For housing, you often have to spend a lot of time and grind in World of Warcraft. This is definitely intended, as explained to us by a Blizzard developer in the interview.
We at MeinMMO had the opportunity to conduct an interview with a developer from World of Warcraft in Berlin. In conversation with Joanna Gianulis (Senior UX Designer), who has worked extensively on housing in World of Warcraft, we mainly discussed this topic: the player housing and social features. We got a glimpse into the future, addressed a problem of the RP community, and also learned why some housing items take so dreadfully long to farm – because that is exactly intended.
Note: The interview has been shortened at some points for better readability. Context has not been lost at any point.
Anna Alberg from MeinMMO: Recently, we learned about the “Prop Hunt” game and I’m quite excited because I love these social minigames. So I’m wondering: Are you planning more of these evergreen minigames in World of Warcraft? Like a social gathering point where players can play minigames together and earn rewards – maybe even play Hearthstone in WoW.
Joanna Gianulis: “The team working on Prop Hunt is always looking for new ways to play WoW. This is definitely something that is being discussed, but I don’t know anything about the specific contents they are planning. I know they are currently very focused on making Prop Hunt. But we have also had things like Plunderstorm, and we are always looking for new ways for people to experience WoW.”
Was the housing system always planned to be this gigantic? Or has it grown over time, based on community feedback?
“I would say yes and yes. I think we always wanted to do as much as possible. We knew we had to deliver really good work here. Because so much time has passed since the community wanted housing that we knew: when we finally release it, it has to be good. And those of us who got to work on it early on also wanted it to be really good – after all, we are also players. We had all these ideas and thought: Let’s just see if we can implement this.
We initially had the expectation that we would have to make it a little smaller, but then we thought: ‘No. This is good. This is how we will continue.’
The same thing happened when the community could play it themselves. They had ideas that you still needed this and that. We listened to that and thought: ‘Yes, that’s right! Let’s do that too.’ Many people really worked hard on it because they also want to see these things in the game.”
A question for the roleplaying community in WoW. They were very excited about housing because they can build houses for their events and such. But currently there is a limit to how many characters can be in a house at the same time. Are you planning to raise this limit?
“I know we have tried to set the limit as high as we could safely support. We started with a value we were confident would work. We could probably raise it further, but we wanted to make sure it works in the current version first. Because we also don’t want people to crash our game or have players experience connection issues. We first wanted to ensure that everything works.
And then, when it is released, people play it, and everything works well, then we can gradually raise it. I know that’s definitely something we are keeping an eye on. We have people calculating all these numbers to make it work somehow.
The big thing we are currently working on is the exterior lighting to ensure it doesn’t crash the server.
So yes, one step at a time, but we are always looking to see if we can gradually increase all these things so that players can do more and more.”
Hard grind is sometimes a must for rewards to feel valuable
Some items in housing currently require old currencies when you want to buy them – and then you only get them once. If I want a lot of one item, then I know I’ll have to farm for hours and hours.
Have you thought about an alternative unlocking system where you might only have to unlock an item once, like a blueprint, and then you can craft it with materials like wood or something? Or maybe a unified currency with which you can buy stuff from all the old expansions? Are there plans to make this a bit less grindy?
“Not currently, but I know they are keeping an eye on it. It was very important to the designers for the rewards that the system feels like one that has existed for a long time. It should be important to revisit and complete old content. And we see that exactly that is happening. We see people playing content they haven’t visited in 10 years and having fun. We really want to encourage that kind of gameplay. We also want you to work hard for some of the decorations because then you feel better when you get them – when you have them in your house and can show them off because you know you worked hard for it.
But we are also continuously adding new recipes for crafters because we want them to have plenty to do. Because you talked about wood and other materials – there will definitely be more recipes coming.
It will be such that you might not want to farm that candle in Boralus, but there is a craftable alternative that you can use instead.”
In the old expansions, there are a lot of decorations that you still cannot obtain. When you look through the old houses of the expansions, you think you want this or that from various races and factions. Are you planning to bring more of that?
“We have a gigantic list of things we want ourselves. We are working our way through that big internal list. When we see lists from players, for example in the forums, with all the things they wish for, we take notes.
It’s just that there is so much that we have to make a selection of what we can do.
But to say this: For everything you think ‘That would be really cool!’, rest assured, we have also been there and thought the same thing.”
New features like Copy&Paste
Maybe you can create a feature where you click on items in the world and then see directly where you can get them.
“We have a great new feature coming soon, the Inspect mode. When you are in a friend’s house and see something great, you can simply click on the sofa and it will immediately open the catalog at the right place, so you can see how to obtain the item. You can already see this in the interface, the button is already there, but it currently says ‘Coming soon’.”
Will it be possible to place more items at once? Because currently, if I want to place 10 candles, I have to go into the catalog and pull them into the house 10 times. That is quite repetitive.
“We are currently looking at a lot of features that will primarily help hardcore decorators. Ion [Hazzikostas, the Game Director] recently talked about ‘Copy and Paste’. So my job right now is to figure out how exactly that will work. What would be most helpful for our player base? Because there are many different ways we can do that. It may sound like a simple tool, but there are many small details that need to be decided. For example: Does it also copy the coloring? Does it copy the orientation? We are currently working on these details.
We want to ensure that what we create is ultimately the best possible version for our players.”
I’m in a big guild. And every time, really every time we raid, we take a picture together. How cool would it be if we could put these pictures in a frame in the game and then hang them in our house? Have you ever thought about that?
“That’s something that quite a few people have asked us about, so it’s definitely on our radar. But that’s a bit technically more challenging. But I would say if that’s something that players want and keep asking for, then we will consider it.
Also, keep in mind that housing will be an evergreen feature. We will continually add new stuff. The question is always just what we tackle first.”
If you had to live in WoW …
Now we come to a few personal questions that are a bit more casual. If you had to live in World of Warcraft: Which race would you be, which class, and where would you live?
“I play a Night Elf Hunter, so probably that, because I like pets. Where I would live is hard, because I actually like it everywhere. I first went to the Alliance neighborhood, but then I got my Horde house and made it really cozy, and now I’m really into it. It’s really hard to decide.”
And if you had to live in the old expansions? So not in the neighborhoods, but somewhere in the world.
“I actually like it everywhere in Northrend, because that was my first expansion that I completed. I also like snow, which is good, because it’s currently snowing here in Berlin.”
Do you have a personal wish feature that has never made it into the game?
“Honestly, I think all of those things are just things that haven’t made it into the game yet. For example, the previously mentioned ‘Copy and Paste’ I wanted a long time ago – but we had to focus on releasing other features. Currently, I am really looking forward to pets. I think I told [the team] very early on: ‘Can I have pets in my house?!’
There were many things I wished for and we have already implemented. It’s really fantastic to experience that as a player and as someone who works on it.
But I think that’s also what makes housing so great. The entire team is really passionate. So we are all working on things that we want to see ourselves as players.
Every day, someone actually comes in and says: ‘Can we do this or that?’ It’s just nice because everyone loves it in some way.”
Thank you for the interview!
A lot is changing in World of Warcraft with Midnight. Not only is housing a major innovation, but there are also drastic changes in PvE – such as in gear acquisition. To upgrade your equipment, you will now have to pay in gold.
