Housing: Last minute thoughts

In Development Patch 11.2.7 PTR
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I’ve been thinking about how I used to play housing in my favourite building game, Rift. It reminded me of quality of life features that I have not seen in WoW yet.

First, some items seem missing. The announcement video had mass bookshelves lining the wall, filled with books but the in-game is empty with the books separate. While experienced decorators will appreciate a filled bookshelf taking up one item count, newbies will love it more. I can think of nothing more discouraging than to place all those bookshelves, fill them, only to discover they want to change the layout and the books don’t move with the shelves. There’s a real danger the player will exit housing never to be seen again.

Thinking of newbies again, clumps of vegetation can be life altering. They have yet to develop their atheistic senses and having attractive, prearranged clumps that they can place for instant visual reward will encourage them.

We have opening doors but what about doors that don’t open? Sometimes i just want to make a wall look like there’s something behind it but don’t want to reveal it’s fake.

Experimentation spaces. We need somewhere to experiment and play with items, to see if our ideas are feasible. As housing stands, we can either use our other house or a big room in our current build. 15 min cooldown between house swaps makes the first impracticable. For the second, is there a way to make a room private so others can’t enter? I know we can always just place a wall there to block the entrance but it would be nice if we didn’t have to. See, I knew there was a use for a non-opening door.

I couldn’t dye the carpets, is that a bug or a feature?

Is there a reason the building blocks can’t be used outdoors? I’d like to build a veranda or balcony and the posts would come in handy.

I’ve heard it mentioned that it’s unlikely that players will reach the limit of 10,000 in their builds. I give it 9 months till the first limit is hit. Certainly I’ve built several 5000 item builds, which took around 5-6 months, and that’s only double the work. I’m guessing though, that players will section off parts of their house for different themed builds and it would be nice if housing could be organised to support that. Portals to different places would be great and the ability to have multiple staircases would be even better.

Love the daylight circle rooms; is it possible to have multiple exits from them?

Why can’t the T-shaped room be rotated so the leg of the T can face the 4 directions? It would be nice to know why some limitations exist. A topic for the next Blizzcon?

Do we have any fall-through items? A trick carpet that can be placed over a void, so that innocent explorers can be re-directed to a new and exciting part of the build? Force fields or glass to prevent players accessing areas so we can tempt and frustrate them with inaccessible rooms? (Gotta fall through that carpet to get there.)

Thanks for reading my babble and keep on making Housing a competitor-crushing system.

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From the limited testing I was able to do on the PTR, I did think it was silly that the only basic bookshelf that actually had books on it was the secret door one. There are a lot of other styles of bookshelves that have books, but they are themed after different factions/races and have to be acquired through rep/resources.

They have yet to develop their atheistic senses

What does atheism have to do with anything? :wink:

We have opening doors but what about doors that don’t open?

Are we not able to place a door on a wall that doesn’t lead anywhere? I thought we could.

Experimentation spaces. We need somewhere to experiment and play with items, to see if our ideas are feasible.

I would love to see a “draft” feature where you could do a build, and then if you like it, you could “publish” it and make it your current active house. Then we could potentially have multiple “drafts” saved that we could swap between. I could imagine spending a lot of time doing a build, and then want to try something else, only to decide I want the previous build back without having to spend hours recreating something I already created previously.

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There are bookshelves with books in them, you just have to go the vendors for them. While they are still building the database WoW Housing Hub can help you find somethings.

Unless they are a young child most people have an aesthetic sense. Also when housing comes out more people will put their builds out for people to see and gain inspiration from. Having prearranged clumps would only serve to hinder people’s growth because they allow for no thought. Now I am not against having pre sets for people that want areas but do not care to build them. It can be an overwhelming process for people.

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<facepalm!> Good grief - I absolutely did not mean to imply that a lack belief in the existence of a higher power = underdeveloped decorative sense. Thanks for pointing that embarrassment out.

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I was astonished to see that the bookcases were empty. I mean, why bother having a secret bookcase door when it’s the only one with books in it? lol makes it blatantly obvious. Would love to see full bookcases as well. I kinda wish halls and L rooms counted less; these are aesthetic, but sometimes feel like they cost as much as a room when they clearly aren’t.

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Empty bookcases or well anything else that is empty is useful for many reasons.

You can pretend you’re just moving in or perhaps you are a crafter who recently finished making that bookcase and is ready for sale.

The limit is our imagination when it comes to housing and how decor is used.

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Hoping there are a lot of different full and empty bookcases, because like you said, lots you can do with empty ones. I’ll fill up my shelves with books but also other things, especially neat items you can shrink down. I’ll have a wall of collectibles just like I do in real life, lol.

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I get that, but perhaps both versions for each style, variety, doesn’t hurt.

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Go to WoW housing Hub and you can view what has been found so far. You may be shocked at what you find.

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You can buy single rows of various books so you dont have to place 1 by 1. They have them empty for options. I prefer to put my own things / books in bookshelves. So empty works for everyone. You can put books, trophies, knock-knacks, whatever you wanna do.

The rest, that’s all in the works. The Beta / Live build is a bit further along than what we’ve had to test. Also keep in mind the 2 tests were meant to be stress tests and neighbourhood testing. The other stuff you mentioned is either in a newer build, a bug, or confirmed incoming on various reports posted.

Don’t worry. They’re just getting started. Gotta give them a chance to work on it for us. It’s nowhere NEAR “done”. It’s an Evergreen Feature. It’s meant to be here and added to and worked on basically for the rest of the life of the game itself. If it isn’t there on lunch, it’ll be there eventually. :wink:

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