WoW Housing Dev Interview — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] Hello Internet, my name is Talia Asad. Hi, that is Tal. And today we're talking player housing with two of the most important devs on the scene.

[00:12] Hello everyone, I'm Laura Sarginia, Lead UX Designer for the WoW team. I work on many features for Midnight, for Day Y, and also a lot with Toby's team on the housing. the housing.

[00:24] Hello, I'm Toby Reganey. I'm a lead designer on WoW and particularly focused on player housing. We have had the pleasure and privilege of playing loads of player housing during this event. I'm streaming it

[00:36] for hours, reading it to the tools. It's even better than it was when we were playing it in Boston. So, yeah, can't wait to sort of get that out there and have everyone have the same kind of pleasure. I built like an entire cobbled street

[00:49] inside with street lamps and other houses and stuff. It was amazing. So I feel like we're getting to grips with the indoors kind of customization. There was an interview on the Xbox stage yesterday,

[01:01] which featured some new footage of neighborhoods, which is something everyone's really excited about and something we haven't seen much of so far. And that footage seems to show different outside customizations of the houses.

[01:15] Is there anything you can say to that at all? Yeah. So we haven't shown a lot of the exteriors, but they're completely customizable. and we're going to be launching with four different kits for four different races,

[01:27] orcs, humans, blood elves, and night elves. So each of those will have almost like barbershoppers for the player. You'll be able to design the outside of your house, and you'll be able to use decor to decorate your yard.

[01:40] So you'll have this big plot that your house sits on, and then you have complete control as a player what kind of props and decor you want on the yard itself. And some of the exteriors that we saw seemed to be not just different styles, but different shapes.

[01:55] There was a tower and a lighthouse. Was that the customizations? Absolutely. So for that one, we are using Vibershop style, which is why the players are very used to. You go there, you see the model very big, and then you can customize with drop-downs and everything.

[02:11] So it should be very easy to use. And then, as you were saying, you can take different towers, different windows, different facades and stuff. stuff, so it's going to be pretty awesome to edit. That's really exciting. So if I'm a night elf player in my Alliance neighborhood, will I be able to have a horde-style

[02:29] house? So there's no restriction on what you design your house to look like. We are having distinct sort of neighborhoods based on factions, but they're not faction exclusive.

[02:41] They're more just a faction aesthetic. So, you know, your night elves can go to a Horde neighborhood and there's no guards that will attack you or anything like that.

[02:53] Some of the locals may comment on, hey, we don't see a lot of night elves in these parts, but something like that. But we want to stay true to the fiction of Azeroth, but we didn't want to have friction

[03:07] in regards to how people choose to socialize. Just to clarify on that, you might see a night elf house in the middle of Razorwind Shore? You might. And whether, you know, players are going to organize neighborhoods how they want.

[03:22] And that's part of this process is that, you know, we're trying to put very few hard limits on what players do in their neighborhoods. And, you know, neighborhoods are communities that will evolve with their own, you know, guidelines and so forth.

[03:38] And that's up to the players, right? Cool. So looking at those neighborhoods from what we've seen, it looks like there's a diversity of almost like biomes within each neighborhood. Could you talk a little bit about that and the different things you can find in them?

[03:52] Yeah. So first of all, I'm delighted we're talking about neighborhoods because there's actually been a significant effort on our part that we haven't talked a whole lot about yet. They're zone-sized spaces, so they're really big. And we spent a lot of time making sure that every type of player fantasy that we could think of regarding player housing could be fulfilled.

[04:11] So if you are a Blood Elf and want to find a place that's more like a genre, you know, you can do that. If you're a Tauren and you want some of the, you know, more Mesa and Bluffs, you can do that.

[04:23] And so the sort of individual neighborhoods for both Alliance and Forge evoke a lot of the classic sort of places and zones that players might remember, but they're brand

[04:37] new of course and a lot of that is just very deliberate attempt to just maximize that ability for players to be like, this is where I wanted to live. I always imagined if I were in Asbrock I would live in this place and hopefully they can

[04:50] find that little corner in each of the scenarios. On the UI side, we're building, you know, many new ones that you can see the neighborhood from above, let's say. So we're adding a new button housing at the, you know, the HUD that you can click from

[05:05] anywhere, which is great. Like for one hour to go through a raid and then you can check it out in your neighborhood. We can talk a little bit about endeavors in a bit. But you can see the activity that's going on in your neighborhood. But when you're picking your house, finding friends to live with, we're going to have

[05:18] a house finder UI where you see some stuff. It almost feels like those winter kind of websites that you see when you looking for a house and then you see what is available and the plot But of course it looks very Warcraft There also Batman Rebels website

[05:35] Yeah, but ours is a very popular, very expensive to like, so no worries there. But it should be very easy for you to look around, mouse over, see what's up. You can find some friends already in those neighborhoods and then you can search, also friends,

[05:47] and we have all the plots available and you go from there to buy your house. And all these zones, Do they exist in the open world, or are they completely instant, like you get there through a portal or something? They're instant, you get there through a portal.

