Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Serophous.9085:

Edgar Doiron.2804:

Serophous.9085:

As for guild alliance halls. They could work, and would be neat. The only issue would be, what happens if the alliance breaks apart? who gets the hall? Does it go away if the alliance fails and a new one has to be started all over? If anything, that could be a completely new and different CDI if (or after ) guild halls are implemented.

That sounds as complicated as a divorce :P

and chances are, it would be!

All the more reason to keep things separate imo. Fewer peeved people in the long run.

Note we have come up with two valid options that can also be part of the design.

1: Small Guilds aren’t Excluded.
2: Alliances can create a shared Guild Hall.

Chris

Can be another option. One new feature: Guild Sponsor

One Big guild can transfer influence or resources to a Small Guild in their alliance, to help them build their Guild Hall. The Small guild have help, and the Big Guild have Hero points.

With the new element of Hero Points, the Big Guild can build temporal turrets in the Guild Hall Defense minigame

This way, guilds of new players in gw2 have help from experienced guilds, and the game give them, the tools to make this possible.

I think Lanfear’s question is what happens if the guild you are repping swaps alliances and no longer is in the alliance that made the hall — how do you handle man-hour investment in an alliance hall if for reasons fair or foul you need to go separate ways?

Hate to be the one to point to other games as inspiration but:

A combination of

(Guild Wars 1) Guild Halls – http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_hall

and

(Warframe) Clan Dojo – http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Clan_Dojo

Would be absolutely amazing.

The strategic pvp aspects of Gw1 with customizability of the Dojos would be great, but probably near impossible, and I am unsure which of the 2 would be more beneficial. I would lean towards the PvP side since that instantly turns into viable End-Game content for players.

Perhaps a combination…Full customizable Guild Halls akin to the Clan Dojo, but with a combat arena built into the instance for Guild vs Guild action. the best of both worlds

JonPeters.5630:

munkiman.3068:

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Devata.6589:

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Devata.6589:

Did you read the thread and know what the air-ship suggestions where about?
Basically the idea whas you could build your own airships and for idea’s of what would be possible see the Wizard’s Tower http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower and the Zephyr Sanctum http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr_Sanctum

In short, yes, I have read the thread…and many ideas that have been listed are fine and actually quite cool…but in perspective…may take a long time in development to get them into the game. Which is why I suggest start small, get the GHs in, get some quick wins with the community, and keep a group(obviously not their only thing) working on new additions to go into GHs say every 2-3 months(some go in automatically, some may need a Guild to “work” toward adding them to their GH). Each small addition could build on the background supporting system development to work up to the big adds that many are suggesting here and get them into the game.

I would expect them keeping adding new stuff to it. But you first do the bulk of work and then start adding stuff, not the other way around.

OK…apparently this is now Devata’s Thread, and I do not fit in with his expectations of contribution.

Chris and Jon, this was a good thread with many good point-counter-point ideas and discussions, but since 1 person has now decided to deride any suggestions, not only mine, that are not in line with what they think should be done, I will no longer add input to this thread.

Good Luck, and I hope more constructive things like this can take place.

I’m waiting on Jon to come back with “a box” list so we can really brainstorm further on potentially good ideas. I’m also waiting on Chris for question 2

I think the idea of open world guild halls is sound, for another game, like Archage

My box is guild upgrades. I want us to brainstorm how we could revamp the upgrade system given the introduction of a feature such as guild halls.

Ahh yes, right. seems we are in 3 parallel discussions

Under guild missions. I’d like my guild to be able to kick off a themed event were we have to fight off a rather large theme based boss that’s trying to destroy our hall, once a week. So for a Shiverpeaks based themed hall, we would have a Jormag based battle.

To tie in with alliances (let’s assume 5 guilds is an alliance) each member of said alliance could have different themes kicked off and each guild could participate.

I’m still unsure how to handle population caps however, that’s kind of the box i was thinking about. But i could assume, a guild hall map could hold 200 players. So alliances could simply do these type of events in shifts. Obviously keeping in line with the once a week reward. It would also be a nice bonus if we could have an observer mode to watch other guilds during these events.

I think there are a couple good suggestions on restructuring the system already. We’ll see where those go.

