Player Housing Ideas

[The Chaotic Sun.7410]

I'm sure that this is already talked about somewhere, I just have no idea where so...
While I understand that in a game called GUILD Wars the emphasis should rightfully be on Guilds, I am one of the probably few players who tends to play solo. I am not here to throw a pity party for me, it is my choice not to search for a Guild and so I must live with the consequences, however with this topic I fail to see how individual player housing would take away from the experience of Guild play. Any benefit a player house would get is already given to Guilds, and I don't believe that letting solo incline players have access to some of the benefits would somehow ruin the Guild experience.
So what would player housing look like? 
Well it would be an instanced zone, similar to the home instance, but with the ability to place decorations. It could theoretically be possible to have a zone per region (Shiverpeak, Kryta, Ascalon, Maguuma, Desert, Horn of Maguuma, etc.) but it would only need to be one map.
We could also theoretically have different Housing based on what character race. This COULD be tied to zone, so Shiverpeak would be Norn, Maguuma would be Asura or Sylvari, etc. However if the point of housing is to be customizable for the player (within reason) then perhaps it would be fun to allow mixing and matching, A norn Homestead in the Desert or Maguuma Jungle, a Sylvari Tower in Ascalon, that sort of thing. Additionally as players unlock housing, the house options can grow in physical size, so starting with small house, then unlocking a medium house, possibly unlocking a large house... specifics needn't be determined here.
From here the house can be populated with decorations normally reserved for guild halls. Along the way we could add home instance benefits, either in fixed locations, placed as a group in a region by the homeowner, or if they REALLY Want to go all out, place each individual one as necessary.
As for unlocking the house, we already have a built in mastery system, why not take advantage of it?
Central Tyria could be the majority of the most basic elements, House Size, Region options, and home instance benefits.
Maguuma Mastery could allow vendors, exalted magic portal stuff, or additional items from vendors in Living Story Season 3, or even a special "Heart of Maguuma" zone to build your house in
Desert Mastery could add Stables for Mounts, additional items from vendors in Season 4, and a "Elona Desert" zone for you house
Same as above with Icebrood Saga, but also perhaps a memory pool like in the Eye of the North
End of Dragons could include Jade Tech, adding Ziplines or Teleport things (which of course would need to be purchased after unlocking)
Secrets of the Obscure could add a bunch of stuff for the Heart of the Obscure, including as the final thing a self portal like a teleport scroll, but to your home instance.
I think Arenanet is doing a great job with their content decisions, I just wish this could be something they could add onto the list. I don't THINK it would be too difficult to impliment......
But I can't code for beans so... you know... I'm probably wrong.

[Kinurak.5307]

I support player housing. PROPER player housing, not this weak excuse of an Home Instance.

[Randulf.7614]

I’m not against player housing, but I have a Guild Hall to cover this fix. It would be nice to be less resource intensive, but that’s on me. 
 

Right now, I think there are bigger things to focus on and in the twilight years of the game this is likely outside of the limited scope left. 

[The Chaotic Sun.7410]

Why Not? I'm willing to have my mind changed but just saying "No" isn't an answer

[DeanBB.4268]

For anyone who has been around, it's already been discussed to death, so I assume that is the root of the terse answers.

Also, no. 😛

 

[Farohna.6247]

I'll elaborate on my no....for the reasons Randulf and DeanBB mentioned.  I have a guild hall and a personal instance that cover my needs.  And it's been asked for regularly on the forums to the point of fatigue.  I think they have other areas that need more focus and funds for.  I'd be happy with just a bookshelf in my home instance lol.  

And like it or not or however one chooses to play, it is an MMO.  They want you out and about with others, not locked away in your hidey hole rearranging the furniture.  I too mostly play solo.  I would venture to say playing GW2 is like playing alone together.  And it's quite nice that way.  But it doesn't seem like it would really suit the Commander/Wayfinder/whatever to have a nice little cozy cottage or series of bungalows all over the landscape to decorate.  

[Artemis.8034]

They need to start fixing the other problems in the game before they add more!

