(edited by Kira Daemon.1032)
Housing and Guild halls: GvG, PvE and RP
1) Housing and GvG
In general, I think housing has many other goals than making more attractive a house or provide yourself satisfaction in putting your personal touch in one aspect of the game you cherish and to eventually make (or not) a bit of a roleplay. When you consider housing on the same plan as GvG, not only housing has the capability of adding a very singular value to the gameplay of the GvG, but furthermore, when you intend to bind housing and GvG, the interest that you may have for housing emerges enriched with tactical value. So you may throw your prejudices to the nettles if you have never liked housing since it is useless or it is a conception for romantic roleplayers. Housing is getting a facelift!
Defend your home against the barbarian hordes
“The barbarians are at the gates of the village!” To begin with, I am considering basically housing as a village a little in the way of Lord of the Ring online (but I’ll return in details on this point in the paragraph 3). Therefore assume that here your hall is your housing village in which your guild members have settled. And because it is your hall, this is where you will defend your guild against the assailant. But what am I saying? Your guild? Ah, you might even defend your home! You can see it in GW2: some buildings may have a lifebar. So why could not the game remember what your village looks like with its customizations in order to make them potential targets for your enemy, when a GvG meeting is launched? So when the enemy comes to your door – in the literal sense and figuratively – you will have all the reasons in the world to break its legs because you had just finished repainting the room! (By the way, I would find it fun to be able to communicate with the enemy in this pvp mode). Because you would be fighting in your village that would have the same aspect it had when the GvG battle had been launched: should you have put a flower pot in your garden in the morning, you should be able to see it during the GvG meeting. Variety of decorations assured during your confrontations! (And would be an excuse to visit the villages of the other guilds and discover the extent of their creativity in housing … or not).
More than one objective
The frag game fans (Counter-Strike, Half-life and even in GW1 & 2), will certainly be familiar with the objectives like flag capture, protecting the king in the bastion, taking/controlling points or total annihilation of the enemy until you get a given score (or on the contrary, maximize your score to overcome the opponent before the time runs out). Could not we imagine other modes of game around what I spoke a little higher? Why not have to raze the village (as primary or secondary objective) while the besieged defend and repair? We can even invent mini-games that come out a little of the subject of GvG (as player-killer) but remain in the field of guild confrontation (moa or swimming racing games and so on, that I cannot detail here). Besides, how about if every guild hall (according to its style: Norn etc.) had a NPC that appears only when you win your GvG match in order to allow you to buy an outfit related to the nature of the hall?
The flowerpot that saved Carthage
“Carthage must be destroyed!” And if Carthage had had some flower pots hung at_its windows, maybe it would have had less worry!
One of the major axes of improvement of this project is to give a GvG utility to decorations and other objects of outside housing, provided that they are properly set up. Let me explain two things:
On the one side we got what I call passive skills of the guild hall (unlockable with guild influence). You can equip up to three of them at a time for each GvG match. They can be fitted to activate certain defense mechanisms of the Guild Hall. For example, if among the different styles of halls (Norn, Human, Quaggan etc.) a home guild (thus the one that defends) chose a hall, in the middle of which a river flows, and that it has decided to equip with the passive “dam water release” skill, you can imagine that the latter may cause a river flooding, drowning some parts of the map (partly, totally, to be determined, but temporarily). But, as you know, in GW2 the character build varies depending on the water! Then you may need to change tactics if you do not like fighting with a mask and a snorkel. (NB: frequency of use requires a balancing of gameplay that I won’t do on behalf of ArenaNet, so it is a pure example of use).
(edited by Kira Daemon.1032)
Then, you need decorations. Imagine that you have planted a little of lily of the valley in all the gardens and that a passive hall competence called “contemplation” does exist which, by means of AoE, forces the enemy to slow down when it gets close to one of these flowers. Similarly, you might have in the middle of your village an enclosure with moas (with no use at all in terms of housing or PvE) that would become true watchdogs once the passive skill “Beware of the moa” is chosen for the hall. AoE passive skills, automatic or punctual… Forms and possibilities are numerous! Forget the ballistae, forget the siege weapons! GvG won’t become another arena!