Ok lets assume that in the world of the CDI Guild Halls have a lot of horizontal progression such as the ability to create buildings, upgrade them and customize the whole experience. What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

Unless the “Guild Hall patch” comes at the same time as (or after) the “Personal Housing” patch, I would say that the minimum guild size that should reasonably quickly be able to acquire a guild hall one be “one member.”

If Guild Halls become the upgrade system it is an opportunity to look at the upgrade distribution and make it more meaningful and more sensible.

The important thing to keep in mind is that guild-based upgrades need to be shared with all the other players. It would really harm the game if players in guilds were able to achieve semi-permanent tangible bonuses that players outside of large guilds would not get. Guild Banners are a good example of doing it right, only guilds can make them, but everyone benefits from them.

I think that the “Alliance Guild Hall” should be more of a title that
circulates between the guilds rather than something all guilds in the
Alliance build on together from scratch.

Week 1: The Guild Hall of Guild 1 is the Alliance Guild Hall
Week 2: The Guild Hall of Guild 2 is the Alliance Guild Hall
Week 3: The Guild Hall of Guild 3 is the Alliance Guild Hall

Week 4: The Guild Hall of Guild 1 is the Alliance Guild Hall
etc

Wolfey.3407:

Part 3/3:

Depending on what size you have your guild hall built too will determine what all you can have built inside.
<<snip for brevity>>
-End of post-

All really good ideas, i’d like to add, we really need to raise the cap on merits influence for all this stuff and maybe adjust some numbers.

I also like the sponsor idea a couple of posts past this post. It could really help the smaller guild get into the fray of higher cost items like you suggest. I know plenty of guild leaders that would enjoy that type of thing.

JonPeters.5630:

My box is guild upgrades. I want us to brainstorm how we could revamp the upgrade system given the introduction of a feature such as guild halls.

Back to Brainstorming

Allow/Modify some Upgrades to also work on Guild Hall Upgrades. Each Category would do something different. I wouldn’t change the cost, I would keep it Influence ONLY for these. Merits start to close out the smaller Guilds, as has been said many times before in the thread. Allowing Bigger Guilds to assist smaller guilds with say Merit Based Upgrades opens the door for really unnecessary politicking to become part of an Alliance to get your GH upgrade and then drop the Alliance. Not saying that would happen every time, but you know it would.
Ex.
Architechture – Guild Hall Construction Worker(cuts time on Guild Hall Upgrades)

Art of War – Guild Hall Combat Trainer(allows for 1 v1 Sparring within the GH and adds in Sparring Dummies in a “Training Area” that is included in the construction of the GH)

Simple Upgrades EX. Guild Armorer – Straight Influence Cost

For larger upgrades…Ex. A “Special Mini-Game Room”, require a certain Achievement(50 % of Active Guild Members Complete 7 Daily Activities(Survival, Keg Brawl, etc.) and 5,000 Influence) Set the quantifier as Last 30 days of Activity.

Now for a BIG add. Let’s say a Mystic Forge…that could be a Merit Cost in addition to Influence and/or an Achievement. Most Small Guilds, like mine(5-8 active members at any given time), wouldn’t care about going to LA to use the Mystic Forge, so that is an upgrade that wouldn’t be as important to us.

Just a couple thoughts…similar to ones expressed before. I think the most important thing is to keep it limited to NO Merits for the fun things, as small Guilds would have trouble earning the Merits.

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

JonPeters.5630:

My box is guild upgrades. I want us to brainstorm how we could revamp the upgrade system given the introduction of a feature such as guild halls.

Back to Brainstorming

Allow/Modify some Upgrades to also work on Guild Hall Upgrades. Each Category would do something different. I wouldn’t change the cost, I would keep it Influence ONLY for these. Merits start to close out the smaller Guilds, as has been said many times before in the thread.
Ex.
Architechture – Guild Hall Construction Worker(cuts time on Guild Hall Upgrades)

Art of War – Guild Hall Combat Trainer(allows for 1 v1 Sparring within the GH and adds in Sparring Dummies in a “Training Area” that is included in the construction of the GH)

Simple Upgrades EX. Guild Armorer – Straight Influence Cost

For larger upgrades…Ex. A “Special Mini-Game Room”, require a certain Achievement(50 % of Active Guild Members Complete 7 Daily Activities(Survival, Keg Brawl, etc.) and 5,000 Influence) Set the quantifier as Last 30 days of Activity.

