Player Housing?

Wyrmrest Accord
41

I’ve skimmed the article and haven’t read it closely yet, but so far, the only thing I’m not for is the BMAH portion. If having my house publicly open turned out to be something I wanted that badly, I’d find dealing with the BMAH to make it happen deeply irritating.

I would want the option – just as a toggle, not as something I have to bid for – to open my house to party members, raid members, and my guild.

I don’t think this would be an RPers-only feature at all, but even if it were, that’s a pretty valid thing for an MMORPG to dedicate resources to, especially given that RP is in the name. Lots of people don’t raid; lots of people don’t PvP; lots of people don’t do Mythic+. Those are features developed and maintained for segments of the playerbase, and RPers are a segment of the playerbase too.

Also – I think in-city districts for ‘basic housing’ (just a rented room, for example) for an extremely low buy-in would be a good idea, but I do not want capital cities to be the only housing location. Other zones’ housing plots might need to roll out over a few patches – maybe even more than one expansion – but I refuse to believe that having housing plots outside the capital cities is too much work for Blizzard to accomplish.

42

I wonder why this doesn’t happen in real life?

Obviously not everyone has a house irl unfortunately but when I go outside I see plenty of other people who presumably have very nice and cozy houses to spend time in.

I think itll be fine if we don’t make the garrison mistake of putting mines, gardens, and auction houses in the player housing.

1 Like
43

I feel like this is a very unparalleled comparison but I don’t have the brainpower to refute it so ima just give you the dub on this one pal

44

ppl go to cities cause thats where trade/ah/portals/quests/vendors are located
if the housing system doesnt have that, there shouldnt be a drop in ppl outside

2 Likes
45

Instanced player housing along the lines of EQ2 or ESO would be amazing. They don’t even really have to be customizable like that if Blizzard just gives a few housing options in each city, though I do like the idea of making my own.

I would also love an option to buy a ship as a house…for reasons.

46

I have the ESO ship and I love it. I just don’t get over there a lot to play.

1 Like
47

I have wanted that ship for so long. I don’t play it a lot anymore either, though.

48

Yes. They do. Blizzard doesn’t need encouragement to halfass a feature players have been asking for since release.

6 Likes
49

Let me clarify what I mean. They don’t need to be customizable in the way they are in the video. Absolutely let us decorate them as we want, though. I was meaning more…they could have various house types themed appropriately to the city like most games with player housing do.

Edit:
EQ2 probably has my favorite player housing. Yes, there are set things, however players have the ability to make extra floors, or even “break out of the bounds” of their house within the instance and decorate even more.

For example, I have a house that overlooks docks that exist outside of the instance. I have seen players with the same house get over the railing, liking with clever decorating, and decorate those docks.

1 Like
50

Going back to Wildstar (seriously it is the best housing I have ever played with) they had a selection of pre-built houses that could be put on your lot.

Each race had their own aesthetic architectural and furnishing style you could pick regardless of the race your character. You could buy a small cozy version or larger more luxurious style, then customize the exterior and interior looks.

You could also choose a small “bunker” home. It put a small hatch doorway that lead to an underground large open space in the center of your lot. The unobtrusive “entrance” allowed you to freely build your own home or structure from the building block assets that were available.

There were literally hundreds of individual object assets that you could place in full 3D x,y,z positions, scale the size, and even tint the colors. It was AMAZING the creative freedom it allowed. WoW could dominate the market (niche though it maybe) if they added Wildstar housing. But it would be a large laaaaarge undertaking.

1 Like
51

Sounds similar to building in Conan Exiles. You have lots of aesthetic architecture pieces, for walls, doors, windows, roofs, etc. All can mix and match. You can make anything from a hut to a palace and place the build almost anywhere. People get wildly creative and I’ve seen barns, taverns, bath houses, libraries, ships, castles, courtyards, fishing villages, religious structures, etc. on all sorts of land masses - mountains, fields, inside caves, built over waterfalls or streams, inside instances, into existing ruins… Then on the inside, you can add furniture, lighting, fireplaces, curtains, doors, decorative ceiling beams, wall hangings, knickknacks, musical instruments, pets, livestock, plants, and effects like fire, fog, running water or light orbs that build in and give off brightness. There are things to add to floor or ground that will speed up or slow down your movement. There are thespian characters to use as bartenders, merchants or other employees.

