Guild Wars 2

@Huddo (sorry I didn’t want to directly quote you for space reasons)

Your ideas are great man, it’s very well detailed, it makes me want to see the whole thing on an infographic or something.

The only concern I have, is a quite mediocre one, I wan’t Guild Halls in the game soon.

I have conflicting feelings with your suggestion because of this, but I think, in the end, I would want to see something like what you suggest, with that level of depth. Even since I prefer the idea of airships instead of buildings, I think the level of depth you suggest is just what we need. It adds by itself a whole new gameplay goal to the game, if character customization was a thing that kept us going, this? I can dig this for years.

Can I make you a request? just for the sake of discussion, and if you have the time/are willing to do so.
Can you present your suggestion in a way that shows it being implemented in different patches? Like, a more minimalistic presentation for an introduction patch, and then a couple of “expansions” for the idea, like, I don’t know, the introduction of servants as a separated feature that could be added later, and so on. So we can see it more realistically added to the game? I don’t know, I kind of fear we could come up with this huge and amazing idea, that we would totally want implemented into the game right now, and then, we have to wait a long time to see it, because is just too big, and complex.

:)

Retro.6831:

Devata.6589:

About the taxes. I don’t think anybody really said they wanted taxes but it was mentioned as one of the ways (among others) to prevent guild-halls (if in the open world) to become ghost-houses when the guild would go inactive.

Donari.5237:

I continue to disagree with the need for upkeep. It essentially forces people to play (and in the above suggestion, to play repping a specific guild) or lose progress made while playing.

The 100% rep guilds are heavy handed enough now, imagine if keeping the GH depended on players repping.

+1 more vote for “No Upkeeps.”

Upkeep fees run completely counter to Guild Wars 2’s play style (horizontal progression) and subscription-free payment model. Players are able to pick up right where they left off months or even years later and not feel like they’ve been left behind. Having upkeep fees would essentially force players to play to maintain their guild hall, which is contrary to the rest of the game.

Of course, as Devata mentions, upkeep fees are designed for more open world housing systems, to prevent the large swaths of land required for that approach free of abandoned houses. If Guild Halls or instanced (or pseudo-instanced as in my proposal) there’s absolutely no need for them. I would argue that even if Prophet.6257’s idea of Guild “Zones” is implemented, having multiple, numbered copies of the zone would be more in line with Guild Wars 2’s design than an upkeep fee.

I’ve got a rough list of notes I’m making as I pick through this thread. I’m not 100% caught up yet, I’ll share it when I’m done. Awesome work in here so far though, guys.

I understand your reluctance on Upkeep cost and I would like to point out that I do not want them on the Hall itself or on the features like decorations or trophies or most structures.

However, I am proposing upkeep as a compromise to counter the problem of making the Halls too convenient and reducing the amount of players in public areas. For instance, Guilds can already buy portable Guild Crafting stations that they could repeatedly buy and deploy in their hall if its not an available feature; if you have that upgrade unlocked, you could use your hall to have one all the time by paying the cost of the stations as an upkeep.

In the event that the Guild Hall would be part of combat gameplay as I described above, another way to make it something you have to work on would be to have the combat features (defensive siege, guard barracks, walls, etc.) something you have to spend resources to rebuild. It would be a sort of “optional upkeep” since those would be at risk only if you use the hall for WvW for instance.

Also, if a feature like the PvE claiming I described is added, it could be made to be synced across Megaserver instances if it came with a recurring Influence cost to balance it and give a shot for another guild to claim it; I was thinking kinda like Guilds could have influence over cities in GW1 Factions…

That is what I meant when I said it needs to offer both permanent content (the hall itself) and have some “upkeep” costs (specific convenience features or combat upgrades).

I was thinking how a guild hall could be very attractive for spvp players.

It would be amazing if for examples, spvp upgrades were linked to leaderboard or special spvp achivements to give a very good progression reward to spvp players.

I dunno if anyone posted some advices in this direction.

There is no need for an upkeep cost. None.

Some have suggested that it’s important if guilds are in the “open world” to prevent “ghost halls,” but I think that would be untenable from the start. There is just not enough empty space in the world for every guild that wants a hall to have a hall, so “open world” guild halls will need to take that fact into account. If they do exist in any permanent fashion, as opposed to only existing through a portal or other form of teleport, then they will have to share the plot of land they are on.

As I proposed a few pages back, if LA has say a dozen different places to put a guild hall, then each of those slots would be “home” to dozens of different guilds. Assuming we’re able to customize the exteriors, even just to change the banner on it, this impact would have to be phased to the viewer, meaning that you would always see your own guild on that plot you own, but on any of the other plots you would be presented with a random guild each time you zone in. It could perhaps be truly random, or the chances of a stranger seeing your guild hall could perhaps be improved by having a “better” guild with higher GvG standing, or higher build status.

If there is any minor place for “upkeep,” it would be an optional manner a bit like guild promotion, in which you never have to spend it to keep your guild hall available to yourself, but if you want to show off and be the big guild in town, you can pay a “promotion cost” on a regular basis to knock your guild up in the display queue, and make it far more likely to pop for other players, so “Mr Fancy Pants Guild” would have their hall always visible to all players that passed by (that didn’t also have their own guild on that plot), but it would come at the cost of outspending all the other guilds competing for that space.

It seems like a perfect “vanity cost” for the high muckity-mucks, but without negatively impacting the average player at all.

On upkeeps;

I personally would really prefer it if the guild hall was, functionally, a graphical representation of the guild’s upgrades.
As the guild does not need to spend any resources on upkeep at the moment, they should not need to do so for guild halls. You can spend influence and merits on consumables like MF boosts and whatnot, but that should be the only kind of ‘upkeep’ that the guild hall has.

Nitross.6987:

I understand your reluctance on Upkeep cost and I would like to point out that I do not want them on the Hall itself or on the features like decorations or trophies or most structures.

However, I am proposing upkeep as a compromise to counter the problem of making the Halls too convenient and reducing the amount of players in public areas. For instance, Guilds can already buy portable Guild Crafting stations that they could repeatedly buy and deploy in their hall if its not an available feature; if you have that upgrade unlocked, you could use your hall to have one all the time by paying the cost of the stations as an upkeep.

In the event that the Guild Hall would be part of combat gameplay as I described above, another way to make it something you have to work on would be to have the combat features (defensive siege, guard barracks, walls, etc.) something you have to spend resources to rebuild. It would be a sort of “optional upkeep” since those would be at risk only if you use the hall for WvW for instance.

Also, if a feature like the PvE claiming I described is added, it could be made to be synced across Megaserver instances if it came with a recurring Influence cost to balance it and give a shot for another guild to claim it; I was thinking kinda like Guilds could have influence over cities in GW1 Factions…

That is what I meant when I said it needs to offer both permanent content (the hall itself) and have some “upkeep” costs (specific convenience features or combat upgrades).

I didn’t have any particular post in mind when I commented on the upkeep costs. I had refreshed the thread and noticed it was being discussed and thought I would share my opinion on the matter while it was still relevant rather than coming at it later when the thread had potentially moved on. My experience with Guild Wars 2 (being able to come and go as I please without worrying about a subscription fee, keeping up with the Jonses, etc.) is incompatible with my experiences with player housing in other games (most notably Vanguard).

