http s://www.mmo-champion.com/content/8438-Patch-8-2-Rise-of-Azshara-Information-Roundup-from-Content-Creators
(take out the space between p and s)
Read down to the 4FanSites Patch 8.2 Information section where it says:
Housing is a big topic at Blizzard. The developers are still thinking about how to implement it so that it does not feel so clumsy.
What in the world is going on with your avatar?
well ESO and FF14 seem to be doing just fine. I don’t think it is housing that led to the downfall of those games and more it was the nature of this genre. Few games truly succeed in the long run.
Gun muzzle.
Small indie company.
Every time this gets brought up people point out garrisons as an example of how this was already tried and failed. But it’s not a good example.
What we wanted from player housing.
A place to put our stuff, and decorate a bit.
What we got.
An all encompassing game within a game that gradually took over most of the actual game and played havoc with the economy.
Blizzard’s problem has always been that they take a simple idea and go overboard until it becomes a disaster (Hello pathfinder!)
Player housing should be simple and easy.
FFXIV isn’t dead. They haven’t approached WoW levels but last year got to 1 million subs. That’s pretty decent for a game that came in late to the genre. WoW had some revolutionary aspects to it at a time when that genre was popular. It’s more difficult to gain popularity after a genre has started to die.
Sunsong Ranch is a good example. 16 plots that can grow any mat was PRECISELY the right amount, imo. Enough to feed your CD’s, only took a couple minutes per toon, but if you were seriously crafting it meant you still needed to get your butt out into the world.
Plotting out what each toon planted was the first mission table-style minigame, and it was far, FAR better. “My transmute alchemist wants Harmonies, so I’ll have to plant the herbs on this gatherer toon… oh, and the tailor only needs 11 plots for cloth per day, so I can use the other 5 for…”
What we need is a guild hall. One we can fill with:
Give players a Guild Hearthstone, and have profession items like a forge, anvil, moonwell, etc. Make there be a REASON to want to come to the guild hall to encourage in-game meetings and socializing between guild mates. Have an option for in-game voice chat that is ONLY activated in the guild hall. Make it range-sensitive, so the further someone is from you, the quieter they are, unless they’re on the stage and it’s turned “on”. Allow GM’s, or ranks that have permission, to invite non-guild members or even entire guilds & communities to your hall. We could see legit in-game parties, game tournaments, dueling societies, hell even CONCERTS!
For individual player housing, bring that in later, connected to the guild hall. Here’s my idea:
Going out the back door, there would be a closed, instanced courtyard with some open grass, benches, a fountain, and a garden with the farm plots (instanced for each member). This is where players go daily to literally farm mats daily. Make seeds available for all mats from every expansion. Just as you leave the hall, you pass a room. This is where the guild hearthstone ports you to. It also has a quick portal to the portal room (assuming your hall is in your faction capitol) that works like the flight whistle in that it doesn’t trigger a loading screen.
Surrounding the courtyard are 20 or so individual dwellings that guild members can claim and personalize as player housing. If the guild has more people than that claim a home, a new shard is added. You can visit other shards at will. The courtyard itself is part of the universal shard that the hall is in, but which shard you’re in will determine whose balconies & front doors you see surrounding you and whose houses you can enter.
Each dwelling has 5 rooms. Each room starts out furnished simply and sparsely. Players can buy/craft/earn furniture sets for each room in various racial & cultural styles from all over the game.
Another idea for NPC’s you have special relationships with is that they could even pop in to visit from time to time. Like, you come home after raid night or whatever to find Sho and Blook have stopped by and are chillin’ in the front room. Obviously interactions would be limited and canned, but it would help to feel like you’ve actually impacted people in the world with your actions. Actually interacting with NPCs would make that character visit more often, allowing some influence on who you see regularly. There would need to be an option to make your home “open” or “private”, which would determine if NPCs or even guildmates and friends could pop by your place unannounced or needed to be invited each time.
