Blizzard changes its mind: WoW is to be a cooperative game again. Housing and neighborhood are to be the key

Over the last few years, it has been possible to observe a new path taken by the once most popular MMO - due to the chronic lack of time among the aging target group, World of Warcraft began to allow playing in an increasingly less social form. There was no longer a need to search for a group on your own, as the developers have added the Group Finder for dungeons, LFR level raids, activities tailored for optional group play like Torghast. In The War Within we have Depths, which can be easily played solo; there was also an option to play dungeons with NPCs instead of real players. This quite clearly shows which group Blizzard wanted to appeal to, although it cannot be said that community experiences were completely abandoned. The goal was to balance the game in such a way that both target groups could find something for themselves here. It remains an individual matter whether you consider this experiment successful.

However, today I get the impression that Blizzard has decided to change their direction a bit. This is indeed only a slight course correction, as the company does not intend to abandon what has been built so far, but during the interview about the houses, which will appear in next year's expansion to WoW, we could read how important group activities and the player community are to this mechanic. So, I will try to explain to you the idea behind housing, and also share my impressions after actually testing this feature.

Neighbors from hell

Housings in their final form will be added with the Midnight expansion, which is set to release at the beginning of 2026. The expansion continues the threads of Xal'atath and the conflict of Light with the Void, but in a break from the eternal war, the developers want to give players a place just for them, to end their eternal wandering around Azeroth. The Horde and the Alliance will receive separate regions - Razorwind Shores and Founder's Point - but if you have heroes from both sides of the barricade within your warband, there's no problem with the heroes using the same housing.

Spaces defined as neighborhoods should contain 50 plots, all of similar size, where players can settle. Unlike, for example, New World, where one plot could be occupied by several players, and the most pimped out house was displayed to all players on the server, here the players' houses are a permanent part of the neighborhood, so everyone will have a group of neighbors. And if you don't like each other, you can move out or make their life miserable enough, so that they will do it themselves - which of course I do not encourage.

The developers define neighborhoods as sanctuaries for the player, so there will be no monsters to kill here, no need to worry about safety - but that doesn't mean there will be nothing to do there. Activities for all residents of a given neighborhood will appear regularly, offering tasks so that every player, regardless of their favorite activities in WoW, can contribute to the development of the area. These joint actions will also affect the appearance of the entire neighborhood. However, if you don't care about the fate of your neighbors, don't worry - you will still want to use this system: by performing activities related to so-called Endeavors, you also raise your Neighborhood Favor, which is necessary to make your house bigger or be able to place more decorations in it.

For those of you who do not want to live with random people, there will be private neighborhoods. They require signing an appropriate document by a certain minimum number of players (which we do not know yet), or you can settle in a dedicated neighborhood with your entire guild. However, owning the entire instance just for yourself is not an option.

Extreme Makeover - WoW edition

All these surroundings, undertakings, and the general tone of the new functionality can be a bit overwhelming, so let's focus on a rather individual aspect, namely decorating houses. I actually had the opportunity to test this, although the demo was limited to just under 20 minutes and was set only inside the house.

The new feature will launch with the general visual theme for buildings belonging to four races: humans, orcs, blood elves, and night elves. While this will primarily affect the exterior design, the items that we will be able to acquire to decorate the interior should come from a much larger pool. The same items will appear as rewards for tasks in the Midnight expansion, but the developers also mentioned rewards for previous content - I assume that retroactively, depending on the players' actions in previous expansions, we will receive a whole package of items related to them. So, a good idea might be to prepare a room for souvenirs commemorating your conquests! Items are also supposed to appear in the form of loot, as well as part of professions - and this also applies to the old ones. Maybe finally these masses of fabric kept in the bank will come in handy for something...

Decorating your space has been divided into several options. We can determine the appearance of floors, individual walls or ceilings, and these elements will be inspired by the races I mentioned earlier. The rest of the objects refers to a much larger number of races and locations from WoW. Arranging these items works in two ways: in basic mode, it's simply dragging the item into the room, possibly rotating it; however, if you switch to advanced mode, you enter a completely different world. The object can be placed practically in all planes, it is possible for objects to overlap (so-called clipping), in addition to this, you can change the scale of each item within the range of 20-200% of the original size. So if you decide that your tauren needs a bigger bed, there will be no problem with that. It is also possible to change the colors of objects and the available pool is overwhelming. Considering the 21-year history of World of Warcraft, the developers will have plenty to draw from, adding more equipment elements for players. Interestingly, during the interview my interlocutors admitted that the tools prepared for players in the advanced mode are... better than those used by the developers themselves when building locations. I personally lack enough creativity to fully utilize the capabilities of this tool, but I'm curious to see what players will be able to do with it.

You will have plenty of space to develop here, because if you raise your Neighborhood Favor high enough, you will be able to build a huge location. Adding more rooms is very easy, we can build according to certain schemes not only horizontally, but also vertically, although from the outside the building will not reflect the actual layout or height of our house. It's a bit like the Weasleys' magic tent - unassuming from the outside, but with plenty of space inside.

Is this what was missing in WoW?

Many people wonder if anyone ever needed their own houses in WoW. However, considering how many MMOs have this feature and how much players like to use it, the real question is rather: why have player houses only been added now? The answer is surprisingly simple: technological limitations resulting from how old WoW is. Preparations for adding this functionality began a long time ago, and the introduction of some solutions, such as Torghast or Depths, allowed the use of certain mechanisms prepared for these solutions also in the context of households. In addition, it was necessary to develop a whole set of tools for players, so that they could let their imagination run wild in decorating their own space.

In a sense, we already had our own space in World of Warcraft - there were garrisons in Warlords of Draenor, which served as our own, individual base. However, the developers themselves admit that the garrisons isolated players from each other, there was no space for their own creativity. Neighborhoods are supposed to provide this social component and strengthen the sense of belonging among players.

What I'm wondering most is whether households will share the standard fate of all fancy elements that are part of WoW expansions, which will become irrelevant after the release of the next one. The devs assure that this is not the case - they want players to be aware from the outset that the time spent on adapting their own place will not be wasted and this functionality will continue to develop in the coming years. Will it really be like this - we'll see in a few years. However, looking at the huge importance of houses in other MMO games, I am inclined to believe Blizzard. Especially since the company will certainly not miss the opportunity to sell cosmetic items for real money.

World of Warcraft

November 23, 2004

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