In this week's article of The Scrying Pool, I look at possible player housing in Guild Wars 2.

The idea with this neighborhood setup is that it is open to anyone and exists on a map of the world. In the story the player lives on the edge of Lion's Arch. I now direct players to the world map where a large, unused, rectangular area exists between Lion's Arch and Kessex Hills. Imagine that area is a map that exists solely for creating this personal housing neighborhood. There could then be similar neighborhoods next to each racial city: between Rata Sum and the Grove, south of the Black Citadel and a large rectangle surrounding all of Divinity's Reach. Hoelbrak would be the most difficult to place as it is fairly well surrounded, but it could be placed farther from home either south of Wayfarer or north of Snowden Drifts.

Each of these neighborhoods would have its own environment. Hoelbrak's neighborhood would be mountainous and snowy, LA's coastal and green plains and jungle and coastal for Rata Sum and Grove.

The thing to consider is will there be enough plots for every player to have their house. The overflow system would work great for this, but to keep the idea of being able to visit anyone the overflow system needs to be improved on. This would be naming overflows and giving the ability to switch between them. This could be similar to the District system that was used in GW1, but could be customized further to give it a cool feel. Instead of District 1 of the LA neighborhood, maybe players can live in the Marriner District.

As for what can be put in the house, there are lot of options. The art team at ArenaNet has created some amazing concept artwork. Allowing players to buy framed versions of these from NPCs to place on the walls would be cool. Furniture would be cool as well as trophies that drop rarely off different bosses or from dungeon chests and guild related banners or decorations.

I like the idea for having housing plots that can be bought with in game currency, but can be upgraded through the gem store. For example, players can buy a plot and build a one-story version of the six major city house styles. The gem store could then sell alternate styles (please no fish tank quaggan houses) and upgrades to make the house two or three stories.

With this setup anyone would have access to a house in game (if they have enough gold for it) but those who want can upgrade them to bigger or unique houses. This I think would really create uniqueness within a community. If players only need to do X amount of work in game to upgrade, eventually all of the house would be three stories of their favorite style. Having the upgrades in the gem store, some players will just remain with the one-story houses, some will upgrade once to two-stories and those who love housing or just want to show off will have three-stories.

Matt "Mattsta" Adams is on the hunt for a Legendary. The current goal is to make Bolt. I have my Gift of Mastery, Gift of Ascalon and Mystic Clovers all done!

I am really enjoying this patch. The account wallet was something I was really looking forward to, but so far it is the thing I am least interested in since the patch. The Opening Ceremony story instance was amazing, I find the new mini-zone to be fun, the balloons and torch lighting mini-activities are cool and the new champion loot is awesome. The only thing that has me scratching my head is the dungeon gold bonuses. Only one gold for CoF path 3?

As always, if you have a question for me or a topic you would like to see talked about here, comment below or tweet it to @MattstaNinja.