Now for a BIG add. Let’s say a Mystic Forge…that could be a Merit Cost in addition to Influence and/pr an Achievement. Most Small Guilds, like mine, wouldn’t care about going to LA to use the Mystic Forge, so that is an upgrade that wouldn’t be as important to us.

Just a couple thoughts…similar to ones expressed before. I think the most important thing is to keep it limited to NO Merits for the fun things, as small Guilds would have trouble earning the Merits.

A thought on something like a mystic forge or other available vendors/services. I think all vendors and services be limited to guild related things as to not totally empty out cities. This especially if we have easy one click travel to guild halls via the roster. Basically everyone would just jump to a guild hall. We can save that sort of thing for guild crating stations and mystic conduits consumables.

munkiman.3068:

A thought on something like a mystic forge or other available vendors/services. I think all vendors and services be limited to guild related things as to not totally empty out cities. This especially if we have easy one click travel to guild halls via the roster. Basically everyone would just jump to a guild hall. We can save that sort of thing for guild crating stations and mystic conduits consumables.

I can get on-board with that thought, no Mystic Forge or crafting stations. But ya gotta have your Guild Armorer and Guild Weaponsmith in a cooly-forge area of your GH.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning All,

Due to recent events I must confess that I am only properly knowledgeable up to roughly page 12 but I want to jump in and start discussing things with you. I hope that is ok.

I want to emphasize that my questions, thoughts, and brain storming are theoretical and should not be taken as a given. With that said I want to start at the foundation.

Ok lets assume that in the world of the CDI Guild Halls have a lot of horizontal progression such as the ability to create buildings, upgrade them and customize the whole experience. What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

An idea I wanted to throw into the mix would be could small guilds have a shared Guild Hall with an Alliance?

Chris

Hi, yeah it’s a bit hard to summarize at this point, I’ve made some attempts though.

What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

I’ve answered this before, I think we kind of discussed this a bit on some of the pages.
I believe that the smallest guild size should be a 5-man group sized guild. To me, it’s the basic unit after the “single player”.

As I’ve stated before, I think guilds have a variety of sizes and purposes in the game, and the smallest “valid” guild imo is the one made by a group of friends that can complete content in the game (like dungeons).

Other thing I would like to add is, I think that the progression on Guild Halls should follow two “rules”.

1st Rule: The progression shouldn’t lead to the same outcome every time. What I mean is, there should be interesting choices along the way, choices determined by the nature of a guild, that are relevant, and lead to an outcome “designed” for that kind of guild. I don’t think big guilds have the same needs/objectives as small guilds, nor PvE based guilds have the same needs as WvW or PvP based guilds. Having this variety could be useful, and also, benefit the idea of joining many guilds.

2nd Rule: Guild Halls and its progression should follow certain rules of economics, for example, the “size” of the guild hall should follow certain conditions similar to the “production curve”. Quick example, if you have 20 workers on your factory, and you want to have 20+ workers to increase production, you need another factory, else, you start losing productivity. On simpler words, a small guild could use a “house” while a big guild could use a “castle”, but a big guild couldn’t use a “house”, while a small guild could use a “castle”. This doesn’t mean “punish big guilds for being big”, nor “benefit small guilds for being small”, on the contrary, the investment of bigger guilds should be bigger, because they want to have greater gains.

edit: About sizes of guilds related to guild halls, I would like to add some info about a series I’m a fan of, what to me is the epitome of MMOs. The .Hack// series.

In The World:R2 (the fictional world of a fictional MMOrpg), each guild inhabits a @home or Guild Hall, smaller guilds from the size of 5 to 15 members have bases with a couple of rooms, while bigger guilds from the size of 1000 to 2000 members have bases the size of a town.

JonPeters.5630:

My box is guild upgrades. I want us to brainstorm how we could revamp the upgrade system given the introduction of a feature such as guild halls.

1.) Something that comes to my mind would be a system where you have a specific number of free slots and you have to choose which things you’d put into them – just like the skill-system (3 utility slots but many choices to put into those). This would make guilds relatively unique vs. others.

