Housing Previews and Interviews live!

Just read and responding to a few from:

Technical Limitations

Summary
Player houses can have multiple floors, with a technical limit to prevent the risk of crashes or abuse. At least for now, that limit is three floors.

Players can visit each other's home, and while the exact number of simultaneous visitors has not yet been determined, Blizzard has said it's "well over 15."

Players will have a special ability to return home on a cooldown, separate from hearthstone.

Hope there is a two way teleport of the teleport, that would make visiting it buttery smooth (although if you have many houses in the future could become a way to navigate the world, personally I think that’s fine as you would still have to invest in the house, but w/e).

Although if there is an insistence on no real value powerful amenities to the location then I suppose it’s less useful, but I’d like to be able to visit the house without too much thought. After all I suppose I still have my garrison with all it’s amenities then lol.

Definitely going to need special controls for events though, I imagine people will be inviting non-friends but do not want the door to be “open to the public” if there is a limit like 15. Streamer opens house, 10 seconds later, house crashes :slight_smile: .

Free Décor Free from Power

Summary
"Pre-made" and decorated houses will be offered for less creative players, and a system for sharing or importing house layouts is currently being considered.

Some decorations will be usable, like furnaces, cooking fires, or anvils for professions, but no power benefits will be linked to housing. There will also be no quick-access Auction House or similar items in your house.

The developers estimate that 60% of the décor items available at launch will be existing assets, and 40% will be new creations.

There will be some very rare items, such as a throne obtained from the final boss of a raid, but they are the exception. Most housing content will be accessible regardless of playstyle.

Some cosmetic items will be sold in the store for real money, similar to mounts or transmog, but each will have a free equivalent obtainable in-game.

I would love some pre-mades, and I definitely encourage allowing players to create layout’s / builds to share (even if it is through a code that an external website could start to organize for players, code like how talents work). For example the stove mentioned in some of the interviews could become a shareable asset. Additionally some default starting options would be excellent, like in Skyrim you get a starter house with some basics so you don’t feel like a single young male in their first apartment (tv and a bed on the floor!).

Given the community and issues already “had” with garrisons I think its a good start at slow, but I would love, if everything is going well, to add functions / power / QoL to old stuff and then consider NON-END GAME benefits as well. For example, your crafting stations may provide crafting skill in old expansion crafts, your garden or mine can help increase professions in old zones (daily visit mine), logging out in or interacting with bed at home grants a buff which increases the power of rested exp, etc.

Please consider bad luck protection for those “rare” things (honestly speaking in general), I have a large disdain in FOMO abuse or low low drop rates as I think its both unnecessary and sad tactic akin to a company willingly stating “if we could legally put an addictive drug without actual positive gameplay benefits in here, like dosing your water with “insert drug here”, we absolutely would!”. Luck isn’t a skill and this is a digital space, so things are not physically limited, additionally encouraging players to judge their fun based off if others don’t have something is encouraging negative behaviors (imo), and rather it should have been fun (hard can be fun, but it shouldn’t be “I killed my soul to get this “turn in 50,000,000 daily quests”, but because no one else can get it or is as insane as me… that makes it special!” which is, imo, unwell crazy talk. I get luck helps take away the rote treadmill vibe, and there is something exciting about the unexpected, but low % are very possibly predatory (imo) - there is nothing cool about 1 shotting a boss thousands of times, that’s just bad gameplay.

Something I really liked from FFXIV is if I wanted to do something I could, in like 98.9% of the time, there are a few items in this game that is like “why bother, you have to be insane to want to pursue that…” and not in the oh this is fun but hard but like “yeah I killed that boss in 1 hit, 5,000 times” and I just think “how insanely insane is that, that isn’t good design or makes the item cool, that’s just some sort of emotional abuse akin to gambling addiction”. Meanwhile others might get it in 1 shot, which adds to the “serious? that’s just awfully thought out” (giving me a “we manufactured rarity through abuse, aren’t we clever” vibe, and not the fun type). If necessary perhaps using the scaling tech, shattered timeline, and such ideas to help justify bad luck protections (you’re not 1 shot, its hard, but the reality of the drop is tangible vs “0.1%”). To be clear the argument isn’t “everything has to be 1 shot , easy, instant drop” just that the words “achievable” and “sane” should be applicable at some point (as an example Elden Ring is both, challenging sure, but it’s still achievable and sane).

Your Forever Home and HOA

Summary
There will be no rent, maintenance, or loss due to inactivity: once you buy a home (with gold), it's yours, forever. The exact price hasn't been set yet, but the developers assure you it won't be an insurmountable investment.

Unlike traditional game hubs, neighborhoods are being designed as real living spaces, complete with Azeroth NPCs, seasonal events, dynamic interactions, etc.

Blizzard is considering adding some kind of community tools like "mayor" roles, voting systems, and collaborative control to avoid abuse (like stacking ten fountains to block the view of others).

Sweet nightmares of one of many reasons why I dislike the neighborhood system. It is true though we have some uuuuggglleeeh houses in FFXIV (Paissa houses are awful, imo)… but that’s why if you don’t have a group you care for there should be ways to just be away from it (imo ESO is the best for that). Especially if I’m going to get HOA citations for not putting up decorations on a holiday or some nonsense.

Please prevent HOA abuse in public wards, I would hate to settle into a location and then get kicked out or forced to make my house a way because a bunch of people moved in and gentrified (sort of concept) my space. Though I think these tools could be nice for RP, guild, and private type of locations, but for public “we are in here together because that’s the only choice” just leave it to GMs to fix egregious issues.