[Kris Knives.8513]

Well the issue is any new feature like that would be part of a new expansion and would have be something that would draw people into the game.  At this point, with GW2 being an older MMO primarily funded by direct sales basically every release is like a comeback album.

Housing has already been little more than a nice to have in most MMOs, not something people join games for.  Unless they come up to revolutionize housing in a way that would make people sit up and pay attention, it probably isn't worth it since housing it fairly resource intensive and would require long term support.  Without a bold new idea, their probably just isn't enough there for the devs to decide to invest time into it over new, more original ideas that would make GW2 stand out.  Particularly not in the current, tight one year development schedule.

I see what you are going for, and it isn't without some merit, however would anyone new read about this and decide "I have to join GW2 to get access to those stables!"?  I unfortunately don't think so.  Side content which doesn't add to the core GW2 experience is necessarily going to need to be fairly smallish, safe and in fairly high demand like fishing was.

Unless you can think of something pretty revolutionary, the most I think we might get is a QoL update to the guild hall system such as making it is easier to expand a guild hall without a large group of people to run guild missions.

[DeanBB.4268]

Also remember that things typically go like this:

Add gliding = gliders in gem store.

Add mounts = mounts in gem store.

Add skiffs = skiffs in gem store.

Where do you think that comfy sofa is coming from? 🤔

[Ashen.2907]

And then ANet adds it with a heavy emphasis on both grind and the gemstore, at which point those advocating for it become irate because, "this isn't what I meant!!!"

[Randulf.7614]

Let’s not forget they overthought fishing. Instead of a relaxing pastime, it’s become an overly layered, inventory filling activity. It’s still something I glad they added, but if they can do that to something as hard to screw up as fishing, I’d be wary of housing. As above people have said, they’d strip the fun and replace it with gg—grind and gemstore.

[Kinurak.5307]

The thing with a guild hall is, ITS TO BIG! its hard to make homey. you cant say i devide up the room in 3 and have a bedroom, a bathroom and a livingroom/kitchen.
sure you can do it in the GH, but you suddenly have a lot of empty space. not to mention the hassle and gold cost for just getting the GH.

[Woof.8246]

1 hour ago, Kris Knives.8513 said:

Unless you can think of something pretty revolutionary, the most I think we might get is a QoL update to the guild hall system such as making it is easier to expand a guild hall without a large group of people to run guild missions.

They can make it customizable , for some Dungeon-trap delving where the opponents might be npcs or players , just like Orc Must Die 3

 

Or create a pseudo huge valley that puts a random Guild Hall (pseudo cave) with random Guild Houses (pseudo house) around it , creating a pseudo community  and in the mid of it allow some Guild Portal to a random location , or a huge Colosseum in the middle of that map for rotating into the old Hunger Game / Madking Tower / GvG / PvP map and the spectators can use environmental weapons/becomes waves or random mobs ?

 

Later on , we can improve that pseudo valley into Airship , battles maybe ?

Edited December 6, 2023 by Woof.8246

[Surelia.2651]

Developing a robust housing system in an MMO takes a huge amount of resources; everything from design teams, to utilization reviews, server load analysis, marketing and sales planning, ongoing content creation, updating all said systems, etc.  In other words, you have to have the infrastructure to support it, not to mention a specific vision for making it which, quite simply, do not exist in this game.  Anet has never been willing to create it, despite that it could potentially give them another avenue for monetization - the roi would still not be sufficient to take that step.

I have been heavily involved with housing in other MMOs enough to know that besides the above, you also need to have a player base that will consistently show interest in and invest play time among those systems.   I don't think the player base in this game is interested enough to warrant introducing it, especially not at this late hour of the game's existence.   

That said, I agree with maybe making some tweeks to Guild Halls and personal home instances, but on the whole definitely prefer investment in new stories, fractals, raids, events, etc., that will breathe more life into the game as a whole than to spread limited resources even thinner into an effort at housing systems that will likely see little play.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Surelia.2651

[SuavePuppy.2809]

Alrighty, first things first, there's a magnifying glass up top that allows you to search for previous threads on this subject. Most people just post "no" at this point because it has indeed been discussed many times in the past.