(Call me sadistic, but I even imagine a fully aquatic hall… ah, ah… a true nightmare! Again, I can not dwell on all the possible forms of halls and competences, it would be too long.)
A never ending gameplay
Among the Norn guild halls where snow covers everything, the half-alive Sylvari trees and the oceans whose seabed is covered with Quaggans houses, the elements and variations of decorations (or even geological features like the river) represent so many elements of GvG gameplay that none of your fights will resemble the previous one. Nothing will delight you more than having spent a little time developing your craft or unlocking decorations in the PVE world! Thus this is a first approach of housing. It proposes not only to enrich GvG but also gives you more reasons to return to exploration areas, either to carry out quests, either to craft decoration items, either for some guild activities that provides you with the influence needed to buy passive skills for the hall.
2) Housing and PVE: not to affect the rest of the game and make it interesting.
The risk of a village to be instantiated as the guild hall is that when players are in their guild hall (to roleplay for example), you can not see them a lot on the rest of the maps. They no longer participate in this “mass effect” that gives MMORPG its flavour. By the way, many people would ask with passion for the installation of a bank, an auction house, merchants and handcraft benches in the village. Absolutely not! It is precisely that way that you depopulate cities, because honestly speaking, a city is used primarily to buy / sell or store. I tell you: housing must be rethought! Guild hall must not become a concentration of key elements of the PVE aspect of the game. But then, what is its interest if it does not make our lives easier? This housing and this hall… yeah, in GW1 we had all merchants inside, why would it change? Because it is an outright strategic mistake. This is also one of the major problems of housing at present in games for sale.
I believe that housing must have its own interest and has to support areas of the game as GvG or the community aspect, but that it should never go into competition with the PvE mechanisms that make MMORPG what it is. Merchants (whatever their nature: bank, AH, handcraft) are the critical points of the game mechanic that forces players to ever come back to town, thereby creating mass, movement, animation and so the crowd and presence feeling that defines essentially the MMORPG. Housing must complete the game, enrich it, but not replace it.
What to do? How to make this village attractive? How to have a chance to cross my neighbors if they have no reason to come there? I will elaborate on other aspects later, but here may be an early track. I can imagine without difficulty at Wintersday or Halloween that players carry out some quests specific to the guild village such as trapping the gardens of their neighbors, carving pumpkins in the village or protecting their village from Mad King’s invading troops. Against reward (decorations), of course. In addition to events, we can consider some quests that would lead you to meet with your neighbors, very special NPCs with animations that you can unblock through the influence points (fireworks, banquet on the village square / village festival, etc.), and why not a new jumping puzzle specific to the type of hall (this would even oblige you to go and visit friendly guild halls). I would even imagine that each guild member can give a mark to his neighbors’ houses and that every month, whoever gets the highest score does not have to do the dishes (to be replaced by a fun reward). Finally, you could on one hand roleplay there, unlock achievements, kill special bosses thanks to tough tactics, but above all mini-games would also be available with a ranking between guild members: sprint and hurdle racing on moaback, Whac-A-Mole in the garden, battle of snowballs in winter and so on. Oh, yes: some GvG, of course!
In the next section I will elaborate on the aspect of guild and community life, but this could be added to this list of interests that are specific to the hall.
3) Housing and the guild: social and community engine
When you mean guild, you think of a community gathered around an entity known as the GM or through values that constitute its pillars. It is therefore natural to consider a guild hall or a guild village as a physical extension of this agglomeration. It represents the place which should focus guild members and take part to the building of their community life. Since I associate housing and guild hall, it is not absurd to consider that housing is part of this inertia. Thus, you may involve housing as the integrator of new members or as an interaction engine between them. I will not dwell on the missing mechanisms or ‘coming’ ones of the guild management about which it has been said a lot already. The sole question here is to see what practical applications housing can have on the life of the group.
