Introduce player housing to Stormwind and Orgrimmar first, then spread outside

[rrayy]

This first comment encapsulates the toxicity of MMO-Champion so well. The first comment rejects OP and offers nothing but hostility.

To counter your 'constructive' comment, I for one would return to the game since quitting in BfA if player housing were introduced. Nothing else has come close to that.
I love decorating houses and acquiring said decorations from a plethora of game activities. If done correctly, player housing can cater to a wide audience, encourage re-playability and benefit Blizzard by selling cosmetic decorations in their store for cash.
There are websites dedicated to player housing in MMOs, entire guilds contribute towards their guild houses. Deep customisation allows for some incredibly talented decorators to really show off their aesthetic eye.

And I would qiuit the game. The fact that you would only play if housing were in the game is a reason not to have it. They need players to play Warcraft, not Sims.

[Alroxas]

based on the fact that every cosmetic feature in wow is extremly popular?>and all of them are nothing compared to what player housing could be

Well "free" ish cosmetic feature (a la Transmog) but the monetization of that hasn't really paid off for shareholders. And by paid off I mean the continually record breaking Monthly Users and cash sales from the Blizzard Store specifically for cosmetics.

So why would the board (or shareholders) invest resources into player housing then? Why wouldn't they invest more on systems that they KNOW players want. More raids, more dungeons (without repetition), larger game zones?

For everyone that really REALLY wants player housing, the best way to make that happen is for you to literally BUY shares in Activision-Blizzard to the point where they have to listen to you. Then bring it up.

[psyquest]

OP you do not understand what Ion said. The issue is not about having player housing in x location. The issue is that as feature it has a cost. This cost is multiple years work and at the expense of other features. If you have read so far and understood this, I can translate for you this "dev/product manager" speech in normal human terms: it is too expensive, don't hold your breath, it is unlikely to be ever done.

[Alroxas]

What's interesting is, Blizz planned for guild housing from day 1, but they didn't implement it. There were portals in SW/Org that were removed in Cata.

Source? Evidence?

The problem with the devs, imo, is that they already have most of the pieces to make housing a thing. They just refuse to add it.

The real question then is WHY? Why haven't they added it unless there was a reason. Maybe it's a code base issue since they made changes in Cata. Maybe it's a resource issue, the teams are already working on other stuff and to do player housing means taking folks away from those teams or training up a new team which again could be a resource issue. Or maybe the Devs don't want another clone of FFXIV/WildStar/Rift/<Insert MMO here>, they want to focus on other aspects because they see that player housing is already done well in other places and don't want to challenge the existing market (or spend resources to compete in that market).

Just look at the MOBA space, League and DoTA are doing exceptionally well. Blizzard took too long with Heroes and now Heroes has less development priority. Maybe if Blizzard got Heroes up sooner it would have been better placed to compete with League and DotA.

Similarly, player housing could be a struggle to play catch-up with other MMOs that have it already. So why pursue that path instead of going after something new? Something that puts WoW apart from FFXIV/WildStar/Rift/<insert mmo here>.

[qwerty123456]

ANd where is Wildstar now? It should still be in business since everyone tells me that housing always grows a game.

Yet you tried to imply it anyway with your first two sentences.

WoW is still a healthy game. Those games put in housing because they don't have anything else. WoW doesn't need it because they have plenty of other things. Those other games having something does not mean WOW needs it. WoW has well proven it does not need it.

Who is telling you housing grows a game? And I didn't imply it. I was pointing out how moronic your argument was to think a single feature would save a game if everything else wasn't that great.

They don't have anything else? Have you played any of the games? LoL. The fact of the matter is litterally every game and there mother is doing housing now because they realized alot of people enjoy it.

Genshin has made billions of dollars of their gacha. Do you really think they needed housing? No.

Wow is a healthy game? So they don't need housing? And yet you have the Blizzard devs say they are looking into it and want to do it right? So are they revealing Wow isn't doing so great or is this just a bunch of nonsense that you are spouting?

