World of Warcraft: Midnight, the second expansion The World Soul SagaThere was a recent announcement of a highly anticipated feature during the Warcraft 30th Direct. After a series of updates celebrating the 30th anniversary of War franchise, one last reveal has been teased; the player’s housing will finally reach the World of Warcraft.
Following in the footsteps of other MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV, Wild Star, Lost Arkand The Elder Scrolls Onlineplayer housing will finally carve out its own place in the nearly 20-year-old MMO. Although the trailer itself was quite short, speculation about Wowof housing implementation is already underway. While Blizzard’s tease of the feature didn’t provide much information, the player’s housing, regardless of how they arrive at the Wow, it will certainly change the game forever.
Player housing fixes a long-standing World Of Warcraft issue
Characters will finally have a permanent place to call home
Wow characters, since its original release, have been homeless. In the classic WowWhen our characters were humble adventurers and traveling was a more arduous process, the inns scattered across the map made sense. Rest itself was an incentive to leave the taverns, giving players bonus experience gains outside of the game, and creating logical places to meet and interact. Players also receive Hearthstones, items to return to an inn of their choice. There’s a reason why Goldshire is still perhaps the most popular location in World of Warcraft.
Our characters have come a long way since then. No longer simple adventurers, they are at the forefront of every world-altering threat. However, even as you move across continents with each expansion and constantly talk to faction leaders, our characters are still disconnected from the inns. Housing, as the name implies, would finally grace our characters with a piece of land they can call their own, to which, regardless of which continent the next threat appears, we can return to.
How Player Housing Worked in Other MMOs
MMOs have experimented with a wide range of housing systems
Other MMOs quickly realized the logic of giving players, in a “massive” world, the ability to own and customize a home, but the exact use of these houses differs from game to game. Lost ArkFortresses, for example, offer lucrative gaming incentives. ESO allows players to travel to their pre-positioned houses, which can be used as a convenient time saver. Others, like Wild Starof Much-lauded system, it offered infinite customization that could spark inspiring creativity.
FFXIVan MMO that constantly remains at the forefront of its genre, it also has a unique system. There, players can acquire vacant land in artisanal neighborhoods. These spaces provide areas purely for social interaction, and the houses themselves can be transformed into social spaces of their own, such as cafes or player-run casinos. Free Companies, FFXIVof version of guilds, could even obtain houses, allowing its members to acquire instantiated apartments accessible through the main house. These features encourage dynamic social interactionand are a focal point of the broader PR community.
What future player housing could look like in WoW
Based on the diversity of housing systems in other MMOs, there are a few options here. Based on Wowthe current trend of making content more optionalI imagine player housing won’t come with any obvious game bonuses. Forcing players to engage with such a system would certainly generate disdain for its inclusion as a whole, as with Land of Shadows infamous Torghast.
Another recent trend in Wowas seen in the 11.2 announcement, is the ability to customize mounts. Many of these customizations could be eliminated through end-game content, such as raid bosses, and could be reworked as a means of acquiring furniture or trophies as a fun reward to showcase players’ achievements. With The war withinIn the Warband system too, it’s easy to see our characters potentially sharing homes, or at least creating account-wide customization options.
What WoW Can Learn From Its Previous Attempt at Dwelling
Garrisons were poorly implemented
Notoriously, Wow already faced a kind of housing system, the garrison of Warlords of Draenor. Garrisons functioned as players’ main hub for most of the expansion, with progression and customization available. Among the many problems with trims, one seems to be the most relevant: they made the world, the massively multiplayer component, feel smaller. Players remained within their garrisons, leaving the new zones, and the world in general, feeling emptier. Ashran, the expansion’s featured city, used to be a ghost town.
During the initial announcement, garrisons could be placed anywhere on the map. This was later changed to two faction-specific locations, but it shows that the idea of utilizing the world was a fantasy that Blizzard wanted to realize. Wow expansions, typically on a newly discovered continent, reduce Azeroth’s large sandbox. With Midnight and The Last Titan both promising returns to familiar locales, Iit would be a perfect opportunity for players to have freedom of choice in the location of their home and reuse areas that have been forgotten.
Player housing needs to be implemented carefully
Player interaction is already decreasing
Player housing, in its ideal form, should be a way for players to express their creativity and be a new avenue of interaction between players. With each expansion, Wowplayer interaction, for better or worse, has steadily declined. The Party Finder has reduced the need for communication, flying mounts have made the roads barren, and the Internet can answer any question a player might have. Mankrik’s wife can be found with a quick search. Preserving interactions that are still present is essentialbut housing also presents the opportunity to revive this lost identity.
Like garrisons, player housing can further restrict the world with yet another layer of instance and distance. World of Warcraft You need to avoid this at all costs. Otherwise, the long-term result of the system could become something considered as another element in the long list of systems that harm the world. Homes shouldn’t restrict the world, they need to expand it, give it life. Players should have the opportunity to mark the world that so many have immersed hundreds of hours into, to have a piece of it they can call their own.
Source: World of Warcraft/YouTube