Everything We Know About World Of Warcraft's New Housing System

Despite not releasing until just before World of Warcraft's next expansion Midnight, Blizzard has recently dropped significant details on the much anticipated player housing system. According to Blizzard's current roadmap, player housing is expected to arrive in WoW in Winter 2025, making this latest news drop an unexpected surprise. While It's obviously early to say, WoW's housing system is shaping up to go above and beyond expectations based on the outlined information.

Beyond the specifics, player housing will alter WoW forever, with players finally being able to have a place to call home, and a customizable space in which community can be fostered. In a game where social interaction has been routinely diminished, player housing appears to be a return to form in this cherished aspect of World of Warcraft and will hopefully elevate this aspect of the game to new heights.

How Neighborhoods Will Work In World Of Warcraft

A Striking Resemblance To FFXIV's Wards

The core component of WoW's upcoming housing system is neighborhoods: themed, instanced zones where players will find their houses within a persistent community of players. Functionally, this neighborhood system is nearly identical to FFXIV, wherein each house is a part of a persistent, instanced environment, often themed after a zone or major city and featuring various plots to place homes. The zone itself is a continuous instance, meaning that unless a player decides to move out, the surrounding neighbors and houses will remain the same.

As revealed on the official Blizzard website, there will be two neighborhoods available in the initial release, one for each faction. The Horde zone is inspired by Durotar and Azshara, with the rocky cliffs and peaks being perfectly emblematic of many early horde zones. Based on the concept art, the design of the neighborhood does a lot of work in alleviating the monotony of the somewhat overdone aesthetic, with beautiful waterfalls, cliffs, and a diverse color palette perhaps putting some initial concerns to rest.

While no art was provided for the initial Alliance zone, the inspiration is Elwynn forest and its surrounding zones: Westfall and Duskwood. The mix of autumnal farmland, haunted villages, and the evergreen Elwynn forest will no doubt be just as delightful as its Horde counterpart.

For players wanting to explore aesthetics beyond the classic orc and human, more neighborhoods will be coming after the initial release of the system. Perhaps those neighborhoods will derive inspiration from WoW's other starting zones, such as the rolling hills of Mulgore, or the gothic, Victorian streets of Gilneas. Another likely choice would be adding neighborhoods for zones being introduced or re-introduced within expansions. With Silvermoon City likely receiving a massive revamp in Midnight, a Blood Elf-inspired neighborhood seems like a probable addition after the initial release of housing.

Acquiring A Home In WoW Will Be Easy

A System Dedicated To Accessibility

Much of the appeal of WoW's system is its highly intentional ease of use. Blizzard took some jabs at FFXIV's system for good reason; houses are a system notorious in MMOs for being difficult to acquire and maintain. One of the design pillars for Blizzard, then, is ensuring that houses are accessible to any player who wishes to engage with the system.

Beyond the houses being cheap to purchase and not requiring any upkeep or active subscription, a number of additional choices were made to help the system feel fluid. For one, all members of a Warband are able to use the same house. If an Alliance player prefers the Horde neighborhood, all they would need to do is initially acquire the house on a Horde character. The neighborhoods have no restrictions on which characters can enter them, with the only faction limitation being the initial purchase. After that starting purchase, they would be free to use the house on any character in their Warband.

Beyond sharing a house, all housing-related unlocks will utilize Warbands to be account-wide, yet another great quality-of-life feature. There were many directions Blizzard could have taken player housing, so it's refreshing to see the absolute ease of use and accessibility of the long-awaited feature, keeping the classic MMO grind far away from this more optional and social feature.

There can be no neighborhood without neighbors. With every neighborhood being a persistent instance, neighbors will consequently remain consistent. Having neighbors at all is a huge relief, especially considering the isolating effect of garrisons in Warlords of Draenor, Blizzard's first attempt at an individualized home for players, which left cities absolutely empty and social interaction at an all-time low in WoW.

Players will have two options when choosing their neighborhood: public or private. Public neighborhoods, as the name implies, are public instances accessible to any WoW player, given there is space available. Private neighborhoods, on the other hand, can be created to have more control over who exactly is moving in and could be used to create something like a guild neighborhood. The stakes of this initial choice aren't particularly high, however, as players are free to move out of their neighborhood at any point if a change of scenery or neighbors is desired.

Housing neighborhoods will surely reduce the number of players generally existing within the standard, expansion-changing city. With their highly instanced shards, however, those cities were never particularly good at facilitating interaction. Chat is often bogged down by gold and carry sellers, leaving next to no room for any sort of meaningful conversation. While friends can be met in smaller settings, such as dungeon groups or through guilds, there's no dedicated space to facilitate any sort of interaction outside instanced content.

The ability to create a community with the sole intention of having a shared customizable and social space is something that WoW sorely needs. Even for more solo-minded players, a persistent social space could be the key to finding that sense of community in this massive game. When looking at the system as a whole, it's almost impossible to point out any immediate concerns. Housing seems to be on the path of going above and beyond with its initial release, with a clear set of pillars that will surely make it a long-lasting and beloved feature of World of Warcraft.

Source: Blizzard