[00:04] >> Hello internet. My name is Taliesin. >> And I'm Evitel and today we are very lucky to be speaking with two of the top tier player housing devs. Let's welcome Jesse Corlanchek who is the principal game designer and Joanna
[00:19] Gianoulis the senior UX designer. Welcome guys. I've got a question. straight away. What's going on with the housing numbers on the plots? Why are they all over the place? Why aren't they in any kind of recognizable order? Whose
[00:32] working for the company? What's going on? So in in the interest of uh transparency, in the interest of just players I saw I saw I was like, "So why is that?
[00:47] and surely surely there's a reason for it. and I asked this morning. I asked the team. I was like, "Hey, why are our plot numbers the way they are?" Um the West Coast hasn't opened up yet
[01:01] a real answer. Okay. Um but everybody has a different sort of head cannon for why they are the way they are. he gives us things, but some people said, "Oh, it
[01:14] was so plots didn't have priority based on number." So you didn't want to get you know number one, two, and three are like the cool kid plots. And number 45 and 50 like, "Ah, that's you know the bottom of the barrel."
[01:27] There was a whole bunch of explanations possible about database sort of ID ordering and what order the plots were made in, how they got moved around. I don't have the real answer for you
[01:41] I'm not going to lie. It sounds like Jesse is covering for someone. for? Is it you? works. >> I think we were all claiming dibs on our
[01:53] plots and someone maybe wanted like plot six and some things maybe got moved that's not true. That's not [laughter] true. That makes sense. I just hid it worked cuz no one could ever find any of them. It's it's perfect.
[02:09] >> we one more thing on this before we sort of go on. things where traction and inertia have sort of taken hold. So as people are discussing in alpha, I like plot 16 or whatever. If we
[02:22] all of a sudden like change all the plot numbers to make sense, that players now have to go through again. They're like, "Wait, 16 was which And so Like you couldn't just put a keyboard in alphabetical order, right?
[02:36] >> [laughter] >> But yeah, there was something. I I did feel quite special when I saw a plot that I liked and it was plot zero. zero in the Horde neighborhood, but there is in the Alliance neighborhood.
[02:50] >> [laughter] >> Same answer pretty much, yeah. >> [laughter] >> and and it got deleted. Yeah, exactly.
[03:02] >> Um it has been really really good this entire process of player housing a new big feature to have this long on it and even before it was testable we had so many blue posts and sort of great communication by the team right from the
[03:18] the get-go I think. Has there been any features in housing that will be making it to live that weren't originally planned and came from player feedback during this
[03:30] process? So so many. concrete ones. You know, we're talking about neighborhoods. you know, the early iterations of the Horde neighborhood
[03:42] got iterated on a lot. You know, as people saw it as people got in there were not super psyched basically with the number of the the sort of plots. It used to be much drier and dustier especially in the sort of the southwest
[03:57] portion and we you know you see now it's it's much more vibrant, it's much more lush. Um but you know, very concretely we had like a task in over the summer to fix it was it was fixed chair scaling
[04:12] basically. It was if you rotated a chair, if you scaled a chair, if you did weird things with a chair, the task was to make it so that was no And like it looks stupid. Why why would we
[04:25] want to ship that? Um and then in alpha we saw someone take a chair and shrink it down and rotate it and like stick it in a bar or something so you could sit or you know sit on the bed and sit on these places that you couldn't sit
[04:39] normally. And I I texted responsible for decor, Jay, and I was like, "Bro, we can't fix the chairs. We need to leave the chairs broken." And
[04:53] chairs, with the windows that you can reverse, with things that weren't textured on one side of the other, with the way the light interacted with certain textures, as players did weird and unexpected
[05:05] things, we didn't want to fix those things so they ended up breaking. You know, it's cool to see what players do with things that we don't intend and then to sort of let folks double down on that stuff. I
[05:19] of those windows and I was wondering to myself, I wonder if they intended them >> [laughter] >> Amazing. Awesome. I'm so glad. Yeah. We cracked it. Yeah, well in in in a way the hacks are an extra bonus feature of
[05:35] right? A lot of the questions we get from our community do tend to roll revolve around well, mostly. Like will this feature this feature happen? One of the biggest things is the decision to when buying
[05:52] decor from vendors buy the individual items. Obviously well, but in in in with the in-game items, I personally think it's a sensible way of doing it. It tends to
[06:07] make sense, but I'd love to hear you talk about your design process as to how you came to that decision for for that. Yeah, this was something we decided talking about it back and forth and what the benefits were.
