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It's the same house, just bigger and better now :D
I really like the new hair styles update. Will there also be a new clothing styles update anywhere in the near future?
Not currently I'm afraid!
We've changed many old areas! This isn't new or something we shouldn't be doing
- Duel arena
- Many houses in many towns ( for construction contracts)
- Clan wars -> Giant Hill
- Ferox Enclave (as well as other parts of the wilderness)
- Ruins of Unkah (Pretty sure this was just desert, could be wrong)
- Kourend has had extensive changes, but perhaps that's different as it's new
The game is a live-service and on occasion we need to dip into the existing maps and make changes. This house wasn't used for anything and now it adds something to the world rather than just being scenery. These changes are approached cautiously as some areas are much more iconic than others, but if a building isn't being used it's quite literally free real-estate :D
I personally find it strange that all this time the nameless hairdresser has had a monopoly on the heads of Gelinor and it's time we broke it up! First we hit his rather extreme prices and now he has some competition :)
I think most of those changes still maintain the general old style/vibe of the area with the newly added scenery/buildings, so they fit in pretty neatly. I'm still a bit bummed about the time the Shades of Mort'ton wall kit was changed with a 50-50 preference question instead of 75% vote though.
Ah yeah, forgot about that one! Personally I don't agree with needing 75% vote on visuals - I know, outrageous! That poll was a test run to see if that way worked. Asking if we should make some new content seems reasonable to get a super majority, but when it comes to visuals it gets a bit more limiting as for the vast majority of visual decisions, we come to as a team which works well from an art direction perspective as it keeps it consistent. I've experimented with many avenues of player polling and feedbacking when it comes to visuals and have found trying to run art direction this way leads to a few issues.
Ultimately, the area was incredibly old and had very little engagement, keeping it with the old style was potentially causing less engagement as it felt incomplete and poorly made. Perhaps I'm bias, but you could see into the barrows dungeon from within the shades dungeon and the clashing styles was incredibly jarring. Solving that breakdown of style was integral and finding a 50/50 preference was, IMO, a much better solution then putting art style consistency in the hands of nostalgia.