Blizzard could add more homes per account to World of Warcraft's player housing in the future, but 'we have to be conservative at the start with these things'

(Image credit: Blizzard)

World of Warcraft's player housing system is pretty much great—it offers an absurd amount of freedom, the decor limits just keep going up as Blizzard explores new ways to increase it, and while it sure has taken it a while, the developer seems to've learned (from two decades of other MMORPGs trying, failing, and flying) where to lean in and where to give over freedom to the players.

One thing that has bothered me, however, is the limit to two houses per account—one per faction. I'm a roleplayer, which means I have a lot of characters with different themes who might want different homes—and aside from building an apartment complex (which, hey, it's possible) I'm left without much in the way of abilities to do that.

I did, however, get to speak to design director Maria Hamilton, and principal artist Jay Hwang recently—and I've been assured that increasing the amount of homes a WoW account can have isn't off the table.

Speaking on the features Blizzard announced as part of Midnight's roadmap last week, Hwang tells me: "There's still lots [of tools] we had already planned in the beginning that we needed extra time to make sure it's perfect for you guys … The pets, the mounts, the copy-paste and the grouping and all stuff—that was all stuff we had on the docket.

This slow and steady philosophy is something that Hamilton echoes, admitting that, sometimes, testing periods can't accurately replicate the volume of players that'll be crashing against a new system: "In testing, we can attempt to replicate the expected volume, but it's not going to be the same as real players doing what they really do, so we have to be conservative at the start with these things.

"But I don't think it surprises anyone that this is something players want more of, and that they want those budgets increased, that they want more houses, more types of houses—these are all things that as we learn where the priority lies with the players, we can adjust our roadmap accordingly."

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Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

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