I am a huge fan of housing in MMOs, but I’ve long since learned that just having housing is not nearly enough to attract me to an MMO, let alone keep me there.
To pick the most obvious example, I consider Star Wars Galaxies’ housing to be one of its crown jewels; few MMOs can touch it even 19 years later (which is a sad state of affairs for the genre, though not for me, as I’m happily ensconced on a rogue server). But it’s not like housing is all I do there. Occasionally, I get the urge to spend a week decorating a new house, but most of the time, I’m just living out of my houses, using them as the functional and decorative backdrop for all the other things I’m doing – usually crafting and trading. If the game didn’t have all those other chunks of appealing-to-me content, I don’t think I’d play, great housing or no – and that’s an observation that’s played out for me over and over, New World being the most recent example.
What are the least compelling housing systems in MMOs, and what’s their problem? Is it the housing itself, or something else in the game?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
