As far as the role-playing part of MMORPGs, player housing has slowly become an expected part of new MMOs. In fact, even some MMO-lite games—such as Dune: Awakening—are built around the idea of giving players their own space. One of the best examples of player housing in the MMO genre undoubtedly sits within Zenimax Online Studios’ Elder Scrolls Online.
Added into the game with Update 13 back in 2017, player housing in Elder Scrolls Online is a massively successful part of the RPG. With open-plan houses now available, players can collect a gigantic amount of housing pieces to create the homes of their dreams… provided their dream is to live in Tamriel.
Speaking to FRVR in a recent roundtable interview to promote the game’s Season Zero update, Elder Scrolls Online associate design director explained that players connect specifically to player housing because it’s a powerful addition to the sandbox of an RPG. “It’s a sandbox, right?” he said. “You can build something fun, you can express yourself. I mean, the creators in ESO that do housing are amazing.”
Barnes explained that it’s a powerful way of showing off “what you’ve achieved”. In Elder Scrolls Online and other MMOs, certain quests or activities reward you with items specifically for your house, if you choose to build it. It’s an engrained gameplay loop, and one that doesn’t deteriorate like a low-level weapon does, you can always show off that item if you choose to. “That’s always very inviting and compelling as a player is anything where you can show that stuff off,” he continued. “I think that’s why players flock to it.”
Additionally, as with most MMOs, player housing is optional—you are not forced to create a house and show it off. “You get out of it whatever you want,” associate design director Mike Finnigan added. “Some people will build—some people, I’m raising my hand here—will build functional houses. So, if you go into the functional house that I have, it’s literally just stacked with Mundus Stones and everything. It’s not pretty by any standard. But it’s like, ‘Oh, I need it!’ I have it laid out pragmatically, but not aesthetically pleasing.”
On the other hand, Finnigan notes that others get really into building their own houses, creating massive structures that rival bespoke in-game locations. “I go online, I go on housing tours, or I take a look at anybody that’s shared videos online and I go, ‘wow, that’s really pretty, that’s really cool they were able to do that’. Then I go look at my house and I go, ‘eh, but it works’. It’s the equivalent of a concrete bunker that just has stuff that I need”.
This balance of allowing players to create a gorgeous gothic castle or a concrete bunker filled with crap is exactly what the point of player housing is: freedom to do what you want. “It is about that intersection between creativity and convenience,” player experience improvements lead Kira Ross Schlitt said. “I think that that is so cool, and especially when you’re in a guild and you have an official guild house, that you not only have that convenience, you get to see that creativity, and you have that ability to come together, which is why, in the future we are perhaps working on something that is a more official version of that, but we really love all of those things coming together and letting people be together.”
As player housing continues to become a dominant part of gaming even outside of MMOs, the feature is becoming even more commonplace in huge, open gaming worlds than expected. As someone who has been engaging in player housing features since the brilliant Lord of the Rings Online, the feature has always been engaging, even in fairly rudimentary offerings such as Bethesda’s Fallout 3. After all, what’s the point in a big open world if I can’t take a nap in it?
