Silvermoon is my house. But of course, Blizz is going to bulldoze it down and probably plant an Alliance castle in its place
Lucky for me, I can always take over one of the billion homes in WoW. Actually of thinking to make that Night Elf fortress in Feralas mine.
Tell them to go live at their new tree.
WoW had âGarrisonsâ back in the day, and that was just fine.
They should be able to do âplayer housingâ using that same system, at the least, and just make it so itâs not a âgarrisonâ but âhousingâ-focused. Thatâd be cool.
They have one: they tried it and discovered that players in general care more about the social element, and that the game wasnât ever designed with player housing in mind.
But Ion has openly informed us that they want to take another crack at it. But that it is also immensely more difficult than any other MMO because WoW is that damn popular. So designing a system meant to be effective on a personal level to deliver what people want is⌠tricky to say the least. Because it cannot do any of the following things:
Iâm gonna stop here, but do understand⌠this is not anywhere near what an exhaustive list of all the issues that need to be solved before they even attempt it again. They have mentioned it in interviews at this point, so it is clear as day that they have a team working on trying to solve these things either full-time or part-time. So it is plausible that we might see it within a few years, maybe even before the end of the Worldsoul Saga?
I wouldnât keep my hopes up though since thereâs A LOT that needs to be fixed to make it work, and WoW ainât designed with any of those things in mind. But I will say this much ⌠it is entirely possible that the Warband feature of TWW was one of the updates they needed to make in order to make it work, think âOne house per accountâ rather than what, again, Garrisons were where each individual character had their own Garrison.
So they are working on it⌠but this idea of âthey have no excuseâ is beyond laughably wrong.
We had âPlayer housingâ WoW didnt do it so well.
Wildstar had housing fixed almost a decade ago. (RIP Wildstar⌠Yes I know private servers exist lol)
Still some of the best housing in an MMO Iâve seen because they give you a sizable chuck of land to just build on. Sure they are instanced but if yours is unlocked for the public anyone could swing by.
FFXIVâs housing is not good. You literally have to use bugs and exploits (non banable ones but they are what they are) to really make use of their system when decorating.
So if anything I would prefer something like Wildstar
fixed that for you
They do for houses but not for apartments as far as Iâm aware. I canât see how they could ever get rid of it for houses given that thereâs a limited number of them and if they were all taken up by inactive players thatâd be no good.
They can just straight up copy EQâs system. Allows for some fun and freestyle customizations. They can reuse assets from the rest of the game and tie them to achievements, crafting and drops. Imagine doing Hellfire loremaster and getting a bunch of Fel Reaver parts to put in your house.
Fix existing weapon models to be âplaceableâ in the house.
I donât think it would be that difficult. I have an established house in EQ right now and it was a lot of fun to make. And Iâm speaking about a game with a fraction of WoWâs resources that pulled it off.
Yeah see, hereâs the problem with FFXIVâs housing system.
If you want a house, and I mean an actual house not an apartment, you not only need to get really lucky and have a ton of gil to purchase and build it, but then youâre trapped in the game if you want to keep it. Because what FFXIV does is if you havenât gone into the interior of your house for 45 days, they bulldoze it to free that housing lot up for other players to purchase.
45 days. Thatâs not even 2 months.
So once youâve got a house, unless you want to lose it? Youâre playing FFXIV forever. Until they shut down the servers at any rate.
That, to me, is disgraceful. Especially since absolutely no other MMO with a housing system does this. ESO, GW2, RIFT, SWTOR etc. Once you purchase a house in those games (or are given one in the case of GW2) itâs yours forever. You can leave the game for 2, 3, 6 or even 12 months or more and when you come back, your house will be there just the same way you left it. Thereâs no entrapment.
Hell, even though WoW doesnât have player housing in the way other MMOs have, what it does offer in the form of garrisons itâs still better than the forced entrapment of the FFXIV housing system.
That still has all the issues I had with FF14âs housing when I last looked into the game.
These are games, I donât want to feel pressured to log in, lest I lose something.
Iâm sure it has its benefits, but it definitely isnât the style of housing I want in WoW.
This was largely due to a combination of the mission table in WoD encouraging regularly returning to your Garrison thanks to relatively short mission times and the ability to build a number of amenities within the Garrison that discouraged going out into the world to access said amenities.
