More Decor
The initial catalogue features a majority of decor from legacy content, though going forward there will be a focus on both adding existing items to the housing system and creating entirely new ones. Only new items are compatible with the dye system, since older art assets weren't made with it in mind.
The team wants housing to give players a reason to return to some older content, but aren't intending to require an unreasonable amount of deprecated currency to purchase legacy items. They ask players to keep giving feedback in order to adjust the outliers.
This is a new area of development in WoW, so the designers are still tweaking to find the right balance. They don't want it to be so easy that everything is unlocked in an hour of gameplay and there's nothing to work toward, but they don't intend for it to be grueling. There should be a little bit of "sweat equity" to earning things for your house, and players should constantly have reasons to go out do things both in and outside of their neighborhood to earn new decor.
Housing Progression
Artisanal Rooms and things like the secret door bookshelves were spontaneous ideas to help the developers and players create a wider variety of ideas. The current "skybox" room was conceptualized as a way to help players add light to fake windows and other "exterior" cells within their house, but there will be more variable themes coming in the future.
The player's house level currently goes to 6 on the Beta, but will progress further in the full release, unlocking new features along the way. Housing is being released early to see how players interact with the tools before getting swamped with new expansion content, but this is just the start of what the developers intend to be a long housing journey.
We can't just start with 100,000 house budget for everyone, since that would probably crash the servers, but players can expect numbers to increase over time. There's room to grow and the team wants to see how players engage with the system, so that they can roll out new features as they are needed.
House Exteriors
There's no set schedule at the moment, but additional exteriors featuring various racial themes will roll out over time. The team is keenly aware of the "heritage armor" concern though and doesn't want to follow a similar length of time.
As players progress their housing level, they'll unlock new options such as the House Size selector, rather than unlocking it through a dungeon or raid achievement like some of the decor. The interior size of your house is independent of the exterior though, so you don't need to have a larger house if you prefer the look of the smaller standard cottage.
Interior Customization
The team has been discussing adding light sources that aren't attached to any particular art object, as well as other "invisible" decor adding sounds or weather effects. Perhaps you'll be able to create a localized rainstorm or the sound of crickets in a specific area. It's all early concept, so the team is keen to hear what kinds of options players would like to see.
Basements, stairs, and how rooms interact are other things that the team is discussing internally. Right now there are some creative workarounds to mimic these effects, and the team is working to see how they can support this more, whether giving players the ability to clone their custom assets to speed up the process, or adding things like their own modular stair systems.
Scaling object size can sometimes have funny results, as seen in scaling chairs causing players to sit "inside" them instead of sitting higher or lower. This was initially seen as a bug, but seeing players scale down stools and clip them inside other objects to allow them to sit practically anywhere changed the developers minds.
Showing Off
There are a lot of weapon racks in the decor system, though they are not currently interactable. Without giving too much away right now, the team is working on a new system to allow players to show off things they own that aren't traditional decor.
