So Housing has arrived in World of Warcraft in its Early Access stage, if you have pre-ordered the Midnight expansion, which I have. I'm normally not a fan of pre-orders, but I bought it with in-game money, so who cares?
If you're not in the know, Horde and Alliance have their own special islands accessible from their capital city portal rooms that take you to the relevant island. There you can choose a plot of land that you want, pay 1000 gold and the house is yours. Once bought, you can customize your house appearance which is separate from the inside. In fact, there is no correlation between inside and outside at all. A house that is a small and shabby shack on the outside can be a huge and elegant mansion on the inside. The options for how you want the outside of your house to look is incomplete for now, more options are coming in patch 12.0.
The genius of the housing system lies in its free form modularity. Every piece of décor whether it is a shelf, a lamp, a tree etc. can be resized, turned and moved anywhere you want. Do you want a floating bed? A series of tiny statues on a shelf above your stairs? Go for it. You can also combine décor items by placing them inside each other, creating new things. Put a smelting brazier inside a table so the fire shows a little bit and you have an impromptu stove top. Stack three fountains on top of each other to make a big fountain if you want. It is almost to the point of “if you can imagine it, you can do it”. Sure, some items are outside only and vice versa, and outside lighting is currently disabled, but the housing décor system is incredible. It far exceeds what I imagined Blizzard would do.
But with everything positive there are a few negative sides as well. There are several ways of collecting décor, from achievement rewards (added retroactively) to vendors, quest rewards, drops and crafting. The others are fine, although I hope they add more drops to old dungeons. No, the big negative comes from crafting décor.
First off, Blizzard did say that you don't need maxed out crafting per expansion to craft the new décor and it is true, but you do need very high skill. 240/300, 60/75, 85/100 and so on depending on the expansion skill roof. They could have staggered the décor to work as a catch up mechanic, but they sadly elected to put it all at a pretty high level, meaning a blacksmith can craft intricate magical armor before a chandelier.
Then we get to the material components and they are ridiculous. I had hoped we would be able to utilize all the crafting materials in the game, but alas no. With a few exceptions, everything requires top level, rare ingredients, even for mundane items. A bronze banner requires 8 khorium bars, a metal that is very hard to find instead of using bronze which exists in the game! A Gilnean pitchfork requires 12 elementium bars and 6 volatile earth... A pitchfork! This is equivalent of going to IKEA and buying a tungsten frying pan and a set of titanium cutlery. It makes no sense. Where are my copper pots? My silver cutlery? I hope they change this, but I'm not holding my breath.
Blizzard has also added a new crafting material, Lumber, which can be harvested in pretty much every zone as long as your character has bought an axe from a special vendor. This is fine for things like benches, beds, chairs, you know, things that use lumber, but it is a must for all crafted décor like pillows, decorative potions, books, plushies etc. I like the lumber mechanic but please make it make sense.
For being in early access, the Housing system is already a massive success. Besides my complaints above, it is fun, creative and really exciting. I truly hope my concerns are laid to rest when Midnight launches, but even if they aren't, housing is an incredible addition to the game, a real success, and I can't wait to see how it will be developed going forward.
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