That said, I do believe upkeep costs for guild amenities is reasonable. After all, there is an influence cost associated with maintaining guild buffs that’s essentially upkeep. Your particular usage of it is actually very good because it forces guilds to make decisions about what is important enough to keep running at all times, or saving up to afford something for a special event (such as Combat-oriented features during a WvW tournament).

The important part is that no permanent progress is lost due to an upkeep system. Things can be temporarily unavailable, but in my opinion it is essential that a player be able to log in weeks, months or years later and find that their guild hall hasn’t been erased.

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

A gvg would be so much better in Guildhalls then in Obsidian Sanctum.
In Obsidian Sanctum, You have allot of bullsh#t going on. There is always soms pugg who just interferes in the fight. Or some troll necro that cast stuff on the enemy before fighting. People that block the fight, by standing in the middle. We have people that are standing at the enemy group, so they will stay in combat. The idea was good I agree, to put an gvg area @ obsidian sanctum. But tbh it can be a pain in the kitten with all these trolls. People that are gvg’ing allot in obsidian knows what Im talking about. If gvg comes to guildhalls I hope that we can still use our foods. Cause every Guild battles eachother with foodbuffs. (sorry for my crappy English, still learning)
(ps: The capes are realy close now omg^^)

Iason Evan.3806:

Torsailr.8456:

Iason Evan.3806:

I do and posted them in this CDI. It had to do with the barebones purchase of a guild hall being relatively trivial. What the difference was is this:

“Being a big guild with access to more resources because of size and numbers shouldn’t be a better way to acquire guild upgrades. I’d suggest a scaling upgrades system. For example, let’s say hypothetically that we will be able to add a Merchant to the guild hall. For guilds of 0-25 people this would cost 10 gold(just an example) and let’s say that two months later that guild recruits more people and now they are in the 25-100 person guild size range. In order to keep the merchant they then have to pay 20 more gold. 100-500 could cost 100g. This way it is a trivial sum for large guilds to pay to have a merchant and a trivial sum for small guilds. It’s just an example but I think something like this would work.”

Sorry, individual posts started bluring together 4 pages ago.

I’m not sure about sliding prices like that. It almost penalizes guilds just for being larger and forcing players to pay more or lose a feature feels like a tax for successfully growing the guild. Also, if we’re talking about using gold for buying guild things, how would this differ from buying influence to purchase guild features?

It doesn’t have to be gold. That’s not the point though. The point is the sliding scale and it totally differs from buying Influence with gold because with a set price on Infuence costs a large guild has a WAY easier time buying influence just by sheer numbers alone. Also, if a small guild grows they have to keep paying for upgrades as they grow. I don’t see a downside. Costs remain nominal for any guild size and shouldn’t inclusion and fair prices be a top priority for small and large guilds alike?

I would rather we come up with a solution for small guilds before this stuff is implemented. Guild mission costs for small guilds were terrible when they came out. It never should have happened that way. Large guilds were able to complete their purchases of said missions way sooner than small guilds and that isn’t cool. Gating content behind the size of a guild is awful and only promotes repping a large guild. Most MMOs I have ever played have had static purchase prices for guild halls/housing/whatever and doing it that way would just be par for the course. Where is the innovation in that? Make it fair across the board before implementing a system that caters to large guilds and having to deal with a few weeks of valid complaints on the forums about how small guilds are getting crapped on.

But itself it also fair that bigger guilds can do more or faster. I 100% agree that smaller guilds should have the ability for guild-halls as well including all the basic stuff in it. I don’t agree they should also have to be on the same level.

In addition it would also create a less friendly community. If you are a bigger guild but don’t require hardcore players you might get in disadvantage here because your scale would be high while you income would be relative low.

And would you do the same with sort of taxes based on the site of a guild-hall you get a problem when guilds shrink.

What I would do is having just many activities guilds can do to be able to build on there castle and unlock new parts of blocks or whatever.. (use your imagination) however making sure that at least 50% all all those things you can unlock are also doable for smaller guilds. Some things (unlocks) might be undo-able for them but most things would not. It would however take them longer. Then no taxes and imho all size guilds should be fine.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

GOSU.9574:

I won’t go through all the details, I will let others who are more passionate on the subject do that. I would like to mention this though:

When designing guild halls, don’t just make a place guild members hang out. Make them GvG maps, as in GW1. Even if initially there is no GvG, at least think ahead for GvG when designing them.

We will have a CDI phase on GvG.

Chris

Nice! And add a dota style game mode, tower defense, and something survive as long as possible thing
And guild halls could be places in the fractal. Floating places where everything possible.

It’s hard to discuss guild halls when we don’t know if such a feature would be developed at the same time as player housing. The answer to that question could potentially change the entire conversation. If there were to be no player housing, then you can absolutely not make this a prestige, hard-to-get thing as there will be no other outlet for players to claim a part of Tyria as theirs (and thus become much more invested in the game than they are now). If there were to be player housing released around the same time, then there’s a lot more room to make this something a guild works toward as a group.

Either way, if it is not highly customizable, then it misses a huge opportunity to bind guilds to this game by giving them a little slice of Tyria to make THEIRS. Refer to Blizzard’s upcoming Garrison feature in Warlords of Draenor as a perfect example of completely missing the point of a housing feature.

Be careful of making it centered around GvG. Most of your casual, PvE focused player base will never make use of that. Don’t let that aspect overshadow everything else. Not that I’m saying GvG shouldn’t be a factor at all, but don’t be blinded by a very vocal minority here on the forums.

Every guild wants to be able to use a guildhall. Even the ones who are small, only a few members, and even the ones who spend most of their time role-playing instead of going out to do dungeons and WvW or PvP.

I’ve been on several MMOs in my lifetime, and few of them offered a guildhall or even the idea of one! The chance to have one is a thrilling thing and I am giddy that you are even considering it!

So I would like to add a few things that I would like to see, that I think people did right and wrong in other games.

1. Cost. In some games I’ve played, it was incredibly cost prohibitive for small guilds. The expense was crippling if you didn’t constantly farm or do dungeons or whatnot. As I have mostly been in to roleplay in my MMO time, I don’t have a lot of time to go out and get the cashmonies to keep up rent on a guildhall. I would love for it to be a one-time-purchase with perhaps the ability to expand as you go. And perhaps not too astronomical.

2. Racial guildhalls is an amazing idea, as I mostly play Sylvari in a Sylvari only guild.

3. Customization. That is not perhaps necessary, but I agree with others that it would be awesome to be able to see the fruits of our hard-earned labors inside our Hall. Small though they might be. Furniture and rooms and perhaps personal rooms instead of individual player housing would be a nifty addition.

4. I don’t think I can add to anything else anyone has said on location, other than putting in my vote. The Mists idea is cool. You could have your own Mistborne Island! The Airship idea is cool. Perhaps not so racially keyed, but still pretty neat. Racial Locations is cool, because then you can have racially themed guildhalls, and with Lion’s Arch making everything an Asura Gate Away, access to the guildhalls physically wouldn’t be onerous.

5. Instant teleportation to guildhall. Could work like teleportation to your “Home” instance. Heck…you could just tie in guildhalls to the “Home” instances and just allow the Guild to pick which instance they would like to be in?

6. I think I’ve run out of things to say….and I’m going to be late to work.

7. Vendor acces, guild bank access, and Black Lion Trading access would be super keen. You could have a “lobby” area of sorts that held that sort of thing. If you can’t see an in-game storyline reason for having some random schmo npcs providing that in guildhalls, make it a Golem or something?