Or at least, that’s what I’d do.
Highly debatable since nobody has sub numbers for this game, or ESO, and we only have a fairly accurate guess at FF14’s numbers, which are the highest they’ve ever been.
Housing is arguably one of the most popular elements of those games, by the way.
I’m constantly jumping on and off things, /dance’ing, or looking at random players mogs, while chatting in trade. On my Gnome, I like to find random spots to hide while chatting, or trying to land on the tip of the cathedral in Stormwind.
Just having a place. For me, this was the greatest benefit to the Garrison in WoD. We had a place for meetings. We had a place to relax w/out having to worry about unintentional disruptions, let alone the intentional. It brought our characters to life; gave us a narrative as to where they were when we were not actively playing them. It gave our character’s place.
Did it remove us from the world? No. The only difference now: less participation in game, more participation in chat. I’d rather see that shifted back into the game world.
I want a permanent place in the game world for our guild. I want an instanced door in whatever town is the main town for the expac. Let us pathfinder for it every expac - that’s fine. I want a hall - reuse the assets from the main Hall in the Garrison. Take out the NPCs. Add a few 4 seat tables. Don’t litter it with NPCs unless you give me 100% control of their placement and type. That nice long meeting table - I want that. The journey to earning your guild hall - think of that - a quest line that unites guild members in a single purpose.
I’ll take care of the rest and see that the space is utilized.
FF14 has had 1 million subs for quite some time. You just dont find everyone on all at once just like with any mmo. Think was during Heavensward the unofficial census showed the active monthly population broke a million briefly.
This. Player housing is just such a meh concept to me. Not interested at all, spend resources on other content. I completely avoid player housing in MMOs where it exists and it’s never been a part of Wow outside of half-baked garrisons so there’s no real reason to start now.
Well, I appreciate there being a source at all, which is better than nothing, but, with the lack of any source on their part, it’s almost as meaningless. Because we don’t know who, at blizzard, is thinking about it. If some rando employees are thinking about it and wanna come up with a good idea to pitch to the higher-ups, but the higher-ups don’t care at all, it wouldn’t result in it necessarily ever happening. Ty for source, still, no sarcasm.
The first heading in my post relates to your viewpoint and that of the person you quoted. Just because some people don’t see it as interesting doesnt mean that it still doesn’t have value to others.
Id be playing SWtOR and/or ESO if they werent so micro transaction heavy…simply for the ability to have a place to hang my hat. for that matter, i have lvl 3 garrisons on all my toons. in fact, i make it a point to make one on each toon with a trading post (for the excessive resourses) and Storehouse (access to may bank quickly).
some think they are a waste of resources and other do not. I am on the hand that thinks they would be worth the resources to make. Some get them and others do not. To Add: SWG had a great player housing system, though Instanced housing would definitely be better option in this game than having open world housing. just too many people.
there are so many possibilities.
Once again them games still suck compared to wow. i don’t care what anyone says wow has way more subs active than those. housing is not going to help grow this game in any way. they would of done incorporated them if so they have listened to everyone over the last 15yrs and it was a hell no from most. just because one game has something why do some other game have to have?
Imagine trying to stop content from being added to the game lmao
They already don’t put out good stuff so why not add housing
I don’t care for them. I don’t want one.
But people do.
Wish they would just copy paste ESO’s functionality and call it a day. Would revive the economy too.
I can’t see them being able to support any advanced player housing with basic functions that players would like… probably would have to build it from the ground up then implement it. It would take WAY too much time that I’d rather them focus on proper good/fun content and make classes feel unique & fun.
I’d like to see guildhalls. Think large garrison but guild members are followers.
We can run missions and stuff in solo, small group, or raid groups for guild rewards, have crafting stations, gardens, mines, fishery, and portals.
Make it our new central city, as customizable as possible.
Have apartment rooms each guild member can customize as they wish.
I like the ffxiv housing system, but with garrison stuff too.