[06:19] players feel proud about the things that they're building and they feel a sense of achievement. And when you play other of something just cuz you have the gold. It doesn't you know, or you buy one and
[06:32] know, things just like change. So it's like adding in the right level of fun and exciting when you're showing off what you built. So stuff, we worked really hard to make sure that you can earn a lot of really
[06:47] you put the effort in, you can get a lot more of it. If you want to cover a room with a thousand lamps for some reason, like that work because someone else wasn't going to put that effort in. And that
[07:01] decided. There was there was also the the crafting economy aspect of it. So if we said, "Yeah, you you get one you get one crafted [clears throat] for you and now you have you know as many whatever blankets as you want." Um
[07:15] consume a craft once and you're done with it. items." And you're like, "Okay, now we have to sort of split the UX for normal items and crafted items. Maybe well don't do
[07:29] of even becomes this this thread you pull and of cases. You know, for a long time achievement items you were only going to get one of and we got really feedback that players wanted two of Onyxia's head
[07:45] thinking about ways to make sure you could get multiple items, but also make that feel good as well. So there was a lot of balance that happened. What would you say to a player who um you know doesn't have a lot of gold or
[07:59] worried that they're not going to kind of be able to make the house of their >> A lot of stuff is given to you at the start. We have some really awesome we also have a lot of the decor that's in the neighborhoods. We made sure that
[08:13] lower cost. But also if you've been playing for a long time, when you log in, a lot of achievements we've gone back and added in, if you've been playing for a while, you might get a lot of stuff like day
[08:25] There was also the endeavors and the neighborhood are playing together or playing in your neighborhood at the same parallel play if two kids are playing by themselves
[08:39] And so if if your neighborhood is doing stuff you get these coupons and the only use for those coupons is to buy decor. And so you can certainly amass a small fortune of these if you're doing just your normal gameplay sort of ambiently.
[08:53] Um speaking of endeavors, so when player housing launches in early access, we won't be having endeavors, right? So we just wanted to know kind of what renown track will we be able to get up to before endeavors launch and you know
[09:09] >> Yeah, what would you expect? What level do you expect player housing to be at when it launches with midnight? Um about level five you should be able to get up to, right Jesse? Yeah, so so for early access it caps at
[09:23] five and the the second level's free basically. It's part of the tutorial. If you've been playing for a long time, if you've been sort of covering your
[09:35] reputations and whatnot, you'll be able to get to three probably you'll be able to get to three probably when you log in or shortly thereafter. when you log in or shortly thereafter. And then if you want to run around and
[09:48] collect a bunch of crafted items and all that, you'll you'll be able to effort. I think you know one of the things we see in alpha and beta is certainly um either people their templated characters, they don't have
[10:01] their professions um leveled up, and so people aren't from past expansions to make crafts with. Um you know, they don't um they're up, so they're not crafting. Um but once release hits, um all that is now
[10:15] permanent progress. Um and so you're like, I do want that torture rack. Um I don't I don't know if you can craft a torture rack actually. Um But you know, you make one. Get Get
[10:28] constituent parts. Um But you know, all those things add up um in beta right now getting to fours and in beta right now getting to fours and fives with only minimal endeavor um XP.
