Does player housing - much like Garrisons - remove the social side of ESO?

SgtSilock

Player housing is great, and whilst I have never gotten into it myself, the one thing I have noticed is just the lack of socialization within ESO since housing. It never use to be like this, and towns use to be full of people, now most of them are dead because the majority of players are doing their crafting/queueing in their home.

Now this isn't a request to remove them, it's a good idea, but this is an observation. Once upon a time this game was a lot more Social than WoW because of the lack of flying mounts and garrisons, and now it seems to be just as bad.

Why do I bring this up? From playing Classic WoW, because of the lack of any of these things it's a lot of fun actually talking to people, helping each through group content and seeing all the hustle and bustle going on in towns. This isn't a post saying that one game is better than the other, and I am only using WoW as example because it's all I know outside of ESO, but I do really miss the social side of MMO's and ESO is my favorite MMO bar none, and it it's self, has now unfortunately, outside of guilds, has fallen in the same camp as WoW in regards to socialization.

Eifleber

Define "social"? You may not see so many people but it's not that everyone ever interacts with me at crafting stations.

Btw I never craft in houses.

SgtSilock

Eifleber wrote: »

Define "social"? You may not see so many people but it's not that everyone ever interacts with me at crafting stations.

Btw I never craft in houses.

I think I already did in my post, when I gave the example of talking to people, helping each through group content and seeing all the hustle and bustle going on in towns. That's common practice in popular MMO's that don't have housing and flying, and MMO is the most popular of them all, the community should be buzzing but it just isn't. I guess because game is primarily designed for solo play, it reinforces that mentality also.

SantieClaws

This one would take the opposite view.

This one has been to, and indeed hosted, many lovely social gatherings at taverns, temples, homes, theatres, festival sites, lost cities and small villages.

It is most social to make house calls on those with an open door - friends and not yet friends alike.

Perhaps get yourself a little house, choose a few nice things, ensure there is a bar and invite a few friends around?

Or just make a few house calls yourself now and again? You never know who you might meet along the way.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

SgtSilock

SgtSilock wrote: »

Eifleber wrote: »

Define "social"? You may not see so many people but it's not that everyone ever interacts with me at crafting stations.

Btw I never craft in houses.

I think I already did in my post, when I gave the example of talking to people, helping each through group content in the overworld (not just main zone bosses) and seeing all the hustle and bustle going on in towns, people chatting, emoting and just genuinely having fun with one another. That's common practice in popular MMO's that don't have housing and flying, and MMO is the most popular of them all, the community should be buzzing but it just isn't. I guess because game is primarily designed for solo play, it reinforces that mentality also. [/quote

BlueRaven

There are numerous “house design” guilds. And their are RP guilds that use housing as part of their gameplay. All of which actually increases the social aspects of the game.

Also they left some critical gameplay elements outside of houses (like node farming, etc.) outside of houses unlike garrisons.

Housing is fine.

phwaap

SgtSilock wrote: »

I think I already did in my post, when I gave the example of talking to people, helping each through group content and seeing all the hustle and bustle going on in towns.

You didn't really. Group content can't be done in a house so that's a red herring. I doubt many are sitting on their sofa waiting for the queue.

Many of the daily areas have pretty good traffic - Vivek City/Alinor, Undaunted Enclaves, Belkarth, etc. Even the Dragonguard Sanctum has a bunch of people loafing about waiting for the cache these days. Maybe you could chat some of them up.

Or maybe people just have other things to do than stand around in cities and randomly chat.

When I go to guild houses to do writs, almost never anyone there.

VelimOrthic

That's a somewhat interesting point, and I consider myself to be in a bang-on spot to think about it since the only houses I deem worth my presence are those right inside of cities. I like nothing better than after finishing crafting, turning around to go out into town and for there to immediately be a lot of people around. Town crafting areas are some of my favorite places in the game, due to all of the activity.

My solution is what I've always wanted - more citified homes. There are only a few that are placed in what one can consider "in the thick of things". I'd pay top dollar for a very central house of any size in the very middle of where all the people are. And I'd happily pay that dollar over and over.