[bloodmoth13]

There are a lot of issues with player housing, it's a massive commitment to be frank. If it exists in the open world then it stops blizz from ever developing those areas, if it's instanced it feels a bit like a cop out.
Is there any mmo games that have decent player housing? What did it add to the game? Did it improve anything or was it just a side project?
I think the safest version is just giving players their own pocket dimension that they can put items it. Let players unlock zone pallets for their dimension after finishing the corresponding loremaster achievement.
You can make it as big or small as you want because it is its own instance and doesn't affect anyone.

[Faerillis]

Ok here's an argument: The code in WoW is built upon is not built with Player housing in mind from the ground level. FFXIV, ESO, Wildstar, Rift, and others had it either planned from the start or the code was designed in such a way to allow for it.

The best we have in WoW has been garrisons in WoD and even then, those garrisons were NOT on Azeroth. To add player housing to Stormwind/Orgrimmar would require an overhaul of those cities to put in a spot for "instanced" housing/neighborhoods.

While such a task is not impossible, you're talking about rewriting a significant portion of the original zone (since Cataclysm). Additionally the last time there was such a rewrite of the old zone (a la Cataclysm), that xpac wasn't received as well as others where more new zones were added instead of redoing some older zones.

They have to add buildings whenever a new feature is added and you may notice that huge swathes of Orgrimmar (atop the cliffs) are entirely empty. Stormwind is filled with empty buildings and the farmlands attached to the city could easily see additions. An old world revamp, though not really related to the discussion at hand, is now one of the most desired things by the community so that most of the gamespace isn't just dead. Cata may not have been super well received but compare Cata's reception to BfA and Shadowlands and it's adored by comparison. The real argument is over what you would personally want them investing effort into. I want it in player housing, you don't; those are two equal subjective opinions.

I chose to respond to you because, while I don't think your argument holds much weight personally, you seem to actually be engaging the discussion not just spouting "Nuh-uhs" and I can appreciate that style of argument. So kudos despite us not agreeing.

[Teekey]

If you continue to sub you are in no place to complain about value for money, its obvious you actually do think it has value for money if you continue to play the game.

I totally disagree with you on WoW not being worth its value and you technically do too if you are still subbed.

That being said, you do have a good point otherwise that Blizzard absolutely can and should give us both, "raid tiers" and housing. If there's anything I hate about Blizzard, it's exactly that excuse that they have to sacrifice competitive endgame content for making other stuff good.

Funny, I'd argue being a customer gives you even more of a right to criticize. And probably much more knowledge to do so than someone who isn't or hasn't been for a long time.

Personally I think WoW has become an increasingly poor value over the years, but it just simply doesn't have any competent competition. So the sub fee is just the ticket to ride. Sure, you could argue that kind of monopoly gives them the ability to charge whatever they want, I suppose. But I think there's also a good argument to just look at the number of patches, dungeons, and raids released today compared to years ago to realize they're providing less and less while charging the same. I think that's worthy of critique.

Also, this thread specifically is a discussion about more casual content (Player Housing) - I honestly think there's been even less meaningful content for those players in recent years. Not that there's none at all, but it's mostly just long grinds of things like World Quests to unlock cosmetics. I don't personally care about Housing that much, but I find it rather pathetic for them to claim we'd have to give up a raid tier to get a feature like that.

Instead we're getting to pay $50 for them to fix core aspects of the game (Classes/Talents, Professions, and UI), when I'd argue those being decent should be the absolute minimum expectation for a game we pay $180 a year to play.

[Seezer]

Well, isn't that objective? To some, housing could be useful, more useful than another raid tier?

Player housing was already put into the game. Garrisons were player housing. Nobody gave a shit.

[Lochton]

Player housing was already put into the game. Garrisons were player housing. Nobody gave a shit.

Alas, Garrison was a good example of mishandling the content of player housing. It is meant to be an optional side feature, not the main hub of an expansion, nor to be written off in the story as a donation once another expansion is launched. The system, and designs, that the Garrison utilized, are some of the more popular things that had a chance to become something that it wasn't used for. We went from a small farm to a village Garrison, now we need to adjust the dial to that of a house with some surrounding land, and the biggest challenge is the ability to alter and edit our surroundings instead of a static build.