In points 1) and 2) we have already seen factors relating to the life of the group about the GvG and PvE aspects of the game. We have the chat or the roleplay too, but it does not stop there! Imagine in the guild house (your HQ) a small panel which displays the little ads when you click on it. Imagine that a player wishing to join the guild should come into your hall, into your guild house, and write (by clicking on a desk in the recruiting office) a text of application that any guild member can read. Now imagine that any new guild member could have access to quests in the hall requiring him to find the house of X or to go and sweep at Y, or even telling him to send a mail with a gift to at least three guild members (the NPC could sell gifts such as food). Imagine that officers could create different quests for new members in a window; they could give a title, write the quest objective (which the game would be unable to determine if it has been carried out: the player would automatically receive the award along with the quest) and then attach a reward to allow more RP flexibility. When in the guild house, a player could read a history of the last 10 guild ads or an officer could send a guild letter (a kind of announcement by mail) to any guild member. Finally, if the players’ house is an area reserved for the artistic expression of each member in terms of decoration, the public spaces of the village would be the object of a joint effort.
One last item should deserve to appear in this line: it is the practical management of the distribution of houses (even when guilds have 160 members). A village is not extensible by definition and must not become too big with the risk of boring players in case of a small number of members. Roommating is then an alternative that also promotes the integration of players among the group. This will be detailed below in point 4).
4) Housing and hall: practical issues, the housing shortage
In a general way, it will be easier for you to visualize the following if you already know housing as it exists in Lord Of The Ring Online. I will not detail all the basics of housing (decoration etc.) but on the contrary I will stress a bit more on the points that would be an improvement in my opinion by referring to some of the work that was done in Lord Of The Ring Online.
Types of hall
Each hall has a graphic chart of its own for the appearances of the different homes. However decorations are interchangeable at will.
As explained above, the halls play a tactical role (presence of river or not), as well as an aesthetic role (I prefer to live at Norn’s than at Asuras’) without forgetting a PVE role (the outfit seller who appears when you win a GvG match etc.). The choice of the type of hall is thus important.
Without going into details, I had imagined various halls specific to each race. Here are some examples (not exhaustive):
_Asura guild hall: a very airy hall, like a mountain range / flying pebbles interconnected by Asura bridges or vines; or a high technology underwater village at the bottom of the sea, the Asura technology keeping the water out of the village by a force field. The gameplay would be earthly for once. One can imagine some beautiful sea monsters swimming around the city.
_Quaggan guild hall: a hall entirely underwater (the gameplay should require that the GVG attacker of the hall would prepare his earthly build as well as his aquatic one). Only indoors would be air filled (by a system of air bells: to enter the house you must dive beneath it and then go back upwards inside).
_Sylvari guild hall: a hall perched in a tree just like Kheletin (EverQuest2) but adapted to the Sylvari race. A very large tree whose branches would be high above the ground. You would move thanks to leaves, vines or wooden bridges built between the branches.
Buildable lands
Somewhat the same way that Lord Of The Ring Online had lands with houses for rent, this guild hall would have parcels of buildable land (house and garden), in the same way for all the halls of the same type. They would be of different sizes and various statuses and would be located throughout the area. To make them buildable, you should unlock them thanks to influence points. NB: as most things you can unlock in the hall depend on influence points, one should practice affordable prices for small guilds.
Houses
The guild may build different types of houses that adapt according to the number of inhabitants per house. Every house (except the common house) begins to be built on a simple house model and does not evolve depending on the number of influence points that you have invested in it, but on the number of people who live there. The Guild Master or the officers should determine who can live on which terrain through a permission system (similar to the system of Lord Of The Ring Online). It is up to them to make arrangements with the members concerned. They can therefore indicate that Charlotte lives in that house. Then later that John and Louis come to live with her. See below how to manage the change in number of inhabitants.
The simple house: this is the base home for one inhabitant. This house has a chest to store the interior and external decorations. It consists of a main room and two additional rooms.
To build on a terrain or to customize a home you must be in the concerned property.
Roommating: if you want to graft a new living in a simple house that you own in your village, you just need to indicate an additional living by its name in the administrative rights of the house. The house will automatically add a room per new inhabitant! Warning: players can not choose how rooms are arranged. These are added according to a pre-established pattern of rooms that you unlock one after the other by adding one or more capita. For example in your simple house, if one of the additional rooms was down the corridor, you will get a new room connected to the end of the corridor. The decorating choices are taken room by room and can lead to pretty debates between roommates. Roommating can accommodate up to 5 people.