The bigger the guild – the more variety is available for them via more slots. Small guilds may have only 2 slots (e.g. they specialize on dungeons and sPvP) but it’s not too hard for them to reach the higher tiers in these categories, since their chosen slot-options are designed for small groups.

2.) What if each player could choose 1-2 occupations in the guild hall? He would gain personal reputation and would unlock stuff only specialists on that area could get. This way the huge guild-group would be split into multiple sub-groups which work together for their sub-goals. (e.g. the dungeon-specialists would unlock dungeon portals for their guild, but only on higher level tiers in their sub-paths. Players who play a lot of GvG could unlock new GvG-maps for their guild. They also unlock personal prestige rewards (like costumes) but also stuff for everyone in the guild. etc.)

Not everyone can unlock everything, which would make smaller groups within the guild more meaningful. You would have to specialize, which would be important so that more people are involved in the upgrade-process instead of only a few hardcore players who unlock everything and make the others feel redundant.

(something like TF2’s classes – the more you play with one, the more you can customize your character and the more you can help your team in a variety of ways).

This could go even further: The dungeon team could also have multiple sub-categories, where players can and should specialize. Players who play very supporty (revive a lot, heal a lot) could unlock exotic gear with support-stats for everyone to purchase, while they unlock personal things as well (skins which show off the support-role).

The TLDR here would be: give every player something to specialize in so that this player would feel special in a guild while he unlocks stuff for himself (prestige-items) as well as for the whole group (useful items).

In response to https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/18#post4470072

I understand your frustration. I think the point in a CDI where the same things keep being said is the point where it’s time to narrow down the discussion. But in this case I’m still seeing new commentary, thanks in part to Jon and Chris’ injected questions, and some new approaches to solutions. To me, we’re not yet moving backwards or wearing circular ruts; those who post things that truly have been hashed out can just be left alone to catch up while the new phase of dialogue proceeds.

I left out a repeat of my assumed instance benefits because I’ve stated it several times in this thread and others, and figured you already knew my stance since you have been reading and passionately participating. Since you ask, though:

Infinite space to accommodate all the guilds. Permanence so when you come back after six months away everything is exactly where you left it. Deeper customization. Less load on everyone’s clients to render (ok, that one I didn’t say before). More aesthetic settings (I’m thinking like LotRO’s neighborhoods, scaled up and more customizable, with only guild members able to control space in the neighborhood). The ability to have something that is more than one building – calling it a “hall” doesn’t mean it has to literally be one. More ability to expand.

I’m very keen on airships, and they seem best suited to doing what you want. I just find myself shying away from airships being the only choice. When I saw videos of WoW’s intended housing I found myself glad I wasn’t there any more – just because some people like the idea of building up a fortress and “customizing” it by adding more barracks and higher walls, doesn’t mean everyone finds that to their taste. Some of us want cozier settings, or non-military ones. Just as some guilds would rather have a stately manse or a spiraling set of pods up a tree or a large tavern with a lot of floors.

I guess the focus in all that depends on the functions intended for a guild hall. Is it a home or is it an office meeting space? How much fluff should it have versus how much game play function? Is it for bragging rights or for privacy? Preferred answers to those questions lie behind almost every post in this thread. Hopefully the final design philosophy will incorporate the various approaches and let each guild tilt their hall to the factors that matter most to them.

JonPeters.5630:

DiogoSilva.7089:

• Architecture (the guild halls itself)
  Unlocks guild halls, determines their size/ scope, unlocks general merchants and functionalities (bank, etc) within the guild halls, in addition to the current effects;
• Guild Identity / Representation (marketing the guild or having a presence)
  Unlocks and/ or expands upon guild armors, emblems, advertising boards, flag buffs, etc;
• Competition
  WvW buffs, GvG privileges, access to and maintainment of a guild-bound custom arena (as an alternative to the current means), ability to set up tournaments, unlocking access to pvp training area (with dummies) in the guild hall, etc. Also includes unlocking the respective merchants.
• World Presence (player-driven or player-created events)
  Guild missions, guild-related hunts or dynamic events for privilege/ furniture/ whatever, ability to organized guild events in towns, ability to set up duels, etc. Maybe the flag buffs can be here. Maybe this category can be fused with Guild Identity;
• General PvE Experience/ Organization
  For dungeons, fractals, raids, open world events and buffs.

