At a press roundtable following Warcraft’s 30th anniversary celebration, World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas said player housing was “the most ambitious feature of any WoW expansion in history.”
In response to questions from the press, Hazzikostas said, “I dare say this is the most ambitious feature of any WoW expansion. One of the reasons it took so long to announce it was because we knew we couldn’t really call it a day. Even if we build on that foundation, I think everything we do has to be great, especially if it’s something that has a lot of expectations and history across the MMO genre. “It will serve as a foundation for further development and growth.”
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Prior to this question, we asked why the development team shifted from their previous stance against implementing player housing to their new embrace of this feature. Hazzikostas’ response provided more details about why this feature is being rolled out now.
“Player housing is something the team has been thinking about and discussing for a very long time. It’s something the community has been asking for and wondering about for a long time, and we haven’t forgotten that. If not, there are some philosophical issues that got in the way when it was accepted in the past. There was no feeling that it was a good idea or that it wouldn’t be an improvement to the social ecosystem of the MMO.”
“Honestly, we were looking at what it would take to make this a reality and to the level of quality that players expect and deserve. That includes the resources, customization options, and underlying skills needed to really feel integrated. A lot of those elements didn’t exist, and you had to choose between building houses in the expansion or doing everything else, and everything else was just a win.”
This is something we’ve been working on in the background for a few years at this point. We knew it would take more than one expansion development cycle to create this feature, and we’re really excited to finally bring it to players with Midnight. We’ll have more details to share about exactly how it will work, what it is, what it isn’t, and where it will go over the next year. But really, we wanted to pull back the curtain a little bit and give players a peak of what’s to come.
“Maybe it seems a little selfish to start a discussion about what they want and don’t want in the community when it comes to housing. That way, we can check our instincts and make sure we’re on the right track with our progress. ”
According to Hazzikostas, more updates are expected to come in 2025 via official Blizzard platforms, similar to blog posts. So we’ll just have to sit back and wait for more news!