Mettaricana

I'd rather they upped housing visitor limit to like 100+ so a guild hall can actually be full

Nirntrotter

Housing != Garrisons. Housing adds to the game, it doesn't detract from the hubs we have, Eldenroot/Mournhold/Belkarth/VC etc are all crawling with people. The biggest 200IQ move by Zeni was to decentralise lots of the important systems (pledge givers, master writ drop off, guild traders etc) and to remove level progression from zones. It spreads out the population quite a bit and ensures that some load is taken off the newest and shiniest hubs.

Knightpanther

I only use my house as an area to relax, i do all my crafting and writs in towns, however if there was a way i could do writs from my home i would do to escape the endless idiots in chat and the constant guild/unknown language spam.

Be Safe

Slyjinxy

I don't and no one I know does writs in their house, daily writs anyway. Master writs I do in my house because I sent weeks, maybe months gathering all the tables.

As others have said, towns are well populated, especially in the crafting areas. There are plenty of people lookig to group for dungeons, trials, dragons, dolmens etc.

VaranisArano

This is precisely the reason ZOS doesn't let us have a Crafting Writ Board for our homes. And a merchant who can repair armor a banker who can access guild stores.

I'm not sure how many people go to town to pick up their daily writs, port home to do the writs, then wayshrine back to turn in their writs. That seems rather impractical.

That being said, I suspect what you are noticing is that the playerbase tends to cluster in certain hub towns like Rawlkha, Alinor, Vivec, Rimmen, the Alliance Capitals, and Belkarth that are convenient for guild traders, queuing for group content, and/or crafting writs. So depending in which city you hang out in, what time of day it is, or even which instance of a particular city you get, it might appear pretty empty.

Danikat

There isn't really a lot you can do in houses in ESO. Even if you want to do daily crafting writs you still have to leave to collect the quests and to turn them in, and since the writ boards are always near crafting stations it's probably more practical to use those than go through another 2 loading screens.

I suppose in theory if you want to literally just wait for a dungeon queue to pop you could do that in your house, but I think most people prefer to keep playing while waiting and again there's not a lot you can do in your house, except decorate.

Don't get me wrong, I like them for what they are, but they're very different from towns and certainly not a replacement in any way. Even if you pay extra for the banker and merchant NPCs you'll still have to go to towns frequently for other services, and it's often likely to be more convinient to go to a nearby town or summon the NPCs to your location than to go back to your house.

About the only thing I do in a house which I would otherwise do out in the world is master crafting writs, because my guild hall has all the set crafting stations together so I go there. But for me that's actually more social because then I meet other guild members there, whereas a lot of the set crafting stations in the world are either empty or just have the odd person coming in to unlock the location and then leaving again.

Nemesis7884

I kinda started loosing to see the appeal of housing to be honest...i bought several houses and yes they are "cool" and so is furnishing them...but once done there is nothing you can really do with them...after a while you realize there is no real point to them besides spending crowns on them...there also is not really anything to do with / in them...

I wish they'd find some other use for housing...some sort of activity you can do in them...for example for guilds or so...

Varana

Literally no-one* does their daily writs at home. (And you wouldn't do master writs in a city, either, but in whatever map corner the resp. crafting station is.)

If you don't want to re-arrange furniture or hack a dummy to pieces, there's actually not much to do in a house. You're just sitting there twiddling your thumbs. So why would players go to their houses to queue? They don't.

Both your assumptions of what players use their houses for, don't really hold up.

* In the internet sense of "literally no-one", i.e. "nobody I know".

tim99

noone is interested anyway in social actings while doing dailys writes on 10 chars.
when you start it, you normally dont look at chat, you also dont port to a house to do them cause you would have 2 additional loadings screens. you choose a location which suits you most for pick up, doing and returning as fast as possible.
And only if you finish them, you start "socialising"

And if you are in a queue, you cant group up, because then the queue gets removed. But i dont think much people port home for waiting in a queue.

If you get the feeling, its less populated, it might be, that actually less people play the game because of lag/performance whatever. A lot people i know stopped playing recently.
Even if i dont get the feeling, citys feel much more populated than ever (PC-EU), half of my friendlist in not within any more...

robertthebard

I'm trying to remember the last time someone came up and started a conversation with me while I was crafting, and I'm drawing a complete blank. Since I don't have stations in my houses, and I'm not part of any guilds, due to sporadic play, which tends to get me removed from guilds after I've been gone for months at a time, or longer, it's not like it would be an uncommon occurrence to see me in a crafting station. I've also wandered randomly on people struggling with a WB and assisted, or waiting for a dolmen to fire and sparked up some dialog, despite having lots of houses, well, comparatively, I'm shooting for one in every zone, so I can fast travel for free on a toon that hasn't been to a zone yet...

