With the way WvW currently works guilds are rewarded by holding keeps long enough to gain points on them or protect an orb. I feel that the incentives for a guild to claim a keep and upgrade/hold that keep are not up to par and this is where my suggestion comes in.
Adding a purchasable upgrade (or set of upgrades) to keeps that would add a keep bank which would only be accessible by the guild which claimed it. Permissions for this bank could be managed through the already in place guild ranks.
This bank would serve several purposes
1. Once a keep reaches max supply all excess supply delivered from caravans (and possibly delivered by hand as this has been suggested in an unrelated idea) would be converted into an amount of coin (to be determined by minds more attuned to the financial scales of this game than I) and stored in the keep bank.
2. Money could be deposited into the bank by guild members (hold your questions on this one as i’ll go into detail why this would be important and how it could be balanced)
3. Either included in the bank upgrade or a separate upgrade would be some kind of “market” which would allow the guild to reap interest on all coin stored in the bank
Now, importantly added to the above suggestions is the risk for the potential money maker that a keep would become.
1. I propose we use the already existing orb system to make a “money bag” which would have to be run from the keep to that servers base of operations in the borderland. This “money bag” could be stolen and run back to a rival servers home base in the same way that an orb could (minus the showing up on the map when its on the move) The coin could only be safely banked into the guild bank once the bag arrives safely at the base of operations.
2. Upon taking a keep a base % of the coin stored in its bank would be “lost” (use your imagination on this, looters and such) but the rest of the coin would be up for grabs. In order to prevent infighting between servers perhaps the money would be split evenly between those who participated in taking it as opposed to sitting in the bank for the guild that then claims it.
My vision for this system is as follows.
Keeps and supply camps would be even more connected than they already are and guilds would have sufficient reason to claim and then hold both and post dedicated guards rather than leave them hanging in the breeze because they already got the karma/points.
Cutting supply lines would become valuable even when a keep is maxed out on supply as it would cut right into your enemies pocket book.
I imagine grand sieges where one side thinks or knows a large enemy guild is keeping large sums of coin in a keep, surrounding said keep while laying siege to it and then a desperate rush out of the keep by the defenders trying to get their coin to safety.
Sounds fun to me, let me know what you guys think as I have only put about 20~ minutes into this so surely there is room for refinement of the concept.