[10:41] men to your house to upgrade it. Always send the men. You've got to go into the man house, and you've got to get the men to go and do their thing. Like that's >> [laughter] >> They're sitting there in their house all
[10:54] They're just waiting for you to level up. We're recording this a week before the um interview goes live. Uh so we uh we're expecting this week on the alpha to um get blood elf and night elf
[11:06] exteriors um for homes. Uh are those coming in the beta, and will they be available for players um at launch of early access? Uh the the night elf and blood elf stuff is for midnight launch. Uh-huh. Um and so they will show
[11:21] up in beta, um but they will not show up in early access. What's going on with the weirdly overgrown plots? Cuz sometimes sometimes when I get a plot goes lovely and smooth, and all the trees and the rocks disappear just as I
[11:34] would like. But sometimes I put a plot there, and it actually gets even more and then I come back, and all the grass has grown. I'm like, I need to mow the lawn. But I can't mow the lawn. There's no way to mow the lawn. So um
[11:47] I I would love to tell you that's some sort of engagement feature with like a living [laughter] ecosystem plants and you know, all of that No, that's just a bug. Yeah, [laughter] that's the bug. Basically, the the
[11:59] phases that the sort of uh the the brush and trees and stuff are kept in and where the house is and everything um just gets out of sync, and um so it's a bug. It'll get fixed. Jesse, you mentioned that a lot of work
[12:11] went into the Horde neighborhood just to kind of give it a little extra polish they wanted. And uh yeah, our guild agrees the Horde neighborhood is is >> [laughter] >> And I know it's really important that
[12:26] there's a sense of the neighborhoods kind of belonging to the factions to some degree, but will there ever be any wiggle room in terms of like housing want I mean, look at the Alliance
[12:40] neighborhood and the kind of spooky Forsaken bit. Like could we ever see some kind of cross-faction exteriors in the neighborhoods? Uh it is unlikely unlikely that we'll see um you know, an orc house in in
[12:55] Founder's Point directly. Um I think the thing you'll see is um more more neutral um sort of uh houses, but also uh I'm sure you've both seen people uh I'm sure you've both seen people making a tauren house out of out of just
[13:10] parts. Um I imagine as you know, as more decor comes in, as people feel more comfortable with the tool set, um that you will see people making sort of ramshackle Alliance houses um in the
[13:23] Horde neighborhood um and such. But we wanted to keep the sort of overall um fantasy um cohesive, um and so you didn't have, you know, the the blue the blue roofs showing up in Hordetown or vice versa.
[13:37] And I think um any kind of concerns that players had about that have been waylaid quite a lot by seeing what they can do to the exteriors of houses and how how much they can even even with the what seems on paper quite a limited exterior
[13:51] budget. Um there are still no plans to extend my exterior budget, I guess. Um we would love to is the you know, it is it is entirely a technical constraint. Um we do a lot of stress and automation testing for like
[14:07] take some like nightmare neighborhoods. Take things that are just to the gills Take things that are just to the gills um with large animated um structures or lots of small things crammed into to a lot or lights um potentially, uh and
[14:21] then dump 150 players in there and see what happens. And see how the min spec Um And so we're starting um at at a point where um we feel comfortable with those min spec machines um working um that if
[14:35] um uh you know, run through a neighborhood, worst-case areas that this big cul-de-sac of houses has all just made some sort of, you know, monstrosities, um that you're not going to tank um your
[14:50] performance. Uh and we will sort of try to creep creep as we can. My uh shipwreck house is coming on I'm going to get it in under budget. Let's talk guild neighborhoods um just
[15:03] it would be great to cuz the numbers been changing a lot on beta in terms of how full a guild neighborhood has to be before a different shard, as it were, of
[15:16] players. Uh do you have any clarification on that? I I can tell you where the numbers are like right now um with the giant glaring caveat of us, this number may change. Um if we find on day one, you know, guilds are spinning
