Player Housing Variants

Community General Discussion
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Player housing has come up as a topic a lot recently, and it’s something I feel sorta strongly about. “Sorta strongly” sounds weird, right? Well, player housing was one of the things that drew me into MMOs back in Ultima Online, but over the years, after experiencing many different systems and seeing them actually play out, I’ve found that I actually hate player housing more often than not. So I wanted to give a brief rundown of the main variants I’ve seen and make a pitch for the only system that would excite me for World of Warcraft to include.

Fully Open World Housing
Like Ultima Online, these houses exist in the open world, filling in empty spaces in the actual zones of the game.

Pros:

  • Immersive in the sense that your house exists for everyone and becomes a part of the world

Cons:

  • There can only be so many plots, denying the system to the vast majority of players
  • If players can personalize the exterior, it’ll inevitably become a massive eyesore
  • The previous point is likely to also counteract the system’s pro of immersion

Completely Instanced Housing
Like Rift or Old Republic, these houses exist in an instanced void. They may or may not even be able to be seen by other players at all.

Pros:

  • Everyone can have a house, there’s no reason to have slots.
  • No one has to worry about running into a house that isn’t to their taste, as running into other players’ houses is optional if it exists.
  • It’s very easy to have extra houses for alts or just multiple houses per player in general.
  • No limit to the kinds of houses that can be built or introduced.

Cons:

  • Not immersive at all, betraying one of the basic appeals of having a house in a virtual world.
  • Separating the houses from the rest of the game and players means it tends to exist in a complete vacuum.

Neighborhood Housing
Like Lords of the Rings Online or Final Fantasy XIV, these houses exist within an instance, but the instance is an entire zone that include multiple houses.

Pros:

  • Retains a certain level of immersion in existing in a physical place with other players.
  • While each neighborhood can only have a certain number of housing slots, a new neighborhood can always be spawned to make sure there’s always new slots.
  • New neighborhoods can be added with different themes over time.

Cons:

  • Still requires you to go out of your way to a dedicated housing area, rather than housing being woven into the rest of the game.
  • Can lead to a certain level of “haves” and “have nots” where certain plots might be more interesting than others leading to lopsided demand.

Phased Open World Housing
I’ve only ever seen this in Black Desert. Buildings in the open world, in the actual towns and cities and such, have doors that serve as portals. These portals phase the interior of that building to be your house, or you can choose to visit someone else’s house in that spot.

Pros:

  • Immersive, as your house not only exists in the open world, it exists in the actual settlements of the world, not just in a clearing in the wilderness.
  • There’s no limit to slots, everyone can have a house.
  • This can be integrated easily into the rest of the game, as your house isn’t in some out of the way location like the Garrisons, but could be in the existing hubs.

Cons:

  • You can’t really customize an exterior or balconies.
  • Controlling the instances requires at least some suspension of disbelief still.

At this point, the Black Desert style player housing is the only one that would get me excited. Fully Open World housing is basically obsolete. It didn’t even really work when online games were an obscure hobbyist thing. It wouldn’t work nowadays at all. Completely instanced housing just defeats the purpose of housing for me. Cosmetics are my endgame, but even I don’t enjoy personalizing a house purely for its own sake. Neighborhood housing isn’t bad as long as it’s available to everyone (FFXIV’s system is ridiculous, but Lord of the Rings Online does it fine), but the shine has just sort of worn off for me.

The Black Desert system, though, is just awesome. It takes the best from every system. They’re phased, so everyone gets to have one. They exist in the open world, so they’re immersive. Together, you have houses in the open world without destroying the aesthetic of an area.

There is so much unused space in the capital cities of World of Warcraft. Permanently closed doors, completely empty buildings, or even just shops that haven’t been relevant since Classic. With the Black Desert system, all of these could be re-purposed to be housing, adding more gameplay to the cities and breathing more life into them instead of pulling people away like the Garrisons. I think this is the sort of system that can interest both “The Sims” type players and players who only care if there’s a “reason” to mess with it.

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WoW should add housing so our Californian players can experience what being a home owner is like.

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I doubt WoW will ever have player housing. If they did put it in it will be super bland and will be made in such a way it will take the fun out of having it. That is WoW for you.

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Don’t forget about every single millennial. We would love to experience owning a home.

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These forums continue to be in shambles. Another witty player housing thread made by someone with a low post count. Perhaps an alt.

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Should be one house per account, have it instanced only and people can enter houses similar to queuing for dungeons, the owner of the house doesn’t have to be online.

You can set your housing to be private though. Also, designated areas where those can see a portal and click on it to see a prioritized list of different players housing, either based on achievement points or ilvl or some WPVP thing and other things.

This way your characters can act as followers and stuff even if you’re offline, showcasing your character(s) and home etc. With the option to make other people curious to enter by prioritizing

This gives those who spent a lot of time and stuff on wow to feel like their characters are still thriving and flexing and such even after they take a leave of absence. It’s owed to the player base tbh.