Good categories. I agree influence is not a good system and we should think about how we would change how you obtain upgrades once we have talked through the specifics of what kind of upgrades a new system has and how it incorporates the existing upgrades.

To make my suggested categories cleaner and easier to understand:

1. Architecture
2. World Presence
3. Adventuring
4. Competition

Architecture
The upgrades that most directly affect the guild structure and the guild hall directly.

• (Unlock) Guild Hall itself;
• (Expand) Guild Hall’s size and scope;
• (Unlock) Merchants and basic functionality (bank, guild bank, mystic forge, crafting stations, etc);
• (Expand) Basic functionality (upgrades to guild’s vault);

World Presence
Enhances the guild’s presence within the world, and its interaction with the playerbase.

• (Customise) Emblems;
• (Unlock and expand) Guild Armory;
• (Unlock) Advertising Board;
• (Expand) Advertising privileges;
• (Unlock) Guild missions;
• (Unlock) Rights to organize tournaments in pvp;
• (Unlock) Rights to trigger/ organize unique festive events at towns;
• (Unlock) Rights to set up tournaments for dueling in the open world (if duels are ever added);
• (Unlock) Flag buffs that any player outside of the guild can use.

Adventuring

• General PvE content here. Buffs, and anything related to dungeons, fractals, world events and, if they are to exist, raids.

Competition

• (Set up and maintain) A custom arena for the guild;
• (Unlock) Testing area with dummies;
• (Unlock) PvP and WvW merchants;
• (Unlock) WvW buffs;
• Perhaps organizing pvp tournaments should be in here instead;
• (Unlock/ Expand) GvG privileges;

Hope it’s better now.

I’m going to lay out how I would expect Guild Halls to be implemented were I the lead designer (with the knowledge that I have). I hope I’ll be able to hit on all the questions posed to us so far. Please let me know if there’s been something I’ve missed, I’ll try to add it in.

What is a Guild Hall

• A Guild Hall would be an themed instance roughly the size of a smaller racial city. (maybe like Skrittsburgh). The center of the Guild Hall (the King’s Room of Skrittsburgh) would be the “Hall”, where players could find any upgrades available to their Guild Hall (crafting stations, guild merchants, regular merchants, etc).
• The outer regions might have some monsters that could be unlocked and placed around the environment. Material Nodes could also be unlocked an placed around the area. These areas could also provide special Missions, such as "Defend the Guild Hall from an “x” invasion". Perhaps the outside areas could be unlocks themselves, which could provide a way to increase the usefulness of the Guild Hall. “Terrain sections” could be implemented with a Jumping Puzzle in one, or a Mini-dungeon in another.
• A Guild Hall should provide many, but not all of the comforts of a main city (for example, permanent crafting stations might not be available, in lieu of the portable Guild Crafting Stations. However, any guild related upgrades and NPCs should have a residence in a Guild Hall) . A new tab in the Guild [G] page would be created to deal with the Guild Hall specifically, and provide a way to transport players directly to and from the Hall.

How to Purchase and Upgrade a Guild Hall

• A Guild Hall would be purchased and upgraded through the Guild Upgrade system, with individual items being infused into the current upgrade tiers, rather than making a new category, or new tiers specifically for the Hall.
• A Guild Hall should be a Tier 1 or Tier 2 Guild Architecture purchase, easily obtainable by any guild, but gives the base skeleton of the Guild Hall. Other Upgrade Categories could provide themed upgrades based on the purpose of each Category. War might provide siege merchants and ways to create Guild Siege, while Economy might provide additional ways to buff material and currency gains, or provide different kinds of buffs. Politics could provide ways to increase influence and create Dynamic Events inside the Guild Hall and the Open World.
• The costs for each upgrade should be flat amounts arranged so that small guild will be able to purchase exactly what they may wish for, while larger guilds can spend lots of their stored influence and merits (should these stay the same/similar) upgrading their Guild Hall to completion. Some upgrades make perfect sense to be “horizontal” (like profession trainers, might cost 12.5k influence per, regardless of previously unlocked trainers), while some would make sense with a vertical progression (You must add a “terrain section” before you place monsters in that section).

