Let’s test adding non-art posts to this sketchblog! I’m not sure if I’ll continue doing it, but that’s why this post is a test. :) The idea seemed fun, so I thought, why not.
My ulterior motive is I’m pleased with how the homestead is progressing, and figure it might be nice to have a post here for easy reference or inspiration, if I decide to do any drawings or sketches based off it. :)
Anyway, I’ve been having a lot of fun playing around with the decoration/player housing feature in Guild Wars 2, which is called “Homesteads” or “Homesteading” within this game’s setting. Truthfully, I hadn’t deliberately set out to tinker with this game’s player housing system at this time, because it seemed complicated and time-consuming. I wanted to have more time set aside to explore it. Even though the feature has also been out for a while, I hadn’t yet had a chance to really dig into it until recently.
Main Entrance (Homestead)
Once I did, though, I was impressed by the both the quantity and detail of craftable items. As well as the customization possible, with very little limits for how and where to place these items. I found myself increasingly drawn into building with the player housing system, despite intending to look into it at a later date! I felt quite immersed, which I would guess is partially attributed to the news that a past Sims 4 developer was brought on to work on this homesteading system. As a fan of the Sims (especially Sims 2), this alone made me quite excited for when I would finally have the chance to check out this system – I was not disappointed!
I was also surprised that GW2’s homestead/decoration system reminded me of another game I recently fell in love with, called Tiny Glade. Tiny Glade is a castle-building game which has pleasingly cozy and intuitive player controls. If there’s one thing I learned from Tiny Glade, it was that some of the most interesting visual looks are achieved through “layering” – meaning placing separate objects on top of each other to create the illusion of a new object, formed by the combination of 2 or more objects.
Take the main entrance here – in the above screenshot, we can see a fountain in front of the door, with stones shimmering underneath the water, and grass seeming to grow from both within and without the fountain.
The fountain is circular, with the unseen half clipped underneath the ground inside the building (the water is luckily not visible inside!). The grass is created by placing several upside-down “Mossy Pillars” (a clever tip I learned from this redditor’s beautiful Hobbit-inspired homestead). The stones are part of the homestead map, and not editable (to my knowledge) – but the combination of the Mossy Pillar layered underneath the stones, with the fountain’s water layered over both- creates a more complex form that is the sort of thing I really enjoy messing around with in Tiny Glade.
One of my favorite things about adding the water fixtures are also the environmental ambient water sound it adds! You can hear it as soon as portaling in to homestead now. GW2’s sound quality has always been exceptional – arguably one of my favorite features of the game – and I’ve always loved the ambient/environmental sounds when you’re near water (and especially underwater) on the maps. Being able to customize your homestead to hear cascading fountains and ponds as you stroll through is a treat!
Waypoint Entrance
Here’s the view from near the waypoint portal entry point (you can see the platform in the lower-left corner), after building up the area with even more plants!
Above are a few more views between the waypoint portal and the homestead entrance at night, after beginning to add more plants lining the pathway between the two.
Another view of the waypoint entrance. This shows where I began adding more to the path near Deft Lahar, the homestead NPC who greets you upon portaling in. I was looking forward to adding more to this area, as it looked so barren each time I visited the map. It was very satisfying to finally build it up with plants!
Above shows a wider shot of the same area, where you can see the waypoint itself.
Initial Homestead Building
The above screenshot and the rest below are earlier progress versions I took as I gradually built up the homestead over the course of play (maybe across 1-2 weeks of play):
I plan to add more lanterns of various sizes over time to the boughs, building them up gradually. :)
Being able to climb on top of a miniature Mordremoth in my homestead delights and tickles me, haha.
Now that I posted the main screenshots I wanted to archive for myself here, I thought I’d jot down a few brief impressions I had about the player housing system generally:
The Decoration System / Crafting with Homesteads
Probably my favorite thing about the decoration system is the new material sink it adds. As a longtime, but casual, player of the game, I had decent reserves of random materials gathered over the course of playing the game over several years. I always enjoy gathering or harvesting mechanics in open-world games – simulation games like Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons and Stardew Valley are some of my favorites. Because of this, I had many random plants in my material storage I would harvest and never do anything with.
Until now! It is oddly satisfying to convert these random plant materials into gigantic plants to decorate my homestead with. You can buy homestead plant materials through a “black market for fiber” (an amusing name), but I’ve always been the type of player who enjoys crafting my own things if it’s possible or practical (meaning, not overly time-consuming). It does add time to the game, but for me as a casual player, that’s part of how I enjoy playing the game. I love games that have gradated progression, as it feels satisfying building things up over time – it’s a cornerstone gameplay element of the aforementioned Stardew Valley, etc. games mentioned. And even of games like The Sims.
I like how this system introduces what seems like an extensive material sink that should last a long time – finally there is a purpose for the useless silver and gold I’ve collected! And those once-worthless sawgill mushrooms!
Time-Gating
Along those lines, I also wasn’t entirely surprised to see that a time-gating aspect was added to homesteads. There is a weekly limit for how many homestead building materials you can craft (fiber, wood, and metal specifically), though this can be raised through unlocks with map currency from the corresponding expansion maps (Janthir Wilds).
Upon first unlocking homesteads, the cost for material conversion from basic materials to homestead materials is steep, though this can likewise be decreased through unlocks using similar expansion-specific currency.
In a non-intuitive way, this made the decoration system less intimidating to me. There are a huge amount of crafting recipes, and the list alone can be overwhelming (I would love if there was a way to mark our favorite recipes) – but the time-gating forces you to keep your goals more short-term and smaller.
I think this was a wise decision from a game design perspective. One of the reasons I took so long to finally check out this new player housing system was primarily because I chose to unlock the new mount-related abilities first at launch – but the other reason was because the player housing crafting system looked complex and time-consuming. While still complex, the time-gating oddly makes it feel more manageable, because it limits how much you are able to do in a week – even a day, as I mostly hit the weekly crafting limit in one play session.
However, that limit prevents me for sinking all my stored materials into homestead materials, which does extend the longevity of this system. And I think it works for game like GW2, especially as a casual player, as it extends the “cozy,” low-pressure aspect to the game. Conversely, I could see how the time-gating might be frustrating for someone who only played GW2, and who was looking forward to only playing with player housing and nothing else – but Guild Wars 2 has never been that type of game. GW2’s game philosophy always encouraged players to dip their toes in a variety of play styles. Among that backdrop, their version of player housing slots in perfectly, and makes for an immersively satisfying experience.
Edit: February 28th, 2025
- Added two more screenshots showing the homestead at night. :)
- Added a few impressions/thoughts at the end of the post.
- Added a few more screenshots showing an updated version of the homestead (waypoint entrance).
Edit: March 6, 2025
- Added additional, updated “waypoint entrance” screens.
Edit: March 7, 2025
- Added “Main Entrance” and “Waypoint Entrance” headers.