Here's how to do player housing

[Echo of Soul]

They gave us housing in WOD, we hated it so the scrapped it forever

[Lochton]

They gave us housing in WOD, we hated it so the scrapped it forever

The flaw was that it was modular, we didn't feel as free as we could. For me, I had no issue with it being tied to content, I'd be happy if I could earn things for housing by well, doing content, and not have it all locked at a vendor/shop.

[XDurionX]

Here's the only right way to do player housing in an MMO: Don't. Just go play the fucking sims if you need a dollhouse.

[Relapses]

Pardon me? One of the few times? I've been compensated gametime about 21 times in WoW's history and were given 3 days game time due to the Garrison at launch being broken...

Game time refunds were far more common when WoW was new and the servers were wildly unstable. The Garrison fiasco happened years after that had already been settled and they've yet to refund game time to all subscribed players since.

...that is about it but in the interview, there wasn't much joking about it to me, so either they don't have staff, or they don't have an interest. So, if it was a joke, then there is a fear that there is no interest in it, and if not, then the problem is staff. Though, with a massive infusion of new people from the purchase of a studio, maybe in the future.

Little bit of Column A, little bit of Column B.

They did say it's "on their radar," in the lead-up to DF so it's possible we can see it as an 11.0 feature. I expect we'll hear more about this at the next BlizzCon equivalent we get, whenever that is.

[schwank05]

Don't waste time or development on Housing, work on making Gameplay good, make classes like Mop classes again.

[Mecheon]

Here's the only right way to do player housing in an MMO: Don't. Just go play the fucking sims if you need a dollhouse.

Most of the fun of housing in an online MMO is showing stuff off to other people, whether design or trophies from hard stuff. Furniture like "Hey we killed this Mythic raid early and got this massive trophy to show off" or "I have spent eternal time fishing and now am displaying the rarest fish in an aquarium so that others do not need to suffer as I have"

You can't brag to someone on the Sims with stuff like that.

[Thirtyrock]

First, it has to be implemented in the subtlest of ways.

- Ponder an inn in a major city, ThunderBluff, Darnassus.
- Now, for example Stormwind. Imagine simply walking upstairs into a phased room. And that's it.
- Outside a window, you can see players on the patio below. But, all it is is a room.
- The player literally enters a small room with the design of that major city.
- Adjust the phasing so a Night Elf of Darnassus could have a view of the Commons area in Ironforge.
- The player can have their own book shelfs which is a visual for achievements, they can actually click on a bed to sleep on for resting experience.
- They can have banners on the wall, rugs, etc.
- This could affect many elements of the game: guilds, auction house, mailing.
- armor rack (affecting gear durability)

- Unlike (or like) garrisons, there is no customization of the building itself. That's inheritant to the city. No new textures, just those of the city.
- In this way, they're not isolating.
- It would bring races to their inheritent cities, also remember its phased.
- Most importantly, is that its a subtle addition.
- Less is more. Adding small features at the start and eventually adding some more.
- It could work as an integral part of the game if done right but not overdone.
- Not isolating players but expanding this always thought about place thats never been implemented and needs to the right way.

I have a few questions -
WHY do you want player housing? What benefit does it add to YOUR gameplay?
As someone who has never seen a need for player housing, what benefit would it add to MY gameplay?
How is this idea significantly different from setting your hearthstone to an inn in a major city?

[loras]

Most of the fun of housing in an online MMO is showing stuff off to other people, whether design or trophies from hard stuff. Furniture like "Hey we killed this Mythic raid early and got this massive trophy to show off" or "I have spent eternal time fishing and now am displaying the rarest fish in an aquarium so that others do not need to suffer as I have"

You can't brag to someone on the Sims with stuff like that.

Do you seriously think there is a sizeable audience for that? I have always regarded the epeen community as a bit of a fringe joke; people lacking perspective, not realising there is not really a thing worth bragging about in a game like WoW unless one intends to provide others with a good laugh.

They also never really seemed numerous either, often the same crowd for a long time on end.

Am i mistaken about their numbers?
I mean even collectors and raiders seem more common.

[Khaza-R]

They gave us housing in WOD, we hated it so the scrapped it forever

I don't think garrisons are really comparable. When people tend to ask for player housing they usually want it as a cosmetic-only system that they can pursue at their own leisure. Garrisons were essentially tied to player power in WoD and thus was a mandatory grind for most players.

