A recent post about SWTOR housing over at Going Commando, and subsequent comments, started me thinking about what I look for from player housing in MMORPGs. Most of the blog posts I’ve seen about housing relate to decoration – the default style of the housing itself, ways to decorate it, sought after items or decoration projects underway.
Reading the above linked post, I was reminded that player housing doesn’t have to only be about decoration though. I do really appreciate housing in the MMORPGs that have it, but to me it tends to be a more functional relationship than decorative. To many MMO housing enthusiasts the collection of housing items, and the decoration of one or more housing plots with those items is a major source of gameplay – a very different style of endgame indeed.
I, sadly, lack the artistic mindset and the patience to enjoy that aspect of housing. For me in most games housing has certain practical benefits that I want to use, although I rarely spend much time and effort on how things look and where things are placed.
The “place it where it’ll fit” school of decoration
Storage is a major plus where available. I’m thinking Everquest 2 here, a game that takes inventory and storage to such giddy excess. Characters have voluminous potential bag capacity, plus a very generous banking system and house inventory – the latter being something I often forget to make full use of.
Access to services is another plus of housing. Housing often can be upgraded to give you certain crafting facilities, so you can craft away in peace and quiet. Access to the auction house / broker system is also a potential service accessible from a character’s home.
A veritable palace of portals
In some games, more active extras can be added. Wildstar is possibly the most varied here, with set pieces that offer repeatable challenges, or private gathering nodes. Wildstar and Everquest 2 both offer some fast travel options, portals or similar, that can be installed in housing to facilitate travel to frequented zones in the open world.
A wild variety of housing options
Although I have no real patience for housing decoration, I can greatly appreciate the artistry of others. Having access to really useful services and utility functions wins out – I want substance more than style.
GamingSF 
I like decorating in-game houses, but there needs to be some practical benefit to them. What’s the point of building your perfect virtual home if you never have a reason to go there? That ESO’s housing system is praised while SWTOR’s is maligned will never make any sense to me.
Oh I’m kinda in love with some of the housing things, it’s a bit like playing with high-polygon count Lego again 🙂
I’m not one to spend days and weeks on my houses but I’ve spent quite a few hours decorating my houses in WildStar and SW:TOR. I don’t need any benefit, but it certainly increases my enjoyment. The WildStar crafting circles where you’d share your plot with the others so you can harvest more was pure genius. In SWTOR it’s my “I can teleport here and have a mailbiox/storage/etc” and in the other rooms I can decorate and have fun. But as I said, to a degree, I’m neither perfecting it nor remodelling constantly. I’m fine that WoW didn’t have housing – would’ve been nice, but I’m not complaining. (Garrison doesn’t count, sorry)
I don’t consider myself artistic inclined either but I always liked housing in games just for decoration’s sake. In fact that was my real “end-game” in EQ2, like you described it. 🙂
To me it was a good exercise in creativity and also a place that I could effect actual and permanent change, unlike the rest of the MMO world where actual change only comes due to a developer’s whims.
Of course, I don’t mind some utility either. Material storage in Everquest 2 was a huge boon for me, as well have easy teleportation devices, plus many other little things I probably forgot already. 🙂
Reblogged this on DDOCentral.