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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsMore ideas for player housing
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 24th 2009 at 2:00PM
Spicytuna has a nice little writeup about a much-discussed but never implemented feature in World of Warcraft: player housing. Blizzard has borrowed (and subsequently improved upon) many of the most common features in MMOs -- they revamped leveling with ideas like rested XP and recruit-a-friend, they changed the endgame with the ideas of Heroic instances and daily quests, and they've tweaked PvP with battlegrounds, Wintergrasp and Arenas. But for some reason they've never taken on the idea of player housing: a place in the game for players to make their own. The reason we've always heard is that they never landed on a good implementation of it -- if they couldn't do it right, they wouldn't do it at all.
But Spicytuna proves there's no shortage of ideas. The main thought so far is that such an area would be instanced, as having actual buildings in the game as player houses just leads to emptied out ghettos of buildings left to rot.
Spicytuna throws in a few other great ideas as well: houses could give your character more storage space, or add bonus to your rested XP by sleeping in your own bed. A new profession could build furniture, and your house could reflect your travels: kill a certain boss, and see a memento from the fight on your shelves.
Lots of great ideas there, and it's strange that we've never heard a peep from Blizzard about acting on any of them. A little while back, we did hear confirmation that they were at least testing the waters of guild housing, but even with all of the current speculation about Cataclysm and the Worgen/Goblins, that idea hasn't yet come up again. Maybe we'll finally hear it at BlizzCon: it would be nice to finally have a place of our own in Azeroth.
Filed under: Engineering, Tailoring, Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 7 of 7)
Daniel Jul 25th 2009 12:49AM
Gosh dang it- I refuse to have to use 20 mith bars to turn into only 50 mith nails that only hold my furniture together 50% of the time! Not again! Curse you runescape! But in all honesty the idea of a house in wow that you create has always stood out to me- Plus the idea of a new profession really apeals to me as well- Carpenter anyone? Possibly mixed with a bit of wood cutter?..... Death to all Northshire Trees! And maybe if they get really crafty- because we all know that it will only be the really well off/filthy rich people who have the best or just a house in general- they may even allow players to rent out their houses to others.....so possibly that lv 10 never played before person can feel super epic 0.o who knows- But I'm all for the idea as long if the plans dont involve forming freakin nails one at a time...or using one log at a time....
Picviewer Jul 25th 2009 1:27AM
They want to do housing? Look to Turbine or SOE with either Asherons Call, LoTRO or Galaxies on how to do housing properly. Asherons had world zones set for player housing and then added in apartment style small rooms. The areas were part of the world not hidden away. SWG well you could plop down your buildings in zoned areas also for player cities and worked well to a extent. Rendered the cities pretty much useless except for offworld transport points. LoTRO took it to zoned/instanced housing streets that also worked well. All of them were setup the same and you'd go into your own or others.
WoW why even bother? Bad enough all the terrain is pretty much wasted in development as it right now since everyone is funneled into the same instances over and over. Surprised they just don't make a large poly box with a few spawn points in it and call it the next instance style. why bother with all the art development since it's never used to the full extent.
Ravasha Jul 25th 2009 5:10AM
I don't find Player Housing a good idea. Nobody will be in the normal world and a lot would zoom out to their houses, leaving Azeroth behind except for leveling/raiding.
RoyKor Jul 25th 2009 5:18AM
I know what would be really Good, yes Player Housing would be a Epic Thing to have, But i think engineers Should be able to Make them, Like The portable Mail Box, apart from its a permanent, obv that you should stop the idiots putting it in stupid places, or have a instanced area where you can have plots of land where you create your little house in, e.g Emerald Dream lol God knows blizz isnt using it atm lol, also make it so engineers Can profit from the houses ^^, Also i wouldn't mind a garage to place my Mekgineer's Chopper in it would be lots of fun, also when your having a burnout from doing dailys, you could also have a garden where you could create things for cooking, and make a profit from that lol! so many possibility's.