8. No…seriously…going to be late. waves

Nitross.6987:

Guild halls can be so many things at once, it’s hard to stop at just a few. Here’s a few points I feel are important.

Guild halls are the “end game” for guilds and should be something that is both permanent and requires upkeep, so the players always have something to work for.
As things are, a lot of guilds only really come to life during guild missions. Building the Guild Hall is a goal that will rally a lot but, if all upgrades to the hall are permanent, activity will die out soon after it is maxed out. Because of this, a lot of the upgrades to the hall should have upkeep and/or their own build queue so we can pay influence to keep them up. I don’t like the idea of permanent crafting stations in the halls as it could empty the cities but, if you need to be out in the world making influence as a guild to keep them, it would instead send more players playing.

I have to disagree here. Yes it’s supposed to be endgame but upkeep to make it feel like work? I rather not. What I had in mind to keep guilds busy / make guild-halls end-game where 2 things. First of the the activities you can do with the guild-hall. The mini’s games in it, GvG if that would be implemented or if we get air-ships you could fight each other on those ships and maybe placing it in a WvW like map would also be possible.

The second thing is that Anet could and should keep adding new upgrades and with upgrades I mean building blocks basically. So there is reasons for guilds to keep working on there guild-hall, changing it making it look better and so on. Once you have the system in place adding new building blocks should be reasonable easy Anet and it would add a lot of value and end-game for the guilds.

But if they are happy and feel like doing some less on it they should not be force to grind for it or lose half there guild-hall. If you would do that it would feel like work. Also it might put shrinking guilds in a down spiral.

Devata.6589:

/snip

My answer to you on guild size and upgrades is two-fold. Firstly, Guild Halls will be instanced. In the actual game my guild is 180 people. Let’s say your guild is 20 people. You will never see my guild hall and I will never see yours so it doesn’t matter if you are able to get all of your upgrades in roughly the same amount of time as my guild even though we have significantly more people than you. I have always contended that the base guild hall should be relatively cheap to purchase.

The upgrades should have a cost to them but should scale to guild size. For example, in this game there is no leveling curve. It takes roughly the same amount of time to gain a level at level 30 as it does to go from level 65 to level 66. Why should it be faster for a large guild to get their instanced guild hall than for a smaller guild?

Maybe we should gate guilds by when they were created? My guild has been around for 250+ years in Tyria. Should I be able to build my guild hall way faster than someone who formed it just a few months after Zhaitan was killed? The answer is a resounding no. Just like leveling, guild size/age/aggregate PvP scores/whatever else you can think of shouldn’t be a factor in how quickly a guild gets their Hall.

As far as taxes etc. I don’t really care. I am more concerned with the building process. Do I think upkeep should be a static cost for 10 person guilds and 450+ person guilds? Heck no. Unless ArenaNet wants to flat out comment that they want all guilds to be Wal-Mart and Mom and Pop guilds can go the way of the dodo I don’t think it should work that way.

Retro.6831:

Devata.6589:

About the taxes. I don’t think anybody really said they wanted taxes but it was mentioned as one of the ways (among others) to prevent guild-halls (if in the open world) to become ghost-houses when the guild would go inactive.

Donari.5237:

I continue to disagree with the need for upkeep. It essentially forces people to play (and in the above suggestion, to play repping a specific guild) or lose progress made while playing.

The 100% rep guilds are heavy handed enough now, imagine if keeping the GH depended on players repping.

+1 more vote for “No Upkeeps.”

Upkeep fees run completely counter to Guild Wars 2’s play style (horizontal progression) and subscription-free payment model. Players are able to pick up right where they left off months or even years later and not feel like they’ve been left behind. Having upkeep fees would essentially force players to play to maintain their guild hall, which is contrary to the rest of the game.

Of course, as Devata mentions, upkeep fees are designed for more open world housing systems, to prevent the large swaths of land required for that approach free of abandoned houses. If Guild Halls or instanced (or pseudo-instanced as in my proposal) there’s absolutely no need for them. I would argue that even if Prophet.6257’s idea of Guild “Zones” is implemented, having multiple, numbered copies of the zone would be more in line with Guild Wars 2’s design than an upkeep fee.

I’ve got a rough list of notes I’m making as I pick through this thread. I’m not 100% caught up yet, I’ll share it when I’m done. Awesome work in here so far though, guys.

But there is a simple solution for preventing abandoned guild-halls. You can lose 1 thing if guild-halls are in the open world and that is your plot. If nobody of your guild logs in for two weeks you will lose your plot in the open world (that includes air-maps if we would get airships). But in that case there is simply a copy of you guild-hall in the guild-menu and you can active that putting it back in the open world.

This would prevent ghost-towns, it prevents taxes or upkeeps and if a guild go’s inactive for a while and then comes back they can still pick up where they left.

Iason Evan.3806:

Devata.6589:

/snip

My answer to you on guild size and upgrades is two-fold. Firstly, Guild Halls will be instanced. In the actual game my guild is 180 people. Let’s say your guild is 20 people. You will never see my guild hall and I will never see yours so it doesn’t matter if you are able to get all of your upgrades in roughly the same amount of time as my guild even though we have significantly more people than you. I have always contended that the base guild hall should be relatively cheap to purchase.

The upgrades should have a cost to them but should scale to guild size. For example, in this game there is no leveling curve. It takes roughly the same amount of time to gain a level at level 30 as it does to go from level 65 to level 66. Why should it be faster for a large guild to get their instanced guild hall than for a smaller guild?

Maybe we should gate guilds by when they were created? My guild has been around for 250+ years in Tyria. Should I be able to build my guild hall way faster than someone who formed it just a few months after Zhaitan was killed? The answer is a resounding no. Just like leveling, guild size/age/aggregate PvP scores/whatever else you can think of shouldn’t be a factor in how quickly a guild gets their Hall.

As far as taxes etc. I don’t really care. I am more concerned with the building process. Do I think upkeep should be a static cost for 10 person guilds and 450+ person guilds? Heck no. Unless ArenaNet wants to flat out comment that they want all guilds to be Wal-Mart and Mom and Pop guilds can go the way of the dodo I don’t think it should work that way.

Well I would not want guilds to be instanced so thats where ye go in a differend direction from the start.

Secondly I would see the ability to unlock building blocks for your hall (after unlock some basic hall) and then it’s not a problem if a bigger guild can get some more building block or can can them some faster. In the end I would see stuff being added during the game so in a way your guild-hall is never done. But I do not feel all guilds should have to be on a equal play-ground.

To me, Guild Halls could take a lot from LotRO.
*They use ‘neighborhoods’. Plural, in fact.
*With preset buildings (player housing and guild halls) of varying small prices.
*They charge a fee weekly of a small amount (a few gold) so that players/guilds don’t keep it indefinitely if they no longer are active.
*They allow customization with trophies won from doing various activities
*They have a central location in each neighborhood with a vendor, a bank, a trading post, and a housing npc
*With multiple neighborhoods opening up as older ones get filled, there is always room, and allied guilds can work together to be in the same neighborhood.
*The neighborhoods are instanced, but identical.
*Differing names for each neighborhood, with street names and housing numbers give an address.
*An NPC at the entrance to the instance give you the option of going into each neighborhood by name.
*Players can go into the neighborhoods and look around, perhaps purchase.
*Each hall/house can be locked, or not, as the owner decides.
*If not locked, players can go in and look around, to see what is there, but cannot access items
*Each hall/house should have access to it’s personal guild bank INSIDE the hall.

