MeinMMO-Demon Cortyn wonders if the creators of World of Warcraft know why the housing community actually plays.
Housing is a thing in World of Warcraft and it divides the community. Either you belong to the group that “just gets” housing and dives completely into the feature, preferring to do nothing else but improve, expand, and incorporate more and more details into their own house.
The other group looks at housing for exactly 5 minutes, scratches their head in confusion, and wonders, “What good is this crap to me now?” before they never return to the neighborhood or at most use it as a substitute Hearthstone.
The Philosophy of World of Warcraft
Many of my friends are active in role-playing and thus belong to the first group. I haven’t seen some characters since the introduction of housing because they’ve put more work into their digital home than into their real apartment – I get it, I feel the same way.
But housing fans have a problem if they want the items from trolls and blood elves. Because they are part of the new expansion Midnight and require a lot of farming work.
Farming work that many are not interested in – because they want to spend their time on housing and not with the endless farming of furniture. This has been discussed repeatedly in recent days. A solution must be found.
And no, it’s not about housing fans wanting “everything handed to them,” as some people who don’t play housing at all say, but for some sadistic reason hold a “We had to suffer, so you must too” view.
It’s about the core philosophy that World of Warcraft has pursued in recent years. WoW has shifted in the last 10 years from “You have to play everything a bit” to: “Play exactly the content that you enjoy.”
- If you want to do PvP, you can just play PvP, because you get everything you need for PvP there.
- If you want to visit raids, you can play exclusively raids, because you get everything you need here.
The same goes for dungeons, pet battles, or crafting professions.
But the same does not apply to housing. If I want to set up a nice troll house for an evening, I first have to spend weeks or days playing various content in bulk. World quests, dungeons, loot hunts. Everything that somehow gives void light grit and fame.
Those who have housing as their favorite content have to either massively limit their selection of housing items or invest hours, days, and weeks to collect the items they can then use in housing.
Housing Items Are Hidden Behind Several Steps
Moreover, I find the unlocking of housing decorations via the fame system a bit strange. I know, I now sound a bit like grandpa and grandma telling war stories, but: In the past, it was enough at reputation levels to simply reach the required level. The time spent farming reputation was the necessary effort. Buying the reward was then just a small formality.
Nowadays, with the fame system, reaching the necessary fame level for a reward is just one step to even access the items. After that, you still have to farm a different resource to be able to buy the reward for farming fame.
To put the problem in numbers:
Housing items usually cost between 750 and 2,500 void light grit. Void light grit is obtained from various activities, most efficiently (currently) from world quests. Some world quests reward 150 void light grit, which is rather the exception.
This means: A single housing item requires the completion of 5 to 17 world quests – and we are specifically talking about the world quests that offer void light grit as an additional reward. This is just a small fraction of the roughly 25 world quests that are typically active at the same time. If they are not these bonus world quests, then the effort rises into the triple digits. Just that is already absurd.
Now, you multiply this effort. Because to furnish a house entirely in blood elf or troll style, you don’t just need a single wine bottle and a single chair. You need 10, 20, or even more of the same item. As a rule, you also want several different items from the respective people.
You can see: The effort is massive. It’s hundreds of hours of farming work, sometimes with time gating, as quests are limited, before you can even start to set up your dream home of a blood elf or a troll.
The Community Has Solutions – All Less Effort
There are many solutions to the problem. Just in the WoW subreddit, there have been dozens of posts from people complaining about the costs of the new housing items, and they also had some solutions. A few of these ideas:
- Housing items should be drastically reduced in cost. A reduction of 5 or 10 times, so the price for an item drops from about 750 to 75 void light grit.
- The decorations should become cheaper with repeated purchases. The first time they cost 750 void light grit, afterwards 325, then 160 – down to a certain minimum.
- Only the first purchase should cost void light grit, afterwards decorations should be able to be bought for gold or crafted.
Time and again, there is also a demand that decorations should only be unlocked once and then be placed as often as desired. This was already a demand that came up during the early access of housing and caused some displeasure even then.
What is the best solution? Honestly: No idea. There are many variations of the current system with which I could live well.
I am not saying that this must affect all items. It is perfectly fine to have a few individual prestige items among the decorations that are really expensive, noble, and exclusive. That’s okay, you find that in all other categories of the game too.
But currently, this applies in slightly reduced form to almost all new housing items.
Moreover, housing items also compete with other rewards for the same currency, as they all share the same resource. Should I buy a recipe for my profession or rather a troll cupboard? Do I prefer a pretty transmog set from the blood elves or a Sin’dorei wine bottle for my house?
Housing Could Be Even Better If WoW Reduces the Grind
And yes, I’m getting a bit upset today on behalf of other players. Because I built a house in night elf style and everything I needed for it I could really easily buy or farm in large quantities, such as from enemies on the Darkshore. The current problem doesn’t affect me much, yet I recognize it as a problem.
I know how upset I would be if I couldn’t acquire my night elf items so easily. If I had to spend weeks farming, my motivation for the housing system would probably have been extinguished right away and I would have never built my mage tower.
Exactly this danger now threatens a significant portion of the community, which has discovered housing and the creative design of new homes and rooms as a new main activity in the game. Some of them enjoy farming and have fun with it. But a very large part does not see the point in having to farm for hundreds of hours to finally be able to play the content they want to play.
I am sure, if you had to farm the rocks for an earth elemental faction with 3–4 rocks per week, I would never have seen this cool cave house.
