I never played Farmville because I didn’t use Facebook to play stupid games; I barely play games on my iPhone and iPad. I was rolling my eyes when I first read about The Tillers which is, for all intents and purposes, Blizzard’s adaptation of Farmville in WoW. Now we are three weeks into the expansion and I find myself checking my farm first thing.
I’m addicted to my farm! I even log out at the Inn above Halfhill Market. While I have no inclination to start doing Farmville, the mechanic Blizzard has developed to allow every player to have their own farm has my mind wondering … is player housing coming?
Apparently I’m not the only one. I, lovingly, stole this excerpt from a post of The Queue from WoW Insider:
BlazeNor asked:
With this farming aspect added to the game that seem to be done with phasing, do you think this could open the door to housing? For example allowing players to own a piece of land and building on it though reputation and dailies.
I absolutely do think it could lead to that, yeah. I think our farm in Mists of Pandaria is Blizzard’s testing ground for player housing. The question has always been, if they give us player housing, what do you do there? Do you just retire after a hard day of questing, make some popcorn, and watch some TV in your house in Stormwind? No, that’s boring. They won’t just give us a room to put up some paintings or whatever and leave it at that. They would want player housing to be an activity, something with goals and objectives. Our tiny little farm in Valley of the Four Winds is a good example of housing being an actual activity — to get something for your farm, you need to work towards it, you have to earn it. It’s a great start. They’re seeing what works and what doesn’t.
I could totally see them building on the Mists of Pandaria model and doing something like … we’re on whatever continent or planet comes next, and the Alliance (or Horde) entrusts you with a newly established, totally ramshackle stronghold. You need to improve its fortifications, make friends with local warlords or mercenaries, recruit officers, and bling out your throne room. That would be way more epic than an apartment in Old Town. Though the roleplayer in me thinks an apartment in Old Town would be pretty sweet, too.
I know that Blizzard has been talking about the possibility of player housing for a few years now and I agree with the author (Alex Ziebart) of that post. I think its very possible to implement player housing and I do think Sunsong Ranch is their beta test. Actually the idea of revitalizing a “ramshackle stronghold” is really cool. I think I almost like it better then player housing.
I have noticed something though that I think they may have to tackle. Even when you are in a group with someone, you cannot visit their farm. I would think that if you introduce player housing or player strongholds, players will probably want to invite their friends to come over and play.
Perhaps that is something Blizzard is working out as well.
/Cheers!
I’m going to try to talk about what I think of the Mists of Pandaria expansion without revealing too much about what is happening lore-wise. I know its only been a couple of days since the expansion has gone live, but I feel like I already have enough to talk about to warrant this post.
The week leading up to the launch of Blizzard’s fourth expansion, Mists of Pandaria (MoP), players can participate in the first of the new scenarios. Scenario’s are a new mechanic introduced with this expansion that provide additional end game activities for players. The first scenario is called Theramore’s Fall and it went live this week. This scenario is also allegedly the pre-MoP “world event” that not only explains how Pandaria is found but the catalyst that reignites the feud between the Horde and Alliance. The night the scenario went active I grabbed my wife and my friend and we jumped in queue. This is what I think of the event from the perspective of a world event and from the perspective of the new scenario mechanic.
The latest content patch has been out nearly two weeks and by now everyone should have picked their new talents and glyphs for pretty much all of their toons. This patch brought a lot of changes to the game including the revamped talent system, which I’m still on the fence about. I felt a little bummed when my warlock hit 83 the other day and I was all excited about setting a talent point but then remembered I don’t get to do that until 85. I have not had an opportunity yet to try out any of the new rotations to get a sense of whether the specs I chose for my classes match my play style. I imagine that I may have to spend some cash changing my talents around until I find something that best suits me.