So I guess my answer to this question would be "No".

phileunderx2

Cities are very much populated. My game gets very laggy in just about every single one.
and for me more population =more lag

Inaya

Garrisons were NOT housing! I feel like ESO is MUCH more social than WOW. Guild chat is amazingly active 24 hours a day, old zones are populated because content is still relative, zone chat if active and unlike WOW people actually get help when they ask questions instead of made fun of and villified by immature keyboard warriers.

As far as housing taking away the social aspect, it actually increases it because you discuss decorating ideas, show each other houses and get new ideas, trade patterns/praxis etc...

I believe the social aspect of ESO is entirely what you make it.

Ye_Olde_Crowe

Did the introduction of housing subtract from my socializing with other gamers? No, not at all. I never played MMOs (SWtOR, WildStar...) to socialize ... I play/ed them to explore the worlds and settings, and relax after a stressful day at work. It's not different with ESO. I can unwind while crafting (at a crafting hub) or decorating (a home), but I could never unwind reading chat windows.

If I want my fix of 'social', I talk to guildies and/or go dungeoneering with them and/or visit them in their homes. It is an option to have gatherings there, so there, but if I want to be left alone, I can have that and retreat to my home. Better than having to quit the game or use brain bleach because of having to see or hear or talk to random people.

Linaleah

as it has been pointed out. people don't do writs at their homes, its a waste of time on loading screens. there are still people who for whatever reason hang around certain cities, sometimes dueling, sometimes just sitting there. most people are out in a world. heck even when I pop into general chat on a whim, its usually while I'm doing something out in a world in the same zone. unlike wow, zone chat in ESO is the same for cities vs rest of the zone.

I have gotten MORE social ever since housing was introduced, because its not even remotely comparable to garrisons. its costumizable role play facilitating areas. and not just role play either, guild events are often done at designated guild houses, etc.

edited to add, somehow i missed that little anti-flight sentiment. flying was introduced back in burning crusade. the game was as social as ever. it wasn't until end of wrath of the lich king, when group finder was in full swing and was made cross server that server social aspects started to die a little. NOT. BEFORE. and even with groupfinder, there are plenty of social aspects to be found in wow, they just don't happen in general chat or randomly in cities. they happen in discord and manually created groups in groupfinder UI. WoW was always a solo friendly game, its what made it blow up as it did when it did, btw.

doomette

I’m in a guild that hosts player-plinko (as in your character is the plinko chit) in the GMs house on guild game days. Seems pretty social to me.

Sibenice

I use my houses as teleport points and to do minor crafting (non-writ) stuff. I've also played since before One Tamriel. I don't think this game is any less social now than it was back then. About the same, really, in that it wasn't. The social interactions always kind of consisted mainly of guilds, people being dumb in zone chat and sometimes someone asking for help with a boss here and there.

Also, flying and garrisons didn't kill the social aspects of WoW. It was the lack of need to make groups for anything manually. Between the over-world being made entirely solo-able, queue-able battlegrounds, the dungeon finder and then the more recent raid finder stuff. Sure, flying and garrisons means you saw fewer people around you, but it's not like they were talking to each other anyways. I was a healer back before the days of the dungeon finder and I had a huge friend's list filled with competent people I would do dungeons with. I'd get messages all the times, people were super friendly to me, etc. Then in Wrath (long after flying was a thing) the dungeon finder comes out and all of a sudden that just kind of stops.

svartorn

SgtSilock wrote: »

Player housing is great, and whilst I have never gotten into it myself, the one thing I have noticed is just the lack of socialization within ESO since housing. It never use to be like this, and towns use to be full of people, now most of them are dead because the majority of players are doing their crafting/queueing in their home.

Now this isn't a request to remove them, it's a good idea, but this is an observation. Once upon a time this game was a lot more Social than WoW because of the lack of flying mounts and garrisons, and now it seems to be just as bad.

