Another Player Housing Wishlist

Community General Discussion
1

Player Housing has been the only feature I’ve cared about since… Legion? So, I wanted to write my wishlist for Player Housing in the event that Blizzard is seeking feedback.

In general, this is a pretty solid concept:
Player Designs Super Detailed Player Housing Concept - Community Spotlight

Since I read somewhere that Blizzard was looking for what we might like, and also what we don’t want, I’ll be listing wants and avoids. So, there will be some redundancy.

Other Games
If you’re looking for positive or negative inspiration:

  1. Good Examples: Runescape Classic, Palia, Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire Secret Bases, Wildstar, Star Wars the Old Republic
  2. Bad Examples: Final Fantasy XIV

Must Haves
These are kinda the “core” of the feature, and it would feel bad without them.

  1. Each character has their own house. Just like we had our own garrisons, each character should be able to make their own house. Or, at least, give us 10 or so houses per account.
  2. Must be able to decorate and place furniture.
  3. Housing should be instanced. It’s okay to have an instance shown in the open world, but I shouldn’t be competing with other players for a house, or having other players run into my house. If housing is in the open world, then it should phase me to my house once I get close.
  4. You should be able to visit other player’s houses. Like Garrisons, whomever is the group lead is the owner of the house you visit.
  5. Please have multiple styles of houses available. Please do not just give us human and orc houses. I hate both of those styles. Even though having custom houses for each race would be nice, honestly… if you just picked out big houses that already exist for each race, that’d be fine. As a Nelf main, like… we have already got plenty of buildings that I’d happily decorate and turn into a home.

Please Haves
These are very, very high on my want list, but not necessarily feature-spoiling if they aren’t included.

  1. Multiple locations. Maybe even open world locations. This can definitely be expanded overtime.
  2. A collections tab for furniture, similar to transmogging, would be very convenient.
  3. Place furniture with a reticle. Basically, select it from the collections tab, you get a reticle pop up. That works best for stuff on the floor. For stuff that goes on the wall, maybe there can be walls with locations for selecting items.
  4. Furniture comes from multiple sources, including and especially professions.
  5. It’s okay for this to be almost entirely cosmetic, with limited if any functionality.

Nice to Haves
These would make it better, but they’re just fluff. I’d like to see them, but I’m not getting super excited.

  1. It’d be nice if there was a player house in major zones. Maybe one house per zone. If you made your house in that zone, it’d always show up as yours. If a BNET friend or Guild Mate had a house in a zone where your house wasn’t, then it showed one of theirs. Otherwise, it showed a random player’s house in that zone. You could maybe walk up to the house and select a specific player’s house to show there, if you wanted. But, if that was implemented, you should definitely make it so whoever’s house is displayed has to approve that their house be displayed at that location for the requesting player.
  2. ADDED: Let us decorate the yards too!
  3. ADDED: Holiday decorations would be super fun! :smiley:
  4. Being able to make a custom neighborhood could be nice? Like, if you could link your house to others and make a big, sprawling neighborhood? Sounds complicated.
  5. Inviting certain alts to your house as NPCs could be cool? Maybe even give them custom dialogue?
  6. We don’t want Garrisons again, so don’t give us everything, but maybe the player can select one or two functional items? Like pick two from the list of: mailbox, herb garden, profession bench, auction house, crafting order request form, portal hub, etc.
  7. Being able to pick the music would be nice. Maybe even pick the music for different times of day.
  8. ADDED: Being able to select the weather and other ambiance would also be great! Like the weather toys.
  9. A hearthstone to your house could be good? I don’t know. It might be better to force players to either fly to a specific place in the open world or go to their house through a portal in a major city. But, hearthing to your home, and having to leave to go to the major city could be fine too? I dunno.
  10. I don’t really feel the need to build a custom house? It’d be neat if we could make our own houses, a la Runescape, but… eh? Again, I’d be totally fine if y’all just gave us a selection of pre-made houses, and we chose from a list, as long as its a diverse list.
  11. Let our battle pets or mounts run around or have stables?

Onto the “what not to do”. Again, there’s some redundancy here for the sake of being perfectly clear.

Must Avoids
I wouldn’t necessarily call it “dead on arrival” if these were implemented, but it would certainly sour the feature.

  1. Do not make a limited number of houses for the community, a la Final Fantasy XIV. My friends that play FFXIV are constantly complaining about that system, and it seems miserable. Specifically, I am referring to there only being a limited number of houses per realm/server, and players having to roulette bid on getting them.
  2. Do not only give us one house per account. If you can’t make one housing set-up for each character, then at least give us a healthy number of houses for each account: like 10 or 20. I’m a roleplayer, and I want to be able to make a house for each of my main RP characters.

Please Avoids
These would make it far less enjoyable, but I could live with them assuming they got better in the future.

  1. Please do not just give us human and orc housing, a la Garrisons. Please. I hate both of those styles, so, so much. At minimum, one style of house per every core race. Even if you just start with the Classic Races with the intent to add more later, that’d be fine. Again, I’d be okay with y’all using pre-existing house models.
  2. Please do not give us Garrisons. The worst things about garrisons was that they gave you everything. You had no reason to leave the garrison, because you could mine, herb, craft, and queue inside there. No mission table. No quests there. You can do a few things in your house, but mostly, you should have to go out into the world to do 95+% of stuff. It’s okay if housing is primarily cosmetic.

