Guild Wars 2

Some players have stated that they want to see player homies in Guild wars two in the future. But in a massive multiplayer game, wouldn’t player homes just segregate the player base? If everyone was spending their game time inside their own homes, then you would not be able to go out into the world or even a major city and see a myriad of players around you going about. To me this presence of other players is pretty important to make me feel like I am immersed in a lively world. That is why a lot of people want to transfer off of underpopulated servers and onto more populated ones in every MMO. But player housing Butch’s cause people to become hermits and destroy the social aspect of this game.

Even Guild Halls to a certain extent would cause this player segregation. I would rather have gills spend their time inside their cities for everyone to see because that would let me know that my server is alive and teeming with people and it’s fun to hear the chatter as I’m doing my own business. But if a group of players segregates themselves into their own little Guildhall and spends all their time socializing with in that instance, then the city is would feel very empty. And now players have two places to socialize in the cities or in their Guild Halls or player homes and all this further aggravates the issue of not having enough players exploring about in the open world.

Player homes can make sense in a game like sky rim, a single player game, but in a massively multiplayer game, player homes and even Guild Halls are detrimental to the social life overall.

GW1 made use of the guild halls as a map for battle, if that is replicated in this case, then I would disagree with what you said.

Otherwise, it is quite true, waste of time IMO.

Seeing as you get on an Overflow on my server (Kodash, pretty well populated) in LA from arround 9 am till 2 am(!), i’d say you would not miss the people here.
Oon low population servers you probably wont miss the 2 that would stand near the AH that aren’t there now. The other cities are nearly empty anyways here as well

Guild Halls were there in GW1 tho, and i really want them back. Spend time and money in your guild and no more unnecessary running arround in the city as you just got all the NPCs you need close by (kinda like Rata Sum)

I wouldnt mind if they added this, but i would probally just used it to craft and buy furniture and stuff to go in it if they make it that way. i doubt id spend any time in the house other then looking at the stuff ive gotten for it. id prob never invite anyone to it or anything. but that would give players something extra to do.

I would so I can RP privately with those that need a place. My RP guild needs a home too as many guilds are fighting over the use of a certain empty home with an open door in Rurikton. It causes RP continuity issues (and breaks immersion) when two groups say the home is theirs.

Maybe they can do something like renting private instanced homes for gems. It’s kind of like in S PVP where they are going to roll out custom servers that you can rent. This way players who want some private space to do whatever they want with each other can have that but it isn’t giving for free which risks a under socialized game experience for other players if everyone just shut themselves off with their friends or by themselves in their own little homes all the time.

It’s also really nice for some players to walk around the city and see that there are groups of people participating in their own RP events. If I walk across in some district in divinities reach and notice that inside a home there is a few players doing RP is a nice feeling to know that the city is populated with players enjoying their time together. I would not be rude and going to the house and intrude on your RP by dancing in the middle of everyone, but I might stand outside the house peeking inside because I enjoy watching you guys.

They already have the system in place they just need to give the player the tools they need to create in this place. The place would be your very own Fractal of the Mists; the tools will cost gems most likely. How great would it be to develop your own “home” whether it be a paradise or an insane jumping puzzle. I am eagerly looking forward to this……….

i’d rather have content. this isn’t second life. i could care less about having a house. i want stuff to explore and do.

Housing:

1. Is more to do and another way to personalize your characters
2. Great for community building.
3. Can be incorporated into multiplayer. There is no reason why housing has to be something that you sit in alone and never interact with others.

They just need to expand what we can do in our home instance.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Home_instance

The home instance is an instanced area in each character’s home city which evolves as they progress through the world.

A character’s home instance will change based on their progress and actions in their personal storyline. For example, character actions could determine the presence or absence of non-player characters, special merchants or even buildings.

Players can invite others to visit their home instance. If a character visits a home instance in a city other than their home city (for example, a charr visiting Salma District), they will see a basic version of the district without any story-related changes.

