A stupid thought occurs to me as possibly the best way to introduce player housing as ‘Evergreen Content’ while also tying them into the story of our Mega-Factions is to make them both a player’s house (a single or small group of buildings) and place them near a valuable resource (mine, farm, lumber plantation, oil well, fishing boat, trading post or similar).
Players can make their house off of any Racial Building currently in-game, but the cost is Stone, Lumber, Ore, Resources and Gold. Mines produce Stone and Ore, Farms and Fishing Boats produce a lot of Resources (food), Lumber Plantations produce Lumber and Resources, Trading Posts produce small amounts of all of them, Guard Towers produce small amounts of all of them, Oil Wells produce small amounts of Oil and occasionally Ore, etc. Players can also receive ‘Radiant Quests’ to go and gather resources from around the world, using the Dungeon Follower system to go and re-visit old Dungeons that are scaled up to the player’s current level, at normal difficulty, and accquire caches of certain types of materials required to make and maintain buildings.
For example, Horde players might be sent to investigate a strange burst of alien, and carnivorous, plant-life exploding out of the Wailing Caverns, only to find a bitter feud between the Botani that came through with the Mag’har from the alternate Draenor, and more … ‘moderate’ … Druids of Fang who are willing to parlay with the adventurer, IF they can remove the parasitic plants which have already consumed and puppeted several of their number and are producing bizarre half-serpent, half-plant monstrosities to spread their influence through-out the Wailing Caverns, and if the Botani can tap into whatever strange energies lurk beneath the Wailing Caverns, possibly all of northern Kalimdor as well.
Defeating the Botani and their servants nets the players the resource cache they were after, some visually-upgraded versions of the old gear that dropped in the Dungeon, possibly new pets and/or a mount, and gives the player insight into what’s been happening while they’ve been away.
For the Alliance, they might need to head into the old Defias stronghold beneath Moonbrook, where Vanessa VanCleef needs their aid dismantling a would-be group of slavers and smugglers who have been kidnapping the locals, Humans and Gnolls alike, with reckless abandon and what guards remain in the area are hard-pressed to keep the ‘loyalist’ settlements and farms safe.
Digging through the caverns and a refurbished Destroyer, which Vanessa sheepishly mentions was supposed to be a gift to Turalyon as an expression of her Defias’s change in direction, players uncover a plot by a secretive group within Stormwind itself, implicating several highly-placed officials, Nobles and even some members of the Faith of the Holy Light, in running experiments on ‘Light Binding’ rebels and inhuman prisoners, and mentions that their ‘mentor’ requires more test subjects to test her theories on, and that ‘The Great Uplifting’ requires a steady hand and unflinching will.
Troubled, the players push on and find the slavers are actually Scarlet Crusaders, and the smugglers belong to the ‘Old’ Defias who refused to stop their descent into outright villainy instead of their crusade against the corrupt Nobles of Stormwind, and most distressingly, the overall leader is a Light-Forged Draenei who immolates themselves in an explosion of Light and fire rather than be taken alive, and as the player and Vanessa swing to safety off of the ship’s burning, shattered deck, the Rogue tells the player she has leads to follow and people to beat answers out of, but this time, she needs Shaw and Flynn to help her, but for the player to stay ready.
This is not over yet …
The Palworld aspect comes from being able to hire, find, recruit or beat NPCs into helping you, either offering them a home, a challenge, a well paying job or a way to pay off a debt they may owe to you or somebody else. Certain NPCs might only be available if you have a specific profession or gathering skill. Others could be custom-crafted by the players, finally filling in the ‘gap’ of where the players came from or who they grew up with. Blizzard could also introduce new Champion NPCs to us as hirelings or students who show up to learn and, after some time, begin to head out to carve their own names into the history of Azeroth, with our help, guidance and supplies of course.
Being non-Expansion specific also means the Player House and the attached ‘resource farm’ can remain Ever Green Content, never being intrinsically tied to any single MacGuffinite expansion gimmick or resource, just Food/Resources, Lumber, Stone, Ore and Oil, with players supplying the Gold to pay for all the labourers and other expenses. It can become content that players tackle in their down time and in luls between expansions or patches, and a place to show off their trophies and accomplishments.
Hell, flag it up for PvP and challenge 1v1 with your Character and their NPC companions against an ‘invading’ Player and their NPC Companions. Or make it really spicy and go for a 5v5, or 5v5v5. Invaders get to make off with a portion of your supplies if they win. If you win, you get a portion of theirs.
So what are your thoughts?