Highhallow Hall feels like it should have been available for gold

spartaxoxo

For me, it feels closer to the coin homes of other chapters than a super nice crown store home. This is probably the reason it's only 10k crowns, but it feels pretty underwhelming compared to other crown homes. What does everyone else think?

WuffyCerulei

I legit thought it was going to be the house you could buy once you get the High Isle Savior achievement. I guess not.

FluffWit

We pretty much all assumed it would be the house we could unlock through actually playing the dlc.

Instead we got nothing, which is unprecedented. And when we asked for an explanation from @ZOS_GinaBruno and @zos_kevin we got no reply.

carly

spartaxoxo wrote: »

For me, it feels closer to the coin homes of other chapters than a super nice crown store home. This is probably the reason it's only 10k crowns, but it feels pretty underwhelming compared to other crown homes. What does everyone else think?

Compared to Sweetwater Cascades, it's pretty underwhelming. The interior layout is confusing and I'm not crazy about the yard. Everywhere we go in Gonfalon Bay, there is new furniture, new kitchen stuff - those copper pots everywhere are gorgeous. And how about those curtains in the palace and the various carpets through out and we have none of it. For myself, if they had given us all the new stuff, I might have considered it but as it is, it's not worth it for me. I already have many homes that are fully decorated so another one with the exact same items just seems like a waste of money. I'd like something smaller and more unique - like the wizard tower or the druid homes with the gardens outside.

Anyway, I certainly never expected to get the home for free, ZOS has to make money somehow and there are probably a lot of people that like the house and will buy it. I look forward to seeing what they do with it. For now, I'm happy with the Inn Room in Gonfalon. I did buy that new statue for my Sweetwater Cascades yard - it looks great there!

spartaxoxo

carly wrote: »

Anyway, I certainly never expected to get the home for free, ZOS has to make money somehow

To be clear, ZOS has previously released a home of this quality for free at every expansion since housing launched. These homes are in addition to the homes that do cost crowns. The crown homes were generally more elaborate. So, expecting this to be the free home and a higher quality home to be available for crowns would be expecting ZOS to monetize in the exact same way that has been lucrative and the norm thus far.

carly

spartaxoxo wrote: »

carly wrote: »

Anyway, I certainly never expected to get the home for free, ZOS has to make money somehow

To be clear, ZOS has previously released a home of this quality for free at every expansion since housing launched. These homes are in addition to the homes that do cost crowns. The crown homes were generally more elaborate. So, expecting this to be the free home and a higher quality home to be available for crowns would be expecting ZOS to monetize in the exact same way that has been lucrative and the norm thus far.

I've only gotten the Psijic Manor and the Antiquarian home for free, as part of their events, since housing launched - but I never expected this to be a constant thing going forward. Perhaps ZOS is listening to the voices that complain about not being interested in housing and would like to see free mounts, free armor or other things of interest being offered?

For myself, I'd rather have more furnishing plans being made available and being more accessible instead of being locked behind dungeon drops or so rare that you need millions to buy them off the broker.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Why did people think this house would be buyable for gold, did people forget one pretty big difference between this house and Alinor Crest Townhouse, Proudspire Manor and Water's Edge?

Highhallow Hold is a Notable Home, last time you could get a notable home for gold was that house tied to Falkreath Hold.

spartaxoxo

carly wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

carly wrote: »

Anyway, I certainly never expected to get the home for free, ZOS has to make money somehow

To be clear, ZOS has previously released a home of this quality for free at every expansion since housing launched. These homes are in addition to the homes that do cost crowns. The crown homes were generally more elaborate. So, expecting this to be the free home and a higher quality home to be available for crowns would be expecting ZOS to monetize in the exact same way that has been lucrative and the norm thus far.

I've only gotten the Psijic Manor and the Antiquarian home for free, as part of their events, since housing launched - but I never expected this to be a constant thing going forward. Perhaps ZOS is listening to the voices that complain about not being interested in housing and would like to see free mounts, free armor or other things of interest being offered?

The houses available for coin instead of crowns, aside from the ones that launched with housing are:

Requires questing Achievement

Amaya Lake Lodge (Morrowind)
Alinor Crest Townhouse (Summerset)
Hall of the Lunar Champion (Elsweyr)
Proudspire Manor (Greymoor)
Water's Edge (Blackwood)

Was Limited Time Available for Free Event during the year (tickets or chapter event rewards)

Grand Psijic Villa (Summerset)
Antiquarian Alpine Gallery (Greymoor)
Doomchar Plateau (Blackwood)


You can still pickup the questing achievement ones, as they are permanently available. Most of them for either coins or crowns. I think using crowns allows you to bypass the requirement for the quest achievement. The Hall of the Lunar Champion is a special house, and is given totally free if you complete the quest chain in Northern Elsweyr, not even a coin cost associated.

spartaxoxo

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Highhallow Hold is a Notable Home, last time you could get a notable home for gold was that house tied to Falkreath Hold.

This is a fair point. But, it's unusual for the chapter to not come with some type of house for the questing achievement. This is the first time that's ever happened. This is why I wondered if others found this house's detail were good enough to be worth crowns, or if this feels more like they ripped out the questing achievement home and made it for sale. Do you find this a quality house compared to previous manors themed around the chapter like the Sweetwater Cascade? Or to you is it closer in quality to something like Proudspire Manor?

Holycannoli

Furnished it's sort of nice but not too nice. It's not as luxurious as a summer manor should look IMO but it also looks like it's modeled after a real life manor somewhere. The walls, the doors, the furniture all look weathered and old. It's realistic for a European manor a few hundred years old but I'm not sure the effect is correct for the game. Is it supposed to be a centuries old manor in High Isle?

I'm still buying it tonight lol, furnished.

