Another poster had made a suggestion regarding Guild Halls and Guild verses Guild. In my response to that post, I suggested the addition of player housing in the guild hall. In the original poster’s suggestion, guild “halls” have now grown to be more a guild instance equivalent in size to a WvWvW borderland map; so it’s not ridiculous to consider player housing inside a guild “hall”.
My suggestion:
[snip]
…That’s it for the critique. As for additions, I’d suggest allowing each guild member to build their own home on the guild’s map instance. Much like the guild hall (more like the guild world, now), individual guild members could spend gold, karma, skill points, laurels, Badges of Honor, crafting materials, and/or guild commendations to construct and outfit their personal residences.
There would be a ton of customization options down to the smallest details (what furniture to appoint it with, the style of the doorknobs, paintings hung on the wall, color palette, etc.). Players could put trophy rooms in their homes displaying their achievements. ArenaNet could turn this to their profit by offering these items in the Gem Store, as well. I’m not suggesting that becomes the only method for acquiring them; simply that it’s yet another alternative for those who don’t want to farm or grind for the other currencies. Players get to build custom homes and ArenaNet may make a little money on the side. Win-win.
I realize with ginormous guilds of hundreds of members, there’s the potential for the guild hall map to become a bit crowded or have the appearance of urban sprawl. With how big a borderlands map is, though (assuming you’re suggesting the guild hall map be roughly the same size as the WvWvW map), there’s plenty of empty space in which to build.
Furthermore, limitations could be set on where homes can be built. Take, for example, the village that exists at the Northern supply camp on the current WvWvW borderlands maps. There’s about a dozen buildings there and it doesn’t look overcrowded; and there’s still plenty of room to build. I’m not suggesting that become the only location where players could build homes; just one example of where to limit such construction so you aren’t encountering a home every few yards all over the map or in otherwise odd or inappropriate locations. Could add the option to build aquatic homes like the Quaggans.
Perhaps the homes could even be made destructible and/or capturable during the course of a guild war. This would instill an even greater pride of ownership and an objective to fight over (“OH NOESSSSS! They captured Bob’s house!! We MUST get it back!!! FOR THE GUILD!!!!”). Once the current match had concluded, captured homes would revert back to their original owners and any damage done would be automatically repaired.
I realize there’s a lot of “what ifs” and technical limitations that may prevent the addition of player housing. Consider this a brainstorm idea rather than something written in stone.