What about some of this other stuff?
This section is for things I wouldn’t necessarily design for Guild Halls, but relate to Guilds and its members.

• GvG, as I would design it, would consist largely of its own maps, and its own play mode. While the maps could have a Guild Hall theme to them, I wouldn’t necessarily combine them into Guild Halls specifically. Special Guild Versions of Custom Arena Tokens, or a Guild Setting for Custom Arenas could easily alleviate the desire for Guild PvP.
• Personal Housing would be its own subject entirely. Were I to implement it, I’d put the housing in the personal instances of the Main cities. The Actual housing part, and how it relates to the game, might be similar to the acquisition and building of Guild Halls, but I wouldn’t combine the two in any way.
• Alliances. I know some people like the idea of Open World Halls, and Airships, so I would use Alliances in this regard. Alliances would have a special currency that they could purchase airships with. These airships could perhaps claim sections of land and provide bonuses to nearby players, or start large dynamic events, etc. Airships could be built and maintained similarly to Guild Halls, but at a multi-guild level. If the airships are tethered to certain map IPs, priority should be given to alliance members when entering that map.

This is a basic overview on how my ideal Guild Hall would be done. Again, if I missed anything, let me know and I’ll try to include it in some format.

Baltzenger.2467:

1st Rule: The progression shouldn’t lead to the same outcome every time. What I mean is, there should be interesting choices along the way, choices determined by the nature of a guild, that are relevant, and lead to an outcome “designed” for that kind of guild. I don’t think big guilds have the same needs/objectives as small guilds, nor PvE based guilds have the same needs as WvW or PvP based guilds. Having this variety could be useful, and also, benefit the idea of joining many guilds.

I like this idea and how it could be a separate system from room building. Think of making this a Guild Skill Tree with maybe 2 or 3 paths (PvE, PvP, Dungeons/raids(?)). Technically, its already in the game, just that some guilds have been around long enough to unlock everything by now.

This could still happen in the very long run of the new tree, but have it that unlocking points takes more and more (or greater resources?). Basically, the points to proceed down the tree should make the leader think about choosing what to build down. Heck, you could even unlock some room specific items to show off and announce what kind of guild you are.

I did realized while rereading this thread that I never actually considered open world guild halls to be completely non-instanced, that is to say that you can move from the outside to anywhere inside without loading screens. My perception was always that the outside would be visible to everyone on the map, and customisable by the guild but to go inside would be to entered an instance (and most likely like the tardis it would be bigger on the inside). I think it’s very possible to have an guild hall located in the open world, with areas that exist in the open world but which also have instanced parts for things such a guild rituals.

JonPeters.5630:

Actually it hasn’t been talked about at all. I’ve seen a lot of basic suggestions, but what I am suggesting is that we flesh something out here in this thread.
Jon

Sorry that my suggestions were all that awe-inspiring :P

JonPeters.5630:

Ok. I think as a good exercise, try and be more specific. If you give specific examples in each category it is a lot easier to extrapolate than if you try and generally describe the categories.

I think advantages can include things like free quick travel, access to crafting stations, guild / personal bank, mystic forge etc. More specific examples however are difficult because as I’ve noted so far a lot of users have been in suggestion mode and with the conversations occurring in a hypothetical anything goes space. It’s an interesting problem, in a world where anything is possible deciding what to do is impossible i.e. limitations and constraints inform our choice as they limit our possible actions allowing us to compare these actions and pick the best ones… Well if that all seems incoherent sorry, it’s kinda late around here.

timmyf.1490:

This is sort of difficult because I don’t know what functionality will be coming to Guild Halls, but I’ll try to give a few examples.

Yeah pretty much. We assume that guild halls will be more than a static instance, that it would have some measurable benefit beyond it’s own existence. But there have been so many suggestions… Perhaps the CDI should have been more rigid, perhaps the conversation should have been structured in a logical way in which basic concepts are discussed and agreed upon and used as a basis for further conversation.

timmyf.1490:

I would be shocked if ArenaNet would allow the beautiful landscapes they’ve created to be destroyed by open-world guild halls.

