How Do You Handle Housing?

How do you handle housing for your character IC and in your written RP? I struggle with the fact that there are not a ton of housing structures outside of major cities. A house is critical to Haeven’s backstory but I am having an issue of where to put it because there’s very little in-game rep of player houses. Do you approach it from the angle of finding a structure and then working it in, or do you develop an idea and throw in-game representation of it to the wind? Do you make up whole towns/villages/cities?

What’s your thought process on this?

For written RP you can really have a house anywhere. I don’t think in game representation matters much or can be relied on because the towns and cities in lore are so much bigger than they are in game. You can very easily say you live in Stormwind or Gadgetzan or in the middle of nowhere without having an actual house to play around in.

You can base it off in game houses too, there’s empty ones out and around to RP in, but the options are much more limited there. Easier to picture it as the real full sized world it would be and make your story from there. For locations I’d say stick to cities and villages that are known in lore though.

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Personally I rp as a night elf druid that is salty 24/7 because of Teldrassil burning down. I would like to think that at the end of the day she just camps down in the forest or in the closest tavern.

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That’s how Korrek feels about his former home too. Only instead of Sylvanas and the Horde it was humans in Elwynn Forest.

If I’m RPing at the house in-game, I just go find an in-game house that does a fair job representing what I want for my character. Usually, find an house that’s lacking an NPC (or only has one).

Outside WoW? Say, Discord RPs or something? I don’t worry about it. I have made up entire cities for some characters. For example, my demon hunter is 10,000 years old. She says she’s from “a small village just south of Jaedenar”. It doesn’t exist within the game-world, but it makes sense that it’d exist within the IC world.

For your character’s backstory, I wouldn’t worry about finding a house until you need to RP there. Just do whatever you need with the house. If you need to go there in RP, then pick a house. Any house that makes you feel good. Even if it’s in the wrong spot, just tell with whom you’re RPing, “This house is actually in such-in-such location.”

You’re gonna have to do some bending to get exactly what you want.

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I don’t. My character having a house isn’t part of my character’s story any more than it would be for Hercules or Xena in the Action Pack stories. There are places where my character has stayed, but none of them are permanent homes.

Then again, setting up housekeeping isn’t part of my stories.

Theres a gutter next to the lamb that im quite partial to.

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I don’t own a house. In my backstory I had one growing up, but I have relinquished the family estate. I jump from inn to inn now.

I don’t RP, but I do enjoy writing little short stories and scenes about my character. In my case, home is where you make it - be it an inn, an outpost, a humble camp, or a sibling’s house.

From there it’s a matter of having living accommodations “fit” the area. Orgrimmar is likely to have military-style barracks/bunks for everyone. Silvermoon is likely to have small apartment-style housing within the city proper and isolated, remote homes in Ghostlands/Eversong. The Forsaken of the Undercity (if you’re having things take place prior to the Siege of Lordaeron) don’t exactly need to sleep but may retreat to a small tomb to rest. While traveling abroad, characters would probably seek out living arrangements that most remind them of home, to the best of their ability. For the Horde, a tauren or vulpera might be totally comfortable making camp under the stars whereas a nightborne (or even a goblin) might want something a little more “civilized”.

As for humans, I’d imagine it would be fairly simple to have a small cottage in the woods, a townhouse in Stormwind, or a house in Westfall or Duskwood. Even if not, they could easily fit the mold of “rugged adventurer” and set up a camp, complete with tent.

Then again, in my case housing is not so much of a critical element of backstory as it is more of a plot device. Good luck and hope this helps!

I use Shadowfang Keep as the operational headquarters for my guild. The courtyard and ramparts are accessible in the overworld so it works surprisingly well as a setting for RP events.

Both the castle and Pyrewood village below serve as housing for several of my toons and guild members. A few other structures; a house near Ambermill, a house and shack on the shores of Lordamere Lake, are also used for these purposes.

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That’s actually rather brilliant!

