Gestern Abend veröffentlichten die Entwickler von WoW einen weiteren Vorschauartikel zu dem für Midnight geplanten Housing. Dieser neue Beitrag ging dabei dann tatsächlich einmal darauf ein, wie das Platzieren eines Hauses, die Gründung einer Nachbarschaft und das Interagieren einer Nachbarschaft funktionieren werden. Dabei wurde dann auch enthüllt, dass die Zone für die Häuser der Allianz den Namen „Founder’s Point“ trägt und die Zone der Horde als „Razorwind Shores“ bezeichnet wird. Jede diese Zone besteht aus 50 Häuserplätzen und einer Reihe von kleineren Bereichen, um Spielern etwas Abwechslung zu bieten.
Was die Nachbarschaften betrifft, so gibt s öffentliche Nachbarschaften und zwei Gruppen von privaten Nachbarschaften. Öffentliche Bereiche erlauben bis zu 50 verschiedene Häuser und sie werden automatisch von dem Spiel selbst verwaltet. Bei den privaten Gruppen gibt es Gildennachbarschaften und Satzungsnachbarschaften. Eine Gildenzone bietet durch weitere Instanzen allen Spielern einer Gilde einen Platz für ihr Haus. Eine Satzungsnachbarschaften ist auf 50 Plätze limitiert, weshalb sich das Ganze eher für kleinere Freundesgruppen eignet. In privaten Nachbarschaften bestimmten die Spieler selbst die Regeln und vor allem den Namen.
Ein weiterer wichtiger Punkt aus dem Beitrag sind die sogenannten „Unterfangen“. Dabei handelt es sich um nachbarschaftsweite Aktivitäten, die jeden Monat wechseln und verschiedene Themen haben können. Spieler tragen durch Raids, Dungeons, Quests, Berufe und andere Tätigkeiten zu einem Unterfangen in ihrer Nachbarschaft bei. Durch den Abschluss des Events erhalten die Spieler sowohl Gunst der Nachbarschaft als auch eine neue Währung. Mit der Gunst lässt sich das eigene Haus aufwerten und mit der Währung können Spieler dekorative Objekte erwerben. Das Ganze scheint eine recht soziale Tätigkeit zu sein.
WoW Housing: It’s Only Neighborly
Welcome home, Adventurers!
Or in this case, welcome to the neighborhood, Adventurers!
So far in our series of articles, we’ve shared information on our philosophy, decorating, and rewards for Housing in World of Warcraft, but it’s time to bring you into the Neighborhood. Briefly mentioned in our first post on Housing, let’s get into the nitty- gritty of what Neighborhoods are and how they work.
Before we dive into things, our usual disclaimers apply. Neighborhoods are a work in progress so names, images, numbers, timing, and more may change between now and when Housing is released. Our goal in sharing this ahead of time is to get your feedback; so please let us know what you think.
This Land is Your Land
As a quick refresher, homes in World of Warcraft are separated into two Neighborhood zones, Founder’s Point (for the Alliance) and Razorwind Shores (for the Horde). Each Neighborhood is made up of roughly 50 plots of the same size, all of which contain a house.
We want players with different preferences for locations to find a plot that’s perfect for them, be they vibe-based or looking for something for a specific character. Some plots are placed far away from everything for the hermits among us, while others are grouped together in small cul-de-sacs of two to three houses perfect for a small group of friends. Other houses are in larger groupings for folks looking for more hustle and bustle.
Similarly, there’s a variety of biomes in each zone, ranging from Founder’s Point’s spooky forests and autumnal farmland to the lush oases and windswept bluffs in Razorwind Shores. In both Neighborhoods, you’ll find a dynamic central hub area full of both NPC activity and Endeavors (keep reading).
An important consideration for us and one of the reasons these zones are so big is we want to give players ample space. Partly because having a yard that you can decorate really lets people express themselves, but also because we wanted to make sure there is enough room between plots that players didn’t run afoul of each other’s yards. You won’t have to worry about your neighbor’s old growth tree jutting through your delicately constructed hedge maze.
Housing Organizations in Azeroth (HOA)
It’s not just a question of where you choose to live, but who you choose to live near, that’s important. And don’t worry, there aren’t actually any HOAs here (unless players choose to implement them).
Neighborhoods are persistent, so anyone you live near will be your neighbor forevermore, making this decision important (though you can move at any time so don’t worry too much). This allows your Neighborhood to be customized and you can work with other players to progress it together.
There are two types of Neighborhoods:
Public Neighborhoods – These are created as needed by the game servers and anyone can buy a house in them. As they fill up, new instances are created, so players looking for a house shouldn’t see a message about all the neighborhoods being full. Public Neighborhoods are run by the game as well, including naming it (with a semi-procedurally generated name), organizing Endeavors (again, see below), and keeping the neighborhood running however is needed.