Why do I bring this up? From playing Classic WoW, because of the lack of any of these things it's a lot of fun actually talking to people, helping each through group content and seeing all the hustle and bustle going on in towns. This isn't a post saying that one game is better than the other, and I am only using WoW as example because it's all I know outside of ESO, but I do really miss the social side of MMO's and ESO is my favorite MMO bar none, and it it's self, has now unfortunately, outside of guilds, has fallen in the same camp as WoW in regards to socialization.

So tired of people like the OP who haven't really played much in game making garbo comparisons to WoW.

Personally, my main trade guild has a huge guild house with all alphabetized crafting stations. I meet and interact with people there. I also meet and interact with people in my own house regularly. Blizzard, like everything they do, executed garrisons extremely poorly. Let's face it, the only reason WoW still exists at all is because it's a habit for players. Everything is time/rep gated and most people just log in and sit in cities. Crafting is completely irrelevant in that game, too. Classic WoW was fun in 2004, but its badly dated in 2020.

Kiralyn2000

Varana wrote: »

f you don't want to re-arrange furniture or hack a dummy to pieces, there's actually not much to do in a house.

This. I go to my houses to 1) access my storage chests, 2) decorate my houses, and 3) use them as convenient wayshrines.

Cities always seem "bustling" when I'm in them, but most of the time I'm in the is to do crafting writs or visit the bank - both of which are typical busy/bustling areas. Especially since the better crafting-writ hubs get a lot of traffic.

Out in the world, questing? Depends on what zone you're in and what events are going on. Might be lonely, might be constantly teaming up to chew through a delve/public dungeon/world boss/dolmen/dragon.


The one thing this game doesn't have that I remember from old-times WoW, is Top Tier Raiders standing around in the center of the city, hoping people will Inspect their flaming shoulders. /eyeroll



Personally, I almost never socialized in MMOs. I close the chat box so I'm not subjected to the drivel being spewed in Barrens / Earth Starbase / <what's a bad ESO zone? >/etc Chat. And then go quest & explore.

BXR_Lonestar

You could make an argument that player housing decreases the social aspect of this game. I'm not saying I'm buying it, but I can definitely see an argument could be made. Players spend time customizing their own houses, meaning they're not out spending time with guildmates or in the guild house, etc.

IMO, I think the reverse argument could also be made - that housing enhances the social aspect of the game. When I started getting into decorating, my group spent a lot of time traveling to eachother's houses to take a look at what the others have done with theirs. And a well decorated house makes for a good conversation piece.

I guess its all in how you want to view the matter.

idk

Towns are still full of people. Players have to leave their stronghold and go to the cities for many reasons.

In fact, Zos recently stated they were reluctant to add more assistants to the game as they still want players to have a reason to enter the cities. In other words, that is also a reason Zos would be unlikely to add more functionality to homes such as a board to pick up writs.

MrGhosty

I'd say ESO Housing could do with more features, give me the means and ability to handle my daily chores I say. I don't see anyone ever being social while handling their daily chores as we are all typically focused on getting them done as quickly as possible to get on to the "actual" game content.

I have, in fact gone to great effort to find a decent town hub off the beaten path as I don't like watching my fps drop as I run through a hundred healing springs or (insert frequently spammed skills here). I would do all daily writs in my home if they gave us the ability to pick up and drop off from within the housing instance.

While we're at it, let's also give housing more function such as buffs, daily quest pickups, games and more! I can't say I know anyone who has ever been accidentally social, so forcing those people to hang out in common hubs is a bit silly for that reason. The flipside to that is I have yet to meet someone that is into housing and not have them be interested in inviting me in to see their hard work. Most housing folks put a lot of time and effort into their creations and it's criminal to me that we need to rely on an add-on to open our homes to the public.

RavenSworn

It's just human nature imo. It's the result of convenience. Imagine if all the crafting had to be done in capital cities like Elden Root, then you'd have almost all of the player base in that particular area crafting their needs.

But ESO works differently, even at the start. You have world crafting stations, towns with crafting stations and now housing. So it's a result of convenience.

Indoril_Nerevar

You lost my interest & approval when you claimed in your first paragraph that you think it is a "good idea" to have Housing removed, even though you are not suggesting it👎✌