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i don’t care remotely about player housing but i do care for a guild hall similar to what ff14 has for the FC house so people can gather and hang out

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I will say, if WoW went with this style I would imagine you could still customize the exterior if they use the same phasing system/technology they use for the Pandaria farms, for example.

Dude just go away. This is a great writeup.

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The house is your login screen. :slight_smile:

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Is it though…?

It is written as if the assumption would be to fully implement one of these systems with very little critique besides a surface level observation. Like sure, if I wanted to explore player housing in other games then yeah these are all neat things but… none of these would work in WoW. Not because of “this one thing” but because all of them have combined flaws that makes it neigh on impossible to fully or partially implement one of these things.

I’m not going to get into why I don’t think player housing, the way a lot of people talk about it, would be good for WoW (or at least not much). But I will say this much … why are people so obsessed about folks having a house? WoW hasn’t had a central point that we return to outside of expansion specific “capitals” since forever.
Our characters don’t have a specific home in-world so the idea of forcing it when it has to be able to extend backwards and forwards (because we were homeless for roughly 15 (in-game and 19 out of game) years and now all of a sudden we just have this random plot somewhere in or outside of the world that is our home? That doesn’t sound like the biggest amount of dissonance between our characters and the actual game world to you?

No idea if you said this jokingly or not but I don’t think you are far from the truth. Our characters have more in common with a DnD party camping out in the hills than a random bloke living in a city.

Our login screen is a camp so it is closer to what our adventuring characters would genuinely have as living accommodations than anything else. Why not drop the whole “player housing” and focus on something that’s more doable? I unironically have used the Vulperan racial “Make Camp” as an example of what one could do and build on.

Whether one wants a temporary camp out in the world that we can customize, or a phased area where we have a few customizable tents or the like where we could set up and have as a Hearthstone; these things seem far more in-line with the actual gameplay experience of WoW. And unironically I genuinely think this is closer to what folks actually want from a system like this since I don’t buy the idea that folks want it “because mah immersion” because WoW is a game that is so gameplay dependant that outside of cutscenes, immersion really doesn’t exist like it does in other games.

And I cannot for the life of me think of how player housing would change that at all.

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Roleplaying, character identity, aesthetic expression, collecting - everything that mogs are for people, whatever that may be, housing is just that but bigger and applied to a space instead of a single character.

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This is the only way to go for a big game like WoW and honestly those cons aren’t as bad as they sound.

For example, an apartment in Stormwind certainly would feel immersive and not at all like you are in a void, while a little cottage in Grizzly Hills? Well the people that pick that probably want to feel alone, so it works nicely for them anyway.

There is zero chances, not even if hell freezes over, that they would allow players to put down plots in the open world. Just doesn’t work. Not enough space, CRZ, ruins the zone design, etc. And neighborhoods? Too much competition. Too many people left out. Sucks some of the evergreen aspect right out of the system too when you lose your plot each time you unsub.

Something perminent to you like the garrison was is definitely how they would do it, if they were to do it. :upside_down_face:

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I think if the recent M+ changes have shown us anything, it is that the developers of world of warcraft are willing to craft systems that will cater to different kinds of players. so I think wow should have BOTH instanced and non-instanced housing simultaneously to cater to different kinds of players that want different things from the player housing experience.

  1. achievement / progression / prestige / collecting

some players see housing as a personal goal to work towards or an achievement. these players will be most excited to have the most prestigious housing possible… typically this might express itself as non-instanced housing. for this, it is typical to have a lottery or auction system determine the winner. these houses often have gold upkeep, and if not paid, the house will go up for auction again. or if the house is unused for a long period of time, eventually it will go up for auction again (so if a player just stops playing the game, that plot of land won’t be unavailable forever)

players that want a place to store all the things they collect - and show them off to other players. In a game like Fallout 4 for example, players are given access to armor and weapon display cases, wall mounted weapon and armor racks, as well as full mannequins that they can display an entire set of gear or a custom transmog they have created from various pieces of different gear that might not belong to the same set. Think “above that fireplace, I want to display my favourite sword or gun”. in the garrison, you had the ability to place down a statue to show off an achievement for example. so I think that should also be possible in your player home - perhaps a simple statue of your player in stone or marble, along with a plaque whose text will change depending on which achievement or title you want to display. more unique placeable objects may be unlocked for the player if they have specific achievements. for example, you can display the head of onyxia if you killed onyxia prior to the launch of the burning crusade expansion, or display the scepter and gong as objects if you are a scarab lord. players should also be able to display specific pets and mounts, and construct different rooms like a stables and a pet day care.