Note: you cannot see (in the village) some “pieces” of house added to the outside appearance of the house every time a room is added. The aspect of the house evolves rather in the height, depending on the type of house (single, roommating, dormitory town house). This is independent of the internal evolution of the house, otherwise the management of the garden would become impossible.
The dormitories: they can accommodate between 6 and 25 guild members. They are used mainly in guilds counting a lot of members. One additional room is added by each 5 new members and it is not an individual room: it is a dormitory for 5 people. Just like the other houses, dormitories have a main room.
The common house: this is the house of the guild where you can imagine the players setting up a map room, a library or a dining room (according to their roleplay history). This house also hosts a number of guild events. It looks very different from the other houses and can accommodate some so-called “guild decorations” (unlocked by guild missions): e.g. the stuffed head of a boss killed on mission, and brought back as a trophy. This is also the place from which a number of aspects of the guild hall (passive skills, etc.) will be managed.
Permissions to visit a home and to decorate it
For this aspect, I would tend to simply resume the system from Lord Of The Ring Online that was simple, efficient, ergonomic and enjoyable. To change the permissions and the decoration of a house you had to be on the property and you could set who could enter your house or decorate it, use your chest, or pay taxes for you. You had the choice between giving permission to all people of the same rank in the guild (all officers, for example) or personal permissions.
Taxes
I have imagined some ways to raise money for the guild. Two forms of taxes at your choice (there is of course no obligation to rob members of the guild): a housing tax as a small fixed rent and an income tax (percentage taken whenever players earn money).
Day-night cycle, weather and music
The hall undergoes a cycle of day and night as the rest of the game.
The halls can have weather forecast and mood music in the form of skills, unlocked again by the influence points. These skills can be equipped in a playlist of 4-5 slots that runs in a loop. For example: sun, cloud, rain, storm, rainbow, sun. If only one skill is put into the playlist, it will be considered permanent. The same for the music (you can also imagine a similar system for indoor music at home).
Absence hologram made in Rata Sum
An Asura company, very rich today, has developed a holographic system which shows a double of yourself in your garden space when you are not in the guild village. You can have pre-recorded an answer and an emote. So if I go to Gerard, he may appear on his doormat motioning me to go off /emote, shouting “Get out of my flowerbeds, thug!” Or maybe your lookalike will remain motionless in the garden and will greet me: “Hey hello! I have no time for now, but check back to see me later” when I step into his property. As for Lily who is dancing behind her house, she ignores me when I pass next to her. The mechanism is simple: choose a predefined location, an emote, a text limited in numbers of characters and you’ll get an absence hologram!
These NPCs will also be used in the system of guild quests for integrating new members.
Friends / guests
Only guild members have the power to reside in the village. However, in order to invite friends, officers have the choice between the conventional method (personal invitation) and a new solution that would give automatically access to the hall to all the friends of guild members. For this, you must be on the friendlist of one of them. Of course you must not be banned by an officer: the guild has a blacklist! .
Conclusion:
“Let us cultivate our garden”, Candide by Voltaire.
_____________________
Thanks a lot to Thierry who translated this topic for me, from French to English.
(edited by Kira Daemon.1032)
+1
This is a nice project. A new way to gather tactitcs and guild personnalisation.
More over, every game will be different just changing a single skill or guild element.
It’s a quite challenging improvment !