I’m not against open world guild halls as long as they are location fixed and limited. A situation in which any guild can place any guild hall in any map is as you’ve noted not a good choice.

JonPeters.5630:

This is a great break down, but I was speaking more about categorizing guild upgrades. Let me give an example to help get things started:

• WvW
• PvP
• Guild Missions
• Dungeons

A guild hall is… well I want to say tangible but it’s a video game we’re talking about… but lacking a better word… Well I guild hall is tangible, what you’re referring to (wvw, pvp etc.) are gameplay. A pvp upgrade influences game mechanics (more pvp experience or something) while a guild hall is functional and aesthetic. It’s possible to create a visual indication of a upgrade in the guild hall (pvp xp upgrade is represented by a banner or something) but inherently there is a clear separation between a guild hall and gameplay mechanics / types. That is to say not all gameplay upgrades necessarily relate to the concept of a guild hall.

JonPeters.5630:

What is a “reasonable” maximum # of members in the guild hall to you? 150? 200? 400?

Why is there a need for a cap at all? Is there any technical limitations?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

It is important to try to not think of me as a dev in the discussion.

That’s a tall order :P

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lets assume for brainstorming reasons we have 1 large map.

I like this approach, a everything goes conversation is so difficult. Giving us hypothetical constraints can only server to focus thoughts. After all it’s hard to solve problems (i.e. design) when the problem is obscure.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

That sounds as complicated as a divorce :P

How about each guild has their own guild hall and then in addition they have the shared guild hall. Guilds for the most parts function separately, they purchase their own upgrade, blue-prints etc which can then be shared in the alliance hall. For example one guild unlocks waypoints to all the capitals, and can then open this feature up in their own guild hall and in the alliance guild hall or for example one guild unlocks a gold plated statue of Rytlock and can then place it in both their own and alliance guild hall. What I’m saying is the marriage isn’t in ‘community of property’.

I don’t consider Guild Halls which exist within an instance except for a common entrance in the open world to be “open world guild halls,” but those would be acceptable to me so long as their locations are fixed with logical entrance points.

Floating airship guild halls which may be placed throughout the world are not acceptable to me. Floating airship guild halls docked at Fort Trinity or Claw Island would be okay.

(On that note, there really should be a Claw Island guild hall.)

timmyf.1490:

I don’t consider Guild Halls which exist within an instance except for a common entrance in the open world to be “open world guild halls,” but those would be acceptable to me so long as their locations are fixed with logical entrance points.

Floating airship guild halls which may be placed throughout the world are not acceptable to me. Floating airship guild halls docked at Fort Trinity or Claw Island would be okay.

(On that note, there really should be a Claw Island guild hall.)

The assumption here is that, if you do have a floating guild hall out in the world some where, there will be a way to instantly teleport to it. You wouldn’t have to physically go out and “find” it, it would be automatic with an item, or a UI button, or something.

JonPeters.5630:

Conski Deshan.2057:

JonPeters.5630:

Actually it hasn’t been talked about at all. I’ve seen a lot of basic suggestions, but what I am suggesting is that we flesh something out here in this thread. I’m choosing the upgrade system because someone actually started breaking it down. I think the first question(s) I have is:
Are the current upgrade categories the ones we would use or would we break it up differently? If not, how many categories would you think make sense? Specifically what would your categories be?

Jon

I find the current upgrade system quite stagnant and boring, you get your influence passively, click a button then wait a week.
(no offense intended to the creator of the system)
Maybe have the initial guild hall unlock under architecture say level 2/3 but past that an active system is needed.

On Categories for upgrades ,I’d see it breaking down something like this: (I may have what you meant by this wrong?)
Structures:
-Towers -halls -corridors -entry halls -Misc rooms
Defenses: (could be just graphical)
-Trebs -Cannons -Hot oil -Misc
Interior:
-Seating -Tables/cabinets -Rugs/banners/flags -Wallpapers/wall -statues/monuments -Misc
Exterior (wouldn’t actually limit it to placement outside as I’d like water features in the command room)
-Fountains -Trees -plants -training grounds -Livestock -Misc
NPCS
-Functional -Decorative -Alts
Glory or Rare category (this section would have limited placement (i.e once per guild hall or 10 per guild hall) basically the more prestige and high end stuff.
Limited Section for limited items i.e reward from once off events or competitions like a new Christmas tree each year.