[05:59] But within the fiction, they exist in a specific place, and each neighborhood sort of has a little bit of a backstory about what's going on. And over time, what you're going to see is that there's actually some story elements that will be specific to the neighborhood.

[06:13] But what I'm the most excited about is that the ultimate goal is, in a way that homes are sort of a way for individuals to express themselves, we want the neighborhoods to be an expression of individual communities.

[06:27] And so the ability for us to allow certain elements of customization within the neighborhood itself is going to be something that we're growing over time. And I can't talk a lot about that specifically, but one of the things that I can mention is endeavors.

[06:41] Endeavors are neighborhood-specific tasks that are kind of like a world quest combining the travelogue with the tray post. And so as a neighborhood, you can choose to do an endeavor.

[06:55] And as a month-long task, you're inviting another culture from Azeroth to your neighborhood. So, for example, you might invite the gnomes from Mechagon. And as you... I don't see why they have to do that, but...

[07:07] You don't judge. But as you do, you start seeing elements of that culture start appearing in your neighborhood. And as you make progress, it becomes more and more, you know, the obvious what's going on.

[07:21] So this is just one way, the very initial way that we're sort of allowing neighbors to distinguish themselves from each other. Just to clarify, so we'll be able to choose a kind of path for endeavors? Like, will there be different options that we can take?

[07:35] And we can decide as a community, I guess? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So for private neighborhoods, so either a charter neighborhood or a guild neighborhood, they can designate a neighborhood manager. and those individuals can choose for the neighborhood which endeavor.

[07:49] There'll be a choice of maybe three or four that they select from. That is a month-long process. There may be some cases where we have what's called a priority endeavor, that we want everyone to do the same endeavor, but that's the exception.

[08:02] For the most part, we want players to be able to have a certain degree of control over their neighborhood. And the kind of progress you've mentioned on that, it does look a lot like the Traveler's Log, sort of similar kind of things happening,

[08:14] and there are sort of deco rewards on there as well. Does that mean you're not planning on putting much housing deco on the trading post once it's all done? So we're going to have decor available in any way that you can currently acquire loot in the game.

[08:27] So vendors and, you know, quests, rewards, dungeons, everything. We're launching with over a thousand different pieces of decor and we want to reward players for how they choose to play WoW.

[08:41] So some people are going to be treating their home like an extended trophy room that is just bragging rights of all their achievements. Other people are going to have class fantasies, like I want to make my D's den for my rogue and his hideout for his friend or whatever.

[08:58] It's one of these things where we're not telling players what they should be doing, and as a result, I'm really excited to see what they show us. It's similar. Not everyone is a transmogger. They really chase a lot of transmogs, transmogs, but they're raiders

[09:11] and then they unlock the tricet, and that's kind of cool, right? They have that, and they don't worry to show up, so we see how it's in a similar way. Everything you do, CBT, bringing the big clubs, even

[09:23] events on the midnight, that, you know, weekly quests might give you the core stuff. So, players can unlock all those cool things. Anyway, no matter which kind of player you are, casual

[09:35] through, like, hardcore, they're going to want a lot of things and at some point they want to put them somewhere and they're going to have their house. So it's housing is really for everyone. You mentioned story beats in the neighborhood events

[09:51] and in the features trailer there is that glorious skybox void kind of like raining down specifically over a neighborhood. Is that just a dramatic thing for the trailer or is that something we can expect to sort of happen in the build up to the expansion?

[10:03] So the main conflict will not be happening in the neighborhood, but the neighborhoods are part of the world, and so you may see elements of threats that are happening or that are currently going on within the neighborhood.