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It’s also kind of done out of necessity. With Tirisfal trashed Forsaken RPers are pretty starved for settings in the EK. Tarren Mill and the Sepulchre are your only real options.

Everything else is a mine field of quest phasing. The Alliance can’t even see the post questline Sludge Fields which is pretty unfair if you ask me.

It’s one of the few stories where the Forsaken are unambiguously heroic. You stop a rogue Apothecary from unleashing an incredibly deadly virus, and have the option of freeing captive humans (you can also just kill them if you’d prefer). Culminates in a pretty challenging boss fight. It’s one of my favorite questlines.

It’s also a fairly unique and defensible structure. Watch towers, spotlights and all the entrances are barricaded. Shame you can’t really use it for anything.

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That’s really neat! I haven’t leveled a Forsaken or traveled through Forsaken questing zones since the Cataclysm reboot, so it sounds like might need to check it out. Shoot, the last time I was in SFK was when Arugal was the final boss. Personally, all of my lore “knowledge” comes from in-game and wiki articles, but works well enough considering I don’t RP in game and the closest approximation I do are prompt responses which can rely on the whole “character perspective/unreliable narrator” shtick. It’s allowing me to get some writing practice and to explore some concepts I’ve been tinkering around with in my head, using a universe that I know fairly well and am passionate about. Just too bad the powers that be won’t ever sign over a fat commission for it, lol.

That said, these particular forums have been interesting this past week, to say the least. There’s been some good in-character responses, a handful of predictable ones and some not-so-good, but that could just be personal opinion. It is also interesting seeing how well thought-out your responses have been when they refer to your character!

Thank you.

I’d returned to WoW in Legion having not played since Wrath, and the Forsaken storyline instantly turned my skepticism about new WoW inside out. The Silverpine questline is the best war story they’ve done for my money, and Hillsbrad is absolutely hilarious but has some heart too. Just the trademark sardonic, gallows humor of the Forsaken from start to finish.

As for RP I’d certainly recommend it. On Emerald Dream at least we’ve a fair amount of ongoing plots between guilds. Lots of espionage, political intrigue and a few battles here and there. I honestly would’ve probably let my subscription expire until at least SL if it weren’t for all the user created content.

What WoW does better than any other MMO, arguably better than any other game, is provide this gigantic seamless open world. There are hiccups like the aforementioned phasing issues, but overall there’s plenty of places to host your own stories in.

We recently used the Blasted Lands for a huge, multi guild battle to secure the Dark Portal. I probably had more fun with that than any of the official content in BFA. There’s tons of really interesting zones Blizz has let fall by the wayside that can be used for games and stories of your own design.

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I’ve never roleplayed a living residence, but there were a couple places that we declared our guild headquarters, the last one being Fandral Stormage’s former office in Darnassus, and you know how that ended.

I feel ya. I’ve given up and just use the time displaced War Quarter for some PVP training stuff.

I tried using Orgrimmar but it doesn’t work great with the undead aesthetic and more than once we’ve had practice canceled by a multi server raid lag bombing the city.

Personally I’m not too knowledgeable about Nelf places but Feralas would probably be a good place to start. Idk if you can get into Dire Maul in the overworld. I know you can’t with Stratholme because that’d be too much fun.

At least Troll themed guilds will forever have Zul’Gurub to do stuff in.

Can confirm you can fly into Dire Maul from above. The underground sections are obviously unavailable but the giant coliseum-like structure is fully usable.

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A lot of my characters travel frequently, and stay at the taverns, I like to pretend some of them have permanent rooms there.

A few of them have taken over the many vacant houses available. I always felt like these empty homes were there for players to use in RP situations.

Surprised nobody I’m familiar witn uses it yet. The overworld dungeons are a great setting. They are about as bare bones as you can get, but that can also mean blank canvas.

If you’ve unlocked your banners and have some toys or items to put down you can really set whatever scene you want.

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Dude, I never thought of that, there is this area in the Plaguelands right before you enter the Blood Elf lands that is just fun to walk around it and nothing else is there.

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