you to choose from. Choose them instead of demanding WoW be a one-stop shop for all things gaming.

[Sorrior]

They had that in Dark Ages of Camelot and it panned out for awhile but ultimately just became less important. I'm down for it either way but ultimately it felt more like another distraction than something to actually play. I've always felt when an MMO starts mimicking reality it's on a down curve but that's just me.

Ffxiv and eso as well tbh. Most housing systems do.

And for me honestly. My days of trying to keep up are over. When i do play wiw now i LOVE running through old raids/dungeons. It would just augment my pre existing play style as it would many others i expect.

And wows already in an obscenely downward trend so why not i say

[Guttamasta]

absolutely freaking not

[VMSmith]

I'm sorry that World of Warcraft doesn't adhere to your rigid conditions for what a MMO should be about. It's about dungeons and raiding. It is not about playing The Sims. If you want The Sims in a MMO, there are plenty of other flavors of MMO for you to choose from. Choose them instead of demanding WoW be a one-stop shop for all things gaming.

Interesting. Nothing you said had anything to do with what you quoted me saying. I never talked about what I thought an MMO should be about, I only refuted your claim that housing would make people "AFK in their house". And even more interesting, you didn't rebut my refutation, you agreed with it here! "It's about dungeons and raiding" ie instanced content that we don't see people in rather than out in the world. You are agreeing that WoW has terrible world content and has ALWAYS been about people AFKing in the world and hiding away in instances to do the things they want to do. So, by your own admission, housing would just be following in the grand tradition of WoW since about Warlords of Draenor, which is when Blizzard stopped making a compelling game world.

[Relapses]

Interesting. Nothing you said had anything to do with what you quoted me saying. I never talked about what I thought an MMO should be about, I only refuted your claim that housing would make people "AFK in their house". And even more interesting, you didn't rebut my refutation, you agreed with it here! "It's about dungeons and raiding" ie instanced content that we don't see people in rather than out in the world. You are agreeing that WoW has terrible world content and has ALWAYS been about people AFKing in the world and hiding away in instances to do the things they want to do. So, by your own admission, housing would just be following in the grand tradition of WoW since about Warlords of Draenor, which is when Blizzard stopped making a compelling game world.

Please. Player housing is a boring, non-feature that encourages people to be anti-social. It doesn't add anything to the game. It doesn't improve any of its strengths. It simply makes one of its biggest weaknesses (the fact that people don't want to interact with each other for any reason, ever) even more evident. My position is WoW should focus on doing what it does well instead of trying to create a video game that appeals to every fucking demographic that's ever played the game. And that's why it's perfectly fine for there not to be "engaging world content" (whatever the fuck this means) because it's not the reason people play WoW. Improving this wouldn't make a better experience for anybody other than people who are functionally incapable of understanding the purpose of game design. (Y'know, like the kind of people who post on forums and whine about how Blizzard doesn't do {x}.) You want WoW to be a different game and you're using "other MMOs" as a pivot point for this non-argument. Like I've said multiple times in this thread: Just play other MMOs instead.

[VMSmith]

Please. Player housing is a boring, non-feature that encourages people to be anti-social. It doesn't add anything to the game. It doesn't improve any of its strengths. It simply makes one of its biggest weaknesses (the fact that people don't want to interact with each other for any reason, ever) even more evident. My position is WoW should focus on doing what it does well instead of trying to create a video game that appeals to every fucking demographic that's ever played the game. And that's why it's perfectly fine for there not to be "engaging world content" (whatever the fuck this means) because it's not the reason people play WoW. Improving this wouldn't make a better experience for anybody other than people who are functionally incapable of understanding the purpose of game design. (Y'know, like the kind of people who post on forums and whine about how Blizzard doesn't do {x}.) You want WoW to be a different game and you're using "other MMOs" as a pivot point for this non-argument. Like I've said multiple times in this thread: Just play other MMOs instead.

Again you respond to something completely other than what I've said. You claim my position is "You want WoW to be a different game and you're using "other MMOs" as a pivot point for this non-argument" when in reality all I've argued is against the proposition that people will "AFK in their house". You are making up a position for me, likely because you recognize your position as an indefensible personal anecdotal argument, and then arguing against it rather than what I'm actually talking about.

I mean, literally, nothing you say has anything to do with what I'm saying. Maybe you mean to be quoting someone else and the internet is confusing for you?

edit: I just want to reinforce that this comment of yours is completely anecdotal personal opinion and you offer zero evidence for its veracity -

Player housing is a boring, non-feature that encourages people to be anti-social

Which is quite ironic given that numerous people in this thread have noted how housing actually increases social activity when done properly.

[fatgunn]

Which is quite ironic given that numerous people in this thread have noted how housing actually increases social activity when done properly.

Right? I mean look at how antisocial housing makes people....





I've seen FF14 houses more full of people than Oribos.

[Relapses]

Again you respond to something completely other than what I've said. You claim my position is "You want WoW to be a different game and you're using "other MMOs" as a pivot point for this non-argument" when in reality all I've argued is against the proposition that people will "AFK in their house". You are making up a position for me, likely because you recognize your position as an indefensible personal anecdotal argument, and then arguing against it rather than what I'm actually talking about.

There's nothing anecdotal about my position. There's evidence. It was called Garrisons. (Y'know, that thing everybody remembers for all the AFKing they did in them.) That's the closest thing to player housing we'll get in WoW and it was dogshit. Everybody hated it and we were glad when they went away. Any iteration on that feature in WoW will have the same functional issues. I'm responding the way I am because any argument in support of housing in this game is an argument that this game should be something that it isn't.

Which is quite ironic given that numerous people in this thread have noted how housing actually increases social activity when done properly.

"if it were done properly," you say, as we've seen at least a dozen different ideas in this very thread about how it should be implemented. That's one of many of the problems with something like this: Any player housing system that Blizzard does add will be controversial because nobody in this fucking game can agree on anything and whatever they do add will inevitably fail to meet some random expectation and then players will claim Blizzard failed. If the developers are rightly focusing on WoW's strengths then they will correctly come to the conclusion that player housing is not something they should be spending their time on.

Player housing represents nothing more than an appeal-to-popularity non-argument WoW forum posters use to compare WoW to "other MMOs," precisely like you've done repeatedly in my replies to you.

[MoanaLisa]

Because AFKing in your Warcraft-themed Sims isn't something this game needs.

Much more social to AFK in a city or standing next to a mailbox?

It doesn't matter where people go to AFK. It doesn't affect the game either way.