Nightowl_74

I'm going to pass on it and save my crowns. The interior is ok but I prefer larger courtyards and there's nothing really unique about the home to make me overlook that and buy it anyway. The view is nice.

TheImperfect

I'm not sure I'll buy it but it's a lovely home. I love the layout and the quirky features like the little tunnel view onto the street in the garden etc. I think its really a great house.

Roxxsmom

I admit I got it. I like the funky lay out and tile floors, and there are more niches and nooks and crannies (and potential bedrooms and studies) than in other notable homes I've seen. Lots of places to put and display things. The yard is smaller, but with my other notable homes, and also with the Hunding's house, I've had to choose between doing justice to the yard vs the interior. I kind of like that there's a large, flat grassy area instead of a patio or hilly landscape. Good place for a hedge maze or maybe a place to innovate some lawn games or something.

The only thing is I haven't been fortunate with High Isle furniture drops (mostly just a few greens here and there), and the writ vendors haven't had any recipes/plans/patterns etc. for High Isle furnishings yet. So it may be a while before I decorate it if I decide to keep it at all thematic.

FluffWit

There should be a batch of gold blueprints for High Isle with the next dlc. If you mean the envelopes for blue & purple plans they won't be available until next year.

katanagirl1

I was surprised it goes for 10k crowns unfurnished. It seems much larger than Sweetwater or Pantherfang.

Roxxsmom

Is there a secret to getting High Isle furniture drops, or did they just not create many for some reason? I was thinking I was just getting really unlucky with the random drops, but I'm not even finding that many of the Xpac furniture plans etc. in the auction houses, which isn't how I recall things being in the previous expansions. I've mostly just got a few greens. Even the crown store lists don't seem to have that many High Isle items yet.

K9002

They didn't make furnishing plans at all. Even the crown store has very few High Isle themed furnishings. All the new assets created to decorate NPC houses were never converted to playable versions and it's unlikely that they will ever be.

carly

K9002 wrote: »

They didn't make furnishing plans at all. Even the crown store has very few High Isle themed furnishings. All the new assets created to decorate NPC houses were never converted to playable versions and it's unlikely that they will ever be.

That is my fear as well. I just don't understand why there are so few - other than the Tribute game took up too much of their time. So many of us love and buy housing, it's a shame we aren't getting the cool new items in Gonfalon that we've all seen in the other homes and buildings. Can we hope that they'll make it up to us with the last DLC this year?

fizzylu

I mean, I've already decided that my relationship with ESO is no more with the current patch situation and the questionable decisions and handling of it all from Zenimax.... but I did recently go in game and saw that this house, one I adored the first time I previewed it and really wanted, is finally available. I was concerned when they didn't release this at the launch of High Isle and what I feared came to pass.... they really released this house as crown store only and for a limited time. This is definitely another nail in the coffin for ESO for me. High Isle is the first chapter they didn't release a house you can buy with gold or earn via playing the game (of course excluding the little inn rooms).... to me, that is proof of just how greedy ZOS has become and how disconnected from the player base they are.
On another note, I thought more High Isle plans are coming with the new patch???? I believe they were already posted in another forum and on some websites. But either way, I really hope many do not spend the money to get this house <.<

K9002

fizzylu wrote: »

On another note, I thought more High Isle plans are coming with the new patch???? I believe they were already posted in another forum and on some websites. But either way, I really hope many do not spend the money to get this house <.<

On PTS there are only 7 new gold plans for Roris Hlaalu and a few dungeon-related items from the Undaunted vendor. And like in 2020 and 2021, they're adding structural pieces to daily quest rewards. All the furnishings, trinkets, foods and other smaller objects seen around Gonfalon Bay are not going to be added. Basically builders are getting their way while interior decorators got utterly shafted this year.

Alchemical

I actually really like the house, and I don't think the price is too unfair, but I agree it feels like it was the house that WAS going to cost gold and then they just... didn't for some reason. This is pretty unprecedented, we had 2 gold houses in Morrowind, the gold halloween house, and then one for Summerset, Greymoor, and Blackwood, with Elsweyr's big questing house being free. It feels like a huge backslide, plus generally very lean offerings on furniture compared to Morrowind or Elsweyr too.

I also understand that the game costs money to make, and they are making nicer, higher quality stuff for housing too. But let's also not forget that Bethesda (and by extension ZoS) is being bankrolled by Microsoft now. There's no reason they need to be tightening their profits over the same content they've been putting out WITHOUT that cash injection. It's hard not to feel a bit cynically about it.

BahometZ

Yeah, consider me disappointed on a few levels.

The house itself is quite average, with a poky interior that is difficult to customise, and doesn't add anything beyond the interior of any other house. Why would I purchase this to furnish it with the same interior furnishings that other houses already have. Put it this way, given the abundance of houses that already exist, with which to furnish using extant items, what does this house offer beyond those? I may as well just decorate Gardner House in Breton/Imperial furnishings.

Not to dissuade others who like it, I just don't see it worth bothering with, when you compare it to equivalent houses.

On top of that, as has been well said, the High Isle housing situation does not compare well with previous chapters. No achievement home, and parsimonious furnishings. Perhaps the situation will change.

And maybe there will be druid house in the future, which would pique my interest.

As regards to ZOS preserving their income, I would've thought the many millions of eso players that are frequently touted would help keep things cracking along.

SilverBride

It winds around way too much and has too many loading screens.

Pelanora

It feels like a half hour job of design. So disappointing.

chrisfeng

You must be joking. Have you seen 1 million gold houses? HighHallow may not be the best crown house, but it is without question a level above million gold houses.

Am I disappointed there is no gold house? Sure, but I am not gonna pretend this is a million gold level house.

Pelanora

There is no way highhallow furnished is as good as the alinor house furnished. Doesn't even compare.