So your game experience is somehow diminished by me arguing with my guild in an instance instead of standing in the middle of a street in a public zone? From my point of view, if I went to a theme park and found it deserted save for the employees, I’d be thrilled. Aside from being a recycled horror movie plot, this place is all mine! Hell, I might even whack a few employees, myself, so I can loot their delicious cotton candy and dippin’ dots.

I’m not sure if I made a point, anywhere in there, but I hope it comes across if I did.

I dont really care about personal homes, guild halls though? Yes. Yes yes yes. Then again im also for ground mounts. More customization = win for me. I dont care about the arguments against either. The pros outway the cons for me.

It depends on how they go about it. I came here from playing Everquest 2 for about 6 years – guild halls effectively killed home cities in that game when they came out. But personal player housing was in from launch and didn’t have that much of an effect on world population. The problem with EQ2’s guild halls was you could get an NPC for everything that the main cities offered, so there was really no reason at all to go to a city anymore – your guild was entirely self-sufficient if you got all the tools in your hall. That said, as long as there’s no personal mystic forge/forge equivalent, or Fractals entrance in guild halls, Lion’s Arch will still be active, I think.

As for other cities, I hardly see anyone in Black Citadel when I run around there as it is.

I agree, i think it’s a waste of time and resource in return for adding little to nothing to the gameplay experience. I think if they’re gonna focus on very, very casual-friendly systems and mechanics, they’d do well if they implemented more ways to acquire town clothing instead of Player Housing. It segregates an already anti-social MMO where grouping up with people is pretty shallow and redundant already. We need deeper combat mechanics, new classes, new skills, new weapons, more reasons to group with other players. In my opinion, player housing would add nothing to the game in which resource could not be diverted elsewhere for better results.

there was a game i played that i forgot the name of completely.. but anyway.. you had a portalble house you could take with you anywhere. you pop it up go inside and you could customize everything, make beds, walls, bathrooms, kitchens, living rooms, basements, 2nd floor, and everything you need to create the things., forges, work benches, electrical equipment to make stuff like computers and tvs… very very intricate housing system.. 2d game. but it was soooo fun for me. when you used your house, it was just this little hut icon that you could eventually change to look like a house or some other things. if they put that into this game i would probably just die. it didnt change city dynamics.. it was more houses every where than people though.(you could still go into peoples houses,talk to them or just look around(also could lock your house))

I don’t agree with you. Housing has proved to provide higher retention as a feature.

Yes, I would love to collect 250 wooden planks, 250 coral gemstones and a gift of carpentry to make an armoire that I can place in some puny personal instance.

From what I understand, the point of home instance was to support the RPG feel of the game by putting an area that reflects the choices that your character makes in the game, but apparently they ran out of time and had to cut on the home instance. (Actually they probably cut on the whole personal story side of the game given how it’s easily the most criticized aspect of the game.)

In games that have player housing the “home” is usually used as a place of storage for junk and not much else, essentially people never actually use their housing for… the purpose of housing, they just want a piece of the world that they can have a limited amount of control over.

Not to mention that the developmental and server costs aren’t worth what ever people think they could get out of it, in conjunction with the fact that most of the furnishings would only be available on the gem store which would cause many players asking for housing to accuse ANet of cash grabbing.

It’s just a no-win situation.

Instanced housing has been done successfully by a now dead (?) MMORPG called “The Saga of Ryzom” which came to be back in 2000 by a small French company called Nevrax.

Surely a decade later, a much larger, in terms of manpower and resources, Anet can come up with something that is on par.

“then you would not be able to go out into the world " of course you WOULD be able to go out into the open world. Having ideas such as this in game just gives more ways to enjoy the game and have fun. Other games do it (Runescape for example) sure that’s not the best example of a game but it is a good example of a game that does it and where the house has some uses.

For one the house there gives you more storage options. Imagine if you could collect and store every armour set in game and display them in your house for example on dummies. That would be cool. Imagine throwing “parties” for your friends and guildies in the “privacy” of your own space and not out in the open for all to see. After all not everyone likes to witness other people’s business, especially roleplaying situations.

