MassivelyOP’s 2024 Awards: Best MMO Housing

December 28, 2024 11:00 AM

Welcome back to Massively Overpowered’s formal end-of-the-year awards!

Today’s award is for the Best MMO Housing, which was awarded to Villagers & Heroes last year. MMORPGs eligible for this award may have launched in any year and still offer player housing; nominees should be judged based on the quality, depth, and advancements of that feature and that feature alone in 2024 itself (this is not just a “best housing of all time” award). Don’t forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end!

And the MassivelyOP staff pick for the Best MMO Housing of 2024 is…

GUILD WARS 2

Andy McAdams: Guild Wars 2

Brianna Royce: Guild Wars 2. This is an easy pick. Is it the greatest MMO housing of all time? No. Is it really fantastic housing with tremendous amounts of room to get even better? Absolutely – its building functionality is WildStar-tier. Is it more proof that MMOs can still add major systems more than a decade into their lives? Also yes. Hat tip also to City of Heroes’ Homecoming base system, the SWG Legends city expansion, Project Gorgon’s guild halls, Pax Dei’s housing construction system, and house tour systems for Elder Scrolls Online and Palia. It was a great year for housing fans.

Carlo Lacsina: Guild Wars 2. I’ve seen some of the really cool things people have made in GW2. The great thing is that everyone who bought the expansion got a house!

Chris Neal: Guild Wars 2. I cannot speak from personal experience, but I also have to say that I really do like what GW2 is doing for itself in terms of housing with Janthir Wilds. Anything that makes an MMORPG feel lived in by its players is a net positive, and this game really needed that glue in my opinion.

Justin Olivetti: Palia. I should’ve nominated this last year and failed to do that, so I want to rectify it now. Palia sports a top-notch housing system that’s limited only by your creativity and available mats. It’s one of the centerpieces of this cozy MMO and deserves praise.

MJ Guthrie: AdventureQuest 3D! Although not the only game to introduce housing this year, AdventureQuest 3D definitely should win for best housing. Here’s why. It is not gated behind anything, be it money or an expansion; it’s available to each and everyone for completing a small quest. That gets you your first little room, but that little room is only the beginning. AQ3D housing has a large number of options of residences, ranging from indoors to outdoors, with new ones being introduced often. While some are bought from the cash shop, others are available for in-game gold. Do you have a favorite place in game? It might just turn into a house! Heroes Hangout did just that when I wanted the pond for my giant DuckyDucky. There are also quite the variety of housing items, and the list is constantly growing. These items can either be bought with gold from vendors, granted through quests, dropped from mobs (especially during events), or bought from the cash shop. Players don’t have to pay a dime to have a variety of items. Utilizing these options, the creativity folks are expressing with their builds is fantastic! Want to see a fair, complete with Ferris wheel? You can. How about a party house for ducks? Yup. Even better, you can actually visit other players’ housing to tour and experience it for yourself even without the owner being there (as long as the owner opens it publicly). Of course, you have free placement and the ability to alter the size of your items. Oh, perhaps the best cherry on the top: Housing items all go into their own special infinite inventory that you access in the house to decorate from! No clogging of bags with all those decorations! This features is a godsend for decorating maniacs like me. I do have to admit one negative, however. Although you can give permission to friends to help decorate, as of now folks can only use the owners housing inventory to decorate, so there’s no sharing or donating your awesome items in a group build. I’m really hoping this changes.

Sam Kash: Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 took our award for Best MMO Housing. What’s your pick?

Loading ...

How does MassivelyOP choose the winner?

Our team gathers together to nominate and discuss candidates and hopefully settle on a consensus winner. We don’t have a hard vote, but we do include commentary from writers so that you can see our thought process. The site’s award goes to the staff selection, but we’ll include both it and the community’s top nomination in our debrief in January. Reader poll options include all MMOs nominated plus a few others we thought should be included.