Currently, when it comes to castle decorating, wizards will have a plethora of options to decorate with. So many housing items exist in the game at this point that one may even struggle choosing what items to decorate their house with in the first place. However, as housing becomes more prevalent and more complex in the Wizard101 community, there is going to be an influx of decorators who suddenly will have no more space to decorate their house with. While the Bric-A-Brac elixir was enough to solve the problem for some time, I no longer think that the new limit it provides (350 outdoor/indoor) fulfills the needs of modern decorators.
Castles, especially those from bundles, are only getting bigger and more grandiose with every new release. The Everafter Village, Briny Deep Retreat, Pyramid of the Lost Horizon, and Candied Isles Village are only a few of these gigantic bundle houses. All of them have a similar problem. 350 items for such a big space is not enough. This problem was addressed with the "Castle Building" style of house, but even then, many experienced decorators out there still need more space. With the introduction of Advanced Movement last year, more and more wizards are building houses that are unique and beautiful with many minor details. Unfortunately, with these details and with more space to work with, 350 items is not viable to build an incredibly detailed house with anymore. Many decorators, such as myself, have to cut corners and struggle to place details knowing that they could very well be for nothing.
Considering that decoration is acknowledged occasionally on several fansites and Wizard101 social media pages, I believe that more attention should be brought to this issue for the sake of the time that goes into their hard work. My first suggestion is to increase the base housing limit on houses by 100 on all houses. However, this would not change the limit of 350. Therefore, a more viable suggestion is to simply allow all houses to have a 500 indoor and 500 outdoor limit, regardless of what kind they are. This would allow for a whopping 1,000 items per castle, which may sound a bit troubling at first, but, with the recent optimizations made for the game, loading in 500 items, while it may take some time, is definitely possible.
The possibilities with 500 items would be practically endless. Decorated houses would feel more real and detailed and mazes could have more traps or puzzles. Larger, more specific builds, like hotels, restaurants, and even whole villages, are now able to be more lifelike and are more sensible to build. Even for non-decorators, more storage space in a house means more places to put rare wands, trophies, and even cool things in general. Most importantly, however, more decorators than ever before can build houses that are truly stunning and a genuine thrill to explore.
500 items may not solve all issues. For example, only 50 pets/mounts/monstrology housing guests are allowed in a castle, and that in itself may need to be increased from 50 to 100. More space also may imply another Castle Magic item limit increase. However, I believe the benefits of an increase would far outweigh the negatives it may bring. How this new limit is achieved could be through more Bric-A-Bracs, but I think that, to reward decorators for their hard work, they should be craftable using Blueprint Tokens, similar to how Hatch Peppers can craft Hatching Elixirs and Purreau's Potions. To increase the reward factor, maybe grant decorators on the Housing Tours leaderboard a certain amount of Blueprint Tokens per week or per day based on their position. This would give more wizards an incentive to try and get on the Housing Tours leaderboard, for now there would be more rewards than just badges.
I hope that the developers of Wizard101 take my proposition into consideration. As someone who has sunk many, many days into decorating castles, I hate feeling the disappointment that comes with running out of space. I and so many other wizards would feel absolutely overjoyed if this suggestion made it into the game. To say it would be revolutionary for the housing community to have this make it into the game would be an understatement. An increase to the housing item limit would be, for a huge amount of people, a very welcome addition to the game, and an action that could potentially change castle decorating forever.
TL;DR: The current housing item limit in castles, 350, is no longer viable and no longer meets the needs of modern housing decorators. Increasing the limit to 500 would allow more decorators to create more beautiful, detailed castles and it would also increase the creative freedom of many people. To reach this new limit, it would be best to allow more Bric-A-Brac elixirs to be purchasable, but allowing the potions to be crafted with Blueprint Tokens would let them be more readily available and would serve as a reward for decorators that land on the Housing Tours leaderboard. A simple change like this one could make a lot of wizards happy, including myself who loves to decorate my castles. If this makes it into the game, I would be eternally grateful.
- Elizabeth HawkFlame, avid Magical Decorator and just a concerned local housing geek