Theres lot’s of things houses could bring to this game, I really don’t know why some of you people are so negative about things and have no imagination. Surely there is and CAN be MUCH more to this game than kill, kill, kill must do combat or I will get bored and dieeeeeeeeeeeeee….

Anet said they wanted to create not only a game but a living breathing world. Such ways to do that is to bring into the game realistic things such as where we live and how we live our lives besides all the fighting and being a hero as I stated above. And who knows, just who knows maybe then people would/could stop complaining “there’s nothing to do in this game” or “this game is boring”.

“anti-social MMO " I think you mean “unsocialable”. Why do people always get these two words mixed up? Anti-social is going out and causing trouble just for the hell of it, are you calling every person who does not or feel like interacting with another a troll or trouble maker? Jeez people lol….relax a little huh.

I think it is very much worth the development time.
It gives players something extra to do- customize their house, can act as a gold sink, gem income, new crafting professions

It invests the players more in the world because it is an anchor on a personal level that ads to your character, which is somewhat lacking atm.
For RP the befits are obvious.
I really don’t think you have to be afraid that everyone will suddenly just vanish into their houses, this isn’t FoTM and you don’t get loot in your house.

Player homes are an extension of your character. As a side note, player structures in SWG were an INCREDIBILE time sink; planning where to place them, decorating and organizing.

…The world isn’t big enough for non-instanced housing and instanced housing is pretty meh…

There’s a lot of map not being used for anything atm.

The world is plenty big enough for non-instanced housing. Especially if you consider that every building in the cities could have one or more apartments.

It would also be /the/ solution to the empty open world problem. Much better than the “let’s create mind-numbingly boring living world achievements” solution they have come up with.

Non-instanced housing shouldn’t be a problem, if they use the existing buildings in some of the cities. Heck, in Divinity’s Reach alone there are well over 200 buildings that have no function other than to sit there. By the time you take into account every empty building in the entire game…

Or they could make each of those empty buildings a mini-instance and not only would there still be more than enough for everyone to have their own, you wouldn’t have to worry about someone getting the home you wanted before you got to it.

As for it not adding anything to the game, that’s a matter of opinion. You don’t like the idea or want your own in-game home? Fine, that’s okay. But don’t bash it; the rest of us are willing to sink the time and effort into getting one.

gwawer.9805:

Some players have stated that they want to see player homies in Guild wars two in the future. But in a massive multiplayer game, wouldn’t player homes just segregate the player base? If everyone was spending their game time inside their own homes, then you would not be able to go out into the world or even a major city and see a myriad of players around you going about. To me this presence of other players is pretty important to make me feel like I am immersed in a lively world. That is why a lot of people want to transfer off of underpopulated servers and onto more populated ones in every MMO. But player housing Butch’s cause people to become hermits and destroy the social aspect of this game.

Even Guild Halls to a certain extent would cause this player segregation. I would rather have gills spend their time inside their cities for everyone to see because that would let me know that my server is alive and teeming with people and it’s fun to hear the chatter as I’m doing my own business. But if a group of players segregates themselves into their own little Guildhall and spends all their time socializing with in that instance, then the city is would feel very empty. And now players have two places to socialize in the cities or in their Guild Halls or player homes and all this further aggravates the issue of not having enough players exploring about in the open world.

Player homes can make sense in a game like sky rim, a single player game, but in a massively multiplayer game, player homes and even Guild Halls are detrimental to the social life overall.

The first MMO game I ever played was Star Wars Galaxies in 2003. Players could build homes. Guilds could build guild halls. Groups of players could build cities. Most often cities were guild based, with a guild hall being very much the central point of the city. Some cities were rebel, some cities were imperial, some were open. They gave us a base of operations (we had transportation too), a source of guild pride, a location for our vendors (we had player owned vendors, which we combined into actual malls) and a home. Interior decoration was huge. People would go visit other cities and homes for PVP (not an option here, sadly, to shop, to get buffs and to see what people had done to their places. It made that world truly come alive. Many of us still think with bittersweet fondness of the cities we left behind.

