World of Warcraft has waited, well, arguably too long, to have a player housing system. Despite being a unanimously popular feature of most MMORPGs, WoW waited a stonking 20 years before incorporating the ability to have a home, sweet home into its economy.
The upshot of this, however, is that it can systematically see every single mistake other MMOs made in these past two decades, and then simply… not make them. Per a new blog discussing upcoming player neighbourhoods, WoW’s dodging all the issues of other popular games with worse housing systems (ahem, cough, Final Fantasy 14).
While each instance can only hold around 50 houses, the neighbourhoods themselves “are created as needed by the game servers, and anyone can buy a house in them. As they fill up, new instances are created, so players looking for a house shouldn’t see a message about all the neighbourhoods being full.”
Essentially, the game’ll have infinite neighbourhoods (functionally infinite, for you pedants). We already knew there weren’t any lotteries, but to hear that Blizzard’ll simply scale neighbourhoods is a relief.
There are also three kinds of neighbourhoods—public, guild, and charter. Public neighbourhoods’ maintenance is all handled by the game, allowing anyone to plonk their houses down there, provided there’s space.
Guild neighbourhoods are what they sound like: If you’re in a guild, you can use its neighbourhood. If you aren’t in the guild anymore, you can’t. Plus, they’ll “have homes available for everyone in a guild through additional attached instances, regardless of the Guild’s size”. Charter neighbourhoods, meanwhile, are private ones that are constrained to the 50-house size of a public neighbourhood.
Another huge quality-of-life bump? If you want to move house, or lose it (via being kicked from a guild), “your house’s state will be saved, ready to be ‘unpacked’ with a click when you purchase a new house elsewhere.” Coming from FF14, this is a huge breath of fresh air, given that your house is straight-up demolished if you’re inactive for a long period of time.
Endeavours seem interesting, as well. These are monthly activities that’ll have tasks to be completed by a neighbourhood, which “run the gamut of gameplay: from crafting to gathering, to questing, to completing dungeons or raids”. As you complete an endeavour, you’ll be able to unlock themed furnishings and talk with certain NPCs.
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As per the screenshots above, Endeavours are heavily themed, but if you’ve a private neighbourhood with a specific aesthetic, you’ll be able to choose an Endeavour from a list rather than being forced into anything that clashes with your current setup.
Not to mention, “The number of tasks required scales with Neighbourhood size, so a 50-player Neighbourhood will have to complete more tasks than a 10-player Neighbourhood. Similarly, if a Neighbourhood is less active, future Endeavours for that Neighbourhood will also scale their requirements down to accommodate.”
While I’m sure WoW will have some growing pains for its neighbourhoods—it usually does with any new system—everything I’m hearing about player housing seems utterly on-point. Blizzard’s really angling to simply eat its competitor’s lunch, dinner, and dessert with quality-of-life features, and I’m keen to see what people make.
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