Player Housing is something that every
MMO has either had as a feature or hasn't and the community
continuously begged for. World of Warcraft is one of the few large
MMOs out there that has put their foot down about not adding Player Housing into their game. But with WoW arguably going more casual friendly
with the latest expansion - will their minds change? Adding Player
Housing into an MMO setting is a lot more complicated than it appears
on the surface and many concerns must be addressed
before it could even be considered being added as a feature.
Taking Development Time – Do We
Have The Resources?
Blizzard is definitely the first person to throw the word expensive
around when it is difficult to implement something into the game. And
a GOOD player housing system would definitely take a lot of time and
effort. World of Warcraft is running on almost 10 year old coding at it's base which has caused problems for features in the past and
Player Housing is not something the original development of the game
had in mind when it was created. So it would take a lot of time and
effort to add it into the current game. But with back to back
expansions holding a new race and one including a tri-spec able class
Blizzard could get away with this new expansion not including a new
race or class and instead allowing other races be new classes as a
compromise. Not having to add a new class or race into the expansion
would free up a lot of development time. Blizzard has already stated
that they have finished Tier 17 in past interviews as well. This
means that something as big as Player Housing could be implemented as
an expansion feature.
How Do We
Make Player Housing Interesting To Every Player
Blizzard has arguably been going towards a more casual friendly model
with their recent expansion Mists of Pandaria, adding in a lot of
non-end game content and allowing players to see end game content
without having to put in the weekly dedication of raider with the
Looking for Raid and the soon to be Flexible Raiding feature. So one
of the big things Blizzard is going to be looking for in their future
features is making sure that it is interesting to the majority of
their player base.
Player Housing would be a great time sink for Casual Players if
implemented properly. Blizzard could put things around the world
(similar to how the Pet Battle System worked) that made it so people
who wanted a specific item had to go out to that area to get it. You
could make items be retrievable from old raids, instances,
reputations and even Archaeology to renew interest in old content.
These could be cosmetic items like an old vase dug up from Draenei
Archaeology or a Dragon Statue from the Wyrmrest Accord Quartermaster.
They could also unlock color/design schemes with faction reputations
like a Blood Elf crystal scheme floating out in the Twisting Nether
if you're Exalted with Silvermoon or a grand keep decorated in Blue
and Gold lions if Exalted with Stormwind. This would give casual
players a personal grind that they could do on their own time based
on the types of items they wanted in the world.
But How Would
This Interest End Game Players?
This is where the cool part comes in. I've been thinking about this
for an awful long time from the perspective of an end game PvE'er and
I've come up with some pretty cool ideas. Blizzard doesn't have a lot
of things that reward people who have been playing their game for a
really long time other than the items/mounts we may or may not have
in our bags. Why not put them on display?
Blizzard can reward players who have been around for a long time with
the Player Housing System. King Varian or The Horde Warchief can
summon the champion that has been protecting them and their people
for years and explain that they appreciate their commitment and give
them their house (which could be floating out in the Twisting Nether
and only accessible through a stone similar to a Hearthstone) as a
thank you. Inside that house are empty glasses with Mannequins inside
with a control panel at the end. You open up the control panel and it
opens up a UI where you can place full sets of old tier gear that
doesn't destroy the gems/enchants and keeps the gear at its full
glory. This would allow players who have collected up to 15 sets of
Tier gear (like me) that is sitting in their bags to actually be put
on display. Separate floating fields can put Legendary Weapons on
display as well for those who have collected something so difficult
to achieve since we still are not allowed to Transmog them. A wall of
plaques and banners of the colors of reputations you have become
exalted with to show how much work has been put into the game. Maybe
even boss mementos for end game bosses that you've killed in raid
instances like a claw of Nefarion or the Elemental Bindings of
Ragnaros. Go outside to see a full stable of mounts that you
choose to be on display (since most players have 100+ mounts we
obviously can't have them all, we could let the player choose 10 or
so mounts that are special to them to place in the stables).
This Sounds
Awesome! But Now Everyone Is Spending All of Their Time In Their
Houses And Aren't In the World Anymore!
This one is a pretty easy fix that I have seen as the primary
argument against having Player Housing in the game. Primary
implementation – Don't Put a Guild Bank and Auction House inside of
the House. It makes sense for Players to want to place personal
storage inside of their homes so a Personal Bank would be fine but no
Auction House so players can just sit in the house all day and not
have to interact with other players. Trade Chat in my opinion would
be fine if the player wanted to have it on, if the Player is looking
for a group for something they would have to leave the house to go
and do what they wanted the group for anyway but not having Trade
Chat wouldn't hinder anyone either. Give the Players inside of the
House a buff called Relaxation – This buff
would not allow players to queue up for random dungeons,
battlegrounds or raids until they left the house. This would make it
so players couldn't just sit in their own private instance and queue
for whatever they needed for the day and log off.
That Fixes
The Problem – But Now No One Uses It, It's Going to Be a Failure
That's the beauty of it. Like every other feature in the game it's as
successful as you the Player makes it! A Feature being used by every
player for 6 hours a day does not a successful feature make. It's
what the players do with it that makes it a success. Every screenshot
of a room in your home, every tweet about your home, every whisper
saying “Hey, my Home looks so awesome, let me invite you to a group
so you can come see how cool it looks” makes the feature a success.
It doesn't have to be used every day but as long as players create
hype about it in a positive way, it makes the feature successful.
Grouping with a bunch of friends and passing Group Lead to each
person so you can port to their home so they can say “Hey, I have
this awesome thing let me show you, oh you don't have it!? Well
here's how you get, let me show you were it is, I'll help you get it”
makes the feature incredibly worth it. This would also be a huge
boost to the close nit RP communities across the population.
This would give the Player Base one of two things depending on who
the Player is (or both). This would either give the player something else to do
out in the world at their own pace and motivation level. Constantly
adding new things that can be added into the house would keep
constant interest in the feature. This would also give old veteran
players something that shows how much time and effort we've put in
the game over however many years we've been playing. One of the few
downsides of WoW is that no matter how long you've played you don't
really have a lot of things to physically show others that all those
hours were actually spent doing something important to you. Whether
it was killing bosses or grinding out Battlegrounds apart from our
gear which we can't even display fully. This would give players who
have been around a long time something that shows “hey... I did
things... and this thing that I can now show others shows that I did
that thing... and it was awesome!”. Isn't that what everyone in an
MMO wants?
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