Originally Posted by Dr Koin
It's completely dependant on the story and narration, honestly. You may need or it may make sense to own a hideout, a house, a fort, a cave, a boat, or anything that could be considered a "home".
"home" or "headquarters" have been in game since.. forever, really. The new thing is being able to free-walk in it, look around, and to some extent interact with it.


Fair enough.

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In the Assassin's creed saga, the homestead is a rallying point, a resting place, and the headquarters from where you send people do tasks, manage trade routes, etc.
In Skyrim, it's a warehouse, holds a great RP meaning, and a resting place ( though you can rest anywhere really ).
In PoE, it is quite useless, true.
In DOS1, it was more of a thing tied to the story although it's true it wasn't that great.
In Divinity 2, it fit very well in the story and gave you lots of advantages for progressing through the game.


The commonality between these examples (except Div 2 and arguably D:OS) is that they are spreadsheet simulators, especially in AssCreed and PoE. In Skyrim it's *literally* useless (except storage I suppose), going to it to rest just wastes time, but that can be said about many things in Skyrim. Only in Div 2 does it function somewhat well and is logical. None of these examples add interesting gameplay though, and that's the main issue. It's menu navigation in a pretty dress. (even in Div 2)

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A home is the new incarnation of the "main hub". It's you default "go-to" location when you aren't sure what to do next or when you're thinking of ending your session. Arguably, it's the open-world / open-story equivalent of the headquarters from a thousand of other games, like Xcom or Darkest Dungeon. Arguably still, you will want to build your own house for obvious purposes in Minecraft, Terraria, Starbound, Don't Starve, etc. And while some MMOs feature housing, it's quite useless except to chill when you're a little bored, like in Wildstar, or a feature you can't ignore because it regroups a lot of services like your ship in The Old Republic. WoW recently put the Garnison system in the game, and while it's a bit too important ( most people spend most of their time in the garnison rather than with other people doing things ), they put a lot of very useful and interesting features in it.


If it is a focal point in the story, a thing that is a repeated motif and a recurring element that binds the narrative elements together, sure. It defaulting to the main hub because the game gives you no hints how to continue is simply bad design. Just chilling there wastes time that I could spend doing something with my life :p

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So, do we need a home? Not necessarily. Is it stupid to put a home? The game story will answer that. Does it add nothing of value ? No, it actually does, as long as people behind it thought it well.
There are no clear yes or no, one thing is sure : if it is well done, as well as making sense in the context, it is a very nice and interesting feature to have in a game.


Fair enough.