Blizzard has seen your Xal'atath feet shrines in World of Warcraft, and it applauds your creativity

There are core, fundamental elements that make up an MMO. Sprawling worlds. Daily and weekly quests. Raids and dungeons. Shenanigans with your pals. All of these combine to create a successful massively multiplayer experience, but in recent years, it feels like housing has also become a core component of the genre. With humble beginnings in Ultima Online, for me Final Fantasy 14 really brought the system back into the limelight. It’s an integral part of the game’s tight community structure, and I fully believe that it’s one of the primary reasons Square Enix’s long-running multiplayer adventure is so beloved. It’s something that’s been missing from World of Warcraft: something that, on paper, has felt like a glaring omission. But there are reasons for that: good ones, and now that housing is in the game, the party doesn’t stop there.

Midnight does feel like something of a turning point for World of Warcraft. While The War Within certainly introduced the Worldsoul Saga’s overarching plot and the single-player delves, Midnight feels, mechanically, like the biggest overhaul we’ve seen in years. With Blizzard reworking its UI to somewhat circumvent the need for WoW addons, while, of course, adding housing, there’s a huge slate of significant, genuinely game-changing adjustments.

While the addon changes continue to divide, housing has generally been met with a positive response: I’ve watched streamers like Caroline ‘Naguura’ Forer tinker away with their homesteads for hours on end, building internal skyscapes and perfecting their cottages. Sure, there are still some bits and pieces that need ironing out, but overall, housing feels like a win for the MMO.

In an interview with senior 3D artist Jay Hwang and lead game designer Maria Hamilton, the first question I have is relatively simple: why now? “Housing is not a new idea,” Hwang responds. “But it was definitely one that we had to bake on for a while until we found the right way that we wanted to do it; a way that we had confidence that our players would like, as well as something that fit World of Warcraft as an MMO. We looked at a lot of different versions of housing, whether it be cozy game versions like The Sims and Animal Crossing, all the way to other MMOs that had housing like WildStar and Final Fantasy. They all had their own different systems, but it wasn’t until we knew that we wanted to push for freedom, for players to have those tools, that we were like, ‘let’s push to actually make it real for players’.”

He cites other examples, like Star Wars Galaxies and Ultima Online, noting that the team’s primary objectives were both to push for that aforementioned freedom, while “giving players the avenue to have a social experience that’s not forced. We’ve got the neighborhoods, but no one’s telling you you have to be neighbors with anyone or go visit them.”

All in all, Hwang concludes that “It was a culmination of finding the right idea and getting the right amount of resources to make it. Everything that we wanted to do with it didn’t exist in the engine; it’s not a new engine. With everything that we had to do, it was [a case of] ‘you can’t do that right now!’ So we had to build something for it, and it worked out that the timing was now.”

The mechanical and narrative stars aligned perfectly: Midnight also represents a shift in World of Warcraft’s story, as Xal’atath takes aim at the Sunwell and we return to Quel’Thalas for the first time in decades. The stakes are already pretty high, but Hamilton believes the addition of housing makes them even higher.

“There’s a bit of a challenge,” Hamilton says. “We’re doing the Worldsoul Saga, we’ve planned out three consecutive expansions telling this large story that needs to span it, and at the same time we’re looking at ‘where’s housing, how does it fit in, and where does it fall?’

“You want to defend your home: that’s a natural response,” she continues. “In Midnight we’re at this terrible moment where we have this oncoming invasion that’s going to threaten the world and threaten our home. Having a home to be threatened, that you’ve invested energy and time into – that works! It felt like the right way to set that up; if we’d done it earlier with The War Within I don’t think it would have been as narratively strong, because there the story was less about us defending and more about us thinking ‘what’s going on?’ So this seemed like the moment narratively as well.”

But, now that the system is out in the wild, what are Hwang and Hamilton’s favorite fan-made creations so far? I’ve seen players turn disparate parts into boats, robots, and Japanese-inspired pagodas that feel like they’d fit perfectly in Pandaria; and that’s just having a look at general builds. Housing has become a source of boundless creativity, and the duo have seen their fair share of wonders – and oddities.

“I’ll give you two answers,” Hwang says. “Early on, when we saw bugs that we were initially going to fix, we actually decided not to fix them because they just became features for the players. Those ‘bugs’ to us were actually little tools that [designers] just realized the players can use. The floating house was obviously one of them; the shrinking chair that you can, like, put in stuff and sit in it was another one. There’ve been other small things that we’ve been keeping an eye on and being like ‘we’re not going to fix that anymore’, because now players are expecting that to be behavior.

“In terms of creations, I keep bringing this one up: somebody made a Michael Jordan picture using housing. It’s crazy, they’ve done anime… It’s almost like, instead of building a house, they’ve decided to treat it like a blank canvas and they just paint it with tools, which is really cool and we weren’t expecting that. When it came down to player housing, we were expecting ‘now here’s your toilet, and here’s your sink,’ and not like ‘here’s a mural.’ We’ve seen people make little engraved statues on their walls. That is so amazing.”

Hamilton, however, has spotted all of your completely grounded, definitely-not-unhinged Xal’atath monuments. “I saw a shrine to Xal’atath where someone had made a bare foot as an altar-like thing and they had her picture behind it,” she says, remarkably straight-faced. “I’ve seen a few where they’ve done impressive sculptures that are, you know, sometimes rude. I really like a lot of the stuff that people have been doing with the floating [system]: I liked the treehouses, I loved the trend around the holidays with everybody making Christmas trees and decorations – I actually had a co-worker who came in and said it took him 18 hours to make the perfect Christmas tree.

“People are really making creative and interesting things,” she continues. “I don’t think that is the surprise: I think it’s the clever things they’re doing. What you can do with a rug and cushions is unbelievable, honestly.” All of you Xal’atath simps are also unbelievable, but y’know what, I respect the commitment to being horny on main.

While World of Warcraft Midnight is set to launch on Monday March 2, you can get early access to housing if you pre-purchase it. The system is very much up and running, with the ability to bulk-select assets and share your housing designs with your pals coming further down the line. Plus, there’s a prop hunt mode in the works. I feel like I have to mention that.

As someone who routinely drops off of WoW until the new expansion rolls around, I’ve found myself lured back to Azeroth by cozy housing streams and the prospect of creating something truly magical. So, builder’s hat on, let’s get to work: those feet… I mean, statues aren’t going to carve themselves.