I’ve built entire encounter scenarios for RP in numerous ways, so it’s not just player housing anymore. It’s a scene of a battle to be investigated, a tomb with traps, a jail to break prisoners out of, a cult’s hideout, a magic order’s HQ, and so many other things.

52

Oh yes, I have played Exiles. It has got some pretty nice base building indeed, but still not Wildstar the depth that Wildstar offered.

Like I was saying assets like building blocks and furniture and objects could be freely placed in X,Y,Z axis, rotated full 360 sphere angles, shrank to miniature nearly invisible size, or grown to massive oversized scale. This feature was actually introduced as a glitch. There was supposed to be a limited range of things can’t be shrunk or grown beyond a certain scale… But the slider could have numerical values input beyond the min/max. The lead housing Dev who was amazing and super active in the community listened to the players and left the glitch in because it allowed players to further explore the capabilities of their creativity.

I have seen some truly amazing creations massive and small like entire cityscapes, space bases, hospitals, kung fu dojos, haunted forests, mountains, and frozen wastes, castle fortresses… I have seen the Serenity from Firefly, AT-AT’s, LV-426 from Aliens. But also things like painting, pinball machines, video game consoles, and motorcycles all from player imaginations to create out of bits and bobs cobbled from the random object assets they collected.

No other game that I have played before or since has offered that kind of depth.

Here’s an interview and tour with the player who built the AT-AT.

53

that all seems like a bit much

If i could lay siege to an AT-AT however, i might be down

54

It could be extremely intricate or very simple. You could ignore alot of the “complicated” building… but the point is that it was there for those who wanted it.

But there were plenty of prebuild “plug-in” decore arrangements called “Fabkits” you could slot into spots on your housing lot. They were similar to how the Garrisons in WoW had places to drop different buildings.

The Fabkits came already put together so it was just plug and play. They had all kinds of kits for crafting, or gathering resources like plants or minerals. Some of them were just pure decorative or had mini-games you could play.

There were also the “shiphand” kits that were instance portals to scaling 1 to 5 man mini dungeons kinda like WoW scenarios.

55

You can do all that with mods in Conan, as well as layering pieces on top of pieces to build your own terraforming to a limited extent. We also had people who did full on dungeons. On the last CE server I ran, my guildie made a 25 room dungeon with mobs, sound effects, loot chests, etc.

56

I think the easiest way to balance the desire for player housing against the fear that it would be Garrisons 2.0 with everyone in their own private instance is to a) make sure it offers zero in-game advantage and b) make it so most of the things you can decorate with have to be acquired by doing content. Severely limit the amount of things that can be bought with gold.

I think the system for unlocking Legion artifact skins is the best concept to build off of. Or Legion legendaries, where you always had incentive to do just one more thing because it could randomly award you something neat.

  • Give some decor items/skins as a reward for completing storylines

  • Some decor as rewards for doing x amount of dungeons

  • Different stuff as rewards for doing x amount of battlegrounds

  • Rewards for completing achievements in dungeons and raids

  • Some stuff as exclusive rewards for AOTC and PvP ratings

  • Some stuff that only crafters can make

  • Some stuff you can only get with holiday currency

  • Decor you have to fish up, and the style/theme matches the area you fish it up in

  • Decor that has to be bought with Darkmoon prize tickets

  • Pet battle rewards

  • Random silly achieves and world quests like using your selfie camera to snap POIs (that would be a good way to reward photos/paintings to hang on the walls)

  • Random drops from old raids for people who like to do old content

  • Drops from rares and world bosses

1 Like
57

Oh? Now that sounds interesting. I knew there mods in Conan, but not ones that did that could do that. I may have to look at it again.

1 Like