I’ve wanted player housing in World of Warcraft since I first opened and explored the game in 2010. It may have taken 15 years, and may have happened after I had already told all my friends and loved ones that I had “quit forever” but here I am with the new expansion purchased, epic edition in-fact, and decorating to my heart’s content. Since I purchased the most expensive digital version of the expansion I was given a lot of furniture to decorate with. I’m not going to lie, I don’t regret this one bit.

The system is in its infancy so I will try not to be too harsh on it, however the first glaring issues I’ve noticed is the outside of the home does not grow in size as you expand inside– in my opinion this is lore breaking if you’re a dedicated roleplay player. I know this is a gripe that may have to do with technical limitations but even a more general small, medium, large outdoor look would be better than what we have now.

Because I’m me… I decided to try the building system to its capacity and build something a bit unique. I envision my Hunter and Warrior to be enemies who wouldn’t step foot in the same house so I built a cabin from structural pieces outside. This was a bit of a nightmare.

Here is my cursed cabin – inside and out.

Clipping of objects is very rudimentary, and there are visual glitches often when trying to place pieces. I will admit that this project was a bit more technical than I’m sure Blizzard imagined for day one, but still it shows how the system could use refinement. I was also discouraged by only having 200 points for outside, something that won’t even allow me to have a lavish garden or take advantage of the beautiful ocean scenery I chose. From what I can see there is no way to level up outside points yet.

I will say that I am happy that this system exists especially as it’s something that I’ve wanted for a very long time. I do feel limited by the choice of one neighborhood that is very Orgrimmar-esque, especially as a blood elf purist. I do hope that exteriors and locations will be come more abundant as the expansion continues and I look forward to this feature growing exponentially over time. I personally created a guild neighborhood so I love the peacefulness that comes with being able to have an instance with just friends.

Here are a few photos of the start of my decorating.

While the building tools are not perfect, they are better than some games I have played in the past- so there is more good than bad about it. My main gripe is that even with clipping enabled it doesn’t seem to care and using the mouse to gently level often ends up with the game automatically moving the object just as you get it almost where you want it. With that said, it’s been exactly one day so I’ll give them a little more time to iron out the kinks. In general, for roleplayers and persons who always wanted their own little slice of Azeroth after saving the world far too many times, homesteading is a welcome retreat.

P.s. I want to be able to stable pets here and see them. I want more interactions with professions. I want our homes to be functional and beautiful.