Players in Azeroth have wanted a player housing system for years. The expansion Warlords of Draenor introduced garrisons, which players were led to believe would be similar to player housing. However, the actual function of garrisons was not what players expected. Players wanted a place where their characters could relax, hang out with their guild members, meet new neighbors, and have a place of creativity to express their character’s achievements within Azeroth.
During Warcraft’s 30th Anniversary Direct, Blizzard teased that it would release the future of player housing alongside its upcoming expansion Midnight. Recently, they shared information on what players can expect with the new feature. Blizzard released a post detailing the housing system they plan to introduce with the next expansion. A light version of the new system will be available with the next patch of the current expansion, The War Within. Is this feature what players hoped for, and will it stand out against similar games with a housing feature?
Blizzard’s Promising Features
To kick things off, Blizzard has promised the new housing system will be available to everyone. It’s unclear if you need to purchase Midnight to access the new feature or if it will be available to all players. Still, it’s a reasonable assumption that Blizzard will require you to own a copy of their latest expansion to access its new features. Aside from the real-life purchase of the expansion and its monthly subscription, Blizzard has promised that housing will have no high purchase costs, no lottery, and no rent to pay every month. You don’t even have to log in to keep your plot. If you prefer to play the game in short sprints rather than a long marathon, don’t worry. Your home can’t be foreclosed by the bank or invaded by squatters.
Players will be excited to come home and kick up their feet.
Houses will be shared amongst your Warband, meaning every character on your account will share the same house. Your orc warrior will be able to visit your human paladin’s home and even live in it. If you prefer how one faction’s neighborhood looks, you can use a character of that faction to purchase a plot in that neighborhood and live there with either faction. I am relieved to hear this. I was concerned about how they would implement a cross-faction system, but this is the easiest solution.
Speaking of going against faction limits, the way Blizzard has designed the neighborhoods is that you can move to new ones freely. Neighborhoods will be instanced locations where players can come and go as they wish with persistent neighbors. You may make a new best friend or notice the neighborhood disappearing and want to move to a new one. There isn’t information on how moving to a different neighborhood works precisely. Ideally, Blizzard will make it a seamless effort for the player to move as they wish. Changing neighborhoods might be a thing players want to do often, so it would be nice to have that freedom.
Look forward to decorating your house as you see fit.
There are two types of neighborhoods: Public and Private. Public is self-explanatory: a public area with strangers living in the same plot as you. You might make a new friend or a new enemy who you bicker at from your porch. Private neighborhoods are more specific. Blizzard described it as groups of friends or guilds using this neighborhood to live and customize their houses together. This will most likely be the most used feature between the two types.
Most people who log in to Azeroth play the game purely to socialize with their guild or friends. However, some players find themselves in multiple circles within the game, and limiting them to one neighborhood might be a bit awkward. Depending on how easy it is to change neighborhoods, this might force players to choose one friend group over another. Visiting other people’s homes, possibly when they aren’t even online, should be easy, so the social aspect will always be there.
The Pillars of Player Housing
Blizzard has separated the new player housing system into three pillars that will define the feature in the future. This is a feature that Blizzard wants to keep in the game forever and build on it more and more with every expansion. The three foundational pillars of this feature are the main focus points of the development teams, but Blizzard has said this does not mean the three pillars are all they are focusing on. Even if they haven’t mentioned it in their newsletter, it does not mean they will not include it in the final product.
Self-Expression
The first pillar that Blizzard explained was the pillar of boundless self-expression. This seems to be their biggest priority regarding player housing, and for good reason. Players want a place to express themselves and their Warband through personal tastes. Blizzard wants to make the system easy to use and not require experience with 3D home-building games but also wants the system to be complex enough for creativity and surprising combinations. This is terrific news. Many players joked that this would be a rigged system like garrisons, but this pillar aims to avoid that.
An example of what players can use to decorate their home.