@Chris,

Several points are coming into debate and to allow moving forward with the idea/brainstorming process it may be an idea to put them to a vote or have you direct the conversation down one path.

These points are:
Instanced VS Open World VS Semi-Instanced.
Any form of tax/Upkeep VS no tax/upkeep.
Neighborhood/village (<1 guild) VS Single Hall (1 guild).
Gvg incorporated into guildhalls (ala gw1) VS completely separate gvg.
Should Larger Guilds have easier access VS Scaled access based on membership

Maintenance/Upkeep/Tax vs. Progression

Question: Should Guild Halls require a constant influx of funds to validate its continued existence?
There are 3 point of time constrained fund collection when it comes to guild halls

1. Prior to construction
2. During construction
3. After construction

Prior to construction: This has the benefit of showing commitment to the construction project and would act as an initial Funds Sink. By varying the needed start-up capital depending on the size of the guild hall required, it would be fair for guilds of all sizes. You can also avoid Exploiters by tying a Hall size requirement to Roster size. If a roster gets too big for your hall you would have to construct a bigger one before you can add new members. Of course, if your guild doesn’t have, or want a hall, there is no limit on roster size.

During construction: This is the standard system of using funds if and when you want to add new features to your hall. Depending on how elaborate ANet chooses to make the Guild Hall system, will have direct correlation on how effective a fund sink this method will be. It also follows ANet’s current a la carte principal that you only have to fund the features that you desire and ignore the rest. (Be careful with the vertical progression trap on this one).

After construction: Now this is where the Maintenance/Upkeep/Tax vs. Progression subject comes up. The M/U/T for a Hall would be paying a continued Tax for a guild to continue to keep its hall. The problem with this method is rooted in ANet’s declaration that it is perfectly fine with them for a person to put the game down for a while, come back later and continue playing.
For Example: If the members of a 5 person guild would all decide for multiple different personal reasons, to take a sabbatical, and they come back 3 months later only to find their hall has been razed to the ground due to non-payment of back taxes, the proverbial excrement will impact the oscillating device with an extremely violent force.
Progression vs. Tax: In this model, there is no need for a Tax as the after construction progression would never actually end, because a Guild Hall can never be truly completed.
Horizontal progression or even a finely controlled vertical progression thru non-essential convenience or cosmetic improvements (i.e. guild titles and rankings or an Exquisite Ambrite Jewel door knocker) would yield a never ending potential fund sink for the life of the guild.

Remember: Tell someone they Must pay a TAX to keep something they already have, and they will scream bloody murder. Tell them they May pay a slight fee to make that same thing just a little bit shinier… Thunderous screaming averted.

Devata.6589:

Well I would not want guilds to be instanced so thats where ye go in a differend direction from the start.

Secondly I would see the ability to unlock building blocks for your hall (after unlock some basic hall) and then it’s not a problem if a bigger guild can get some more building block or can can them some faster. In the end I would see stuff being added during the game so in a way your guild-hall is never done. But I do not feel all guilds should have to be on a equal play-ground.

I hear ya. I want open world guild halls and housing too, but it just isn’t feasible in a game like GW2. LOTRO was an open world game that totally could have supported open world housing and guild halls and they used instanced neighborhoods where the kinship(guild)halls were and the player housing too. I could see this type of thing working so that it still had a degree of community. A neighborhood of guild halls would be really cool. The only way I could see open world guild halls is if they did away with the water areas and added a ton of land mass to each map and I just don’t see that happening.

If you don’t feel all guilds should be on equal playing ground then let’s do it by the age of guild then? How about since for guild missions, large guilds had a huge advantage over small guilds so for guild halls, small guilds should have an advantage? See how when it’s framed that way it makes no sense? Why are you treating an area of the game that promotes community as a reward but you see the clear advantage that large guilds have over small guilds?

Iason Evan.3806:

Devata.6589:

Well I would not want guilds to be instanced so thats where ye go in a differend direction from the start.

Secondly I would see the ability to unlock building blocks for your hall (after unlock some basic hall) and then it’s not a problem if a bigger guild can get some more building block or can can them some faster. In the end I would see stuff being added during the game so in a way your guild-hall is never done. But I do not feel all guilds should have to be on a equal play-ground.

I hear ya. I want open world guild halls and housing too, but it just isn’t feasible in a game like GW2. LOTRO was an open world game that totally could have supported open world housing and guild halls and they used instanced neighborhoods where the kinship(guild)halls were and the player housing too. I could see this type of thing working so that it still had a degree of community. A neighborhood of guild halls would be really cool. The only way I could see open world guild halls is if they did away with the water areas and added a ton of land mass to each map and I just don’t see that happening.

If you don’t feel all guilds should be on equal playing ground then let’s do it by the age of guild then? How about since for guild missions, large guilds had a huge advantage over small guilds so for guild halls, small guilds should have an advantage? See how when it’s framed that way it makes no sense? Why are you treating an area of the game that promotes community as a reward but you see the clear advantage that large guilds have over small guilds?

There have been multiple suggestions and solutions posted here to how make open world guild-halls work in GW2 so it should be possible.

Imho it would simply make sense that a larger guild who has more people and so who can do more together is able to create a bigger guild-hall. Besides when scaling things what you really say is, a bigger guild has to work harder to get the same, what seem unfair. In a way a guild-hall should also be a representation of your guild.

Devata.6589:

Iason Evan.3806:

Devata.6589:

Well I would not want guilds to be instanced so thats where ye go in a differend direction from the start.

Secondly I would see the ability to unlock building blocks for your hall (after unlock some basic hall) and then it’s not a problem if a bigger guild can get some more building block or can can them some faster. In the end I would see stuff being added during the game so in a way your guild-hall is never done. But I do not feel all guilds should have to be on a equal play-ground.

I hear ya. I want open world guild halls and housing too, but it just isn’t feasible in a game like GW2. LOTRO was an open world game that totally could have supported open world housing and guild halls and they used instanced neighborhoods where the kinship(guild)halls were and the player housing too. I could see this type of thing working so that it still had a degree of community. A neighborhood of guild halls would be really cool. The only way I could see open world guild halls is if they did away with the water areas and added a ton of land mass to each map and I just don’t see that happening.

If you don’t feel all guilds should be on equal playing ground then let’s do it by the age of guild then? How about since for guild missions, large guilds had a huge advantage over small guilds so for guild halls, small guilds should have an advantage? See how when it’s framed that way it makes no sense? Why are you treating an area of the game that promotes community as a reward but you see the clear advantage that large guilds have over small guilds?

There have been multiple suggestions and solutions posted here to how make open world guild-halls work in GW2 so it should be possible.

Imho it would simply make sense that a larger guild who has more people and so who can do more together is able to create a bigger guild-hall. Besides when scaling things what you really say is, a bigger guild has to work harder to get the same, what seem unfair. In a way a guild-hall should also be a representation of your guild.

I am not saying a bigger guild should have to work harder or vice versa. I am saying it should take roughly the same amount of time for a large guild to get upgrades as a small guild. That’s it.

Iason Evan.3806:

Devata.6589:

Well I would not want guilds to be instanced so thats where ye go in a differend direction from the start.

Secondly I would see the ability to unlock building blocks for your hall (after unlock some basic hall) and then it’s not a problem if a bigger guild can get some more building block or can can them some faster. In the end I would see stuff being added during the game so in a way your guild-hall is never done. But I do not feel all guilds should have to be on a equal play-ground.

