Personally, I believe there is no correct way someone can argue that player housing would keep WoW alive. It’s a tertiary system, if it becomes the one thing keeping the game alive it’s the primary system, so apart from the fact that not that many people would continue paying a subscription just to have a house, WoW would no longer be the same game if housing was a primary system. It’s a simple fact that the average player cares more about quests, raids, dungeons, as well as quite a few other systems than player housing
Despite this opinion I do hope they add player housing someday, especially is someone who plays on an RP server.
I think it’s another piece of the puzzle that is a “complete game”. It shouldn’t be THE system and it doesn’t have to be. The thing is different people get different things out of the game. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself and say that mostly what I get out of WoW currently is cosmetic stuff. I want to dress up my characters via Transmog and I spend so much time looking through the item lists to see what clothing parts I want so that I can run an old raid or do an old quest for them. My other love, currently, is Torghast. I can pretty much run that all day.
Some folks like raiding (though I’d argue that this isn’t as huge of a number as some may think). Some like doing old raids. Some like soloing stuff. Some like doing quests and exploring the world. Some like Pet Battles. Some like running dungeons. The lists go on and on. WoW adding another activity for people to engage in isn’t bad and it’s one more thing that may keep someone from quitting. See, I think the overall point of MMOs is player engagement. Letting people engage with the game in different ways. That’s what makes the game fun for a ton of people with different tastes.
I mean, in a game world where rogues that can stealth anywhere and hunters that can camouflage anywhere, is there really a place where you can truly feel private? Kek.
The first paragraph fits the way I play to a tee, and the second I feel the same. Adding ways for people to enjoy the game is a good thing, everyone has different tastes and something added doesn’t have to appeal to everyone.
Housing would be evergreen content that would keep people in the game between content droughts. Even if people don’t ‘roleplay’ the amount of decorating contests would be amazing. Or people who are ‘interior decorators’ can show off with screenshots and such.
I dont think anyone would truly believe that player housing would ‘keep WoW alive’. What it would do is provide a lot of more casual content and give professions a real boost for the first time since MoP. Obviously creative, fun and immersive content across the game is what we need.
My argument is that I don’t think WoW’s current world engine is capable of doing complex player housing and the path-of-least-resistance implementation would be a glorified archeology display room which I’m pretty sure would be met with howls of “that’s not what I asked for”, despite people not clearly defining what it was they were asking for.
(I say this as someone who poured endless hours into tweaking and decorating my Ultima Online mansion)
Animal Crossing has sold millions of copies on the back of simply decorating your place and doing the day to day. There’s obviously a casual market for this. It wouldn’t be for everyone, but it’s something that could expand over the years and always be relevant content. Much like transmog farming.
I think this can be fairly simple with the biggest issue being how and where can a player set up shop? The basics of decorating the place should be pretty straight forward. Just let people put things where they want. The biggest hurdle would be the interface. That takes a ton of time to get implemented right.
However, how people choose their plot of land or location would possible be the biggest point of friction with the players.
Thats a good idea. Perhaps if you have various levels of Achievement points you get to add different appearance ‘skins’ to your house. If you got like every achievement in the game (which someone did a while ago) perhaps it turns into this little palace…
You don’t “SPEND” them, but yeah I could see like various levels of Achievement Points can ‘unlock’ various things like trophies, posters, sculptures, etc.
I think it would be nice if they surveyed the general population to see what zones people would like to have a house in. Then reserve some land in each of the selected zones where a house could be placed. Then just let each person choose the zone they want for a gold cost. Better real estate costs more gold. Each area is phased, like the garrison, once it’s selected so that there isn’t any competition for locations. Everyone can have prime space if they can pay for it.
On top of that, have “home portals” in the cities for those who want to live in the city. Where they have various places that are zoned that overlook various parts of a city. So you can have an “apartment” in Stormwind, Ironforge, etc. Maybe this place is cheaper and a lot easier for people get to if that’s what they want.
Not sure if this would be the best way, but I think it would cover more bases and allow for lots of options for people to live where they want. Final Fantasy XIV has an interesting system, too. I wasn’t a huge fan of how we chose our locations and the costs to get because we’re using actual space made it hard to buy into. At least this way, the players aren’t competing for actual space in the world.
My full opinion on this. Player housing would be a great feature. I’d interact with it very much if it ever got added. It would have great potential if Blizzard did it right. It would probably bring a lot of people back to the game, not because it would be such a great feature it alone would make people come back but because it also shows change that blizzard has added something the community wants. However, player housing wouldn’t carry the game. The people that really liked it would be fine, but one feature is not enough to sate an entire community through months or years of bad content.
To sum this up I totally agree that it would be a great feature and a massive boost to the community. However, I think this “evergreen theory” that without player housing the game would die if something terrible happened, but if they added it, it wouldn’t just because housing existed is objectively wrong. Maybe 10-20% of the player base would stick around just because of the housing for a year or two, but at that point is it really the same game?
You’re right. I do think that, like transmog farming, keeping the player house relevant with home expansions, land expansions, new furniture, etc. can keep that system fresh for those who are into it. However, is it a feature that will “save WoW” or “kill WoW”? I doubt it. WoW has survived this long without it and would probably continue to survive even if it wasn’t added. I just think that (like with many things in the game) how they choose to keep it functioning will depend on what people get out of and how it adds to the overall view (and value) of the game. If they add it in, yet never add more furniture or trophies or anything else that can be added to your home, it’ll mean nothing.
I think about my wife’s connection to Animal Crossing. The moment they stopped adding more things to the game, she pretty much stopped playing. Her drive was that she was going to be always hunting for new furniture pieces and such, and when they went silent and stopped adding stuff, she stopped as well. They recently decided to add a ton of stuff to the game, but I wonder if that was too little too late and they even said they’re not adding anything else to the game, so what’s there is the end of it.
My point being that adding in systems and letting them stagnate is just not gonna help with the health of the game. Transmog farming works because they’re always adding in new gear and the RNG battle makes it so that we always have something to chase. If they add in player housing, then they would have to make sure it also didn’t stagnate. I think it’d be an easy system to keep up, though. People will be mostly looking for more things to place in their house and the game has a ton of knick knacks that can easily be made into placeable furniture for the player. It’s a well they could tap into for a long time to come with minimal work. Though, eventually they’d need to create some more unique stuff to be used as well.
I think going into it as something that will save the game is just not the right approach. It should be a complimentary feature…much like transmogging is.
Evergreen isn’t a theory about ‘something can save wow or not’, Evergreen is a game term for a feature that is designed to stay relevant.
Transmog is an evergreen system because it is something that is always there and used regardless of what expansion it is, the collections system is an evergreen system because it is relevant and used in the same way.
Systems that are made to be discarded and not used after when they are introduced (most recent systems, artifact weapons, azerite gear, covenant features) are not evergreen systems.
A lot of things they could throw into it they already made for each expansion, each expansion they already design buildings, furniture to go in the buildings of the expansion and such, so it wouldn’t even be having to ‘make new assets’ to make old furniture or future ones unlockable in some fashion if housing were added
