WoW Player Housing Preview - Customization and Neighborhoods

Although the next World of Warcraft expansion is far away, Blizzard has decided to throw us a bone and provide a first look into the new Housing feature coming in Midnight. Although the idea has been teased ever since Vanilla WoW, no one expected the dev team to finally bring an MMORPG staple to Azeroth. 

With that in mind, we will go over the newest article on Player Housing for World of Warcraft Midnight.

WoW Player Housing

Although the community has been asking for this feature for years now, there is still a lot to take into consideration when implementing such a massive aspect of Retail WoW. Blizzard shared some of the founding pillars around which the system will be built up from the ground.

Boundless Self-Expression

Our highest priority is to allow players to build a house that shows off their own personal tastes or their Warband’s, acts as a desired backdrop for roleplaying, or just allows players to create something in a flight of fancy. The toolset should be easy enough for someone with no 3D experience to be comfortable with and use successfully, but it should also be powerful enough that players can surprise us with their creations or drill down to get the tiniest details just right. The gamut of decor options spans not just the cultures of Azeroth but the many expansions of World of Warcraft as well.

Deeply Social

World of Warcraft is more fun with other players, and Housing should be no different. While players can enjoy housing purely on their own, its systems are designed at a fundamental level to encourage interacting, playing, and progressing with friends, neighbors, guilds, and the wider community in a meaningful way.

Long-Lasting Journey

Housing is being built as an evergreen addition to the game, with its own roadmap, reaching across multiple patches and into future expansions. Housing isn’t something players should expect to “finish”, but instead continually look forward to the next housing release, be it new content or systems. This is a long-term commitment for us as developers and offers players rewards all along the way.

It will certainly be a challenge all of these principles given the modern WoW landscape and general gameplay loop. For an MMORPG to be successful, building a sense of community and friendship is crucial to maintaining longevity and replayability. In that regard, if Player Housing is implemented, it needs to integrated into the social aspects of the game, and not isolate players further from open-world content and other key aspects.

Sense of Home

Given some of the limitations of World of Warcraft, it seems that at launch, Player Housing will be spread into two separate zones for Alliance and Horde members. 

Zones

The Alliance zone takes inspiration from Elwynn Forest with touches of Westfall and Duskwood, and the Horde’s is inspired by Durotar, its coastline, and Azshara. 

Furthermore, Blizzard clarified the general design philosophy behind the customization options and how you will be able to access it in-game.

Play or Pay?

We’ve been very aligned in our internal conversations that Housing is designed to be primarily player-first and not revenue-first.

Although it is still early to estimate just how much the system will be player-first, Blizzard later mentioned that some customization options will be available from real money purchases.

Housing will offer hundreds and hundreds of decorations and house customizations via in-game rewards but will also offer a smaller number of items in the cash shop as well. This is comparable to how transmogs and pets are currently handled in game versus the shop. 

Warband Integration

Your houses are also shared amongst your Warband with your different characters being able to come and go as you see fit (so your Orc character can hang out in your Alliance house without a problem). Housing rewards are also shared across your Warband, so you’ll be able to use your décor collection no matter which character earns it. 

Arguably the introduction of Warbands has significantly increased the experience for players looking to easily manage their alt army and acquire transmogs and other goodies, so it makes sense for Player Housing to share the same principles.

Neighborhoods

Yes, you read that right, houses will be organized into 50-plot Neighborhoods, meaning that you will be able to live next to your guildies or friends. Although neighborhoods will be instanced, having up to 50 different players will certainly retain the feeling of a tightly-knit community in WoW. 

Public Neighborhoods

• The game servers are responsible for creating as needed and maintaining. 

Private Neighborhoods

• Created by groups of friends or guilds to inhabit, progress, and customize together.

And that is most probably just the tip of the iceberg, given how early on we got a general idea of how Player Housing will function. Of course, more is to come as the next expansion draws near, but if you would like to read the entire article, feel free to do so, here.