Now, I could honestly see this being implemented, seeing as they have a basic infrastructure with the guild hall decoration system. Unfortunately, they would likely have to rework the home instance nodes in order to be placeable. You wouldn't be able to place decorations in seemingly empty spaces with the current system because there is a lot of real estate that is allocated for nodes. But as someone who has decorated a room for myself in my guild hall, I am not opposed to a more elegant housing system.

Now the reason why many people are against it from what I've seen is not because the idea itself is detestable, but because there are only so many things that the dev team can do, and creating a housing system takes away from other content that people would rather see be developed. This is especially true right now as they are still trying to create and release maps and content for SOTO, a mini expansion that has already been paid for and should really be the priority for development.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

1 hour ago, The Chaotic Sun.7410 said:

Why Not? I'm willing to have my mind changed but just saying "No" isn't an answer

Fine by me. Here we go ...

Short answer: It is not worth the effort. 

Long answer:
1.)
Back in 2021, I ran a little experiment. I was interested in player-housing and wanted to collect some data to persuade ANet giving it a try. I found the four pre-build houses in the Lost Precipice Guildhall and decided to give it a try. I created a new guild, claimed the guildhall and built it to a certain degree. Then I created a massive load of guild-decorations. The idea was to offer every house owner a starter-kit with various decorations. Not the basic stuff from the vendors, more like >THIS<. If you know a thing or two about how a scribing works in GW2, you know this costed me a a fortune. It was not one kit, but five of them. The four houses plus big temple-structure. I've installed portals to connect the lobby quickly with the housing area and another one to quickly access the temple structure.

Then I have made screenshots of all five estates and did a recruitment for that guild. I created adverts. In addition, I've also made some ingame advertisement. Looking for 5 volunteers to try out housing. Free houses, free decorations. No scribe required. I also offered to craft additional decorations with my scribe on request.
-
My first villagers were a couple, which claimed one house and never bothered to visit it in more than a year. A guy with a very big ego, wanted the temple structure - which I intended for a small group. Same result. The third one was actually into the concept and remains owner of that house until today. Most of the response I've got was "that is an awesome idea. But I wait for the REAL thing. Good luck o/". 

Again, everything was for free. No additional costs for claiming a house. A full set of decorations with an option to get more FOR FREE. They only needed a free guild-slot and the motivation to actually try it out. Nobody was interested, except for that one person.

After a year, I abandoned the project. Experiment failed. Once in a while, I join play-housing discussions on this board, talking about my experiences with this experiment. A few months ago, I ran into an enthusiast. A player who wanted to try what I tried, but use it for themselves and their friends. I've told them about my failed experiment, offered them the guildhall with the remaining 3 houses + temple structure and all decorations left. They were interested. I invited them. They took a look around and got decoration rights. A week later they left the guild and disappeared completely. Not a single word about what happened.
-
While this experiment was a total failure, I do not regret doing it.

2.)
Let us say a stupid player with a tiny guildhall was probably not what the true player-housing target audience was looking for. What do we need for the real thing?
- A stable instance-structure which is capable of stacking various objects in small areas.
- A massive library of decorations. Affordable for everyone.
- A functional editor with user-friendly handling.

This would eat development resources. My original idea for ANet was to recycle the guildhall instances, making the maps smaller, but contain more objects. The data I wanted to collect was mostly technical stuff and feedback about dealing with limitations. But you want the real thing? So no guildhall recycling. A totally new instance-system. Development-time? Including testing ... at least a year. Until you get a stable version. Getting the decoration-system running is a different story. You also need designers to create the decoration-objects. And then there is still the huge problem with the light, the textures and the anomalies when objects 'touch' each others. A year of time and a full team to work on it. 

3.)
ANet is not as big as it used to be. We do not know how many staff-members they have right now, but they have been many more in the past. Let us say we get you a team that works a full year on this new housing content. Where do you want to make the cut? What part of the current game-development should be paused?