This first pillar is the foundation of what every World of Warcraft player wants: personal customization. If Blizzard can deliver on what they promise from this, they will have a happy player base. Players want their home to be unique and not a copied version of their neighbor, which was where garrisons fell extremely short. Garrisons failed mainly because there was little to no customization and uniqueness. Players either had building A that served one purpose or building B that served a different one. Thanks to this pillar, players will have the freedom to customize their homes as they want.
Deeply Social
Garrisons also fell short in the social aspect of Warlords of Draenor. Blizzard’s note on this pillar is that they want player housing to be shared among players and neighbors. The housing systems designed for the game will encourage interaction and progression as a community. Players can enjoy housing as a solo player, but it’s clear that the developers want all players to enjoy the system. I took this as Blizzard confirming that players can earn rewards through group gameplay. Blizzard also snuck in a tidbit about players living together in the same house. This could mean that multiple players can build and customize one house together. We will have to wait and see.
Blizzard doesn’t go into much detail about how you’ll visit neighborhoods or other plots. This could be a cause for concern as this is where the anti-social aspect of garrisons emerged. The only way to join a friend’s garrison or have them visit yours was through a party invite and a separate loading screen. Having multiple houses in one neighborhood eliminates the awkwardness of setting up visits. However, Blizzard’s reluctance to say how players can visit other neighborhoods could be concerning. It’s too early to consider it a detriment to the system, but it is something to watch as more news about it is released.
Long-Lasting Journey
The final pillar is Blizzard’s promise to keep this system evergreen, with its own roadmap that stretches across multiple expansions. Blizzard doesn’t expect players to finish this feature or find an end. This new type of system will constantly be relevant and offer new rewards to work toward and achieve customization. This explanation was all I needed to hear to be excited. This tells me Blizzard won’t be throwing this system away when we finish the upcoming trilogy of expansions. We will be getting new things to customize our homes with. Blizzard wants to give us things to work toward beyond the traditional grind for better gear. As much as World of Warcraft players hunger for better gear, having more relaxed goals will be a breath of fresh air.
An early rendition of where players will build their homes.
These three pillars are exciting. Players have asked for this for a long time, and we are finally getting it. Whether this is a response to the mass exodus of World of Warcraft players who migrated to Final Fantasy, this is a fantastic addition to Azeroth that will keep players invested and excited for years. Speaking of Final Fantasy, this system could also be helpful for those players. The player-housing feature in the game is starting to feel outdated. You must spend massive amounts of in-game currency to purchase a plot of land.
On top of that, you must remain a consistent player, or else your plot will go up for auction. Blizzard is taking a different route. They want every player to have a home and experience its customization and social aspects at a minimal cost. Meanwhile, Final Fantasy wants the system to be more specific and exclusive. Maybe the developers at Square Enix will look over the fence at Blizzard’s housing system and make adjustments.
Player Housing Tease in Undermine(d)
The upcoming new patch, Undermine(d), comes with new features. One feature is the option for the player to move into an apartment. The apartment will be a smaller-scale version of what player housing might look like. When players enter the new zone and become familiar with the new factions, they receive a quest to help the tenants of the Barrelbottoms apartment complex. Completing the brief quest line rewards you with a free penthouse apartment. You don’t have to pay rent to live in this place, which is nice as it isn’t a five-star resort. While there isn’t much information about this apartment, consider it an early peek into what player housing may look and feel like.
The Goblins of Undermine(d) are not ready for Azeroth’s adventurers.
I don’t expect Blizzard to give us customization freedom with this apartment, but we will know more when the update is released. For now, we can only confirm that we will have a custom innkeeper in the room so we can set our hearthstone there to visit quickly. It’s too early to tell, or even guess, what features will be available when player housing officially drops, but it has excited the community about what’s to come in Blizzard’s future. As always, I am nervous about letting myself be excited about this new chapter of World of Warcraft. But this is a feature I might get myself lost in the hype.