Admittedly this game does not have most of what you are referring too, but it must be made perfectly clear this game has had housing since day one. They are just now starting to do things to it as of the next patch. (Quartz node)
Well, I don’t know if GW2 had housing since the beginning, because the personnal instance could just be part of the personnal history. Last time I had the chance to ask Colin Johanson he said housing wasn’t a project they were working on now and he admitted that they had yet to find the best way to avoid common housing problems met in other games. And a week ago, when we met with Mike Zadorojny, I think he confirmed it. I am not 100% sure, because I was tired back then and my memory is messy, but I think he talked about housing more probably put in guild halls (I do insist about being not totally certain about that last part. I’ll have to ask the other fansites staff members who were here too). I guess as they haven’t started to work on it yet, there’s still hope anyway…
(edited by Kira Daemon.1032)
Well, I don’t know if GW2 had housing since the beginning, because the personnal instance could just be part of the personnal history. Last time I had the chance to ask Colin Johanson he said housing wasn’t a project they were working on now and he admitted that they had yet to find the best way to avoid common housing problems met in other games. And a week ago, when we met with Mike Zadorojny, I think he confirmed it. I am not 100% sure, because I was tired back then and my memory is messy, but I think he talked about housing more probably put in guild halls (I do insist about being not totally certain about that last part. I’ll have to ask the other fansites staff members who were here too). I guess as they haven’t started to work on it yet, there’s still hope anyway…
Per Anet the HOME instance is housing and does change with your personal story. Which it does and as I stated they are now working on expanding its use. how it will change is anyone’s guess
It seems I missed an announcement then, I’ve searched in GW2 discussions sub-forum and in announcements sub-forum (as well as 4 Wind bazaar sub-forum) but I couldn’t find any official post about housing being now developed in home instances (or saying they were working on it at least). Could you please tell me where you read it ?
It seems I missed an announcement then, I’ve searched in GW2 discussions sub-forum and in announcements sub-forum (as well as 4 Wind bazaar sub-forum) but I couldn’t find any official post about housing being now developed in home instances (or saying they were working on it at least). Could you please tell me where you read it ?
Bazaar of the four wind>new rewards>personal quartz node
Like I stated there is not much in it now but it has potential
I understand pretty well that, but I can’t see any official word about housing or about them working on housing. And personal quartz node has nothing to do with housing either. I personally choose to believe what Mike told me just a week ago (I think we won’t agree on this point).
Very interesting project, I really wish they could grab ideas from it. Well, maybe they’ll surprise us
@Krosslite: I think Kira didn’t meant to talk about PERSONAL housing. We know that Anet is trying to work on developing personal instance, and personal housing is the first idea that comes into to mind when we talk about customisation. But no official anounce was made about the “how” they will do it. For sure.
I think it is more a matter of building a new kind of housing, a housing that involves player together (trough guilds), that involves competitive play (GvG) and that do not alter PvE experience.
If I had something to suggest I would had this to the customisation:
“Allow PnJ merchant in the guildhall.”
But we must think on how to implement it…
1- Merchant should NOT sell PvE items, to avoid town desertion → Merchant will sell only guild-referenced items ( so we can see: banks, guild armir, guild weapon merchants…and that’s all! nothing more)
2- Merchant (like in GW1) should be used as keeper of hall in GvG. They will be PnJ protecting their house. Logical, isn’it?
3- Merchant should be placed freely in the guild hall. As mentionned before, merchants are a tactical advantage, we should be able to use it at full potential
4- Merchants should be able to interfer in event. For example, during Halloween, guild member could place some sweets in the guild chest, and people talking to merchant are able to pick some instead of making a trick. Something of that kind.
It is just my vision of how to implement Merchant in the Kira idea of housing. It has great potential, and I hope ANet will see this and that it will give them some ideas.
3- Merchant should be placed freely in the guild hall. As mentionned before, merchants are a tactical advantage, we should be able to use it at full potential
I must admit I never thought about this point (placing them freely in the hall as a tactic part of the defense) but I really see it as a great idea ! And it really fits into my project style . Thanks a lot ! This is a really good one !
(edited by Kira Daemon.1032)
Well I like this idea of merchants defending the place… It already exists in pvp where npcs protect forts and camps.
+1 for your housing project, and well done for your creative ideas. Hope this will be read and considered.
Thank you for your support ! I don’t actually expect the staff members to use my project, I simply hope it’ll give them ideas ^^
Great topic ! I like the way you describe your vision of the GvG and guild house and there a lot of pretty nice ideas in there. I hope devs will take a look at this and think about this topic when working on.
Excellent work, good luck for its realization!
