Seems it didn’t or people wouldn’t be “demanding” that they add player housing. And if Blizzard does errr I mean Microsoft who know own Blizzard…people could simply commit B And E 
You mean the raid tier that Shadowlands lost anyways?
I mean, I get it. WoW has the best endgame, but when that endgame is at the detriment of quite literally everything else, is it really worth having that raid tier we’ll potentially lose? I use “potentially” because I think Blizzard could 100% put the time into player housing without sacrificing a raid tier. They just don’t want to because they would rather focus on niche systems that alienate everyone else. Overall, it’s a lame excuse to fend off any pushback.
Because it’s pretty clear to me by the cut SL content and the subscriptions hemorrhaging that perhaps placing all your bets on one aspect of the game isn’t a good thing.
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I’d rather bet on that than a feature of never use anyway.
I mean, if you know what they can do better than they do, you should apply there!
If they’re getting rid of the stupid systems (which they definitely should) that dev time would be better invested in the stuff they actually do well and not another new idea borrowed from other games. Add more dungeons, BGs, arenas, raids. Finish those heritage sets! Put in challenging solo content for the line wolf types.
Pre, hands down.
not even close.
here is how blizzard can up player retention. gear. gear and more gear. make the game alt friendly. make it so that if someone wants to hop on an alt they can get minimum 252 within a few days of dinging 60 assuming they know the path to take.
when getting your main geared and decked over the course of 4-6 months then thats it right now. aint nobody got time to do that all over again on an alt so they /quit until next patch.
if the game was easy mode alt friendly the dungeon finders would explode and the servers would crash with people constantly spamming.
lets face it the masses play for that insta gratification of the next gear upgrade and not a place to hang your hat and afk until you auto log like ph.
Yeah, let’s ignore the fact that Blizzard is a AAA studio funded by the largest publisher in the entire world. Surely the poor AAA studio can’t afford to do both things.
Or they could just add the thing people have been asking for?
Imagine thinking THIS is an argument. Pathetic.
Of course they can. They could give us 8 raids an expansion and a dungeon every month if they wanted. We all know they won’t sacrifice the profit though.
What if they said they’d do both but the expansion would be $80 for base and sub goes up $5? Would you go for it?
Those are all things a lot of people have been asking for for years. Even a lot of people asking for PH admit that boredom is a major reason they’re asking, and those alternatives would give people a lot more to do.
id sacrifice a raid Teir for Playable Hozen, but not for Player housing! … i like my garrison on my warlock still, for what it is! we don’t need to do it again.
my idea of Player housing is 100% customizable plot of land like (Valheim) which the wow servers just couldn’t support. so id rather them spend Resorces on making Hozen Playable!!!.. i may be biases cause i just want to play as a Hozen XD
Thing is, player housing is a one time investment on its infrastructure. Following that, the only upkeep they’d need to maintain is adding new pieces of furniture and cosmetics so that players have something to work towards, and to be honest with you, its one-time investment wouldn’t even be that cost intensive, because they have a plethora of assets they can pull from in-game to make this feature a more feasible process. So while we can go on and on and on about profits, the reality is that player housing as an evergreen system is infinitely better than anything that is relegated to the sidelines at the end of every expansion, and it certainly wouldn’t be so cost intensive that it would require the subscription and base value to go up.
And they get them every year. We get four raids, a handful of dungeons + patch-based dungeons, and then scaling difficulties with new affixes every expansion. I’ll accept the arenas and battleground argument, though. Perhaps it’s time for player housing, instead.
I don’t care if they do it or not, but for the love of god if you are going to add player housing don’t do it like FF14. There is literally no reason to limit the amount of housing the community can buy. The stupidest thing FF did was create an artificial number of homes when its all located as data on servers and could theoretically be enough space for everyone to have one.
The only thing that will occur is the people with all their toons having max gold will buy up all the housing and try and cheat regular players by raising the costs.
Then my question still stands: would you still want it if it was a strictly solo instance?
Of course, it offers an abundance of potential utility they could implement in all areas of the game. Especially what is currently lacking in the community now, which is ironically community. I mean if you want to play a game by yourself, then online probably isn’t the best option unless you like the design Blizzard has gone into, which is a scuffed version of a FPS game, where you queue and wait. There is almost no point in having open world if you want to be isolated in a 200sqft room.
Would you still want to play WoW if you were relegated to queue times only?
The only thing in WoW with any long term staying power is aesthetics. Stats are here today, gone in a drop, and an item may be replaced before it even sees use in the worst case situations.
That which looks cool now will continue looking cool until they release something even cooler. Maybe next patch, sure. Or maybe never.
Now, the aesthetics we get are limited by the slots we have. Thirteen slots is all you get per character, not every character can use two weapons or an offhand, and that’s it. That’s what your aesthetic potential is capped at. That’s as good as you can possibly look.
But… a house? A castle? A keep. A stronghold? … You can have as many “slots” for aesthetics as you have floor and wall-space. You can have effectively infinite customization slots, and not one of them forces Blizzard to crunch any balancing or gameplay numbers, save perhaps drop percentages.
And that there’s the thing too - infinite reward capacity. Wall textures and furniture and doodads from every era of WarCraft. Buy them. Craft them. Earn them. Grind for them. This expansion, tomorrow’s expansion, and all the expansions that came before - all content to offer players, all of it potential drivers of player engagement.
Oh, you finally got Garrosh’s shoulders? Okay, now go get him to drop plans for his throne. Or maybe Emperor Thaurissan’s Thone. Lorken’s? Xin the Weaponmaster’s?
Imagine everything in World of Warcraft, not just the items, but every asset, there for you to claim and earn and create with and build with, put on display and make your own.
Build your Forsaken Plaguemonger the dark laboratory he’s always wanted with assets from Scholomance to to Icecrown Citadel. Create your Pandaren Monk’s dream temple with gardens from Suramar, a Shadopan Dojo, and a Titanic themed inner sanctum. Would your Dwarven Big Game Hunter like a Lodge/Beer Garden with trophies from the Halls of Valor? Your Goblin Demolition’s Expert a pyrotechnic’s workshop with Iron Horde Tech. and every bomb from across Azeroth and beyond? How about building your Kul’tiran patriot a Seaside Mansion with Waycrest stylings, but embellished with Karazhan libraries and a treasury pulled from Utgarde Pinnacle?
⠀
The potential our characters have is limited to one potential character. The potential our characters could claim as their base of operations is nearly infinite.
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Personally I do not care about it, but if its something that makes people happy and enjoy the game, what is the harm. Some people want mythic + and to push keys higher and higher, some want to push raiding, some mount farm, and some people like to rp and games like WOW are an outlet for that. I see no harm in it.
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Perhaps. Would be interesting to see the response if they pulled the trigger and scrapped a raid for it in 11.0. Wonder if Ions got the stones to risk ii.
I’m a hard no on Barbie Dream Home “WOW” edition.
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the people that want player housing are a very small, very loud minority
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I agree that alt friendly/ no more borrowed power would help player retention, so do things you can do that have nothing to do with grinding gear. Some kill time with pet battles, some with achieves, some with mog hunts. Nothing wrong with adding to that list with player housing. And if they add a profession with it then some that don’t really want the house can just sell more stuff, play the AH game.
It all equals player retention.
And you’re wrong, the masses don’t just want instant gratification from gear. I gave up that pursuit after MoP. The only instant gratification I want is when I summon a flying mount it can fly, anywhere. I’m sure many others have left the die hard grind for gear as well.
I remember when transmog was announced, many said it was a waste, that they would never use it. Ya right, almost everyone uses it now.
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