[10:19] The neighborhood itself, though, they're sanctuaries, and so it's important that players feel as though they have a certain amount of safety. We don't want them to feel like they're going to be doing a boss battle in the neighborhood

[10:33] because again, neighborhood spaces exist primarily as social avenues. No bowser coming in just like walking through wrecking it all. No, there is one really. You mentioned decorating outside space earlier and how much garden space is there for players And it is the same if we plot because somehow they seem completely in the wilderness and some seem tightly packed in together Yeah that a great question and something I spend a lot of time noodling with because

[11:04] we want each of the potentially 50 plots or so to feel like there's a reason why I want this plot. And some are way off by themselves in a distant corner on a hillside and that's where the

[11:21] of a, you know, I'm a hunter and I want my hunters lodge and I just want to be left alone. Some of them are clustered close together so if you have a group of friends and you want like a really intense kind of urban social thing you can do that too and everything in

[11:35] between. So we really put a lot of effort into not just the biomes like you mentioned earlier but also just the spacing and the way that they're related to each other, you know, in the overall context of the neighborhood. So, I'm a hunter, and so I like to collect pets.

[11:52] And one of the things that we've seen in some of the art floating around is, you know, there's something like a stable outside. You can see a mount. You can maybe see a cat wandering around. Can we expect kind of, you know, you mentioned trophies and collectibles,

[12:04] but can we expect someone to show off our mount for a pet and things like that? Thank you. It's all right. Thanks for that. We're obviously launching in midnight, but, you know, every major patch,

[12:16] every expansion is going to be featuring new housing features and content. And there's lots about the new kind of situational transmog system as well.

[12:29] I'm assuming that will have a housing element. Can you talk about the UI for that a little bit? Yeah. So, yeah, so we're, I mean, we've got a lot of cool UI updates, and a big one is the transmog revamp. We revamped the whole window.

[12:42] It was a little dated already, a little small, you know, when you can see your transmogs. So it's much bigger, and now we have outfits, which we'll give you some for free. We don't have the right number right now, but we have a good amount.

[12:56] And later, you're going to have to buy those outfits, but it's not going to be expensive for sure. But when you set an outfit, for example, for the Halloween, you really have that in mind. And you want to put your pajamas, for example.

[13:09] And then there's your pajamas outfit. And then the way you create the outfit, you can go to the situations tab, where you can say every time I go to my house, I wear my pajamas. So let's say you're on your raid, you feel like you're geared, you're for your shield,

[13:22] and like, okay, going home, and then you go to your house, and then automatically it's going to change to your pajamas with no cost. So the only cost is when you create that outfit for the first time and when a lot of people do a lot, but no cost.

[13:35] So you might have an outfit when you're doing some alchemy things, and then you change completely to your alchemy stuff. you have a pdp situations outfit so it's really really sexual and fun and other thing that's

[13:48] really nice for uh just for example is that transmog are by the slot and not by the item so what it means is you know when you're leveling during midnight or you know the world we're in and then you kind of look like a clown in the cinematics and you're like oh my god that doesn't

[14:03] look epic as i want it to be because you just like looted a bunch of stuff and they are much better gear. So now you can transmog your gear slot and that's not going to change.

[14:15] But you can still preview how it looks like, it goes to your collection, so you know, okay, that's a good helmet. I'll make an outfit with it later. Game changer. And will being inside your house and being outside

[14:27] in the neighborhood be two different situations? I don't recall right now, but it could be. It's very flexible. I'll check on that for you. And just a fact, because I know people will be asking, by outfits, you mean slots where pre-made translogs can be stored.

[14:41] It could be that, or it could be just totally like mix and match, whatever you like. Awesome, that's so cool. Will we be able to pass straight to our homes? Do I use half of them?

[14:53] Does that take us into our home or into the neighborhood? Yeah, so it won't be a hard sound. It will be a separate in-interface button that you can press and use. it'll function similar to House Town.

[15:07] I believe the current plan is that it'll take you just outside your home on your plot, but there's also going to be portals that are going to the capital cities and stuff like that.

[15:19] So we're trying to make it relatively convenient for people to go back and forth from their house because that brings up a point I wanted to make sure that we discussed a little bit, that housing does not exist as a standalone system by itself.

[15:33] It's tightly coupled into all the ways that players love WoW today. And so when I mentioned that, like, any time that you're getting loot, you could potentially be getting decor, that gives you a reason to go back to your neighborhood and your home, obviously.

[15:47] But then when you're engaging in things like endeavors, they're actually sending you out into different parts of the world. And so depending on, you know, the endeavor you choose, you know, that's going to have a big impact on the kinds of activities that players are then being sent out and have to do.

[16:00] Some of them will be in the neighborhood, and there'll be more of the low-risk kind of fun social stuff. But then others are like, you know, if you want to be doing a dungeon or raid or something like that, there's probably a neighborhood endeavor that you can do with your neighbors

[16:13] that will contribute to the overall effort, and you still get all the benefits of doing that content. If I be you know kind of jumping back and forth between my house and outdoor content can I for example queue for instances while I in my house That is a great question I don know the answer to that but I think it a wonderful point you bringing up

[16:33] I believe when you are in the car mode, you know, really decorating, your whole head changes to the housing UI, which is very unique for the feature. But as soon as you toggle back, all your normal UI is there, so you can totally queue normally.