I will always bet my missing soul that one of the main issues, as they declared it needed expansion long development, is that their engine does not have the function to offer a player the ability to collect, apply, and modify their surroundings with various items. The rest they have a glorious hand on. With the current system, we could literally have housing in any zone if they wanted, but what is holding them back is most likely the option of making it completely yours. Placement, replacement, and scaling of items - interactive abilities. We have everything else functioning. A phasing system that, after some harsh testing (*cough* WoD release *cough*) has proven to be able to offer people layered locations of phasing instead of complete zones, we have an interactive farm system which was introduced in Mists of Pandaria, and reused in WoD, and we know they have a brilliant art team who has made glorious structure models and could make new ones fitting to be applied for housing but such goals are with Shadowlands, just thrown to the side.

[kenn9530]

Funny, I'd argue being a customer gives you even more of a right to criticize. And probably much more knowledge to do so than someone who isn't or hasn't been for a long time.

Personally I think WoW has become an increasingly poor value over the years, but it just simply doesn't have any competent competition. So the sub fee is just the ticket to ride. Sure, you could argue that kind of monopoly gives them the ability to charge whatever they want, I suppose. But I think there's also a good argument to just look at the number of patches, dungeons, and raids released today compared to years ago to realize they're providing less and less while charging the same. I think that's worthy of critique.

Also, this thread specifically is a discussion about more casual content (Player Housing) - I honestly think there's been even less meaningful content for those players in recent years. Not that there's none at all, but it's mostly just long grinds of things like World Quests to unlock cosmetics. I don't personally care about Housing that much, but I find it rather pathetic for them to claim we'd have to give up a raid tier to get a feature like that.

Instead we're getting to pay $50 for them to fix core aspects of the game (Classes/Talents, Professions, and UI), when I'd argue those being decent should be the absolute minimum expectation for a game we pay $180 a year to play.

the customer is most of the time not right, if you continue to play a game you say you are not happy with then you have lost the right to complain, everything is just a persons opinion if you think you dont get value for money or if you think things in the game need fixed, its blizzards game and they are the ones that know whats best for the game.

WoW is an old game, its not going to get any better no matter what they do, they also know that and are not going to spend more money on a game thats in decline.

[Hctaz]

Player housing goes against everything they want. They want the world to feel full. World feels full by seeing other people. You don't see other ppl when they are in their own instanced house.

"But wait! You could go check out other ppls houses!" 2 things. 1, you could do this with garrisons but no one ever really did. 2, it would most likely be friends / invite only and that does nothing to help their goals of seeing other ppl in the world.

And if u think it wouldn't be instanced, you don't understand wow at all.

Go play dress up somewhere else.

The world "feeling full" comes from giving players a reason to exist in the game at all.
Player housing would be nothing more than cosmetic, and would require you to do things in the real world to progress the options available to you.

Garrisons were a failure both to the player housing community and to those wanting to keep the world full because Blizzard decided that the Garrisons needed to have a purpose to them. They decided that giving them a purpose was SO important that they scrapped all of the cool customization options that they were planning in favor of baking in only useful additions. The thing ended up so useful that there was no reason to go out and do things in the world.

That's now what anybody wanted. What we wanted was an entirely optional area that you could spend resources and decorate if you chose to, but one that wouldn't provide any actual in game power or purpose. It would literally just look cool. That's still important to many people.

[FuxieDK]

First consider spacing... Especially in non-instanced version of player housing. How many "slots" would there be in SW or Orgrimmar? 10? 50? 100? And how many players are there on a server? Even if you put in some draconian system to "clear" out abandoned slots so that players can claim them, it's still going to take up a ton of space..

Also, imagine you own "slot #17" in your capital; what happens when you server transfer, and someone else owns "slot #17" on the new server?

[Ragedaug]

I really enjoyed player housing in Runescape, which I think was introduced very near to when WoW launched in 2004, but just to say that's what I normally have in mind when I think of player housing. And before the "well just go play Runescape" rebuttals, there's definitely times I do think about it, so you aren't original if you think the idea to play the other game is your bright idea, however the reason I don't is because most everything else WoW is more enjoyable. but just because I already enjoy WoW more than Runescape without WoW player housing doesn't mean I don't want improvements to WoW that will help me enjoy it even more.