[15:31] uh subdivisions or not enough subdivisions, um these will change um live effectively. Um but the number right now is 80% um plots claimed, uh at subdivision. Um and then if people move between those
[15:46] subdivisions, um you now have to get 80% of two shards um pulled up before it'll spawn a third one. But that 80% can be spread over the two shards? Yeah, so if you If it's so let's let's pretend it's
[16:01] neighborhoods maxed at 50 cuz it's easier math. Um Uh if you have one neighborhood and you have 40 people buy a house, you will now spin up a second subdivision. Um if 20 of those people move to that
[16:13] second shard because we really wanted to to buy up the plots in a certain way, that's fine. Um until 80 um 80 plots are taken between those new two neighborhoods, um whether it's 50 and 30 or you know, 40 and 40 or
[16:27] whatever, um a a third one will then spin up. likely, I guess, to be on the higher end of of the percentage that it ends up on. So yeah. Yeah, it's it's you know, we want in general, and this
[16:40] is for for public neighborhoods and um private neighborhoods, we want neighborhoods to be more on the full side than on the on the the sparse Swiss cheese side. Well, I am really excited to see our guild, which
[16:54] much all of their time in the neighborhoods. And one of the things one of the activities uh that they've really highlighted that they would really like to do in our neighborhoods is fishing. Are there are there any plans? Cuz I
[17:08] down >> before beta, by the way, everyone was like, we want guild halls, we want theaters. And now now it's on beta, would be fine. >> you know what? Like that little pond
[17:20] looks so nice. [laughter] Please, can I fish there? So is this and I'm going to call you out a little bit. Is this because you like plot zero that dock? Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm just like
[17:32] right? >> see I see all those NPCs sitting down and doing their fishing, and I'm like, I wish that could be me. Uh we we don't cozy activities um neighborhoods can have, should have, um and a lot of it is
[17:47] actually want, what they want to do um in their homes, in their yards, in their gardens, in their their backyard pools. Um I don't I think I think fishing makes a lot of sense, right? It's it is a cozy activity. It is not um it's not combat.
[18:03] it's it's something that could make sense. Um so yeah, if if if people are could definitely talk about it. They are definitely they're clamoring for fishing, but also like fishing-related decor as a reward.
[18:18] >> It's been fun to test the endeavors, and it got me thinking cuz I I I I did all my my quests, and I got the final reward, which was um the the permit to reward, which was um the the permit to unlock buying cool artwork from uh you
[18:31] guys in Silvermoon, which is amazing. And my goodness, the kind of reward I would not want to miss out on, and uh just really really cool. But of course, after the end of the month, that endeavor will be gone.
[18:43] Are you planning to have endeavors cycle back like, say, trading post rewards do, will there be other ways to get the rewards later on, or when you miss it, have you just missed it? You're giving me a soapbox here. This is
[18:58] great. Very polite of you to to to give me a soapbox. Um In in general, like philosophically, we don't want people feeling like they've missed out on something because I was away for the weekend, or I you
[19:11] I couldn't play for for a couple of weeks. Um so you know, to the endeavors, um if you if if your neighborhood is doing elves and my neighborhood is doing, you know, something else, um and I want elf stuff, I can go visit your
[19:25] neighborhood. You know, the the coupons, the community coupons are um usable across endeavors. And so um if you're running X and I'm running Y, I Um but they also will, if you um
[19:41] leave my neighborhood. This is my my house. Um Uh they will cycle through again. If your if your guild um or or sort of wants to hit those those blood elves up again, that they will come up as an
[19:54] option in the future, um and it will be up to you to, you know, lobby for blood elves, um if you want to get them again. How far in advance have you got the uh the endeavor themes planned out for on the whiteboard?