I played that game for 2.5 years. I’ve never played a game since with a stronger sense of community, and I dare say that it was the most social game I ever played. Our community is still unbroken. My guild and many other original Bloodfin (our server) guilds are still around, and we still tend to flock to the same servers when new MMO come out. We’re still in contact after all those years. How many other games can say the same?

So I dare say that if implemented right, player housing and player cities can make a community stronger and A LOT more social, not weaker.

I hope they will do more with the current home instances we have at the moment. Though it is nice to have a quaggan in my pond, there is no reason for me to go there as nothing is going to change anymore as my story is finished. It would be nice if I could still have a direct impact for further development of this instance.

I am aware that this might not be the housing as used in other games, but at the moment the home instances do feel as a waste of effort. And it might be interesting to have a different home system compared to other games.

make them for guilds only, an usable for gvg fights.

thats worth it.

I think it would be a great idea!
People love to collect things around them and willing to work hard for that.

They can combine certain exclusive furniture with their GemStore (wich would give Arenanet extra incoming money) and even more if they expand.

I dont see PlayerHousing as a threat to not go out in the open world, as in your house there are NO DE’s nor WvWvW.

But something people could build over time what keeps their players coming back,
and a good investment for the Black Lion GemStore.

Player homes are a fantastic idea, there is so much you can do with this. Furniture and accessories should be very costly to craft / buy, making this a whole extra dimension for end-game further down the road. Arenanet could really drive gem store purchases with this.

Someone mentioned using player home instances as PvP battle grounds, and I think that’s just an amazing idea. The first thing that springs to mind is of course guild owned keeps and camps in WvW. I’d much rather be invading some Dragonzur guild’s keep than the usual, generic, anonymous borderlands structure.

Alternatively, you could imagine instanced guild clashes, in which guilds invade each others’ keeps in sPvP style match-ups. Anet could create a few different castle set-ups (maps) that guilds could choose from and personalize to some extent. To keep it simple, maybe initially they’d just be maps for hosted tournaments, and a few years down the road Anet could consider implementing new Guild vs Guild gameplay mechanics.

Customizable player homes would add:

—many new items to play for! (more then just gear)
—social: more then just gear to show off.
—new items to craft (more then just gear)
—your trophies can be displayed in the world, instead of a text picture under a tab.

Anet could make tons of profit by selling decorative items in the gem shop

And they’d be a great place to show off minis and other collectibles!

EQ2 has an extensive Guild Hall / Player home system. Every single Player and all their alts can have mutiple personal instances for homes and other projects…i.e private islands etc…

So, it can be done and not affect the general game play. Would love to see that sort of system here.

Grumm.4359:

Non-instanced housing shouldn’t be a problem, if they use the existing buildings in some of the cities. Heck, in Divinity’s Reach alone there are well over 200 buildings that have no function other than to sit there. By the time you take into account every empty building in the entire game…

Or they could make each of those empty buildings a mini-instance and not only would there still be more than enough for everyone to have their own, you wouldn’t have to worry about someone getting the home you wanted before you got to it.

As for it not adding anything to the game, that’s a matter of opinion. You don’t like the idea or want your own in-game home? Fine, that’s okay. But don’t bash it; the rest of us are willing to sink the time and effort into getting one.

DR’s neighborhoods just scream for Player Housing. Something like that would make the city just come alive.

When I played LotRO, I was on what was then one of the newest servers. Very few people transferred from other servers because “proper” transfers were disabled for a long time and they were obliged to make new characters. Essentially, 90% of the people on that server were newbies (and a lot of n00bs too), and the other 10% had to start from scratch.