[Mysterymask]

Do you seriously think there is a sizeable audience for that? I have always regarded the epeen community as a bit of a fringe joke; people lacking perspective, not realising there is not really a thing worth bragging about in a game like WoW unless one intends to provide others with a good laugh.

They also never really seemed numerous either, often the same crowd for a long time on end.

Am i mistaken about their numbers?
I mean even collectors and raiders seem more common.

Just to add on to your point...titles do that already in wow and you don't have to drag someone to an instanced area to say "hey I did that" in fact the novelty of that would wear off pretty quick

Housing works in Final Fantasy cause the roleplay community is large and you can hop servers at a whim thus the housing ends up turning to clubs, brothels, taverns and the like.

Wows community for that is a lot more slim....

[Kokolums]

Do you seriously think there is a sizeable audience for that? I have always regarded the epeen community as a bit of a fringe joke;

Oh yeah. epeen was a MAJOR driver of the expansion of WoW in Vanilla and BC. The raiding scene was BUILT around it. Only the epeen wasn't about collecting. It was about the status of your guild on the server. Take most servers, there would be ONE guild known as the #1 raiding guild on the server. They always topped progression. Everyone knew what guild that was. Your status symbol was your guild tag. If you were in that guild and wore that tag, that marked you as a player of significance. That was BIG stuff. Many knew who the #2 and #3 raiding guilds were as well. And there would be intense competition between them for server ranking. Guild #2 would wipe on a boss. They would hurry and prep fast while listening to rumors of progress by #1 and #3. Did they kill a boss and move up? Did they wipe? What's going on with the guild coming up at #5?

That was a HUUUUUUUGE part of the draw of WoW. You worked HARD to recruit new players and get them in the guild to push. You want to try to be #1 and you don't want to fall behind rival guilds. That helped Wow grow a LOT.

Nowadays, you raid, you kill stuff, or you wipe for weeks, no-one notices, you earn no status either way. Who cares? So people drift away from WoW. People argue raiding today is vastly better because mechanics are better and graphics are better. Psssh. It feels like a SHELL of what it once was. Raiding was RIVETING in Classic and BC. Now its extremely boring.

[cuafpr]

Please no to the OP's suggestion. Blizz just needs to take FF14's model and expand on it. Some non-instanced housing; sold at auction for those so inclined (and rich enough) and instanced housing for free (expand/upgrades via gold) for those that don't care if it's instanced or not.

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Do you seriously think there is a sizeable audience for that? I have always regarded the epeen community as a bit of a fringe joke; people lacking perspective, not realising there is not really a thing worth bragging about in a game like WoW unless one intends to provide others with a good laugh.

They also never really seemed numerous either, often the same crowd for a long time on end.

Am i mistaken about their numbers?
I mean even collectors and raiders seem more common.

Maybe not epeen but in FF14 there is a market for interior designers to design your home, and people pay to get into homes for parties and to see stuff so yeah there is a market.

[loras]

Oh yeah. epeen was a MAJOR driver of the expansion of WoW in Vanilla and BC. The raiding scene was BUILT around it. Only the epeen wasn't about collecting. It was about the status of your guild on the server. Take most servers, there would be ONE guild known as the #1 raiding guild on the server. They always topped progression. Everyone knew what guild that was. Your status symbol was your guild tag. If you were in that guild and wore that tag, that marked you as a player of significance. That was BIG stuff. Many knew who the #2 and #3 raiding guilds were as well. And there would be intense competition between them for server ranking. Guild #2 would wipe on a boss. They would hurry and prep fast while listening to rumors of progress by #1 and #3. Did they kill a boss and move up? Did they wipe? What's going on with the guild coming up at #5?

That was a HUUUUUUUGE part of the draw of WoW. You worked HARD to recruit new players and get them in the guild to push. You want to try to be #1 and you don't want to fall behind rival guilds. That helped Wow grow a LOT.

Nowadays, you raid, you kill stuff, or you wipe for weeks, no-one notices, you earn no status either way. Who cares? So people drift away from WoW. People argue raiding today is vastly better because mechanics are better and graphics are better. Psssh. It feels like a SHELL of what it once was. Raiding was RIVETING in Classic and BC. Now its extremely boring.

I played during those times and it's pretty much where i got the notion of "it was a limited crowd of a lot of the same people" from. Very few people, but very high in activity.

