Blizzard reveals WoW housing system update, focused on interior design

Blizzard Entertainment released a new WoW update blog, this time, focused on the upcoming housing system. It’s something fans have been asking for for years now. The closest we’ve gotten to a housing system was probably the Warlords of Draenor customizable Garrison.

It was a really neat idea, but what players really want is a Final Fantasy 14-style housing system — at least when it comes to the customizable options. Blizzard not forcing players to enter tedious roulettes and shell out millions of gold is a real bright point for this system.

The last WoW housing system update was about it being affordable, and how the system would have neighborhoods for communities to come together, which is also an impressive, unique design. Today’s update is all about the interior design, and while they only focused on one room, I’m very excited about this finally arriving.

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WoW housing system update comes courtesy of Blizzard, revealing interior design options

WoW’s housing system is coming in the Midnight expansion, so there’s already something to be excited about. In the most recent blog post, the developers revealed that there are two modes of decorating a room — Basic and Advanced. You can toggle between thm with just a key press, and the two are very different.

It looks like Blizzard's really letting the creativity flow with the WoW housing system update (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Basic lets you quickly, easily move items around on, but there is collision for items, and they can be rotated on the items “up” axis, with rotation snapping to 15 degree increments so they don’t accidentally unalign with other items you have placed. It’s a very simple, easy to understand system.

You can’t lose items inside the walls in Basic, and they will align with their appropriate surface (wall, floor, ceiling), depending on what it is. In addition, the Basic system will make certain types of objects “parent” to each other in the WoW housing system. This means, for example, if you move the table, the items on top of it will move too.

On the other hand, for experienced housing veterans — whether from The Sims or Final Fantasy 14, WoW’s housing system update will feature Advanced options. Advanced mode turns off quite a few of the rules Basic had. There’s no collision, for example, so you can make part (or all) of a chair go inside a wall.

You can also adjust items on all three axes, including making objects float in the air, thanks to little 3D gimbal controls. Want your table to float in the air, or a throne? It certainly sounds feasible with this WoW housing system update.

If that’s not enough, you can attach another gimbal to rotate an object on any of its axes, to truly have freedom of movement. There’s one more gimbal, which can scale an object’s size up or down, within limits — generous ones, according to Blizzard — so you can make tiny or gigantic furniture.

Blizzard highlighted some examples they’ve done internally, like taking bushes, pushing them into walls/ceiling to create a hanging garland, and used a boat prow to make a bed, or use tiny paint buckets for a spice rack. The world is your oyster in the Advanced building mode.

If you aren’t happy with something’s color, at least with newly created assets, players will be able to dye them a wide assortment of colors. Hopefully, this won’t become cost prohibitive, as it is in Final Fantasy 14, when it comes to dyeing gear.

One more interesting example is that players can even use partition objects to put walls where they weren’t before inside the house, to create smaller rooms or personal spaces.

While FF14 has gorgeous visuals and housing cosmetics, it cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-8M gil to get the furnishings I wanted for this one room (Image via Square Enix)

While Blizzard didn’t really talk about exteriors much, they did point out that whether your house’s exterior is giant, or tiny, like a shack, that has no bearing on how much internal space you can have. It sounds like you can make a tiny shack with a dozen rooms, so that’s fascinating. Very Doctor Who, bigger on the inside.

The housing system for WoW sounds incredible, and my one hope is that it’s not going to wind up costing millions of gold to buy in, get furniture, and sort it out with the desired colors/sizes.

While I love Final Fantasy 14 housing, it’s very expensive to get the right furnishings, not to mention the actual plot of land. It’s open, while also being very restrictive and expensive. It will be interesting to see how Blizzard handles the system in the next expansion.

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