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On Wednesday, November 13, 2024, Blizzard Entertainment hosted a three-hour-long Warcraft Direct in celebration of the franchise’s 30th anniversary, complete with plenty of details about World of Warcraft‘s upcoming Undermined patch and updates on the way for World of Warcraft Classic. The developer didn’t stop there, however, as it eventually tied a bow on the whole presentation with a brief teaser showcasing a feature that has been requested by World of Warcraft fans for many years now — player housing.
Shortly after the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct, Game Rant had the chance to participate in a group interview with game director Ion Hazzikostas and ask about the particularly cryptic player housing tease that appeared near the end of the gaming portion of the event. As it turns out, the purpose behind Blizzard being so coy about the reveal goes much deeper than the developer simply wanting to build hype for the highly anticipated feature.
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World of Warcraft’s Recent Player Housing Tease Was Cryptic for a Reason
As the very brief teaser trailer for World of Warcraft: Midnight began to roll during the 30th Anniversary Direct, it became fairly clear that, after 20 long years, World of Warcraft would finally be getting player housing. However, there was still plenty of reason to speculate, as Hazzikostas never outright said the words “player housing” and didn’t even appear after the trailer to confirm or deny it. Naturally, Game Rant had to ask Blizzard just to be sure, which Hazzikostas replied:
I can, in fact, confirm that player housing is coming in
Midnight
. We were a little bit coy with the teaser at the end of the trailer, but player housing will be a central feature of the
Midnight
expansion. We will have a ton more to share about the details, how it’s going to work, in the coming year. We’re right now focused on
War Within
and the Undermined patch right around the corner, but we just wanted to let players know that it was coming.
So, there it is — official confirmation that World of Warcraft will be receiving player housing in its Midnight expansion. This is a feature that has been a long time coming, as many other major MMOs have featured player housing at some point (like Final Fantasy 14, The Lord of the Rings Online, The Elder Scrolls Online, and more). Yet, World of Warcraft, despite being one of the leading MMOs in the industry, hasn’t had the feature since the game launched in 2004. Fortunately, that will all change once WoW: Midnight launches.
Obviously, Blizzard isn’t currently willing to divulge anything about WoW‘s player housing beyond the fact that the feature is indeed coming to the game. However, Blizzard has chosen to take a more unconventional approach with WoW‘s player housing tease, seemingly embracing feedback as a part of the system’s development process. Adding to his confirmation about player housing, Hazzikostas stated,
Honestly, our selfish motivation in that is to spark some conversation among the community so we can start to double-check our own internal thoughts and see what people are most excited about, what they’re hoping to see out of the system, as we continue to work on it.
This essentially pulls players into the development process for WoW‘s upcoming player housing system, as opposed to leaving them out until everything is buttoned up. This was ultimately the true purpose behind Blizzard being so secretive about the feature, to the point that it was still unclear whether it would really happen after the teaser finished rolling. Because of that, fans should take to WoW‘s forums and begin tossing ideas the developer’s way, as they might find those ideas made manifest in one of the most anticipated upcoming features that World of Warcraft has ever had.
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