I hear ya. I want open world guild halls and housing too, but it just isn’t feasible in a game like GW2. LOTRO was an open world game that totally could have supported open world housing and guild halls and they used instanced neighborhoods where the kinship(guild)halls were and the player housing too. I could see this type of thing working so that it still had a degree of community. A neighborhood of guild halls would be really cool. The only way I could see open world guild halls is if they did away with the water areas and added a ton of land mass to each map and I just don’t see that happening.

If you don’t feel all guilds should be on equal playing ground then let’s do it by the age of guild then? How about since for guild missions, large guilds had a huge advantage over small guilds so for guild halls, small guilds should have an advantage? See how when it’s framed that way it makes no sense? Why are you treating an area of the game that promotes community as a reward but you see the clear advantage that large guilds have over small guilds?

I’m thinking open world guild halls may be not feasible due to the sheer number of guilds in this game. There’s close to 30k WvW guilds alone, and that’s just guilds that have claimed an objective.

Another thing to consider is how many players could enter a guild hall at any given time, some guilds are huge, hitting the max of 500 players.

If Chris could weigh in with some of the technical limitations on this that would be awesome

Suggested Idea

Reuse the way guild halls worked in GW1 (semi-instanced, only visitable by guild and invitees, various upgrades). The upgrade system could work similarly with this exception: have a material gathering phase before building/upgrading things. This way one person would not have to foot then bill for said upgrade or wouldnt have to gather from other guild members. Also, account bound materials (a few ascended materials come to mind) could be used as well. Badges of Honor could be used for some things as well if desired.

Example: say you wanted to build an empyreal statue. the cost is(this is completely for this example only) 50 gold, 1500 empyreal fragments, and 10 empyreal stars. The first person ques the build and contributes 15 gold. So now it waits until recieving the other 35 gold and the empyreal mats before it starts building. There could be an upgrade material collector/tab on the upgrade person that could be selected to show what has been ordered by other people and what materials it needs. So continuing from the example above, say the next person visits the tab/material collector and gives 5 stacks of empyreal fragments. That would bring the total to 35 gold, 250 empyreal fragments and 10 stars. Then person 3 comes over with the remaining materials. Then the upgrade would start building.

The initial hall should have the upgrade starter as well as the material collector (if used). There should also be a guild bank-unless that has not been researched beforehand (it makes no sense at all for this not to be there from start if it has been researched).

Possible upgrades to Guild Hall:
Banker/bank box
Merchant
Black Lion Trader
Crafting Stations
Laurel Merchant
WvW Siege Merchant
Guild Armorer/Weaponsmith/etc
Mystic Forge/Attendant (maybe)
Material Nodes (idea below)
GvG NPCs (i’ll flesh that out in the GvG discussion topic whenever i see it)
Various structure upgrades (size, doors, walls ETC)

Material Node idea: There could be one for several basic and fine materials. These upgrades would cost coins and the material itself. Example: Jute clothpile- cost: 100 gold, 5000 Jute Scraps. This would be a longterm investment, but could still be feasible. It would initially drive the cost of many materials up, but should lower it in the long run. There could also be the usual ores/trees/plants there via the same process.

I’m not sure what issues could come of this idea (aside from the initial spike in material prices) but i think it could work since it was feasible in GW1.

Gobble D Goop.4081:

Suggested Idea

Reuse the way guild halls worked in GW1 (semi-instanced, only visitable by guild and invitees, various upgrades). The upgrade system could work similarly with this exception: have a material gathering phase before building/upgrading things. This way one person would not have to foot then bill for said upgrade or wouldnt have to gather from other guild members. Also, account bound materials (a few ascended materials come to mind) could be used as well. Badges of Honor could be used for some things as well if desired.

Example: say you wanted to build an empyreal statue. the cost is(this is completely for this example only) 50 gold, 1500 empyreal fragments, and 10 empyreal stars. The first person ques the build and contributes 15 gold. So now it waits until recieving the other 35 gold and the empyreal mats before it starts building. There could be an upgrade material collector/tab on the upgrade person that could be selected to show what has been ordered by other people and what materials it needs. So continuing from the example above, say the next person visits the tab/material collector and gives 5 stacks of empyreal fragments. That would bring the total to 35 gold, 250 empyreal fragments and 10 stars. Then person 3 comes over with the remaining materials. Then the upgrade would start building.

The initial hall should have the upgrade starter as well as the material collector (if used). There should also be a guild bank-unless that has not been researched beforehand (it makes no sense at all for this not to be there from start if it has been researched).

Possible upgrades to Guild Hall:
Banker/bank box
Merchant
Black Lion Trader
Crafting Stations
Laurel Merchant
WvW Siege Merchant
Guild Armorer/Weaponsmith/etc
Mystic Forge/Attendant (maybe)
Material Nodes (idea below)
GvG NPCs (i’ll flesh that out in the GvG discussion topic whenever i see it)
Various structure upgrades (size, doors, walls ETC)

Material Node idea: There could be one for several basic and fine materials. These upgrades would cost coins and the material itself. Example: Jute clothpile- cost: 100 gold, 5000 Jute Scraps. This would be a longterm investment, but could still be feasible. It would initially drive the cost of many materials up, but should lower it in the long run. There could also be the usual ores/trees/plants there via the same process.

I’m not sure what issues could come of this idea (aside from the initial spike in material prices) but i think it could work since it was feasible in GW1.

Interesting Idea I like it, I would suggest replacing any gold costs with influence (not ideal as its gold convertible) which would allow guilds to mitigate the cost.

or ideally some other guild locked currency like merits otherwise it just becomes about how much gold you have (and in some cases a 1 man guild with a tp player or whale would look better than a 50 man guild).

I can’t be bothered to read all 8 pages of this before i go to work So i’ll throw out something and hope it hasn’t been previously stated in its entirety and also that it wont just be lost in the flood..

Guild Halls: Where to place them.

Lovely as it would be to have them in cities or out in the Open world, It doesn’t seem feasible to me, it requires a lot of rework on existing maps to create new structures that will most likely have to worked around until the game servers close their doors. Just not cost effective enough for the Devs I wouldn’t think.

Gw1 had their Guild Halls out on the Battle Isles which we lack in Gw2

What we don’t lack is access to the Mists, specifically Fractals in the mists. The mists is an open ended thing with presumably limitless space and theres already asura gates that lead to it. It’s less effort to add in a static Guild hall map that holds 0 interaction with other maps in the long run vs changing a part of Lions arch which will need to interact with every festival or LS related update that takes place in or partly in LA as well as any NPC’s movement tracks + players movement paths etc….

Guild Halls and the Open World:

While I cannot really hold an opinion on what and how halls should look and sit and shine, I do have a suggestion to their further Purpose for the Rest of Gw2, beyond being a thing your guild sits inside of.

If anyone recalls the old Rep system to control Towns in Cantha (Gw1) Should something similar make its way to Gw2?

I’m not suggesting control over towns per say, or even outposts, but rather Maps themselves.