Sir, GM [DoD]
@Krosslite > IMHO, I think you misunderstood what housing is. For the moment, we have a personal instance that cannot be personalized as we want it to be. Perhaps, the definition of this instance that Anet give on its website may be disturbing : “These key decisions not only determine the story’s direction, they also change and update your home instance, a personalized home area located in your character’s racial capital.” (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/personal-story/).
However, we must admit that we did not see many changes in this ‘home’ (the only thing is a quartz node for completing few tasks but it does not have any relation with the personal story).
Then, the OP said he talked with Anet’s staff members who confirmed that they were not working on housing at the moment. It means that the personal instance is not considered as a place for housing.
@Kira > I read your post and found it great not only because lots of ideas are amazing but also because you tried to find solutions for problems that already existed in the past.
However I did not really understand your concept of ‘taxes’ especially the ‘income tax’. Is that a tax the player pays whenever he earns a little money in PvE ?
To conclude, I do not understand why you chose this last sentence : “Let us cultivate our garden”. I mean, through your post you explained that housing was ‘a social and community engine’.
But Voltaire, in Candide do not really give a precise meaning of this sentence. Although there are several interpretations, one of the most important (if I can use the term here) is : ‘we must live alone, without external contact’ like a kind of autarky.
So, here, did you use this sentence to show that people have to play alone (I sincerely doubt) or to show that people in a guild must live together and not with other players ? or to make sure that guildies will customize their houses (and gardens) ? Please tell me more !
I love your idea, I’ll keep this thread in my mind
I missed half of the point because im too lazy to read it (don’t hate me). But are you suggesting that you could make, guild villages with guild members able to get a house? if you are, +1
they’ve already said that in time guild halls etc will be available but it will take some time and most likely not happen tommorrow yet
Server: Underworld
You have perhaps one of the coolest ideas ever and perfectly put together to begin forming perhaps a masterful creation that the game devs over in ArenaNet would be foolish to ignore. This could inspire a massive amount of community and the perfect testing ground for role playing ideas! The demand for RP elements in GW2 is fairly high. If this idea was implemented then ArenaNet could work with people interested with this idea in-game! Whatever the general consensus of players in these guild instance worlds (This could be treated like guild realms in RIFT as well.) could promote positive and strong elements to the whole game!
As for entering the Guild Hall instance, you mentioned the general idea of giving guild members the “invite” permission to them. I believe there should be an alternate option as well. To have a physical location that exists in the Main World or Tyria. For example, in Rata Sum there could be a Gate that would transport you there if you had a key or item given to you by an existing officer or guild member.
I also thought of your idea for the need for land as your housing grew in size when the guild became bigger. Your idea to have a guild hall as the main building is great but I want to build on that. The guild hall in most communities would be with an ever-expanding building. For example, the humans would have a Town Hall with a few home-like structures surrounding it. Then after about 25 people join and have a home then the option for the Town Hall to upgrade to a Keep becomes available. Once you have a Keep you will have a large structure that has more rooms and functionality. Also, with the keep you would have your first wall surrounding all of your 25 homes with 2-4 gates that are opened and closed on command of those given permissions. This will later become the Inner Courtyard of the Small Castle. You also will unlock more space by pushing back the restriction zone outside of the walls. More homes are built here to support up to 50 members. Once you reach 50 members then you upgrade to the Small Castle. This will make the Keep fundamentally larger and perhaps give the homes in the Inner Courtyard the option to become mansions-like homes. Also, with the Small Castle another wall is placed on the outer perimeter of where the homes were being built outside of the Inner Wall. Again, these walls will have commands to work the gates or have controls. Finally, once the guild has 100 members the Large Castle becomes an option which would be large enough to turn the inner courtyard into districts and combining the main structure with the Inner wall.
I only use this as an example of a default human-based guild with a focus on Kryta-like customs. If given time I could come up with something for every race and would put them here in this forum if given aid by all my fellow forum peoplez! I would love to see your idea grow and would support it 100% of the way. Let me know if you ever want to put our heads together and come up with ideas to collaborate on. My major motivator is Role Playing growth. If I could see that become a part of AreaNet’s main focus then I and a lot of other people would be very happy players!
It’s beautiful as a proposal, I would like to see it ig!