Buying a house was expensive. There were small, medium, large and Kin houses with prices that ranged from about 2g to 18g, and then a weekly “maintenance” on top of that. Every house was located within a neighbourhood and every neighbourhood was located within one of four race-based districts (one each for Elves, Humans, Dwarves and Hobbits). Each neighbourhood had a unique name but was otherwise identical to all the others within the same district, with the same size houses and Kin houses in the same places. In other words, each neighbourhood was a different instance of the same district. Each district had minimal services – vault access, a couple of basic merchants, a furniture merchant and a couple of trading stations, all located in the “town square” which made accessing these things from the main towns a better option and had absolutely no impact on town populations.

What did this investment get you? Depending on the size of your house, you would get 1-3 storage chests, which were not connected to your vault and a number of “hooks” that could be used for either furniture/decorations or trophies, both indoors and in your yard. You had the option to place generic furniture that you could buy or craft in almost any hook in the house. Included in the loot tables, however, were trophies which had a very low chance to drop and were Bind on Acquire. The point is, you didn’t need to make your house a “home” if you didn’t want to – you could very easily turn it into a trophy cabinet. You could also, if you chose to, buy furniture on LotRO’s equivalent of the gem store.

My Kin (Guild) grew to become one of the top two on the server and was the only one that was able to run raids on a daily basis, on top of the constant dungeons. As a result of this, we were the first, and in some cases the only, people/Kin to have certain trophies rewarded as loot for completing certain dungeons/raids. These trophies were proudly displayed in our homes and Kin House for anyone to see and some of them were very cool. A Balrog’s Sword. Three Orc heads that dropped off three Orc bosses in one raid that combined into a single trophy. A mysterious murky pond that did nothing until someone stepped in it when one of the tentacles from the Watcher grabbed the player and hanged them upside down. Various mounted animals and animal heads. A tiny, and very shy, pet turtle hiding in a bush. It should be noted that trophies were not only available from dungeons, but could be found in the open world and as quest rewards, though most of the best stuff came from raids.

Most people got their houses specifically for the extra storage. Even though it was fixed and could not be expanded, it still added much needed storage space for your account. It was the perfect place to store those things you needed to keep but rarely had to access… or those useless things you simply couldn’t bare to part with. One of the fun things about housing in lotRO was going to your house and watching your neighbourhood evolve. This guy has a new statue, that guy has the bloody banner of a particularly difficult Orc he killed, that Kin house has a relic that only comes from the hardest dungeons. And that’s just the front lawns, if you’re invited into someone’s house (they need to set permissions to allow you entrance) then you’d see even more stuff inside that records their adventures. On top of furniture, you could also set the ambient music, paint the interior and change the floor of your house, which added even more personalisation. I believe my large house still has wallpaper from the Christmas event in 2009…

So do I want player housing? If it’s anything like LotRO’s then that’s a resounding “YES!”

Extra storage.
House expansions (like a tower, basement or an extra wing)
A place to store Mini’s (let them run free!)

Crafted furniture.
Merchant furniture.
Gem store furniture.
Karma furniture.
Trophy furniture (like a rare shelf made from bones, or something, only found by killing a certain Champion).
Event furniture.
Seasonal furniture.

Merchant music/floors/wallpaper.
Gem store music/floors/wallpaper.
Karma music/floors/wallpaper.
WvW music/floors/wallpaper.
PvP music/floors/wallpaper.
Event music/floors/wallpaper.
Seasonal music/floors/wallpaper.

Crafted trophies.
Merchant trophies.
Gem store trophies.
Loot trophies (like a Boar’s head or a mounted Devourer)
Event trophies (blue, green, yellow orange and pink versions).
Dungeon trophies.
WvW trophies.
PvP trophies.
Seasonal trophies.

The avenues for decorating your house are many, to say the least.

Sokar Rostau.7316:

So do I want player housing? If it’s anything like LotRO’s then that’s a resounding “YES!”

Extra storage.
House expansions (like a tower, basement or an extra wing)
A place to store Mini’s (let them run free!)

Crafted furniture.
Merchant furniture.
Gem store furniture.
Karma furniture.
Trophy furniture (like a rare shelf made from bones, or something, only found by killing a certain Champion).
Event furniture.
Seasonal furniture.

