Instanced Housing

[Jojoya]

Anyway given how many threads we get for housing each month it is safe to assume that housing is not working as intended.

Only if our assumptions match the developers' intent for housing, which I suspect they don't in some cases.

Wards weren't a bad idea in concept but the developers executed them badly if they were truly trying to create a neighborhood feeling. It's pretty easy to point out the flaws - too few owners per ward for a game that's running 24/7, too strict a limit on tenants that would bring in additional foot traffic not to mention tenants are at the mercy of the owner's willingness to keep playing the game, marketboards being scattered all over the ward instead of just having one or two placed in the vendor areas so players are drawn to a central location instead of more or less sticking to their house, mini-aetherytes allowing direct teleportation to an owner's house and aethernet shards allowing visitors to bypass most of the ward to get where they want to be (both again reducing foot traffic), vendor selection being too limited to draw most players to visit them at all let alone on a regular basis.

Yet an improved instanced housing could help salvage part of the idea if integrated into the wards. More owners per ward means more potential foot traffic. More foot traffic means more opportunity to meet other players and chat. We already have apartments as part of the wards. Why not instanced private estates that likewise are reached by entering the ward?

Name me a successful MMORPG in 2024. (I wouldn't call Skyrim Online successful)
WoW has no housing system and FF14 has Ward system

Why wouldn't you call ESO successful? It's hitting its 10 year anniversary this year (only a year behind this game if you start with ARR instead of 1.0) and still going with new content continuing to be added.

People have a warped idea of what success is for MMORPGs (thanks, WoW).

I think a better question is how many active MMORPGs can people name regardless of whether they'd call them successful or not, and which have any form of housing.

WoW players have been asking for housing since its inception and there had been a crude version in the alpha version of the game that the developers scrapped before it moved to beta. No, Garrisons were not housing. They were a phased individualized quest hub.

Guild Wars 2 has a very limited form of instanced player housing based in its guild halls.

SWTOR has its instanced housing (Strongholds).

LotRO has a ward-style system (but one that at least automatically adds new Neighborhoods as certain plot types fill up instead of waiting for everything to fill up).

Lost Ark has instanced housing somewhat similar to Island Sanctuary but with more features.

New World has instanced housing.

ArcheAge has open world housing (neither instanced nor confined to housing specific zone).

Black Desert Online has instanced housing.

Old School Runescape has instanced housing.

Star Trek Online does not have housing (customizable ship interiors are for engineering purposes, not residential).

EverQuest II has instanced housing.

Star Wars Galaxies (it's been revived with a private server) has open world housing (though with a few more restrictions than ArcheAge).

Ultima Online has instanced housing.

Aion uses both instanced (guaranteed to each player) and non-instanced housing (limited in number, traded through player auctions and getting a lot of hate from its players because of player monopolies).

I found references to several more that I hadn't heard of but wanted to abbreviate the list. I also didn't dig deep into whether the instanced housing was interior only or both interior/exterior. Many were both.

You can be dismissive of each game's "success" as you want but they are all still active MMORPGs with active player bases. Whether housing is part of the success of any specific game could be endlessly debated. It comes down to whether a housing system is a source of satisfaction, dissatisfaction or is irrelevant to the individual player.