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

[Sauredfangs]

They said player housing would take several expansions. Maybe they can start in a patch where they can introduce player housing to Stormwind and Orgrimmar first, then spread it out to the rest of the world in another expansion. 2nd phase would be Thunderbluff, Ironforge, Silvermoon, Exodar. Then third phase they can update the old and introduce housing there, like in an expansion maybe.

Maybe first phase introduce a carpentry for the furniture first and current dungeons and raids. Then to time walking older dungeons and raids. If that's all too big in a patch, maybe a prepatch or beggining of expansion then add the later phases in patches.

[XDurionX]

Or they could just use those ressources for something useful.

[Lochton]

Or they could just use those ressources for something useful.

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

[XDurionX]

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

Well, there are games with housing, why not play those then? Maybe housing is not that interesting?

[thunderdragon2]

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

i really dont understand why people want this so much, i personally think development costs would just be to high to justify it expecily when we would be spending 80%+ of our time in the dragon isles

[Moojhito]

Well, there are games with housing, why not play those then? Maybe housing is not that interesting?

Housing is interesting to some , as of the raids , they could give us housing with smaller raids perhaps, 1-4 bosses and housing in the first tier of next expansion

[derien]

How about no?

[unbound]

Or they could just use those ressources for something useful.

$2.2 billion in profits company (2020 alone) can *easily* afford to do both.

WoW itself (unless you think Blizz is lying to us) makes up a major portion of that profit. Therefore, they can give us a *lot* more content (including housing) and still be wildly profitable.

Stop accepting the implied nonsense that Blizz can only afford to do the handful of things that they do now.

[Celement]

I can see the difficulties of making a housing system... most wow assets are all over the place quality wise to the point some expect to be in certain lighting conditions. It isnt a small task to rework all of that for what is essentially a private shrine.

[ellieg]

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.

[DechCJC]

Well, there are games with housing, why not play those then? Maybe housing is not that interesting?

Well, there are games with PvP, why not play those then?

Well, there are games with pet battles, why not play those then?

Well, there are games with group gameplay, why not play those then?

???

Housing isn't a foreign concept to MMORPGs. I would personally take housing over a raid tier, though obviously that won't happen.

[Agrossive]

i really dont understand why people want this so much, i personally think development costs would just be to high to justify it expecily when we would be spending 80%+ of our time in the dragon isles

Why can't they hire more ppl instead of taking people from current teams?

[DechCJC]

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 schematics for the housing would come from the world; Achievements. The time spent in the actual house would be minimal. If anything, it would give players a reason to get out in to the world more than before, time where they would have instead just afk'd in a city.

I get not caring about it, but why do people have to be so hostile towards people that want it? I play all aspects of this game and have always wanted housing, I just think it's a super fun part of MMO's and it's one of the FEW MMO's that hasn't done it yet.

[Alroxas]

They said player housing would take several expansions.

There are too many issues with player housing.

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.

Second, consider exterior moderation. Assuming that player housing would be fully customizable both externally and internally then you can get some real eye-sores if folks wanted to Troll others. Or they could use their housing to reflect their political opinions for everyone to see. Who is to judge that you can't use Blue and Yellow colors on the exterior of your player house?

Third, consider the engine itself. WoW isn't built to be a decoration/house simulator where you can freely rotate and place items in the game world. We're talking a massive rewrite of the game (or at least portions of the game code). It would be easier to build a new MMO with those features included from the ground floor than to try to mangle 15+ year old code to handle it.

Fourth, resource allocation is always a factor. Yes Activision-Blizzard pulls in a lot of money from subs, but that money has to pay for everything from servers to devs to yes even the CEO (and shareholders). The return on investment must be high enough for the resources allocated if player housing to really be developed. So put it in this way to the player base, what are you willing to give up for player housing in an xpac? Are you willing to have ZERO dungeons? ZERO raids? ZERO new places to explore? ZERO new armor sets/weapon designs/mounts/battle pets? Are players willing to pay $60 and a 1 1/2 year's worth of sub cost just for player housing? Ok ZERO is extreme but how about fewer by at least half as much of those content areas.

- - - Updated - - -

Why can't they hire more ppl instead of taking people from current teams?

Hiring more people actually can be a bad thing as team size grows efficiency goes down. Corporate bureaucracy starts creeping in as you need to add in folks to not only oversee the work but to review it all to make sure that it all works.

And then when someone wants to make a change to something (anything) it has to be passed up the chain before it can be acted upon.

[Radaney]

Never understood WoW players against housing.

Yeh why add social and personality systems which is why most people even started playing this genre to begin with, and the reason WoWs biggest competitor is getting bukake'd in subscriptions and players when you can keep communicating solely through a number on raider.io

'Why not do something useful?'

Like the same shit they've been doing past 5 years that has killed a majority of the playerbase? That kinda something useful?

Yeh why try something new when they could just keep doing that.