Competitive Map control for guild halls. Controlling guilds could apply bonuses to said maps for X amounts of time such as Higher rare item drop rates, or Map now drops a special mini that can only be found in that map when this bonus is active…

For a better example the Dry Top Sand Storm “meta” event could be applied to someplace like Southsun Cove where in the Lion Guard march across the map (basic replay from the Original Release of Southsun) Every lets say.. 3 hours for 1 day. During this time special events take place and special past items (southsun treasure chests and minis) will drop (uncommonly at best). When the event is over your account receives a reward for the Week or day (much like current Guild Challanges) even if you are not in the guild which owns the map. You can redo the event again for the rare drops but will receive no large reward for the rest of the day/week.

idk.. But give guilds some form of interaction with the Mass player base is what I’d ask for the most here. Guild halls are lovely but they’ll still feel pretty empty at the end of the month when Flags on Keeps in WvW is the only mark your guild can make on the world.

Inherent Problems with tieing guilds to map rewards:

People, people are always their own worst problems. troll guilds could potentially overtake unwanted or low ranking maps and refuse to apply bonuses unless they are paid off.

Dieing guilds if the system takes too long to cycle out dead or dieing guilds then its easy to end up with dead maps and disheartened players.

Crappy bonus/reward systems. If the rewards aren’t compelling (and i don’t just mean tied behind horrendous RNG walls so its super rare and expensive because its rare) Then players wont be inclined to go to some or Any map they aren’t already on/farming. If the players aren’t inclined to visit then why should the guild in charge be inclined to care about the area. Lack Luster reward systems with only a few maps being prized would cause a lot of grief for the community and guilds all attempting to gain control over those few maps.

In short

Guild halls go in the Mists.

Maybe try to tie guild halls and some competitive scene to Control of Open world map bonuses.

Don’t screw up said map bonuses by making them too good or pointless or a combination of the two.

Iason Evan.3806:

Devata.6589:

Iason Evan.3806:

Devata.6589:

Well I would not want guilds to be instanced so thats where ye go in a differend direction from the start.

Secondly I would see the ability to unlock building blocks for your hall (after unlock some basic hall) and then it’s not a problem if a bigger guild can get some more building block or can can them some faster. In the end I would see stuff being added during the game so in a way your guild-hall is never done. But I do not feel all guilds should have to be on a equal play-ground.

I hear ya. I want open world guild halls and housing too, but it just isn’t feasible in a game like GW2. LOTRO was an open world game that totally could have supported open world housing and guild halls and they used instanced neighborhoods where the kinship(guild)halls were and the player housing too. I could see this type of thing working so that it still had a degree of community. A neighborhood of guild halls would be really cool. The only way I could see open world guild halls is if they did away with the water areas and added a ton of land mass to each map and I just don’t see that happening.

If you don’t feel all guilds should be on equal playing ground then let’s do it by the age of guild then? How about since for guild missions, large guilds had a huge advantage over small guilds so for guild halls, small guilds should have an advantage? See how when it’s framed that way it makes no sense? Why are you treating an area of the game that promotes community as a reward but you see the clear advantage that large guilds have over small guilds?

There have been multiple suggestions and solutions posted here to how make open world guild-halls work in GW2 so it should be possible.

Imho it would simply make sense that a larger guild who has more people and so who can do more together is able to create a bigger guild-hall. Besides when scaling things what you really say is, a bigger guild has to work harder to get the same, what seem unfair. In a way a guild-hall should also be a representation of your guild.

I am not saying a bigger guild should have to work harder or vice versa. I am saying it should take roughly the same amount of time for a large guild to get upgrades as a small guild. That’s it.

In practice that’s the same.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

Hi Tor,

This is beyond scope but thanks for asking. This said players should absolutely be able to customize their Guilds Hall.

Chris

And that is then considered a editor? Having a grid where you can place ‘blocks’ in (blocks being models to whatever degree or detail) maybe with some logic as to how these ‘blocks’ would fit together. In the game world, not in some special editor window. Is that also then considered an ‘editor’.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

Hi Tor,

This is beyond scope but thanks for asking. This said players should absolutely be able to customize their Guilds Hall.

Chris

And that is then considered a editor? Having a grid where you can place ‘blocks’ in (blocks being models to whatever degree or detail) maybe with some logic as to how these ‘blocks’ would fit together. Is that also then considered an ‘editor’.

No not in the way I am thinking of it.

Chris

Ok that is great to hear. Thnx.

Thought of this idea last night while watching Fairy Tail.

Guild Jobs

Proposal Overview: ?A board where members can go to, inside the guildhall, and accept jobs for rewards.

Goal of Proposal?: A new, fresh, way to tell short stories and lore that’s hidden throughout Tyria, as well as brings guild members closer together.

Proposal Functionality: ?Guild jobs would be unlocked via the Guild Upgrade system. There would be several tiers, lower ones will only cost influence and offer smaller reward (this could be items, commendations, money, karma, and influence) as these aren’t as hard to do. For example ‘Defeat X monster’ or ’ Help Y person’ or ‘Find Z item’. Higher tiers would cost influence + Merits and the job would have a better rewards, but these would be harder and may have a challenge to them, such as a timer or may be very time consuming (more steps involved). Before accepting it there would be a recommended party size 1-5, and accepted jobs would appear in the sidebar, like events or personal story. I suggest putting a cap on how many you could do in a day, but if you want to do more your guild would still get influence. A new set of achievements and titles could be added, such as ‘do X amount of jobs’ (could become part of daily and monthly) or ones for completing a certain job.

Associated Risks?: None

P.S. If Jobs hands out 1 commendation (higher tiers may offer more) the vendor prices could go up and possibly add new items.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

Hi Tor,

This is beyond scope but thanks for asking. This said players should absolutely be able to customize their Guilds Hall.

Chris

That’s a shame. It would have made a nice way for Anet to get assets out of the community.

On a similar note, do we know the amount of detail that is going to be customizable for Guild Halls? Stuff like prop positioning and texture packs. I think it could help narrow discussion and spark a few ideas.

Note: Some of this will be based upon my earlier suggestion: here.

In order to achieve the basic goals of Guild Halls, while not giving the devs nightmares, here’s how I see the overall system working.

In each of the three tiers (personal, small guild, large guild), there will be six styles (racial, plus one more for LA) of buildings, with three levels of each. A guild starts off by buying the smallest size of small guild hall in whatever city they want, with the style set by the city. Personal housing starts the same way.

The new hall is fairly small, with just a few rooms. Each room has a list of possible functions, and what function it’s set to decides what you can place in the room. Some items are unlocked automatically, but others have to be earned.

Example: One room is set to function as a meeting room. This allows the placement of a small or medium meeting table, and a few small trophies along the walls. Only small meeting tables (in various styles) are unlocked by default. Medium meeting tables and any trophies must be unlocked.

The guild may, if they wish, spend influence to go up one step to the next larger guild hall. This will give them a bigger building or more side buildings, likely on a bigger plot of land. This means more rooms, and some of the rooms get bigger, so more or larger things can be fit into them.

Eventually, the guild can reach the maximum size in the small guild range. Upgrading beyond that will take guild merits as well as influence, and moves them into the Large Guild range of halls. This is where guild halls become a long term goal, with the largest of the halls being a major undertaking, not only for the hall, but for the biggest and best versions of some of the decorations as well. As with the halls themselves, decorations require you to work your way up from smallest to largest. (Some trophies may as well.)

Guild Halls should offer some convenience functions, but there should always be something that you’d still want to go to the city for. How much it can offer should depend in part on the size of the hall. You should be into the Large range before you can have all 8 crafting stations in one hall, for example. NPCs such as the master craftsmen and crafting vendors should remain in the cities.