My ideas for player housing include:
Rooms that facilitate and show off your crafting professions.
Rooms that show off your other various collections
A portal room that has unique portals you can open with quests to some of the far corners of Azeroth.
Minigame room could be fun

The idea isn't that you would spend a lot of time there, but it is somewhere you can visit to see your collection and do your crafting, but would encourage more world exploration as certain quests & achieves would be how you unlock features of your collection. And it's a place that's uniquely you.

They don't need to include it all at once. It can be very minimal to start with and each expansion can include upgrades to it, as it would survive expansions. It would also be tied to the player, not the character, so I wouldn't need to build 50 houses. I can see the argument for one house per server or per faction, though I still feel the unlocks would be account wide and wouldn't mind one house for the player/account.

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Also, imagine you own "slot #17" in your capital; what happens when you server transfer, and someone else owns "slot #17" on the new server?

There's no way they could tie it to "slot #17" in the capital. Too many players. It would be instanced. Though I can see an argument for a "house area" and you could pick which 'house' was yours, and when you get there it would be like the garden or garrison, so many players could be in the same plot.

[Redroniksre]

Player housing doesn't kake the game more social. It does the exact opposite. It will make it even more anti-social when everyone is sitting alone in their instance just like WOD.

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But it isnt a stupid argument. All you pro-housing people claim that player housing will bring all kinds of new players and grow the game. Well, if that is so why didn't those games that died grow? It counters the pro-housing players arguments directly.

Player housing in every other MMO has proven that "People stay in their instance" is completely false. So no, it makes it more social and adds more fun things for guilds to do. Try again

[Destinas]

]

Blizzard actually has never ignored feedback. Not caving to every player who whines does not = ignoring feedback. People need to stop saying they ignore feedback because it id disingenuos and completely misuses the word.

Cool, that wasn't my point at all.

I never said anything about their feedback, I said they were slow to do things. They've gone back and forth about the idea for player housing for years. Now they've concretely said they want to do it, but they still want to take their time.

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Its always so confusing for me when someone claims to know what "most players" do in game.....It is just such an obviously made-up claim, with nothing to support it other than "thats what me and my friends do". Why cant people just say "me and my friends" instead of "most players", especially in a game that at one time had 10m+ players, its just such a weird claim to make.

Because I've played other MMOs with housing, and I've seen and asked people what they do. Most people were chatting about specific housing items, where to find them, how to make certain stuff, etc. People would advertise in towns or the housing chat for RP at times, but it wasn't what most people were talking about.

I'm not talking about me and my time personally. The fact is while RP absolutely does happen in housing systens, it isn't the main focus for most people in those games. Most people enjoy decorating their houses/plots and hanging out with other people.

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Also, imagine you own "slot #17" in your capital; what happens when you server transfer, and someone else owns "slot #17" on the new server?

Housing is instanced in MMOs. It usually comes in one of three ways.

1. It is an instanced location you take a boat/teleport to. It's an island or space of land that is your own to do what you want. Imagine going into an island expedition by yourself, but you can decorate it and there are no enemies. No one else occupies that space, but you could invite other people there.

2. There are houses around the world with separate phasing, like garrisons. They all exist in the same space, but uou phase into your instance when you get close to it.

3. There is a house or housing district in a city, with lots of houses. You cant change the outside usually, but if you can it appears a certain way for you and no one else. The inside is where all the decorating happens, which is instanced.

In all 3 scenarios, you would still have your plot/house in the same spot, even if you transferred servers. And, any multitudes of people could own the same house or plot.

[arkanon]

Because I've played other MMOs with housing, and I've seen and asked people what they do. Most people were chatting about specific housing items, where to find them, how to make certain stuff, etc. People would advertise in towns or the housing chat for RP at times, but it wasn't what most people were talking about.

I'm not talking about me and my time personally. The fact is while RP absolutely does happen in housing systens, it isn't the main focus for most people in those games. Most people enjoy decorating their houses/plots and hanging out with other people.
.

So you have literally NOTHING to support your claim other than "because i asked some people", and yet use words like "FACT". There is absolutely no reality where you asked "most people" what they enjoy, what they do. At most you MAYBE asked a few people who are already your friends (suggesting similar personalities and interests) and then made the gigantic leap from a few people, to literally millions of people. So ridiculous.