carebear1913 Jul 25th 2009 6:46AM
lets just assume that theres no trouble with instances, firstly, i think that guild houses would be good, matbe u could make it so that the higher ranked members have their own 'officers quarters', maybe each 'officer' could pick 2 proffesions and have, say, a mine, a forge and an anvil in their quarters if they picked mining and blacksmithing. the 'officers' could giv out permission slips or something to lower ranked people, and if you don't have permission u cant gather in their quarters.
guild stables? maybe you could put those mounts that clutter up your mount tab in guild stables, so people who just bought riding but cant afford a mount yet could borrow them, but it costs them rent.
i'm just saying, theres that many avenues this could go down.
carebear1913 Jul 25th 2009 7:39AM
dudes, 1 word: FORTRESS! imagine, your running through durotar, or the barrens, or even mulgore, or wherever, and you see a massive fortress, you pop in and repair your gear and then go on your way, after paying the owner tax. am i the only 1 who thinks having a castle with guards and resources on the grounds would kick all arse. you hire people and they harvest said resources and when you log in, boom, you got a stack of ore, or whatever. maybe you could run your own auction house, but you gotta be quick, coz once the limited areas they can be built are taken, you gotta conquer 1 to get 1, and when you got 1 you can invade others with a bunch of gaurds, that u pay to have trained.
of course, this wont be cheap, but having an army will be worth it, right. if your part of 1 of those guilds that no1 eva rocks up at runs you could fill the empty roles with your hirelings. of course, itll cost 2 keep your kick-ass castle running, but having a home in the middle of nowhere would help.
or the eva popular idea: when you hav a fortress/castle you can do x-realm mail, but it costs heaps. i doubt any of this will eva happen, but i can dream, cant i?
Daniel Jul 25th 2009 11:42AM
I say no player housing. Maybe guild halls but really I don't think player owned housing makes the cut. All it would be is another Money sink that people will complain about. Guild halls would work if say they put portals to major cities and allowed you to repair. Somehow I think that with WOWs graphics player housing would just look like another room and not unquie. Remember the game is not about sitting around it's Warcraft!
Gimmlette Jul 25th 2009 1:15PM
I've never understood the need for player housing. I want bigger bags, more guild and personal bank tabs, more ranks for guilds to promote and demote, but a house or even an apartment of my own, no thanks. Even a place that has room to store the mementos of my world progression isn't really vital to me, unless I can go back and get something from those events that have meaning. I still have my Onyxia Tooth Pendant from my guild's first kill of her and having a place to display it would be nice, but more bag space or a tab for "mementos" would be more handy.
What I would really, really, really like, as a GL, is an in-game bulletin board. The Message of the Day is not long enough and it goes by way too fast. It's first and then whatever Blizzard thinks is important is next. If you put an announcement you want everyone to see, say, "New schedule on the web site.", it's gone before anyone can read it when they log in. A bulletin board would be a fantastic place for players to advertise items for sale or their skills or to leave notes. To me, that's far more useful than individual player housing.
Sarah Jul 25th 2009 5:26PM
It sounds like a fun feature, but is this really what I want the developers working on when they could be working on, say, a new BG or Instance? Probably not. There's really only X amount of new content that they can come up with, this isn't at the top of my list of things that would entertain me for long amounts of time.
Things developers could be working on:
1. Something to spend SOTA marks on - lift the cap while you're at it. I'm tired of deleting messages every time I play a round.
2. Lagfest in WG. Seriously, we haven't fixed this yet? I hear promises for 3.2, but I'll believe it when I see it.
3. BGs
Evi Jul 26th 2009 11:36AM
Actually, that's pretty much what Blizz said when they discussed the topic. They think player housing is an interesting idea, but they don't want to spare the developer power. Developers are too busy working on stuff the majority of WoW players will enjoy. Player housing would please a lot of people, but not as many as a new BG or a better WG would.