[20:06] Yes. >> [laughter] soapbox and talk about about um like road maps and and and all that nonsense. nonsense, I speak of it like nonsense. No, it's actually pretty fundamental. Um
[20:21] we have got used to uh with ever since Dragonflight having a a road map for the that has worked really well and that kind of puts players at ease and and, gives great faith in the community for for where the game's going. Um would you
[20:37] entertain the idea of having a specific housing road map that might come out or that? Um I'm going to do my my favorite thing where I look over my glasses and and imply something very strongly um and
[20:50] leave it up to the audience to to take from that what what they will. Um I about housing, the way we've been talking with players, the way we've sort of been just building the feature in general, um we've been very open, um you
[21:03] talked about housing originally we teased it like a year ago. Um and we were posting about stuff that was not built um in a lot of cases. Um I don't plans to change that. Um sort of way we talk, I think it's been
[21:18] really valuable. I think getting the feedback, um hearing that that that is compelling or that seems like a bad idea, why are they spending time on that? Um is has been incredibly valuable and I don't I don't
[21:30] see any reason to change it. So, just thinking about So, just thinking about the sheer amount of hours, days, weeks, you know, etc. that I'm going to be spending in my neighborhood, um it's
[21:43] daunting. And just thinking about the fact that, you know, players can really only hang out in one place at any given time. Um has there been any kind of time. Um has there been any kind of concern or thought given to um
[21:57] you know, the fact that this might have an effect on how much time people spend in major hubs like Silvermoon? Like, what do you think about that balance? Yeah, I know early on um we decided that some things wouldn't be in neighborhoods
[22:09] hub cities. So, you're always going to have to go there for your professions and your trainers. Uh you need to go there to visit the bank. Um there's just planning to put in neighborhoods right now. Um of course, if people really want
[22:23] the table, but it was really important about finding that balance. And there's going to prefer to hang out there, do their Brutosaur parades, that sort of finding the right balance of what we offer in the neighborhood versus what we
[22:39] offer in the hub cities. Um and again, you're always going to need to go there for the main story and the quests and everything that's going going to different places for different needs.
[22:51] Also different vibes. Yeah. Yeah. >> You know, this is our space versus, you know, Yeah. a war space or a, you know, whatever the the sort of the theme of a town might be.
[23:05] Have there been any uh experiences throughout this design process and, you know, going back to before it was made public, I guess, as well. Um
[23:17] of something that just, you know, wouldn't work, wouldn't integrate, a weird bug that popped somewhere unexpected, uh that you had to work around and make work or just had to chuck out or turn into something great.
[23:30] pick and they're all very funny, actually. Um library book like on a table, it would just start slowly moving across the house for no reason. We couldn't figure it out for like [laughter] a week. Um
[23:45] and then there's um worm teak. Uh we we're testing the dyes just doesn't appear and we don't know why. We can't figure out it's just one dye. And the way it's built, that doesn't make sense. They're all in the
[24:00] same place. There's no reason one dye. So, I spend weeks and weeks making bugs about worm teak. And I I hate those words at this point. Um it's
[24:12] just cuz it was the first color in the file we're referencing. And all we had to do was move it by like one pixel. That's it. But it wasn't listed as one in the list, so no one realized that for a long time. Uh
[24:26] >> that made me so upset. I I have very similar experiences when and it's got hidden behind a wall and I just can't find it. I don't know where >> [laughter] >> There's a UI for that now.
[24:40] >> I like I like where I point to the top right as if it means something. Yeah. yeah, if you're in advanced mode, there's a little like button in the top right of the and it shows you all the placed stuff. Place the core list, yeah.
[24:53] So, that's there in advanced mode. Really? If that wherever it is in your house, so you should be able to see the gimbals just clicking it selects it. So, yeah, we we were getting a lot of things a lot
[25:08] of bugs for things stuck in walls. Um and so they were like, "Okay, we need a UI fix immediately." And I was like, "Okay, what can we do?" So, um yeah, as we see what other problems people are having. So,
[25:20] in the interview where basically we are just going to like throw ideas at you >> you love feedback so much, right? The outdoors rooms, mind-blowing. Like awesome. Skybox rooms, yay. We love those. Uh was that
[25:35] always the plan or is that something you came up with during uh like the development? No. They were They were or they were asking for it directly. It was It was like a It was a It was a very funny thing. It
[25:47] ended up being a relatively low lift that had a lot of bugs in it, which is they're coming soon in early access and they're in um they're going to be 12.0. But it was It was a Well, it started like, "Hey, can we just texture a room
[26:02] And everyone was like, "Yeah, I guess we could." That seems happens. Um and yeah, I think uh I think, you know, been wonderful. Um yeah, when that when that appeared on
[26:18] >> [laughter] >> uh I see out of nowhere as well. But people do want to be able to uh affix rooms coming off those skybox rooms as
[26:30] well cuz they want to make their little town squares where with houses sort of they want them bigger and they want different skybox rooms and you can't have two skybox rooms too close to each other right now uh in in terms of like
[26:46] the plan of your building and all of this. But you're hearing all of these suggestions from the community, right? >> We are. We are. Um and uh we're I was talking again with Jay um about the the skybox rooms the other day and
[26:58] you know, a room that goes from sunset to night to day to dawn, whatever, um in the over the course of four rooms. And uh
[27:11] That's the >> [laughter] >> That's the really honest answer. We we'd like to. Um we're We have to figure out It's a really modular system and and if
[27:23] you add something new in, all the other rooms have to work with it. So, it's something doesn't work. So, Is it Is it fair to say that with like the almost the majority of suggestions from the community at this stage, it is
[27:38] very much a case of we'll do it when we work out how to >> rather than we don't want to do that or we do want to do that, really. It's not a soapbox. It's good. Just keep keep bringing them up.
