Latest Why I Love Player Housing In Mmos

A little slice of ownership in a massively multiplayer world.

In Why I Love, PC Gamer writers pick an aspect of PC gaming that they love and write about why it's brilliant. This week, Harvey goes home (in MMORPGs).

As World of Warcraft: Midnight gears up, Blizzard's released its player housing early for those who've pre-ordered the expansion—I won't wax poetic about the system (even though it really is quite good) instead, I wanna talk about player housing in general:

Why it's good, what it means, and how it relates to the broader ecosystem of MMORPGs as a genre. Because it really is crucial, even if it did take Blizzard 21 bloody years to get with the program.

MMOs are, in a lot of ways, about expression. In ye olden days of the internet, there was (and still is) a game called Second Life—this game is pretty much built on top of player-submitted stuff. Custom avatars, and, more to the point, UGC residencies that take place on a "grid".

Crucially, the thing has straight-up 3D modelling software in it, meaning players can not only look however they'd damn well please, but they can also create spaces for themselves, too. And while most MMORPGs today are focused more on hitting stuff and gearing up, there's a reason most of them incorporate player housing into their systems: It rules.

Most MMO players joke that the true endgame is fashion—and they'd be right, because you are liable to get so attached to your character, you'll simply want to spend hours dressing them up. In a way, MMOs are about ownership: Here is a big wide world, and here is a character that's yours to play with. Go play action figures with your friends.

Player housing, however, extends the power over your character (how they dress, what class they are, who you decide to talk to) and lets you reach tendrils out into the game world. Of course, in our digital hellscape, we can't even be said to own the games we've got on Steam, let alone have any physical, tangible control over these virtual bits of land—but the feeling of having a place in a world to call yours is deeply compelling.

What's even more compelling is what people do with them. I've been roleplaying for over a decade and a half, and over the spread of MMOs I've done that in, I've been to so many immersive places that nonetheless never saw an official developer's hand—bar the assets that were kitbashed together to make them.

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Source: PC Gamer