The lack of housing in Warcraft is one of the two reasons I am not currently playing WoW. So it is great to hear about the addition of housing coming next year in the Midnight expansion. The developers said they were looking for feedback from the community about how to implement housing.
The other reason I am not currently playing is the lack of development/attention put into PvP. With each major expansion including new dungeons, new raids, new zones, and new quests for PvE, and nothing but a minor hehashing of the previous twenty years of PvP limited engagements in the same handful of battle areas.
But this is about housing, and there are plenty of other MMO’s that have done this the right way, and plenty that did it the wrong way. The wrong way is instanced. If you have an instanced home, it is nothing but a waste of time that stores more boxes of stuff than your current bank boxes. In order to be meaningful the houses need to have a lot of variety to them, but they need to exist in the actual world of Warcraft. Given the amount of land that is currently available in the game, housing districts could exist all over the place. Start with near the major cities and put in roped off areas where houses can be built so they don’t affect questing or player leveling in those areas. But allow a person to own a home right outside of Orgrimmar or Stormwind City. Some would want to have a home near Thunder Bluff or Silvermoon City.
There are LOTS of locations on the map that could have housing in them, and it would add life to the otherwise mostly abandoned areas of the map that are only briefly used for players that are leveling a new character. Neighborhoods would exist where it is currently desolate space for about 99% of the time because only a leveling player briefly passes through the area.
Having a good variety of house sizes and designs would obviously be an important factor too. Not every house should be identical in size and design. Having a larger house would allow more storage of possessions, and obviously a larger space to decorate and make your own living space.
Well done Housing: Ultima Online, FF14, Archeage. (Homes exist in the actual world)
Poorly done Housing: New World, Lord of the Rings Online. (instanced)