  1. creativity / expression

some players want more ways to express themselves creatively, through interior design. typically players start with a completely empty plot of land upon which they can place foundations and build, room by room, a custom house. or plop down a pre-built house that the game creators have made in advance for players. the starter homes can be expanded on or customized further after being placed if desired. this would be similar to how in Starfield you can purchase a ship and then customize it later. Or how in the Sims you can purchase a house and then add more rooms or change the rooms later. Or in Skyrim you can build a basic house and then decide to add a kitchen or living quarters later). Typically players must enter a 3D editor mode before they can edit. the best editors will allow players to freely place by hand and in 3 dimensions (X/Y/Z axis) precisely where they want specific pieces of furniture to go, even if those items might overlap or go through one another. for players that just want to quickly place a bunch of things down and don’t want them to collide, a good editor will provide a ‘snap mode’ that prevents collision and aligns items to a grid for easy placement. this will help novice players to quickly decorate a room, but also allow experienced decorators to do that and then take more time if they want specific things to look exactly like they want. Games that do this well in my opinion are Fallout 4, Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy 14. In Final Fantasy 14 in particular, players often arrange the placeable furniture in unintended but creative ways, to create truly awe inspiring interiors. There are guides online where you can learn these advanced tips and some players on the server may even offer home design service/assistance for gold. Even in a more simple game like Minecraft there are players that can build a simple house and it looks good, and then players that can build elaborate structures that are truly very impressive. There is often a limiting factor, such as a peaceable object limit, but most players will never reach that limit, and should be able to recreate housing that looks like any of the interior spaces they might find out there in the game world right now. for expression in particular, players should be able to customize the style of the home. so for example, the walls in each room can be set to a theme like “tiki troll thatch wall” or “goblin pineapple wallpaper” or “stormwind stone wall” or “night elf tree wall” or “gnome metal wall” or “simple farmhouse wall”. as well as the style of individual objects like “embellished blood elf rug finery” versus “tauren traditional rug” versus “tailored magic carpet rug”. they should also be able to choose a roof for the home overall - something like “thatched troll tiki roof” or “traditional tauren tent roof” or “forsaken dilapidated roof”. think paintings, faux windows, standing lamps, desks, anything and everything. these are assets that are already created and just need to be brought in to the new system so they can be given to players as peaceable assets. there may also be placeable assets that can be placed in the room but then they are free to move about the room like pets, magic brooms, etc.

  1. function / convenience

some players don’t care about any of that and just want a space that can be functional. for example, perhaps we could allow players to construct a portal room in their home with 3 portals. the first portal can be configured to quickly travel to a chosen raid instance. the second to a chosen delve or dungeon, and the third will always go to the guild keep if the guild has one. another example might be rooms dedicated to a profession, such as a kitchen where the player can prepare exceptional food, and keep food in storage. or a personal bank room that would grant access to your personal bank. I also think this could tie in to prestige and expression… perhaps one that can be over time by spending gold and providing resources, be visually upgraded from a completely empty room to a lavish treasure hoard.

  1. roleplay / fantasy / player engagement

lastly, some players want new spaces to roleplay and just hang out with other players. imagine being able to create a cozy cat cafe or an outdoor space to hold an in-game wedding, or use furniture objects to construct an elaborate jumping puzzle. or just a place to call home, a place where you can hang your adventuring gear and curl up by the fireplace or the hot tub to relax until your next adventure.

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Ba. Zing.

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I’d honestly be surprised if they DIDN’T add it eventually. I’m surprised they haven’t already (I swear if someone mentions Garrisons I will crawl through their TV screen at night and drown them in the toilet).

It would be one of the things they could potentially get away with selling on the shop. As long as houses can be acquired in game from achievements or quests or gold or whatever, then they could also put some on the shop for real money and make a killing.

It could also breath new life into crafting. WoW has always been an MMO where the best gear in the game comes from end game content. Very rarely does a BiS item come from professions. It makes professions all but useless, and right now they are a total mess. But add in crafting furnishings/decorations and you could litter all the old dungeons/raids/etc from old expansions with recipe drops to farm and whatnot. Crafters could make tons on crafting furnishings and for the first time ever I’d even bother with crafting, and probably enough to ensure I’ve got a crafter in each profession.

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I don’t disagree that adding a ton of housing items to the game for crafters would give them a lot more cool stuff to make, but you would be surprised how many classes and specs have a crafted piece or two as BiS. Usually wrists or belts or feet of course, due to tier, but also jewelry - lariats, rings, etc. And consumable crafting, like enchants, pots, food, runes, and enchanted crests are all always in demand. Professions are not “all but useless” in this expansion. On the contrary, while the new system has some issues that need to be smoothed out, I’d argue that crafting plays much more of an endgame role this expansion.

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:laughing:

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In Second Life they have “Sky Boxes”. You have a house but it sits 1,000 meters, 2,000 meters, 3,000 meters what ever above ground. Nothing holds them up, just empty air, or other sky boxes, below.

That gives you plenty of room.

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Zingggggggggg good one…

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Yes they were basically only those that did Beta for DF knew where to get the good drops and that…the professions in DF was and still terrible…add in that Tier system on ores and herbs was bad too…3 of each …dang my bags…