Merchant music/floors/wallpaper.
Gem store music/floors/wallpaper.
Karma music/floors/wallpaper.
WvW music/floors/wallpaper.
PvP music/floors/wallpaper.
Event music/floors/wallpaper.
Seasonal music/floors/wallpaper.

Crafted trophies.
Merchant trophies.
Gem store trophies.
Loot trophies (like a Boar’s head or a mounted Devourer)
Event trophies (blue, green, yellow orange and pink versions).
Dungeon trophies.
WvW trophies.
PvP trophies.
Seasonal trophies.

The avenues for decorating your house are many, to say the least.

After reading this I kinda wanna play LOTRO Based on what you said, here is my reply;

More storage – who would say no to storage, fixed or not.
Extensions – the home distracts have been built, I don’t see it happening soon if at all.
Mini farm – hell yes!
Furniture, carpet, wallpaper – meh, I am finished with the sims, I want to play gw2
Music – a jukebox would not be a bad touch, anything to drown out NPCs.
Trophies – this is what housing should have more than anything else, have a use for 1000 wurm slayer kills adds a wurm head to the wall, a trophy with a raccoon/rabbit on the fireplace for the indiscriminate of us and trophies for 1-of-a-kind monsters would be good also.

As of now home districts are only entered for map completion or sometimes personal story, fingers crossed this is worked on soon.

Housing would be awesome if it’s implemented as it was in DAoC. You can upgrade your house over time to make it look pretty kitten and you could show it off! Back then instead of an AH you had to go to the players house to buy their stuff which, yeah it’s inconvenient but for immersion sake (i hold immersion in very high regard) it would be awesome. I’m not suggesting taking out the AH either because it’s just way too convenient but it would kinda add another end game goal (pimp my house lol.)

I agree about the furniture/floor/wallpaper, my LotRO house is filled with trophies of all sizes, and, aside from the seasonal wallpaper which I had no other use for (since it’s BoA), I don’t think I ever changed them from default. But that’s me, lots of people do like to have options to personalise their spaces and the more the better.

Absolutely agree about those achievements resulting in trophies, in fact, I think LotRO did something similar, possibly in PvP.

I can’t believe ppl are still arguing about this. They have already said in the past that player homes are CONFIRMED in the future whether you like it or not, we’re getting it.

The two ‘Housing’ models I’m most familiar with are both Turbine properties; DDO and LOTRO. What I’d like to see is a combination of the two in GW2.

LOTRO’s housing model is incredibly detailed, as Sokar Rostau.7316 states very well; Wallpaper, floor tiles, music, trophies, limited time furniture, outdoor decorations, trees, statues, etc. However, the problem with it is that 99% of it has no purpose other than looking at it. I like 14 varieties of Tree’s as much as the next person, but give me a reason to care other than the look. Additionally, it’s locked away from everyone other than those who are specifically allowed to see it (except, of course, outdoor decorations). So you could have a fantastic interior, but if you wanted to show it off, there’s no practical way to do so.

DDO, on the other hand, is all about utility, and no personalization. Your Guild can spend earned Guild points to buy upgrades to your ‘Guild Ship’. These include minor buffs, but also things like special crafting stations, vendors and travel facilitators. However, even though the Guild can place stuff where they want, everything looks exactly the same, regardless of Guild. No personalization of any kind. Plus there is no personal housing options, as it’s only per guild, which is frankly rather restrictive.

Give me the best of both worlds in GW2. Give me a LOTRO’s neighborhoods with DDO’s group features, like shared crafting resources, banks and other things. Give me LOTRO’s beautiful housing features, with DDO’s in-game usability. Give me a house/cave/mansion/castle with an actual “Treasure Trove” you can walk into, rather than some vague, amorphous vendor on a busy street.

By doing so, you would give Guilds a good place to spend Influence, give a much needed social boost to GW2, and do so in a way that would have minimal impact to those who didn’t want to use the feature.

