It's been a while since I last posted twice in one day. I think about it
quite often but I hate to cannibalize my own content and anyway I generally
prefer to keep a good idea in hand for the next time.
Once in a while, though, something comes up that I feel just have to jump on right away. This is one such item.
A new Guild Wars 2 expansion. Feh. Big deal. Didn't buy the last one. Haven't logged in this year. Why would I care?
One reason and one reason alone: HOUSING!
Genuine player housing is literally the only feature ArenaNet could have added that would make me consider buying another GW2 expansion. And even then only consider it. I'm very much not sold yet.
I watched the video and the overriding impression it left on me was just how dated and tired the graphics look. All those years when I was playing every day I thought the game looked pretty good. It just shows how hard it it is to see the outside from the inside.
After I waded through the uninspiring footage of more wilderness that looks a lot like the other wildernesses in the game and fights that look like not a lot of fun at all, I was eventually rewarded with a fifteen second coda showing what housing might look like in Tyria.
It looks like the basic housing in EverQuest II's Halas that was added back in 2010, crossed with the wooden viking huts from Valheim, which was developed by a tiny team for an indie developer five years back. I mean, it doesn't look bad but you'd have to hope that's just a sample of what's on offer, not the totality.
I haven't tried to read up on it yet. Knowing ANet they won't be saying much anyway. And the important part isn't the housing content that ships with the expansion. It's that the infrastructure for housing will be in the game and the stubborn, blinkered refusal to admit it's a feature players want is over. They can iterate on the system from there. Iteration is supposed to be their thing, right?
By my count, I think this leaves World of Warcraft as the last Western AAA MMORPG not to provide proper accomodation for its player-characters. Blizzard copied GW2's Skyscale mount to good effect. Let's see if they go for this, too.
As for me, I'm still not committing to buying the expansion, although it is pretty cheap as these things go. There's a lot going on in gaming this summer after all.
I'll keep it in mind for the slack times that are sure to come.
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It sounds like it's less housing and more A House, and everyone gets the same house, albeit with the potential to customize it. In theory they could later add other houses in other zones, though.
ReplyDeleteI got a couple of promotional emails from Anet just after I posted, with a link to the official blog and the notes there about housing. I read them and they make it clear the housing is just in the expansion zone, not elsewhere. Knowing ANet, though, if it looks like they can sell houses in the Gem Shop, we'll soon be able to have them all over Tyria.
DeleteThe Homestead as it stands reminds me more of WoW's Garrison system but with decoration added. Still, it's a start.
I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time for WoW as well now with Holly in charge. Plus I remember Ian Hazzikostas actually saying in an interview some time ago that it was something they were looking into but that it was a long-term project.
ReplyDeleteThe thing I never understood about both Blizzard and ANet's attitude to housing - particularly ANet, since they rely so heavily on the Gem Shop - is that housing is pretty much a license to print money. Decorators can get obsessive and they'll buy stuff that has to be very cheap to create, like bricks and tiles. With both companies it always seemed like an ideological issue not a practical one so if whoever was blocking it is out of the picture it's hard to see why it wouldn't happen.
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