What can World of Warcraft learn from the new Homesteads feature in Guild Wars 2?

Guild Wars 2 latest expansion Janthir Wilds introduced an exciting new player housing feature known as Homesteads. This is Guild Wars 2‘s first attempt at player housing — although guild housing has some nice perks — and there’s a lot to like about its customization options. I realized something while playing around with my Homestead, though: it’s a much better version of World of Warcraft‘s Garrisons from Warlords of Draenor. This similarity means there’s a lot of lessons the WoW development team can learn from Homesteads so that the next time an attempt is made players may find it less of a chore and more of a home.

Before we talk about the possibilities of Garrison 2.0 or WoW Player Housing it’s important to note that Homesteads are not perfect. Like Garrisons you’re locked into a specific aesthetic — while I personally am a huge fan of the Lowland Kodan style because it resembles locales of the Norn homeland, players of the other races probably would prefer something closer to their own style. Another issue is that for a game with such a robust dye system that it’s weird that it hasn’t been integrated into the customization options. Finally, the current annual expansion model of GW2 could mean that we only get to enjoy these Homesteads for a year although admittedly that may solve the first issue as the next expansion gives us something Asura or Sylvari players prefer. None of these issues are insurmountable for GW2, however, and WoW could easily deal with them in an appropriate manner for the game.

Lesson the first: How to incorporate the housing with the rest of the world

Homesteads are unlocked naturally over the course of the main story of Janthir Wilds in a way that’s not dissimilar to the opening of Garrisons in WoD: Do a little cleaning, get a few instructions, collect some resources and you’re done. If you’re not interested in maintaining your Homestead you can now ignore it for the rest of your life — besides a couple visits back to meet with NPCs for story reasons, there’s nothing else required (at least as of now). It’s truly optional and I think that’s important especially when modern MMOs are robust with other activities to do.

World of Warcraft doesn’t have to be that extreme, and in fact probably shouldn’t as it lacks the “Mastery track” system of GW2 that allows players to expand and unlock their Homestead by earning experience elsewhere. Tying it into the Renown system probably makes the most sense, as does putting some features behind light questing. The key is to make sure any sense of grinding doesn’t exist — make it something players want to do but never feel like they have to.

Guild Wars 2 lacks the advanced phasing system that WoW has and instead relies on instanced areas, and the Homestead is no exception. There is a portal to it in the open world at its approximate location as well as the ability to portal to it from anywhere (it works like a Death Knight’s Death Gate, including the ability to return), but I don’t think WoW should change up how they’re currently handling the technology in the game. Instead they can keep it in the open world, but put it in a corner/out-of-the-way spot and instead of relying on phasing like they did with Garrisons see if they can leverage the recent seamless zone-switching that was introduced with Zaralek Caverns or like they’re attempting to do with Delves. A Death Gate-style transportation method on top of that would be great.

Lesson the second: Turn willing players into environment designers

Garrison customization was almost non-existent. Players could select where they wanted profession buildings, pets and mounts could be favorited so they roamed around it, there was that one achievement statue that could be changed, and you could turn on or off seasonal decoration for Winter Veil and Hallow’s End, but that was it. There was nothing about Garrisons that felt personal, and if you had seen both faction Garrisons you saw everything they were capable of.

Homesteads are built on the idea of personal customization and not just in term of placement. Almost every object that you can decorate your Homestead with can be adjusted in size, angle, and positioning — if you want to put a bed angled sideways along the roof you can. The image of plush animals above was built with only four different models so it gives an idea of what you can do with the system, although note that you have to craft each piece individually so you may end up using a good number of resources to replicate.

Of course a robust system also means it isn’t easy, so players who want to maximize their creativity are going to have a bit of a learning curve to get proficient with it. Just like Homestead usage in general it’s not required — players can simply build and place and still have the opportunity to make their Homestead a home.

WoW‘s next iteration of housing should definitely include tools similar to these, including the “bee mode” that lets you hover to make it easier to decorate things in the air — and since the objects have solidity with player interaction you can recreate the jumping puzzles that are a prominent feature of GW2 — because anything less will feel incomplete. Spending an hour trying to get a desk setup exactly the way you want should also give players better appreciation of the work developers do.

Lesson the third: Isolate the gameplay

Garrisons ended up being frustrating to many players because so much of it felt like a job — mission tables and profession outposts required daily interaction to maximize their utility. As each character had their own separate Garrison there was a compulsion to repeat these tasks on all of them, especially once it became lucrative gold-wise to do so. Homesteads has eschewed the necessity of daily logins outside the permanent resource nodes that can be unlocked for your account, but even those have a quicker collection mode than previously. Even an active GW2 player can dispense with everything involving the Homestead in less than a minute.

Isolation isn’t just about tasks, though. Creating the decorations you use comes from a new accountwide crafting discipline called Handiworker, with the recipes easily obtained in bulk through the Mastery track. Like much of GW2 progress is shared on the account so it doesn’t matter which character you’re currently focusing on — you’ll be able to build up your Homestead for all to use. The resources for the decorations come from the standard raw materials used in all other professions so it’s not entirely self-sufficient, but the output has little impact on the rest of the game so it feels like something you can do when you want, not out of obligation.

Like with customization WoW should pattern housing the same way — a diversion, not a requirement. Sure there won’t be any opportunity to turn a Garrison 2.0 into a profit center, but should that really be a gameplay goal to begin with? At most a convenience such as permanent crafting stations could exist in the housing, but work orders and unique currencies should definitely not be considered.

To Warband or not to Warband, that is the question

This last point is less a lesson and more a contemplation for the WoW development team. As noted in the intro the Homestead suffers from a forced aesthetic; as a result it’s not a huge deal that all your characters share it (if you log out on a character in the Homestead your other characters will actually see them when they visit). If WoW instead decides to provide more options — different building appearances based on all the races, for example — there runs into an issue of how much individuality a character has in their housing option.

The issue becomes even more acute because of the factions that GW2 doesn’t have. Will your orc characters be willing to live in player housing with a Stormwind feel? Will Mechagnomes be dissatisfied with the lack of mechanical gadgets in a setting designed by Blood Elves? A neutral forced aesthetic allays this concern but then it’ll be the same concerns that GW2 faces: what happens next expansion?

While the appearance of any housing is going to be a knot to untangle, I do feel it’s safe to say that Warbands provides an opportunity for accountwide unlocks that make the experience easier. Tying any sort of housing progression to the Warband should be a given even if characters each end up with their own place to call home.

To be honest, it’s hard to know whether the generally negative response to Garrisons has put the WoW development team off the idea of any similar style of housing in the future. However, if another attempt is made hopefully the lessons that Guild Wars 2 is currently learning will be taken to heart.