Black Frog.9274:

I have never understood the appeal of useless items/features in games. If the “home” doesn’t provide any sort of real advantage or use, I can’t imagine why I’d want it. What I want is a townhouse with crafting benches, Black Lion vendor, guild/personal banker, that sits where the fountain is between all the gates in LA. Better yet, have the gates inside the house.

I take it you aren’t a mini-collector :p

If its for vanity reasons, displaying trophies and story choices etc, then theres no problem with it. People will just /afk there instead of the middle of LA at most.

If they put in crafting hubs and bank/TP then it WILL cause problems.

To the OP:

It’s not pointless if they actually plan on expanding it.
Crafting/acquiring furniture are some excellent way to kill time if you get bored of all the killing. Also a place to display trophies and the added immersion are also nice perks that comes with housing.

However, if all they’re doing is adding a house where you cannot change or can only change according to a template, then it is pointless.

Hawks.5736:

If its for vanity reasons, displaying trophies and story choices etc, then theres no problem with it. People will just /afk there instead of the middle of LA at most.

If they put in crafting hubs and bank/TP then it WILL cause problems.

How? please elaborate.

showatt.9413:

To the OP:

It’s not pointless if they actually plan on expanding it.
Crafting/acquiring furniture are some excellent way to kill time if you get bored of all the killing. Also a place to display trophies and the added immersion are also nice perks that comes with housing.

However, if all they’re doing is adding a house where you cannot change or can only change according to a template, then it is pointless.

Hawks.5736:

If its for vanity reasons, displaying trophies and story choices etc, then theres no problem with it. People will just /afk there instead of the middle of LA at most.

If they put in crafting hubs and bank/TP then it WILL cause problems.

How? please elaborate.

About the problems? Most people(not all) only go to cities because of the bank, TP, and crafting. Putting that stuff into instanced housing would take people out of Lions Arch, which is bad for an MMOs social hub and community health.

Especially now that theyre going to add a group finder tool, when finding groups is another major reason people congregate to LA.

Thats all assuming they add instanced houses like the Home Instance, and its pretty anecdotal on my part.

Edit: Im not saying player housing is bad, just that putting the social hub necessities into that player housing would be bad for the games health.

I feel that they should bring back Guild halls. They were a place that not only was used for guild battles but also were useful for checking storage, crafting, etc. Just as others have said you would not miss the players in the larger towns.

Not sure why the OP is so worried about character housing splintering the population. You can’t run dungeons from home. Can’t do WvW from home. Can’t do your personal story from home (well, tiny bits of it, yes), or any of the many other activities that the game provides. Also, if players were allowed to customize their homes, it’s a sure bet that they will need resources to either craft, barter or buy their furnishings. That means being out in the world to obtain them.

Finally, if someone would prefer to spend their time cooped up in their own little slice of paradise, so what? If they’re happier there than out interacting with other people, why would you want to spend your time with them anyway? They might not make for such great company anyway. If they are in the game, even if not in your line of sight, they are still potentially contributing to the game through gem purchases or by interacting with the trading post. That benefits everyone, social butterflies and wallflowers alike.

I liked player housing in Lotro – our whole guild had a neighborhood to itself
and while maybe mostly vanity, it does provide an extra thing to sell cash shop vanity items for as well as TP vanity items for so don’t underestimate its value to the community

They didn’t seggregate anyone in Everquest 2.

It was actually an awful lot of fun to decorate them; have your cat there and everything; craft furniture through crafting professions.

That was a good game; had a good economy too where you could make money out of crafting.

I wouldn’t neccasarily be interested in a home in this game, as i don’t believe it would be implemented the way i personally would like it. I do however believe there would be more than enough interest from the overall playerbase to justify the development effort.

Its sort of surprising how many would like a little piece of a game world to call their own.

Been in more than few MMOs where servers were absolutly smashed during a “land rush” to place a house. People get really really frusterated during such events, but i’ve grown to like it, in some sort of masochistic way :p