4.)
Let us say we get everything done somehow. A working housing-system being shipped by tomorrow. Early xmas for you. Now what?

Most of the players in GW2 are interested in the traditional MMORPG features. Exploring a fantasy world, diving into a story, facing challenges and beating up powerful enemies. In order to force the majority of the community into trying this new content, you need to lure them with loot and achievements. Free decorations during launch, discounted estate-prices, a massive chunk of achievements dedicated to player-housing and advertisement. You need live-streams, teasers, trailers, developer-interviews and enthusiastic content-creators to help you sell this new product.

We have seen it in WvW multiple times, that most players just come for the freebies and achievements. Once everything is done, they leave and play what they like. The few people you attract to the new feature, who stay because they like it, are a small minority. That group is too small.

5.)
Not to forget about the expectations-problem. Even among the fanbase, those who truly love player housing and want that content to happen so much, there will be people who will abandon what ever ANet ships. Because it does not meet their personal expectations. We have this phenomenon with every bit of player-demanded content so far.
-
-
That is it from me. Given everything I wrote above, I do not think it is worth the effort. 

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Let’s not forget they overthought fishing. Instead of a relaxing pastime, it’s become an overly layered, inventory filling activity. It’s still something I glad they added, but if they can do that to something as hard to screw up as fishing, I’d be wary of housing. As above people have said, they’d strip the fun and replace it with gg—grind and gemstore.

I can see it now, a mini-game to unlock the door to your home. 

[Voyant.1327]

Being able to have a customizable stronghold like Swtor for example would be an awesome and welcome change. 

I would say there are a lot of players who simply don't even bother with home instance bc its so lifeless and unrewarding.

You could easily just convert home instance unlocks into available upgrades. As long as they stay away from the FFXIV method, it really would do nothing but give players more to do in a relaxing environment. It'd be a welcome change in a game that puts so much emphasis on grind.

GW2 community is very hive mind though so its not surprising your idea is met with negativity, even if it would do nothing but provide a better experience. 

[Wolfofdivinity.6251]

Please....PLEASE no more empty, generic MMO BS updates. Fishing. Boats, Capes.....no more.....make it stop! Can we just get meaningful content that isn't useless fluff!!

 

Support GW2's health, just say no to Player Housing!!

[Smurfiness.3714]

Housing will bring in new revenue stream for Anet. I'd spend real money on my GW2 home.

[TwistedAlga.4235]

17 hours ago, The Chaotic Sun.7410 said:

I'm sure that this is already talked about somewhere, I just have no idea where so...
While I understand that in a game called GUILD Wars the emphasis should rightfully be on Guilds, I am one of the probably few players who tends to play solo. I am not here to throw a pity party for me, it is my choice not to search for a Guild and so I must live with the consequences, however with this topic I fail to see how individual player housing would take away from the experience of Guild play. Any benefit a player house would get is already given to Guilds, and I don't believe that letting solo incline players have access to some of the benefits would somehow ruin the Guild experience.
So what would player housing look like? 
Well it would be an instanced zone, similar to the home instance, but with the ability to place decorations. It could theoretically be possible to have a zone per region (Shiverpeak, Kryta, Ascalon, Maguuma, Desert, Horn of Maguuma, etc.) but it would only need to be one map.
We could also theoretically have different Housing based on what character race. This COULD be tied to zone, so Shiverpeak would be Norn, Maguuma would be Asura or Sylvari, etc. However if the point of housing is to be customizable for the player (within reason) then perhaps it would be fun to allow mixing and matching, A norn Homestead in the Desert or Maguuma Jungle, a Sylvari Tower in Ascalon, that sort of thing. Additionally as players unlock housing, the house options can grow in physical size, so starting with small house, then unlocking a medium house, possibly unlocking a large house... specifics needn't be determined here.
From here the house can be populated with decorations normally reserved for guild halls. Along the way we could add home instance benefits, either in fixed locations, placed as a group in a region by the homeowner, or if they REALLY Want to go all out, place each individual one as necessary.
As for unlocking the house, we already have a built in mastery system, why not take advantage of it?
Central Tyria could be the majority of the most basic elements, House Size, Region options, and home instance benefits.
Maguuma Mastery could allow vendors, exalted magic portal stuff, or additional items from vendors in Living Story Season 3, or even a special "Heart of Maguuma" zone to build your house in
Desert Mastery could add Stables for Mounts, additional items from vendors in Season 4, and a "Elona Desert" zone for you house
Same as above with Icebrood Saga, but also perhaps a memory pool like in the Eye of the North
End of Dragons could include Jade Tech, adding Ziplines or Teleport things (which of course would need to be purchased after unlocking)
Secrets of the Obscure could add a bunch of stuff for the Heart of the Obscure, including as the final thing a self portal like a teleport scroll, but to your home instance.
I think Arenanet is doing a great job with their content decisions, I just wish this could be something they could add onto the list. I don't THINK it would be too difficult to impliment......
But I can't code for beans so... you know... I'm probably wrong.