Anyways, that’s my wishlist to add to the plethora of others. Thanks for reading!

EDIT: Added a few ideas from comments. Moved “Multiple Styles” from “Please Have” to “Must Have”.

6 Likes
2

Love the recognition that you gave to this. I prefer Runescape 2, but those devs had a solid idea of what to do for player housing.

1 Like
3

I haven’t played Runescape 2! But, I played Runescape before discovering WoW, and I have good… maybe not memories. Kinda too vague for that lol More like… nostalgic vibes. Folks had a portal that took you to your home, which was instanced off. You could go to other people’s home’s… somehow? And you added rooms to the house by collecting raw materials? I can’t remember how lol But, it was good.

For WoW, I liked that there was a common portal folks had to go to to get to their house, so there was always a crowd outside that. Then, you could build a house by adding different rooms, so that was neat. And, ofc, you could decorate how you wanted, more or less lol Man, I really can’t remember specifics lol

4

It’s a shame that FFXIV’s house purchasing is so atrocious because the actual housing system is really good.

Having to do a lottery for a limited number of houses and then having to maintain a monthly sub or your house gets deleted ruins the entire system.

2 Likes
5

You’re not going to mention Ultima Online?

That game not only gave you the freedom to create items to place in the house, but also a feature to completely customize the building it’s self.

1 Like
6

This is less of a nice to have and more of a must have for me. Knowing that I could only have a human house again after having a human garrison would kill almost all of my excitement for the feature.

1 Like
7

I had forgotten about that one! Truth be told, I hadn’t played all of the games that I listed above, or even personally used their housing system. I just know that Wildstar is mentioned all time. Come to think of it, Ultima Online rings a bell from those conversations, but idek what it is lol

Yeah. Honestly, for me, it was straddling the fence between “Must Have” and “Please Have”, which is why I listed it as #1 on my “Please Haves”. I’m an Alliance main, and with the Stormwind Human aesthetic just being “generic fantasy”, I can easily ignore that it’s “human” aesthetic and pretend it’s just a “generic house”. Not so easy to say for my few Horde characters, none of who really fit the orc aesthetic. At all. If they just gave us human houses, I would be pretty sour, but I could live with it.

8

I just want my own mage tower that’s a mix of warlock assets with an enchanting table and my minions working as my servants. You know guarding

1 Like
9

It would be great to have your friends come and join you for a tra party in your house

2 Likes
10

I hope that we get a yard, nothing huge, but enough to have a favorite mount and vanity pet and possibly a toggle for different weather while I’m planting a few flowers/crops (no, I don’t want to go to valley of the four winds plot area).

Professions… I’d love to see many professions get patterns/designs to sell for player houses. Perhaps tailors could create curtains, rugs. Leatherworking, a hammock, wall hanging, etc. Going a bit off deep-end now, but what about a new profession: woodworking. Could chop trees, make frames/paintings, beds, tables, etc.

Our old selfie toy: perhaps we could have a new feature added to it, to take photos of our favorite spots, add those photos to a woodworker’s wood picture frame to hang on our walls.

Ideas are endless lol. Not sure if the devs could execute them, but it’s sure fun for me to think about. I’m really excited about player housing and, like many, have been wishing for it for so many years :slight_smile:

Editing to add: holiday-themed home decor! Halloween, Christmas… yes!

1 Like
11

Very easy to do, and I’ll be sorely disappointed if this isn’t met.

Could do racial houses, zone inspired houses, class inspired houses, IRL styles (craftsman, log cabin etc), houses within main cities, and maybe even profession inspired houses. The bare bones of the home have so many creative avenues to entertain, especially in a fantasy game.

This game is kind of a meme at this point, but Wizard101 has the best player housing I’ve seen. Each character has multiple houses (instanced) and you choose one to be your active house. It’s easy to switch between them. They have dozens on dozens of different estates and styles, like underwater, in the clouds, neat stuff. That game has raised the bar for player housing for me.

2 Likes
12

I’d like some of my battle pets running around .

A 3 mount garage would be awesome .

I love your idea of alts chilling somewhere inside .

A fridge where you can autostore all your cooking stuff and a stove to cook with .

I’m curious to see what actually makes it in .

2 Likes
13

I put this in another thread. For me it would be in the Please Have category:

AMBIANCE!
I want to be able to change the ambiance while inside. Imagine a fierce storm outside, wind and rain lashing at the windows, but you are safe and warm next to a roaring fire. Now imagine a sunny morning, birds chirping outside. Somewhere in the distance you can hear village noises. Sunlight comes in through a stained glass window, spreading color across the room. Now imagine a dreary drizzle outside. The floor boards creak as you walk. A ticking clock echoes in the old house. A gnomish music box quietly plays a sweet but creepy melody.

Essentially you can either experience changes in weather while in your home that are more pronounced (e.g. if it’s raining in the zone then it’s downpouring while inside your house). or you can choose to change the weather from your point of view while in your house. More immersive sounds, and objects create sounds, though with a mute button. So you can have a crackling fire, or you can mute it if you don’t like the sound.

2 Likes
14

Oh man! I totally forgot about a yard. Yeah! That’d be sick as hell. Definitely on my “please” list now.

Absolutely needed.

YOOOOO! I love it. They have the weather-machine toys? Like, imagine if you had a node in your house where you could set the weather. I’d be… Yeah. That’d be amazing.

1 Like