So, what’s the Player Housing end game?

When today’s maintenance is over, World of Warcraft players will at long last obtain the keys to their very own homes on Azeroth — but what will engaging with Player Housing look like in a year, or five, or twenty? Is there an end game for our Neighborhoods and personal real estate, or will the most-anticipated feature in recent memory eventually lose its luster?

There is little doubt that the hype is real when it comes to Player Housing. We have spent the last thirteen months learning new details about the mechanics and logistics of home ownership, making to-do lists of crafted decor and legacy adornments, and drafting the blueprints for our rumpus rooms. If the server lag in Razorwind Shores and Founder’s Point isn’t horrendous for the first few days of early access, I’ll eat my Bloodmage Hood.

Some of us might be sated after a few hours of landscaping and arranging the furniture, while the rest will spend vast amounts of time chasing down every ottoman in the Great Dark Beyond and optimizing the placement of hundreds of decor items. Once we hit our house’s max level and have our rooms and yards perfected, what happens next?

If you leave your dream house for raid night and pick up a cool new dining room table, would you swap out for the one you already decided was ideal for your banquet nook? Perhaps Player Housing’s end game will feel like min/maxing your gear’s stats at the end of a content cycle. You’ll make the occasional tweak, but you won’t ever have a major shake-up. You’ll treat your house as a convenient place to hearth to, but hang up your interior decorator hat.

What if each major patch came with an increase to maximum room size? Could aspects like Endeavors prove flexible and engaging enough to serve as an end game? Might new features be added, like Neighborhood invasions or decorator challenge modes? Only time will tell what the developers have in mind for keeping us coming back to our homes in the long run.

My plan right now is to have much of my house have a permanent floor plan, with the flexibility to swap out any decor as I see fit. After that, I am definitely going to leave a few room slots dedicated to experimenting and sandboxing. Even if I go a few months without any major updates to my personal fortress, I will always have the option to be inspired by the latest expansion-wide decor prize and create a whole new wing on the theme.

The true question on the eve of Player Housing is: will this feature have staying power, or will The Last Titan see us leave our exquisitely-customized dwellings behind like so many million Draenor Garrisons?