Private Neighborhoods – These are created and owned by players, either by Guilds as Guild Neighborhoods, or by arbitrary groups of players as Charter Neighborhoods.
To create (and maintain) a Private Neighborhood, there’s a minimum number of players (not characters) who must be in the Guild or Charter as well as (eventually) a minimum number of players who must live in the Neighborhood. This is due to technical concerns around server and database performance as Neighborhoods are significantly more complicated than a simple instance.
Guild and Charter Neighborhoods have largely the same functionality:
- They can be named by their owners and the names do not have to be unique (though they do have delimiters to differentiate them from one another).
- Players control who can live in them. For guilds, this is via the Guild roster. If a guild removes someone, the player will also be removed from the Neighborhood. Charters have manual control over who can live there via a special UI.
- There’s a permission system for who can control the settings, membership, etc.
- Managing Endeavors is the responsibility of the owner and managers.
There is one big difference, however, between Guild and Charter Neighborhoods: Guild Neighborhoods will have homes available for everyone in a guild through additional attached instances, regardless of the Guild’s size, while Charters are limited to the maximum number of plots in a Neighborhood.
Don’t You Be My Neighbor
Two questions that we’ve gotten a number of times that we want to quickly answer:
- “What happens if I don’t like my neighbors / neighborhood?”
We’ve designed this to be frictionless and straightforward, so you can just get up and move. You can choose to relinquish a house at any time, at which point, your house’s state will be saved, ready to be “unpacked” with a click when you purchase a new house elsewhere. When you move out, there’s a regret timer started so if you change your mind before purchasing a new house, you can move right back in. Once you buy a new place or the timer elapses, your old house will go back up for sale and another player can buy it. (It’s worth calling out that if you are evicted from a private neighborhood, your house is also packed up too.)
- “Can people just walk into my yard / house?”
“It depends!” We want your house to be your space and for you to feel safe there but also recognize that some people are more social. To that end, both your plot and your house have independent permissions that can be set to allow or deny friends, guildmates, neighbors, or anyone. This lets you, for example, allow anyone on to your plot, but only friends and guildmates inside. Of course, these permissions can be changed at any time (if you want to make it private for a book club meeting in the afternoon and then open it up for a dance party at night). These permissions are frequently checked, so if you do change them, it will remove anyone whose permissions are no longer valid.
This Is The Part Where We Talk About Endeavors
Endeavors are a Neighborhood-wide activity open to anyone who lives in the Neighborhood. Endeavors occur approximately once a month and when a new Endeavor becomes available the Neighborhood is provided with the opportunity to learn from various cultures and factions of Azeroth by completing different tasks. Players in Private Neighborhoods can choose from a selection of Endeavors, though occasionally a set Endeavor appears to highlight things happening in the world. In Public Neighborhoods, the game servers are responsible for choosing which Endeavors are active.
Each Endeavor has a group of tasks that are collectively completed by the Neighborhood. As tasks are completed, more NPCs from that area show up, making various themed decorations available to the neighborhood inhabitants (or even visiting players from other Neighborhoods), and the Neighborhood changes visually to be decorated in that faction’s fashion. The number of tasks required scales with Neighborhood size, so a 50-player Neighborhood will have to complete more tasks than a 10-player Neighborhood. Similarly, if a Neighborhood is less active, future Endeavors for that Neighborhood will also scale their requirements down to accommodate.
No Endeavor Activated
Val’sharah Endeavor
The tasks themselves run the gamut of gameplay: from crafting to gathering, to questing, to completing dungeons or raids. We want there to always be a way for any given player to contribute to the Endeavor, regardless of how they choose to engage with World of Warcraft. Successfully completing tasks not only yields rewards expected from that sort of task’s gameplay but also grants a new type of Endeavor currency, which is shared across all Endeavors, as well as Neighborhood Favor.
Neighborhood Favor is used to level up your house and earn rewards while the Endeavor currency is used to buy decorations from the visiting NPCs (in either your Neighborhood or in your friends’ Neighborhoods.)
Once enough tasks have been completed in an Endeavor, the entire Neighborhood is rewarded together, with bonus Endeavor currency and Neighborhood Favor, as well as the ability to purchase all the decorations at the NPC (provided players have sufficient currency).
Our goals for Endeavors are three-fold:
- To give the Neighborhood a common goal to rally around and be rewarded for it collectively. It feels good to complete things together and we want to encourage both synchronous and asynchronous play with your neighbors.
- To give Neighborhoods a choice in how things are visually presented on a larger-scale, not just in individual player-owned plots.
- Introduce some asymmetry between Neighborhoods to make visiting other Neighborhoods more interesting.
Time to Get Out of Town
This is just the start of what we’re planning for Neighborhoods and Endeavors. Having a large-scale persistent multiplayer space and the ability for players to collectively contribute to it is truly exciting for us and we can’t wait to build on it with you.
What do you find most exciting? Keep the feedback coming and we’ll see you next time!
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