[16:48] Amazing. Amazing. Okay, got some quick fire questions on just like very common questions that we're hearing about the place. Is there plans for a copy-paste button or something that can remember settings for an item that may be resized or kind of positioned in a certain way?

[17:04] This is very interesting. We definitely want to improve the tools that we have now. And this is the kind of thing that we want to hear, like what you guys are expecting or if there's big things like, I wish I had this. So definitely it's like in our list.

[17:16] Yes. Also an undo button. I'm sorry for that. Thank you. That's like number one, but like very complicated to do. But it's like in the next update, that's like the top 100%.

[17:29] It was funny. When we were in Boston, that was like literally number one feedback for everyone. Will there be the opportunity to alter music or environmental effects within the house? Again, lots of thinking.

[17:42] We definitely want to be able to have players customize this total experience of their home. Stay tuned. again, sorry, but we're not announcing that quite yet. Are there any ways in which our war band will be able to be visible in our homes?

[17:55] Like, you know, maybe not necessarily all sitting on a couch like us, but being able to go, I like that, you know? So the goal is to have the ability, your house is at the war band level. We want you to be able to see your other characters within the war band,

[18:10] potentially even making their own rooms. So you could have a, you know, themed room for each of your war band members. Is there any word on the minimum amount of people that you'll need to set up a charter neighborhood or a guild?

[18:22] Yeah, we're not announcing that yet. It is, you know, a balance between making sure that we're being flexible with what players want, but there's also an overhead associated with the neighborhoods because they're very large,

[18:35] and so we don't want, like, a three-person neighborhood, because it takes up a lot of resources that we'd rather make sure that, like, you know, we're grouping people together in a way that they can be social. And as far as public neighborhoods go, if there is, say, an account that goes dormant,

[18:49] someone hasn't logged in for a time, is there a system in place where they might get phased out of that neighborhood and replaced with a more active player? So there's no maintenance, so there's no upkeep or anything that we expect players to do,

[19:02] but if their account is not active, we may eventually start removing houses that we know are just not coming back. But that's not something that we want players worrying about. like, oh, I need to log in, blah, blah.

[19:14] Like, no, there's no upkeep. There's nothing like that. And it's actually fairly easy and low friction for players to decide if they want to move their house to a new neighborhood. So we wanted to make sure that when players

[19:26] spent all this effort and energy decorating their house that they didn't feel like a dumb cock, kind of, oh, if I move, I have to start all over again. No, you don't have to. You pack up your house, and you put it down where you want it. Is there a plan to have some copy-paste strings,

[19:39] export strings that people share with each other? I get that's a bit more complicated than hero talents, right? Again, love the thinking. We're not announcing that yet, but something that is very much on our minds.

[19:52] And another thing that is quite prevalent in MMOs that features warehousing is the idea that you can maybe give someone else permission to do decorating in your house for you. And I'm not saying that I'm bored of YouTube

[20:04] and I'd rather just be an interior designer. I just like that as an option. Yeah, again, we love that idea. We think that there's going to be a demand for people that are really, really good at decorating houses,

[20:18] and maybe not everyone wants to. That's, however, not a feature we're launching with, but it's definitely on the very short list. Is there a likelihood that over the course of midnight,

[20:31] there will be more exterior-interior customizations made available, particularly on the exterior side for launch. Yeah, I think that we're going to be very actively listening

[20:45] and responding to how players are enjoying housing. And it's something that we're kind of building into the schedule. We don't know exactly what players are going to be telling us, and we want to take in time to our schedule to respond to that.

[20:58] And that's exactly the kind of thing that we want to hear about, but we don't want to commit to in a grand long-term schedule because we've never launched a feature like housing before. It is entirely new. It has entirely new UI.

[21:10] It has entirely new assets. And it's, in some ways, an entirely new experience for the audience. And so, therefore, you know, it is going to be something that we're going to be learning from a lot. And, like, we love these questions because we want to hear about what we should be prioritizing,

[21:26] and we don't presume no, necessarily. Oh, well, I'm really glad we could share these with you. And thank you so much, guys, for your time and for answering our questions today, for your expertise. I feel like firehousing is a growing, ever-evolving project,

[21:41] and it's really, really exciting to be here with it at this stage. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for us. And see you guys next time. Bye.