WoW's player housing will have no FOMO and private housing wards

[Jojoya]

From what I took away from their post is as such.

Public Neighborhoods, which the game servers are responsible for creating as needed and maintaining.
- Made by blizzard, probably nice and pretty and serving whatever function blizzard wants (Think RL Golf Estate Housing minus the resident exclusivity, pretty, has features etc... but you cant change it), probably end up as social hubs.

Private Neighborhoods created by groups of friends or guilds to inhabit, progress, and customize together
- Whatever Chaos players want to create

It looks like they've basically looked at all FF players complaints about housing, since they directly reference the big ones.

--------
Blizzard, considering you are most likely reading this thread.
Please let housing zones feel alive and not be ghost towns that this game has, give a reason to actually use them and your game needs a social hub.
See you at end of year or sooner.

Thanks


--------

The pointed jabs at the housing system here doesn't mean that Blizzard has come up with solutions that will create a better overall experience or avoid some of the problems that still plague housing here.

I see 2 positive things from their article that I'm fairly certain they can deliver on: Warband sharing (in other words, alts will automatically be tenants of any house owned on the same account) and every player will be able to have at least one house.

Everything else is vague at best, especially considering they want the entire system to be deeply social yet some of the stated features will destroy any meaningful social aspect over time.

There are mentions of both "your house" and "your houses" so it's uncertain if players will be able to have multiple houses. "Your" could be referring to "you, the individual player" or "you, the collective player base".

Dynamic neighborhoods could be based on their sharding technology, which may end up no better than standard instanced housing (other houses you see around yours may just be generic backdrop filler) or which might mean you have a different set of neighbors every time you go to your house based on who is currently online (oh the irony of your house suddenly ending up next to one belonging to someone you hate).

Decoration may be interior only and not exterior. They only shared concept art for interiors and one of the neighborhoods, with the neighborhood showing the same art for every house location.

We know the cash shop will be involved but not to what degree. What if we're promised a starting item limit of 75 items but you have to go through the cash shop to increase it to 150 or 500? Someone mentioned RIFT's housing system earlier (which I think was one of the best housing systems ever) but the cash shop did have a heavy hand in a player's ability to upgrade their housing. There was a game currency option for upgrades to certain levels (excellent gold sink, btw) but the highest upgrade level could only be obtained through cash shop tokens.

"No high purchase costs" is going to vary in value depending on player status and WoW has seen some serious inflation during the 6 years I wasn't playing. Seeing "No purchase cost" would have been much more reassuring.

In the long run, I suspect what WoW does with their housing system is going to have little impact on what we see here. A large percentage of players have made their choice based on brand/franchise loyalty (or hatred) and housing comparison isn't likely to sway them from changing which game they want to play.