Homestead is The Elder Scrolls Online next DLC package coming to Tamriel in Feburary 2017. While a large part of the community seems to be ecstatic about it, there is a vocal group of players who are upset with it. Ryan discusses the information we know about Homestead and asks you if there is grounds to be upset or if it’s all false claims.
I’m surprised to see how many people are upset that Homestead will be the next DLC for The Elder Scrolls Online. This is something that has been discussed among players and developers well before the launch of the game. The ones who are upset, aren’t even upset that it is some what instanced. Heck, even I’m not upset that it's instanced. So what exactly are these people upset about?
They are primarily upset because it’s another update that offers no new zone and no new quests. See, and that’s where they’re wrong, Homestead does offer quests, well quest. It’s the beginning quest for the content that shows you how Homestead works and what types of things you can do within your new home. Okay, granted one quest is not a lot and is nothing compared to say, Wrothgar. But it is something and we don’t know yet if they’ll have quests for us to do. Who knows, maybe we’ll get quests that allow us to acquire more hirelings.
Let’s go through everything we do know about Homestead and see if they have a legitimate grounds for being upset.
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First, the cost, this is a good place to start because a lot of people like to get in a rage when they have to buy additional content for games they enjoy. I know, how dare they support the company that provides them with their entertainment. Homestead is going to cost it’s players an incredibly substantial amount of NOTHING. Yes, it’s 100% free. I don’t know about you but free isn’t something to get up in arms about.
What about actual content? People like to do things and have nice shiny zones to explore. We’re not getting anything close to a new zone to explore and adventure in. What we are getting is 40 uniquely styled homes that can be purchased. These homes are all styled off the six different races of the game, so needless to say, if you want to have all the different homes you’ll be playing for a while. Even if you don’t want all the homes and just a few you’ll still need to play a while because what’s a home if it’s not decorated.
Decorating your house is a massive undertaking, especially if you want to look at everything available to you. Homestead offers the players a plethora of decorating options, over 2,000 individual items. From what we know, a lot of the furniture can be player crafted using the existing tradeskills, Woodworking, Clothier, and Blacksmith. Even Provisioning can make wax foods for your house. All player crafted housing items can be traded and sold on the guild store. This makes me wonder if all tradeskills are used in Homestead will we see ZOS implement a blueprint/design plan type system. Similar to the Motif system but for Homestead specific items.
All the items in your home can be placed anywhere, it’s not a hookset system. You have free range to do whatever you want. The items can not be scaled in size but they can be rotated any which way you want. It’s time to get creative here, building stairs with benches kind of creative. There are caps to how much you can put into your house based on the size of the house (small, medium or large) and if you’re an ESO+ member. By being a ESO+ member you’ll be able to double the amount of items you can place in your home. In the event you’re no longer an ESO+ member your items will remain but you’ll be locked from editing your home unless you fall below the cap.
They even have interactable decorations such as Crafting Tables and other items. We still know very little about the crafting tables and if we’ll be able to use them to create set items or just standard armour.. There are even lights that are in your house that are able to be turned on and off. It seems Zenimax has been putting a lot of thought into Homestead and is on right path to making sure we’re all able to build our own unique homes.
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There are also trophies you can collect while you’re adventuring out in the world of Tamriel. This area I’m really excited for. Who doesn’t want to take their kills and display them in your home with pride? This is an area I would like to see a new craft skill be introduced, Taxidermy. Mostly because I don’t think it would be right if I defeat a boss and within his loot is a miniature version of himself ready to be placed in someone’s home.
I don’t know about you, but that seems like an awful lot of content to be added to a game. Yes, it’s not a new zone, it’s not a new quest line and it most certainly is not a continuation to the primary storyline, but it is a ton of content. Oh a side note, it seems that Update 13 will have some additions to the primary storyline included in it. Are we finally going to see what really happened to Darien Gautier? If watching Game of Thrones has taught me anything it’s, if you don’t see a body they’re probably not dead, unless you’re
I want to know what you think. Is Homestead just another lazy DLC release so ZOS can keep up with it’s 3 month content quota or do you think it’s incredibly substantial content that you can’t wait to explore?