I remember some people caring about "status", but apart from the odd well known raider it was pretty much like it is now. I used to make a game out of trying to beat outgearing (& sometimes well known) opponents in duels, lots of fun. One was impressed enough that he gave me some gold for my epic flying and took me for a tour of Black Temple (which kinda sucked, but i didn't want to seem thankless). Now i didn't raid at all during those times as arena had made that obsolete to me, but it was a nice gesture and meant i could see what i otherwise would have ignored entirely.

Anyhoo i don't remember the status parts ever bleeding into the world to any extent, certainly not as much as team based cooperation did, arena drew in a lot of people and grew at the same time DotA gained steam, that really seemed to draw in new players. Warcraft 3 did too, as it was THE most popular e-sport game thingy at the time, and both TBC and WotLK interleaved with that stuff nicely.

Honestly to me you seem like you are indeed from that time, but no less weird in the present than you were back then. ^^'

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Just to add on to your point...titles do that already in wow and you don't have to drag someone to an instanced area to say "hey I did that" in fact the novelty of that would wear off pretty quick

Housing works in Final Fantasy cause the roleplay community is large and you can hop servers at a whim thus the housing ends up turning to clubs, brothels, taverns and the like.

Wows community for that is a lot more slim....

Good point, though honestly i rarely notice titles nowadays. It's usually more like "Oh hey that guy did that pretty impressively - oh, no wonder, he's done X and got that title.". For me it always takes interaction to notice someone, everbody looks like a weirdly-titled dragonriding christmas tree anyhow.

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Please no to the OP's suggestion. Blizz just needs to take FF14's model and expand on it. Some non-instanced housing; sold at auction for those so inclined (and rich enough) and instanced housing for free (expand/upgrades via gold) for those that don't care if it's instanced or not.

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Maybe not epeen but in FF14 there is a market for interior designers to design your home, and people pay to get into homes for parties and to see stuff so yeah there is a market.

Huh, an interior design market? Now that sounds like something.

[Jinpachi]

I don't recall where I ever implied otherwise. The post you quoted was an incredibly sarcastic dig at how we've desensitized ourselves to monetization so much that we're now pitching microtransactions as a benefit. If you can't see how that's maybe -- just maybe -- just a little bit bad then I don't know what to say. Turning a blind eye to this stuff is how we got here in the first place.

I'm not saying it's a benefit, I'm saying the buyer needs to be informed. There are no involuntary exchanges with these games, it's all consensual. An ignorant consumer is how we got here.

[Relapses]

I'm not saying it's a benefit, I'm saying the buyer needs to be informed. There are no involuntary exchanges with these games, it's all consensual. An ignorant consumer is how we got here.

You weren't -- but other people in the thread were which is why I made the comment I did. I'm well aware of the opt-in nature of the bad parts of capitalism. It's all death by a thousand cuts as developers push the envelope with what players will or will not pay for. And once they realize they can get away with it, they push the envelope ever-so-slightly further. WoW started with a subscription fee, something which is kind of fucked up in the first place. Then it added a store. Then it added the token. Then it added the ability to exchange the token for Battle.net balance. And now, here we are in 2022 with players pitching player housing with one of its benefits being, "think of all the store revenue it'll bring in!"

I digress. I'm not here to debate the pros and cons of capitalism. I think you took my first response which was pure sarcasm maybe a bit too seriously; but I did want to touch on it because it is worth discussing.

[Darkeon]

No matter what ideas you might have nor how good they might be, Blizzard washed their hands clear of Player Housing with the pathetic excuse that Garrisons were.

Sorta like giving up on Raids because Scenarios were dull and poorly received. But instead of raiders, with housing, it's Roleplayers who get the shortest stick and honestly, who cares about those anymore.

[Mecheon]

Do you seriously think there is a sizeable audience for that? I have always regarded the epeen community as a bit of a fringe joke; people lacking perspective, not realising there is not really a thing worth bragging about in a game like WoW unless one intends to provide others with a good laugh.

They also never really seemed numerous either, often the same crowd for a long time on end.

Am i mistaken about their numbers?
I mean even collectors and raiders seem more common.

Based on the utter savagery I've seen in FFXIV's housing market, based on the number of people who demand that things last available nearly two decades ago, to the point some players weren't even born when they were originally made available, no longer ever be made available, based on the fact housing in WoW has been requested ever since Vanilla, based on the number of people who insisted Mage Tower never return....