Neither of which are things players tend to want with player housing and are instead symptoms of Blizzard making Garrisonâs an expansion feature of WoD instead of an evergreen system.
This is false. Player housing doesnât need anything like that. It doesnât usually in other MMOs and sees plenty of engagement. WoW players arenât some unique breed of customer.
People generally donât want player power tied to player housing. Player housing is an avenue for activity players can engage in outside of player power - just like Pets and Pet Battles are.
It can actually tie into professions, giving people another thing they can specialize into and make gold off using the professions that are already in the game. Itâs not all that hard to think of things a blacksmith, leatherworker, tailor etc. might be able to make that could be used to furnish a house.
Garrisonâs show that WoW can, at the least, provide points that you can select and slot options into. Just have that be areas within a âhouseâ instead of separate buildings.
Also, this is an RPG - customisation is sort of part and parcel with the genre.
This seems disingenuous.
Player housing isnât some mysterious unknown entity. Blizzard arenât breaking ground here. There are plenty of systems they can use for inspiration - as theyâve done with plenty of the other systems theyâve introduced into the game.
No argument needs to be made here. This is nonsense.
I donât recall the main criticisms of Garrisonâs being that they were phased. We could drag people into our Garrison, which seemed to be plenty for most people.
The main criticisms of Garrisons when it comes to them being âplayer housingâ was the fact that they had limited customisation options and werenât really housing.
Outside of the player housing aspect, it was the aforementioned issue with the mission table and other aspects that encouraged spending too much time inside of the Garrison.
To be frank, that list wasnât meaningful in any way.
They could have the plots be "phased, that way players can just choose a location that suits them and then get their own version of it.
Granted, I donât know if thatâs possible within FF14. It is possible within WoW though.
Hmmm⌠if only there was a game you could play with housing so you werent stuck somewhere without it. 
Thatâs honestly great for FFXIV if they let you do that with apartments. The wording makes it sound like there is potential for it to be housing plot specific and not include apartments.
That said, Housing in that game is also inherently a somewhat social thing. You see your neighbors and stuff. And thatâs an aspect you basically miss out on entirely by not having a physical outdoor plot (on top of the obvious downside of just not having an exterior to decorate for fun).
So while I think the solution theyâre using is solid in a vacuum, itâs still not perfect, and in the context of FFXIV itâs still less than ideal.
Itâs all instanced anyway. No reason to restrict it in the way they do.
And if there is a reason, then itâs just an incredibly poorly designed / coded game.
Competing over plots and paying surcharges sounds like a step backwards from garrisons.
The game has trouble with gathering nodes, resetting weekly quests and general storage. No chance housing would work.
And in EQ2 housing was kinda useless, just like its useless in FF. The only game that i have seen housing actually be part of core gameplay was SWG and even there it was a mess with dealing with harvesters.
In the end its adds nothing to the gameplay and is a pointless feature.
i play ff14 and yes this is an improvement but they STILL only have houses for less than 10% of the population, so so much for the âsolved player housing problemâ come on now
EQ2 and I believe Rift as well. Both gave players full XYZ axis control within an instanced housing area, leading to all sorts of creativity. People who donât know what housing would provide, have clearly never felt the pure joy of creation within those games.
Several popular styles off the top of my head I saw:
Sculptures. Using furniture and objects to create other objects like big dragon sculptures, new furniture or new homes.
Mazes (a classic building bit of fun) and jumping puzzles.
âWhodunitâ style homes. The house has a story or mystery that is shown with created scenes. (EQ2 allowed players to write books, cards, placards, welcome mats, and more that could be placed in homes to give players a story to read as they moved around from room to room). Sometimes rewards are involved if the players sends the homeowner an in-game mail with a correct answer to the visual mystery.
Guild-hangouts, club houses, and night clubs (for the social side).
People are creative, give them an outlet to be creative and you have content for free. It is a pity that Blizzard hasnât taken advantage of that.
Ion doesnât want player housing. He is happy with WoW being an esport and not a MMORPG.
I agree that some things work in certain systems and not our own, but why not a Warband house?
You can add a friend whos active, and they could make sure it didnât get demolished.
Itâs what me and a few mates do.