Personal housing should start with a very small house (a norn tent, for example), with room to place just a couple of items such as a bed. Again, it can be upgraded to a larger size, with the third tier brushing up against the smallest size for guild halls. (Let’s face it, most guilds start off having meetings in someone’s house or a bar.) Trophies and items here will be small, but also easier for a single person to earn. This is also the only level where I’d have gem store purchases for decorative items, there’s too many potential problems if they’re used in guild halls.

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to clarify what I’m thinking of overall. I realize what we get (if anything) will likely not be what I’ve said, but some of the ideas may carry through.

I’m going with the idea of a place very similar to GW1 guild halls. That is you can access your guild hall from anywhere in the game. When you leave, you go back to wherever you were before unless it is WvW or somewhere else outside of PvE in which case you go to Lion’s Arch.

I like the idea of an airy, open sky, mists sort of environment.

Guild halls would have all kinds of optional upgrades which could be built with influence just like any other guild enhancement. That could be anything from architectural enhancements such as extra rooms, or features such as black lion trading post vendors, various merchants, etc. The sky is the limit as you could even put in karma vendors, means of accessing daily activities like sanctum sprint, etc.

Other ideas:

Mini-games inside the guild hall. Simple stuff like sudoku or maybe some 8-bit games.

Hall of Portraits. Clickable portraits (or statues) that show the character name, guild rank, and an equipment menu “photo” of one of the guild member’s favorite characters. The guild member can edit their photo at any time by taking a snapshot of their current appearance on the character of their choice Clicking would give you access to things that the player might wish their guildmates to know such as their account name, what classes they have at level 80, personal quotes, and real life info if they like. Sadly, real life photos should probably not be permitted as pictures inappropriate for younger players might get put up there.

By gathering together in a guild hall, if enough members show up (30?), it might open up a menu to create a guild-only instance of some kind, such as a version of a zone where a guild mission might occur. There would be a time limit on this instance equivalent to the maximum duration of the guild mission plus a few minutes of wiggle room.

Additional guild vault type storage might be available in a guild hall. For example, in my guild, the 50 slot vault which many members can use is kind of small for that purpose. The larger vaults are reserved for more expensive items and to protect items from potentially disgruntled guild members or griefers in the guild.

Portals to various locations, such as cities, fractals, WvW zones, etc.

Someone mentioned nodes. Various nodes, such as can be acquired for home instance would be nice.

Crafting stations.

Bank access.

Guild bank access – duh! (that one should be a no-brainer)

Various rooms/wings could be matched with these features. For example, if you wanted to purchase a leatherworking station for your guild hall, you might have to build a crafting wing first. Then, you would be free to build any or all of the various crafting stations. If you wanted a hall of portraits/statues, you might have to build a “guild museum”. Regular bank and guild bank access might require building a “Treasure Room” (dungeon style room accessible by stairs from the main room). A “guild bazaar” might be needed for TP access, as well as standard merchants, certain karma merchants, etc.

If done right, this could be a huge sink for guild influence, gold, etc. and put in a whole new line of progression/advancement to keep players in the game. An option to use gems for some of these things could also provide cash flow for ANet, BUT other methods that don’t require real life cash should remain VERY viable. Connecting this to gems without a very reasonable alternative in terms of influence and/or gold would be a huge public relations disaster for the game.

Proposal Overview
Guild Halls: A place for guild members to gather and socialize.

Goal of Proposal
As someone who has been playing Guild Wars since the first game, I have found that guilds often times like to just gather amongst themselves away from other players. They may want this so they can create events with no interruption, so they can prepare for events such as guild missions, or just to have a place where they can stand around without worry and chat with other guild members, or just sit in silence enjoying the scenery.

Proposal Functionality
I believe that the new guild halls should function similar to the guild halls of Guild Wars 1 where they are located in a place outside of the regular maps. They should be different from one another, and acquiring them should cost the guild money. However I believe the similarities should end there.
Because of the way GW2 is set up I believe guild halls would be better off as as only social places/homes. They would be used to socialize and it will also serve as gathering place for activities. By allowing the party size in guild halls to be greater that 5, they can also be used as set off places/entrances to future actives such as gvg and large raids, where large guild parties would hypothetically talk to an npc or use a scroll to venture into the Underworld to take on Dhuum again. You know… hypothetically speaking.
Also because of the of GW2’s terrain versatility, guild halls can be just as versatile. If used for the the purposes mentioned above, they don’t have to be battle friendly, which means they can be anything. An underwater facility (with aquarium views), a large airship (with beautiful dawns and dusk), a hidden cave system (with pools of crystal sparkling water), anything!

Associated Risks
I believe the idea proposed would have very few risks. One of them being that city maps would become less populated. That however would only be a problem if services such as crafting and mystic forge were to be available in guild halls (which they shouldn’t be).
Another problem would be the implementation of gvg when the guild is not an arena. That would be fixed if we would take a cue from the pvp already available in the heart of the mists. A set of arenas would be available and the guild would be able to pick from them. The guild hall would work like the heart of the mists but for individual guilds.

I don’t want Guild Halls.

But if we must have them, I’d much rather they have some gameplay use, either for GVG or some other pvp idea, or in the open world (even if they are an instance with an entrance in the open world) where dynamic events, or a new type of guild mission takes place, or even if it is an area with a dungeon/minidungeon/whatever entrance in the cellar.

Proposal Overview
Dress-able “suits of armor” to line guild hall passages etc.

Goal of Proposal
This is actually taken from one of the things I want in player housing but I feel it could be suitable for here.
-To create dress able statues that can be placed about the guild hall.

Proposal Functionality
You start with a base mannequin which when selected opens up a three step window.
Step 1 Pose/race: Allows you to select the mannequins pose , such as cheer,salute, at ease etc and what race it uses, could have options such as skinny/fat , tall/short as sub-options.
Step 2 Dressing: A player with correct permissions can then dress the Mannequin using skins they have unlocked in their wardrobe, I see this as free of charge.
Step 3 Dying: The player can then select the dye channels from their unlocked pool for that Mannequin.

This is a quick and easy way to generate some decor options for a guildhall without requiring new art assets along with allowing people to show off skins that won’t normally be seen otherwise (I know I’ve 80 stave skins but only use bifrost).

Could also be modified to allow for a fashion contest type mini-game where guildies get to vote on outfits etc.

Associated Risks
-The clothes have to be remembered which would require some memory/space to do so.
-excessive placement of these could slow down loading, mitigated by placing limits on how many can be placed.
-Ugly choices made by people with no fashion sense (yes I’m joking).

Of guilds and costs

After thinking over some of the things said by others, would something like this work?

Base Guild Halls
Every guild gets a guild hall for free when it reaches a certain size (10 members?) I agree that small guilds should get guild halls, but how small? Does a 1 person “bank” guild need a guild hall? I don’t think so. How about a small friends only guild that has 10 members? Probably.

The base guild hall would only have 3 rooms and be kind of small and cheap looking. As the guild reaches each new tier the guild hall would get a little bigger and a little nicer and maybe get an extra room or two. It would go from small and cheap to spacious and high quality. This guild hall would be on the ground (In the mists/open world/wherever).

These rooms would offer nothing more than a place to sit. Maybe allow the leader to define one as an open room for guests, an officers room, and a member only room. But no buffs or benefits to being there other than the company to keep.