Yes. There is absolutely a market for this.

Housing taps into that social community aspect of WoW which, frankly, is something that always needs a bit of a boost given the absolute hits its had, along with prospects for hitting the collector and raiding community. Its basically another outlet for people to express themselves in the game and go "This is mine". Its ultimately as pointless to the overall game as transmog, character customisation, or having different mount appearances, sure, but its something for people to go "This is My Character". Another way for folks to be expressive and get immersed in the game. Plus, well, you can go and look at the Dark Ranger threads to see how much just a minor skin can mean to people.

Its ultimately an immersion thing. Immersion's a big reason why Boralus and Dazar'alor are considered better cities than the donut that is Oribus. Just a reason for people to play a bit longer. Pointless if all people care about is clearing mythics, but it gives them something to do outside of that

[arkanon]

Based on the utter savagery I've seen in FFXIV's housing market, based on the number of people who demand that things last available nearly two decades ago, to the point some players weren't even born when they were originally made available, no longer ever be made available, based on the fact housing in WoW has been requested ever since Vanilla, based on the number of people who insisted Mage Tower never return....

Yes. There is absolutely a market for this.

Housing taps into that social community aspect of WoW which, frankly, is something that always needs a bit of a boost given the absolute hits its had, along with prospects for hitting the collector and raiding community. Its basically another outlet for people to express themselves in the game and go "This is mine". Its ultimately as pointless to the overall game as transmog, character customisation, or having different mount appearances, sure, but its something for people to go "This is My Character". Another way for folks to be expressive and get immersed in the game. Plus, well, you can go and look at the Dark Ranger threads to see how much just a minor skin can mean to people.

Its ultimately an immersion thing. Immersion's a big reason why Boralus and Dazar'alor are considered better cities than the donut that is Oribus. Just a reason for people to play a bit longer. Pointless if all people care about is clearing mythics, but it gives them something to do outside of that

This argument needs to stop. The whole "its popular in this different game so it would absolutely be popular in wow" argument doesnt make any sense at all. There are a lot of things popular in one game that would not be popular in another. Drifting competitions are really popular in Forza - but i really dont think F1 sims should add a drifting competition. Vehicles are very popular in Battlefield, but i dont think they should add attack helis to counterstrike. Intentionally outlandish examples to prove a point - just because it is popular in one game does not mean it would be popular in wow.

People play wow because they like wow, and people play FF14 because they like FF14. Is there some overlap? sure. Is it absolute? Absolutely not.

[Raven]

First, it has to be implemented in the subtlest of ways.

- Ponder an inn in a major city, ThunderBluff, Darnassus.
- Now, for example Stormwind. Imagine simply walking upstairs into a phased room. And that's it.
- Outside a window, you can see players on the patio below. But, all it is is a room.
- The player literally enters a small room with the design of that major city.
- Adjust the phasing so a Night Elf of Darnassus could have a view of the Commons area in Ironforge.
- The player can have their own book shelfs which is a visual for achievements, they can actually click on a bed to sleep on for resting experience.
- They can have banners on the wall, rugs, etc.
- This could affect many elements of the game: guilds, auction house, mailing.
- armor rack (affecting gear durability)

- Unlike (or like) garrisons, there is no customization of the building itself. That's inheritant to the city. No new textures, just those of the city.
- In this way, they're not isolating.
- It would bring races to their inheritent cities, also remember its phased.
- Most importantly, is that its a subtle addition.
- Less is more. Adding small features at the start and eventually adding some more.
- It could work as an integral part of the game if done right but not overdone.
- Not isolating players but expanding this always thought about place thats never been implemented and needs to the right way.

Maybe thats your version, but for me, if they add such light version i rather they dont add it at all, if they add player housing i want them to go all in with carpenter profession and everything, a tiny 1 room shack at the start which you can upgrade to a multi room mansion with a big barn for mounts in the end,

[Kokolums]

I've said this many times before over the years. The BEST version of player's changing the game world I've seen is a museum. The first guild to kill x on the server gets a statue in their honor. These statues can be raided and drop loot. They will differ on every server. I'm sure its too much work for the coders to bother tho.

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I played during those times and it's pretty much where i got the notion of "it was a limited crowd of a lot of the same people" from. Very few people, but very high in activity.

No. there was WAY more people playing WoW in vanilla and BC than today. its not close.