Funny how they never mention what 'something useful' is specifically because they have no fucking idea.

Dragonriding is a good start, something for casuals i.e the vast majority of the millions of players that you'd want playing this game instead of catering to the 50 people raiding in mythic and the cringe ass heroic andies who have big ego's for no reason.

[Sauredfangs]

There are too many issues with player housing.

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.

Second, consider exterior moderation. Assuming that player housing would be fully customizable both externally and internally then you can get some real eye-sores if folks wanted to Troll others. Or they could use their housing to reflect their political opinions for everyone to see. Who is to judge that you can't use Blue and Yellow colors on the exterior of your player house?

Third, consider the engine itself. WoW isn't built to be a decoration/house simulator where you can freely rotate and place items in the game world. We're talking a massive rewrite of the game (or at least portions of the game code). It would be easier to build a new MMO with those features included from the ground floor than to try to mangle 15+ year old code to handle it.

Fourth, resource allocation is always a factor. Yes Activision-Blizzard pulls in a lot of money from subs, but that money has to pay for everything from servers to devs to yes even the CEO (and shareholders). The return on investment must be high enough for the resources allocated if player housing to really be developed. So put it in this way to the player base, what are you willing to give up for player housing in an xpac? Are you willing to have ZERO dungeons? ZERO raids? ZERO new places to explore? ZERO new armor sets/weapon designs/mounts/battle pets? Are players willing to pay $60 and a 1 1/2 year's worth of sub cost just for player housing? Ok ZERO is extreme but how about fewer by at least half as much of those content areas.

I like your points. To me I've always seen housing as only customizable inside. I'd say there would be like 6 slots with different interior each which are instanced. So to me I imagine that people would pick which version of the housing they want and people would be able to pick those houses too. Also I imagine there could be apartments which are like buildings with instanced rooms for people who cant afford a house. Maybe that would have like 5 slots.

I think to me player housing incentivizes people to explore the whole world, I think people would love to do that. There are already a ton of places in WoW, think of games like gta v or skyrim where people just keep playing the game as long as there are content in them. I think player housing can do that for the old world. Plus look at people playing classic, they don't mind repeating the old world.

Edit: Maybe even a little less than 6, more could be added later. Also check out my ideas in my signature, those ideas could also help people play in the whole world.

[Eosia]

Why would they need to roll it out in phases like that? They already have the underlying technology that they developed starting with Sunsong Ranch and our Garrisons in Frostfire Ridge and Shadowmoon Valley. All they need to do is build assets and design the implementation. It's the latter that is going to take them the longest time to do. What zones will be available to place housing in? What spot in these zones will the phasing be? Or will it be a portal to an instance like the PvP buildings in SW and Org initially were?

Not to mention that concentrating people in Stormwind and Orgrimmar only will probably wreck havoc with the servers. Granted the servers are much more beefed up than back then, but this is why Crystalsong Forest in Northrend has virtually no content in it... Dalaran sucked the resources up. Hence why Dalaran hovers over the water instead of any zone in the Broken Isles.

The initial testing of garrisons what an absolute crap show during WoD testing. It took 5+ minutes to plant the banner that kicked it off in one of the passes. Those were a disappointment too because they had to scale back from the initial advertised features. For example, we're stuck with Human and Orc structures. We were originally supposed to be able to have building styles of any of the base races we wanted.

Since they plan on doing it, they need to get it right without any half-assed implementations like you suggest just to get players in it. They definitely do not want another dance studio on their hands. People need to stop rushing them.

[Alanar]

What they told us.. is basically what most of the people here already knew or suspected.

*it will take a lot of time( to do it right uhum)
*it will take al ot of resources which could be better spend imo

It really doesnt seem worth it and then there is still the question.. what are you even doing in your house? Do dishes?
It will not be appealing for everyone. For such a undertaking other things will suffer is what many are afraid of who dont care for housing.

[Naramag]

I wholeheartly want playerhousing. I want it yesterday.

But how will it work? As Alroxas said, non instance houses need a place in the world. And then there is the question, who will you make sure, nobody can vandalize it? How can it work to invite others?
If you use instances, will there be only rooms, or will there be houses? I personally think, it must be houses, to show the design and certain decorating.

Personally, I would love instanced houses and craftable decorations, as well as certain decorations you can get from mobs or even old and new raids and instances. And please, not just orcish and human design. I want to choose any design of any race.

But I absolutely understand it, when they say the want it, but don't want to f*ck it up. Better they take a long time instead of making something like garrisons again.

[willtron]

$2.2 billion in profits company (2020 alone) can *easily* afford to do both.

WoW itself (unless you think Blizz is lying to us) makes up a major portion of that profit. Therefore, they can give us a *lot* more content (including housing) and still be wildly profitable.

Stop accepting the implied nonsense that Blizz can only afford to do the handful of things that they do now.

9 women cant have a baby in a month. Some things just inherently can't be pushed out because they have money and resources.