When it comes to hotly anticipated World of Warcraft updates, few have sizzled for longer than Player Housing – a feature that will bring liveable homes and dynamic neighbourhoods to the ever-evolving world of Azeroth. And the best news? It’s almost here – scheduled to land in the final patch of The War Within starting on December 2.
The WoW team is giving players a whole new way to express creativity, so we sat down with Design Lead Toby Ragaini and Lead UX Designer Laura Sardinha to find out how housing works, and how it’s offering the ultimate cosy, creative retreat for all types of WoW players.
Housing has been in development at Blizzard for a while, and the team knew that it not only had to meet expectations for such a requested feature, but also exceed them, according to Ragaini. While the update will be released as part of Midnight, WoW‘s latest expansion, the feature itself is evergreen, something that players can invest in for the long term.
“It took years of design and engineering to get where we are today,” says Ragaini. “We wanted something that felt like a whole new part of the game, that would grow with the community.”
So how will it work? Players can obtain a plot of land (though they will have two total for their Warband, one for each faction neighborhood), and every plot contains a house. Each plot differs by style, shape and biome, built to accommodate whatever vibe you’d like. Some houses within a neighborhood are grouped for a more communal feel, allowing friends to become digital neighbors, while other spots are more isolated for the recluses and the solo settlers among you.
No matter how isolated your plot might be, however, all player housing exists within neighborhoods, which contain approximately 50 houses each. There are Public Neighborhoods, where anyone can buy a home, and Private Neighborhoods, which can be created and managed by Guilds or larger groups of players that all want to share a space. Once you’ve chosen a house, you’ll live among those players until you decide to leave the neighborhood. It’s inherently social, a dynamic hub where you’ll be able to see what all your neighbors are up to at all times, which was important for the WoW team.
“These neighborhoods, and the neighbors you have – they’re going to persist for as long as you live in that community,” Ragaini says. “I think that’s one of the most compelling aspects of MMOs. We’re trying to rekindle the magic of online social interaction in that way.”
Housing comes with a robust set of permissions, so you can fully customise how other players in the neighborhood can interact with you, and these can be altered at any time.
“We recognise that ‘social’ means different things to different people,” Ragaini adds. “So we want to make sure that everyone can decide how they want to interact with their neighbours. Whether you want an open house that anyone can visit, or something closed off to visitors, you can choose whatever makes you comfortable.”
Making A House A Home
Once you have a home, what’s next? You’ll need to decorate it, both internally and externally – and there is an entire library of whimsical Warcraft decor to discover. What’s more, there’s little limit to how creative you can be with how to design your home and the surrounding land, whether you’re a mage wanting to throw up a quirky wizard tower, or a rogue designing a dark den. Housing is much more than just a gameplay loop to earn rewards – it’s giving WoW players a robust suite of creative tools and UI to express creativity so your home can be truly unique, and a marvel to other players living in the neighborhood.
“We allow players to have total freedom of how they arrange things. They can use items in unorthodox ways to make something completely different,” Sardinha says. “In addition to that, you have a room layout tool that defines rooms, but you can also play around with the pieces to create your own room with a secret door, or build puzzles for people to solve – the UI is so powerful in how it allows players to be flexible with what they want to build in their world.”
One of the most interesting parts of the Player Housing update is who the WoW team is aiming to engage – besides the long-time players, they want to see cozy gamers, design enthusiasts, and those who may not have found a reason to venture into Azeroth before, but certainly could now.
To do so, the team wanted housing to be more than a currency grind – expanding your house is a whole new mechanic in itself. With that in mind, it was also important to make housing an approachable update for lapsed or entirely new players – how can this be interesting to the uninitiated, while still introducing those players to the full scope of WoW?
“We didn’t want housing to exist as a standalone activity; it needed to be integrated into the core mechanics of World of Warcraft,” Ragiani explains. “So that if someone new comes in and wants to engage with housing, they’re not just feeling isolated, they’re encouraged to participate in all aspects of the game.”
You’ll be able to earn items for your home – items, furniture, trophies and trinkets – through numerous activities, and anyone can get stuck in, no experience needed.
“There’s a lot of different ways to play WoW, and no one has the ‘right’ way,” Ragaini says. “So when you’re out doing quests, or raids, or dungeons, there will be opportunities to earn decor and other rewards for your house. You’ll be brought into the core loop of the game as part of the housing experience.”
To increase that sense of participation, neighborhoods will have semi-regular events called Endeavours, and players within these spaces can work together to complete tasks and unlock rewards for all residents within a neighborhood. These tasks range from questing and running dungeons, to activities like crafting and gathering, so that every style of player can contribute to a community-wide goal. Completing these tasks can also earn you Neighborhood Favor, a new currency used to level up your home, increase your decor limit, or buy additional items from NPCs.
Player Housing is such a fresh, inviting direction for World of Warcraft, a game that is so visually warm and entrancing, but can feel overwhelming in terms of how much content is on offer. This is a smart, interesting way to encourage different types of players to get involved, and idea of building a unique home, sharing a space with friends, and completing objectives together to craft a collaborative environment is an intensely appealing prospect that I can’t wait to get started with.
