What to do with Hideouts of the Week [Money making suggestion]

Currently, Hideout of the Week is a pretty cool side feature that people look at and say "Ooh! Awesome! Wish I had that!" but 90% of viewers would just go on their typical hunting programming and forget about the hideout once a new one comes along.

As it currently is, Hideout making takes a significant amount of effort but the reward doesn't amount to much. Only a small proportion of players dedicate the necessary time for too fleeting a return. And the large proportion of players while taking a passing interest in hideout decorating, invest little into it.

My suggestion - make all hideouts of the week purchaseable MTXs with GGG points. This results in a few benefits:

1. Additional source of revenue for GGG which they deserve for putting together Forbidden Masters.

2. It should be easy to implement. It'll be similar to a Grandmaster creation but captures the hideout instead of the exile.

3. Hideout creators are rewarded as their creation is not only featured on youtube, but is also captured for posterity on GGG's shop. Their creation is no longer "view of the week" but becomes a creation that's viewed repeatedly by people wanting to prettify their hideouts. It's almost the same emotional reward one gets for designing an ingame unique that's used by others.

4. Viewers have added incentive to watch Hideout of the Week videos. We're no longer window shoppers staring longingly at something we'll never get, but are active shoppers looking for the coolest hideout to pimp our abode with.

Of course, there may be some creators who want their hideout to be unique and un-copyable. These creators should be given a choice to opt out if they so desire.

I know some have suggested that orbs be made to create hideout imprints that are tradeable. My issue with that is that it gets pretty close to RMT since MTX in-game aren't supposed to be tradeable for currency. It's also difficult to trade imprints in my opinion as it's easy to pose off one imprint for another like how it's easy now to get confused over eternal orb imprints.

I think this would be a do-able thing. It would be cool for players to see the hideout of the week and then also be able to purchase that look if they so desire. Have the price be something around the MTX used in said hideout plus a few more points for the work of putting it together and there you go. I think that's very realistic.

Glad you like it!

Statement from Chris Wilson on this idea below:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/2ttobd/what_to_do_with_hideouts_of_the_week_money_making/co2pivj

"We've been discussing ideas like this internally, but don't yet have a plan for this that we've committed to. It's something we could look at once we've got the Act Four expansion and its frequently requested features out of the way!

I completely agree that this kind of feature would both help players and help us. It's just a tricky one to add :)"