[27:52] keep bringing them up. No, but it's it's, you know, about this even when you were out in Boston in May that no matter sort of what we talk about, what sort of, "Oh, can we do
[28:04] there's it's really hard to say no. Like, it doesn't That doesn't make It's like, "No, that actually seems totally cool. Should we do that in housing?" Um and having this new pillar in WoW from which we can extend and
[28:18] expand over the course of, you know, days, weeks, months, um years potentially, um is really exciting. And the fact that if I ask Joe, if I ask you two, you know, what's the next three features we should add to housing, I
[28:31] Um And so, you know, we know number one. Um and then everything else after that. And then skybox rooms >> [laughter] >> Uh
[28:44] we're going to add, right? We're going to add more decor. We're going to add um immediately like, you know, we
[28:57] We would like you to hang your armor on a rack. Um why can't I put my sword know. We would like all of these things. Uh and so, yeah, we know that sort of that group of features. Uh I think where it gets interesting um
[29:12] and where um I'm really curious to see what players do with stuff um in the coming weeks and months is what are the things that we're not talking about right now? And by us, I mean, you know, we but also the players.
[29:25] What are the things that don't necessarily minutes, the first couple days, you know, when we announced neighborhoods, um I think I saw So, you two actually talking about it at some point where
[29:38] enable a lot of stuff. I don't know what's going to enable, but this this opens the door because now we have a communal space. It is not just my space, my space, my space. It's now we have an our space.
[29:52] And that opens up a whole bunch of doors. And so, what are all these doors that we don't know about right now? And and how how exciting is it to walk through them? Can I Is there any plan to add to like
[30:05] the decor collection to the UI? If I hover over an object or if I have one, just to see where I can get it or where I can get more of them? Like just have >> separate from the the catalog. >> Yeah, say yes.
[30:18] >> Yeah, so like as in just within my own home or maybe if I'm touring someone in the same way that you can see what a mount is get something from, yeah. Um It's now my chance to lean over my
[30:32] >> [laughter] >> I'll say we're we've seen the feedback paying very close attention cuz that stuff is so important to making sure you feel comfortable and you're having fun. So, we're we're taking note and we're
[30:45] life improvements in. There's so many actually that people say what we'll get to first. But we see the pain points and we're feeling them and we're definitely I don't even think you need to lean over your glasses too
[30:58] It's disabled. >> Oh. Yeah, [laughter] it's true. There is a button in the top left of your UI that will be really helpful I think >> Oh. It's early access coming up. The game
[31:14] doesn't launch probably until midnight. If someone isn't playing the game in early access and is waiting for midnight to launch before they engage with player housing, is there decor or things that they're going to miss out on
[31:27] by by not engaging in this early access thing? The only thing is that if you might be easier to get some of those achievements done. That's it. But you Guys, thank you so much for your time. It's always a pleasure. And it's just
[31:41] like a joy to hear you talk. I'd like to ask no questions at all really. Just let >> terrible idea. Exactly. Terrible idea. >> Thank you. Thank you so much, guys. >> Thank you.
[31:53] >> Thank you. >> Thanks so much. Cheers.