Yes!!!

[Albadaran.1283]

I would like the idea if it's done like in Elder Scrolls Online: a diversity of instanced houses in many different regions. So NOT in the Guild Hall, or home instance, but places all over the world. And with the only purpose to give players a WP there and all kinds of inventory and decorations to buy or unlock, just to make it feel like a home. And no more than that. No merchants, banking or whatever. Just a home where you can teleport to. A cheap cottage or a big estate. Whatever the player is willing to do / pay for. 

O I'm sure Anet would make some profit with it too ;). 

[ShadowKatt.6740]

Here's what I want to know, OP. You say that you play solo. Hey, I play solo! I'm not even part of a guild. I have literally NEVER been inside a guild hall, so I don't know what they have or what they offer. But I DO have a home instance, and I go there....once or twice a week, for as long as it takes to harvest my nodes and that's about it, because for reasons that escape me there are zero other utilities or services offered inside the home instance.

So, what would player housing give you? If you were part of a role playing guild, I could understand that, but I think they make out okay with the home instances so far. And listening to the other people in this thread it seems like most of the services you want are already offered in guild halls, so....is that what you're asking for? GH services for the solo player? I'm struggling to understand here.

Mind you, I'm all on board for player housing. I don't know what I'd do with it, I tend to hang around LA, but I'm never opposed to adding more stuff.

[Flasterko.4087]

If they done it like LOTRO developers I am all for it. I am even ready to invest money for that. Some of us players like to decorating houses and showing it to people. I am not expert but you wouldnt believe what LOTRO players do with their houses. Some people really having talent for that.

Just want to point out why I like their system with couple of stuff:

1. They made it that you buy house with in game golds or premium houses with store currency. To have option to use the store helps to support developers. I wouldnt mind even if Anet make it as some expansion feature. 

2. They made many instances of neighbourhoods so you dont need to play lottery to win the house on some adress.

3. They made it very flexible. You can move your furniture upside, down, left, right... You can change wall/floor textures also its colors. Make ambient lights etc. I have just today put snow falling in my house for christmas theme decorations.

4. They have made all kind of decorations. For some you need to do raids while some you win in more chillout way. It serves this way both hardcore players (which then proudly show thier trophy) and very casual players. Also you can buy some really nice in store, like crafting stations...

5. What also bring more fun is that each house have visitor options. So you can allow while server to visit you and use decorations or you can limit it just for couple of people. I like visitors and showing my houses so this option really makes me happy.

I like those stuff and I think, based on what I saw how Anet made good fashion options, that they can do that really good if they see use of it.

Houses can also serve well people that role play. 

I dont mean this like gw2 vs. Lotro post. Just wanted to give very nice housing example in MMO. Seems like somw players like those kind of stuff and can spend lot of time in trying ti win/find some decoratins and also in decorating houses.

[Sobx.1758]

16 hours ago, Wolfofdivinity.6251 said:

Can we just get meaningful content that isn't useless fluff!!

 

Support GW2's health, just say no to Player Housing!!

True, housing is boring and gw2 already has its takes on it, give more playable content instead.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Sobx.1758