Upgrades
Allow guilds to upgrade the guild halls with influence. Upgrades have been talked about numerous times in this thread so there’s no point in rehashing most of it here. But I will add something else for upgrades. Guilds can upgrade their Hall from the basic 3 room hall to a different format.
*Upgrade to an airship
*Upgrade to a mountain fortress
*Upgrade to a mobile command center
*Upgrade to a castle

Maybe have a branching tree structure for multiple tiers of upgrades.
*Small Airship < Large Airship < Floating city (Zephyr Sanctum)
*Small Fort < Castle < Citadel
*Small Cave < Labyrinthine Cave < Mountain Fortress
No branches in that example, but you get the idea.

Guilds would also be able to upgrade the appearance similar to the way armor appearance improves. Maybe things start as worn and frayed and improves to more pristine and exotic appearances. Upgrade by room or the entire hall. This would be for interior and exterior appearances.

Upgrade Costs
Upgrades would have a sliding scale cost based on the average number of repping guild members for that week/month.

First determine a cost per person, say 50 influence for cheap stuff, 100 for medium tier stuff and 150 for expensive stuff. If I only have 10 people repping for the week then my cost would be 500 influence for cheap things, 1000 for medium and 1500 for expensive things. If I have 100 people repping for the week then I’d have to pay 5000/10000/15000.

Basing the cost on average numbers of repping players keeps costs consistent among all tiers and sizes of guilds without penalizing larger or smaller guilds or guilds that have 100% rep vs no rep reqs. Every player has a necessary contribution and you can’t just overwhelm it with shear numbers.

I think this follows the GW2 philosophy of being open to everyone and the prestige stays associated with upgrades. In guilds the prestige is in having all missions unlocked, not just one. Same with buffs; the prestige is in having 24/7 buffs, not just one. Etc. It lets small guilds participate along with large guilds and (hopefully) doesn’t unduly burden any one group.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

Hi Tor,

This is beyond scope but thanks for asking. This said players should absolutely be able to customize their Guilds Hall.

Chris

And that is then considered a editor? Having a grid where you can place ‘blocks’ in (blocks being models to whatever degree or detail) maybe with some logic as to how these ‘blocks’ would fit together. Is that also then considered an ‘editor’.

No not in the way I am thinking of it.

Chris

Ohh, tell us more! Please!

Really though, that you’re considering something gives me hope.

Proposal Overview

Guild Dungeons. An instance (variable, like fractals) within the guild base that can be completed by the guild as a whole (ie, the content actually requires a large number of people) for various unique rewards, such as guild benefits/unlocks/bonuses or individual rewards. Could be a weekly guild mission

Goal of Proposal
A guild instance gives guild members something to work together in that’s actually challenging (let’s face it, guild bounty/missions/etc require bare minimum effort). Should take 70-100k+ influence to perm unlock in the base via the guild menu

Proposal Functionality

Similar to instances, players can earn unique reward tokens by participating in a guild dungeon, with asociated rewards (to be determined by ANet, but something cool and unique like an exclusive skin set/mini/weapon/gear/etc that can’t be achieved anywhere else). as well as individual rewards, completing the guild instance earns the guild special currency within the guild interface, which can be used to purchase/rent special npc’s that provide various services to guild members

Associated Risks

Mass coordination required to complete a suitably challenging guild instance may be difficult for smaller guilds, perhaps make it scale based on guild membership number?

Insofar as guild halls as a whole, they should be both a social hub for guild members and a functional hub for those who wish to get things done. Guild halls should have customisable aspects, ranging from roleplay/functional buildings and npc’s to various locales and ambient life/resource nodes (unlockable)/etc.

I’m glad this aspect of the game is being discussed. GW without gvg and guild halls just doesn’t feel like guild wars to me. I was so shocked when I learned GW2 didn’t have either

Well, my own idea on how Guild Halls could be done goes something like this:

Guild halls are ‘Unstable Mist Fractals’ this is to justify their being millions of them without them being on the map. These Unstable Mist Fractals can be accessed from anywhere in Tyria (because they’re so unstable, you see) and take the form of large chunks of land or even as ships/large vehicles floating on infinite oceans as sort of self-contained pocket dimensions.

What makes them unstable then?

Guild Versus Guild battles where basically two world’s collide. Ships will dock at island bases, islands will appear not far off from one another, ships will suddenly meet. Etc. Etc. Or to simplify things an enormous rift in the air appears with the image of the other guild hall.

I would want Guild Halls to be low priced, either purchasable through gold, or only a low amount of guild prestige.

Halls could come in many styles, I was thinking one based on each race, then one for each order, and finally an Air Ship and a result Sea Ship.

If you need monetization resources, consider selling customizations in the gemstore, like changing colors, styles of furniture, that kind of things. Not only that but new guild hall themes could also be added to the cash shop overtime. The nostalgia dollar could net top income if you brought back old styles of guild halls.

For functionality, I would propose it to have as much functionality as Guild Halls of GW1, at least. Crafting stations, Trading Post, and Guild and regular bank access are a must, either unlocked or out of the box.

Oh, also the siegability of each hall.

That’s all off the top of my head.

Sarrs.4831:

Why not use gathered materials (wood/metal/leather/cloth) as components in guild hall construction?

Ooh, this has me imagining: What if we actually built the guild hall ourselves?

Guild leaders can “commission” units of the construction from an architecture interface. Then everyone can use their normal crafting professions to make all the beams, walls, doors, rugs, chandeliers, training dummies, etc., that are needed for construction.

When guildies have provided all the materials needed for major constructions, you can have a “barn-raising” style event where everyone shows up to the build site and whacks at it with a hammer for a couple minutes until everything poofs into place.

Erukk.1408:

vonbladewing.5973:

Proposal Overview:

The mist a new frontier: the major problem I have seen in guildhalls for this particular game is the lack of land to place this type of infrastructure, the realm of the Mist would make a perfect home for Guildhalls.

I think I said something similar to this months and months ago. Them putting the Guild Halls in the Mists would allow them to handwave any questions of how thousands of guilds could have mansions in the same area, and it would also allow the devs to get creative and come up with as many different themes as they want.

Guilds’ want a hall based on the Mursaat stronghold set in the Ring of Fire, or how about a watery underground temple dedicated to Abaddon? Those might be hard to explain if they were still in Tyria, but they are easily explained if they’re set in the Mists.

I was going to post a suggestion just like this, but now I’ll just add some to this:
– In the Mists the different islands could collide during a GvG
(As GvG inside main cities seems like a bad idea to me)
– In the Mists there could also be some form of PvE with (all kind of) spawned creatures

The Mists would allow for many things without contradicting lore.

Gulesave.5073:

Sarrs.4831:

Why not use gathered materials (wood/metal/leather/cloth) as components in guild hall construction?

Ooh, this has me imagining: What if we actually built the guild hall ourselves?

Guild leaders can “commission” units of the construction from an architecture interface. Then everyone can use their normal crafting professions to make all the beams, walls, doors, rugs, chandeliers, training dummies, etc., that are needed for construction.

When guildies have provided all the materials needed for major constructions, you can have a “barn-raising” style event where everyone shows up to the build site and whacks at it with a hammer for a couple minutes until everything poofs into place.

I really like the hands on sound of this. It would make it feel more like yours that way. I like using regular materials. There could be recipes for different buildings that could drop. This has a lot of potential for sure in all the different ways it could go.

Hi Chris

I just have a small question.
Is there a possibility that we will see guild capes if guild halls is going to get introduced ingame?