For two decades, World of Warcraft players have lived their digital lives in the lands of Azeroth and beyond. But have they truly lived them? After many years of requesting and being shot down by Blizzard, they are about to finally be allowed to do so.
As part of a livestreamed event celebrating both 30 years of the wider Warcraft franchise and 20 years of World of Warcraft specifically today, Blizzard announced that the long-running MMORPG will finally allow players to put down roots and step away from the world-saving heroics to sit back, relax, and have a nice cuppa in their very own housing system.
Player housing—and the chance to decorate your own little private space with trinkets from years of adventuring—has long been a major request among Warcraft fans, but Blizzard has resisted that desire for equally as long, often citing that the development cost of an extensive feature would pull resources away from other fundamental pillars of the game, like developing new narrative and raiding content. As WoW‘s success in the MMO space in the last 20 years gave space for other MMOs to flourish, player housing has become a common staple of the genre across other mainstays like The Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy XIV, while Warcraft continued to treat the request, and its long absence, as almost something of an in-joke between developers and fans.
WoW has experimented with the idea in its lifetime in limited capacity: the fifth expansion to the game in 2014, Warlords of Draenor, featured garrisons as a major mechanic, a dedicated customizable base players could spend their time in while developing a small community of NPC followers who could help with crafting resources and gear acquisition. Two years later in 2016’s Legion, the idea was replaced with Order Halls—hubs that were no longer dedicated to an individual player, but spaces representing each class in the game that players could tweak over time and participate in an ongoing side story through during the expansion.
Just what shape World of Warcraft‘s take on player housing will look like remains to be seen—the news today was simply that the feature will exist, rather than any specific details. Only one additional note was included: players won’t be be renovating parts of Azeroth right away. Blizzard confirmed that the feature won’t be available until WoW‘s next expansion, Midnight, the second in an ongoing trilogy of narrative threads dubbed the “Worldsoul Saga”. A content roadmap for the game also released today confirmed that Midnight wouldn’t be formally revealed until some time in late summer or early autumn of 2025, meaning that player housing itself likely won’t actually hit the game for at least another year and a half to two years, depending on how soon Midnight releases after its reveal..
At least it’s coming, though, and the world of Warcraft can start to feel a little more literally lived-in for its millions of players.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Read the full article here