Tony Bowman Jul 25th 2009 5:40PM
why not have a few new primary AND new secondary profession? comparable ones currently in the game in parens:
primaries: architect(engineer), miller(leatherworker), carpenter(blacksmithing), lumberjack(skinner)
secondaries: decorator(could be a buff to the well rested bonus), landscaper(no real buffs or combat bonus, but could be a good gold generator)
gbpacker Jul 25th 2009 10:50PM
I used to play a game called Wizard101 (shut up, it was kind of fun for a month) and the housing in that game was very good. There was a house vendor in each city and you would buy and small, medium, or large house. Since each area had a theme, the houses were themed to match. There was also a furniture vendor in each area selling things to, again, go with the theme. You got furniture as rewards for quests and there was a teleport to home spell. You could decorate the inside and outside as you saw fit with beds, desks, books, scrolls, trees, and themed items (a sarcophagus from egypt, etc). The small homes would be just that, a home, but the large ones were giant. There were castles with expansive gardens and grounds, tents from egypt, a townhouse from the England theme, and a lot more that I didn't get to in my short time playing the game. Bliz could implement soething like this. The themes would be based on factions or races. At a low level (~10-20), you'd get some mail telling you to talk to the house vendor in your race's city and he/she would send you on a simple quest chain, first clearing out an instance specifically for the purpose, then gathering skins and other furnishings to make the furniture. After completion, you'd get your first house and gain the ability to purchase more small houses. Then at two more levels, there would be similar quests, unlocking a new house each time and the ability to purchase bigger and bigger houses.
codexx Jul 26th 2009 3:52AM
As an old UO player, non-instanced shouldn't even be considered, and with the size of Azeroth being as small as it is in terms of actual space available and population, there's no way non-instanced could work.
Perhaps what they should do is allow your guild an instanced area, where your guild hall is, and outside the Guild Hall would be everyone's houses, like a castle in a city. Should you change guilds, your house is moved to join every else's. If possible, it'd be nice if characters on the same account could share a house, especially if they're in the same guild. Characters in other guilds should be allowed their own, of course. The only issue left are the big issue of how they'd work, the fact that if you can choose a theme for your "land" people's ideal houses may not fit the theme, leaving some sticking out like sore thumbs, or worse, all items convert to fit the theme. Changing guilds and finding your illustrious Stormwind style keep has turned into a Night Elven open house would NOT be pleasant. Also, there's the massive strain on the art team. It takes them months to "properly" create something like new hairstyles or new druid forms, I can't imagine how much time and effort would need to be devoted to creating some assets to reflect every race, and something for every situation. And that's AFTER they've decided on an implementation and have layed the framework for the system enough that the artists know how to create things.
On the bright side, objects like tables, chairs, and other items you'd find in an inn are already create. On the other hand, the buildings (or their pieces, if we get a building editor) are not. Neither are trophies, or lots of other items that need to be there. When there's thousands of items to create, hundreds for each race, it can take time.
Debra Jul 26th 2009 4:24AM
I think this could be useful because I think we need some group between the level of Character and Guild; many of us have friends we level with and could share some inventory with without granting access to those items to everyone in the guild. "Family" or "roommates" or some group along those lines might work for that. It could be possible to have more than one set of "roommates," unlike the constrictions of one guild. (It'd be equivalent of having an apartment in Dalaran and an apartment in Ironforge. Or it could be the equivalent of shared custody for children. Or college kids who have roommates at school and a family elsewhere. Or bigamists. Pick your own metaphor.)
Daniel Jul 27th 2009 12:13AM
Wish wow could support UO housing, it was awesome.
I would spend most of my day sitting in my house,
sounds boring, but I had more fun in it then I have in wow..
(I would play it, but the graphics are to dated for me now T_T ive been waiting and watching for a current gen UO style game since I stopped playing.)
(UO Ultima Online, for all the noobz)
Instance based housing would still be good, and I would jump on it if it was released
Todd Jul 27th 2009 3:28PM
I'd love to have player housing implemented in Warcraft.
I'd love to have a display case of "trophies" for achievements. The "purchasing" of the housing can come in a variety of models, in a variety of themes, and can be instanced along with the guild, or if guildless, be alone.
A true shame that Blizzard doesn't want to attempt this.
I suppose they're just busy with screwing up WG by making the BG instanced.
sami Aug 24th 2009 7:08AM
Roleplayers would eat this up. I know we're like, the laughingstock of the rest of the gaming community, but this would be like, fantastic. Saves the embarassment of taking your character's date home to find out that someone else is already enjoying themselves on your sofa.