This is a great break down, but I was speaking more about categorizing guild upgrades. Let me give an example to help get things started:

• WvW
• PvP
• Guild Missions
• Dungeons

This would tie the upgrades more to game mode than to the current arbitrary categories.

Categorize them?

I think the current categories are fine, but need to be better defined and less haphazard.

Architecture – Now relevant to guild hall upgrades, Guild Stash and such now being reflected in the building.

Art of War – WvW and PvP bonuses; though what PvP bonuses would exist is another question entirely (as well as should they exist…). Also perhaps GvG if that is added, Art of War controls how buffed your guild hall is to attack in a GvG environment – higher the level of AoW, higher the level of NPC defenders and the tougher it is to take apart walls/gates.

Economy – Banners for cost-reduction and convenience features move here, as well as generalized buffs which reduce costs. For the Hall, Economy upgrades can improve the wares of merchants stationed here, or summon their merchants to the field for anyone to use.

Politics – Guild representation such as emblems, special weapons and armor (which already exist), Influence gain boosters, that sort of thing. Could also institute a few other things to reflect how the guild is seen by the world – say, using Influence to reduce waypoint costs to (and within) a particular region.

Missions – Separate research tree for Guild Missions (as should have been done first…) where you start at the bottom with Training for each of the four types and have to earn through for each tier up. Like, “Tier 0: Training, Bounties” needs to be done so you can open Tier 1 Bounties. Add in the ability to spawn guild instances for world events such as Karka Queen, Tequatl, Evolved Wurm, Orr Temples) but not restricted to only guild members – they can invite people in to take part even without the guild tag.

JonPeters.5630:

I like this, but would want to make sure we don’t deny access to core features. Someone suggested guild hall upgrade trees as guild hall structures. I think you could make an argument for structure types. Ones that contain core features vs more unique specialized structures that guilds must choose some number of to build.

I can field this, give me a bit to type but I think I have an idea.

Could be a false alarm though.

With all this talk of how to build and manage the halls, and where to put them, and who can see them and go in them, I’m not seeing any mention of what you would want to do once you’re in there.

The desired functions of the hall and its constituent upgrades should be considered from as early a point as possible, to inform the design from the legs up.

Preferably, I think, it should be a place to do things we can’t do anywhere else. Otherwise why build it? Unless you really just want your guild hall to be nothing but an elaborate meeting hall with a few crafting tables…

JonPeters.5630:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

JonPeters.5630:

My box is guild upgrades. I want us to brainstorm how we could revamp the upgrade system given the introduction of a feature such as guild halls.

1.) Something that comes to my mind would be a system where you have a specific number of free slots and you have to choose which things you’d put into them – just like the skill-system (3 utility slots but many choices to put into those). This would make guilds relatively unique vs. others.

The bigger the guild – the more variety is available for them via more slots. Small guilds may have only 2 slots (e.g. they specialize on dungeons and sPvP) but it’s not too hard for them to reach the higher tiers in these categories, since their chosen slot-options are designed for small groups.

2.) What if each player could choose 1-2 occupations in the guild hall? He would gain personal reputation and would unlock stuff only specialists on that area could get. This way the huge guild-group would be split into multiple sub-groups which work together for their sub-goals. (e.g. the dungeon-specialists would unlock dungeon portals for their guild, but only on higher level tiers in their sub-paths. Players who play a lot of GvG could unlock new GvG-maps for their guild. They also unlock personal prestige rewards (like costumes) but also stuff for everyone in the guild. etc.)

Not everyone can unlock everything, which would make smaller groups within the guild more meaningful. You would have to specialize, which would be important so that more people are involved in the upgrade-process instead of only a few hardcore players who unlock everything and make the others feel redundant.

(something like TF2’s classes – the more you play with one, the more you can customize your character and the more you can help your team in a variety of ways).

This could go even further: The dungeon team could also have multiple sub-categories, where players can and should specialize. Players who play very supporty (revive a lot, heal a lot) could unlock exotic gear with support-stats for everyone to purchase, while they unlock personal things as well (skins which show off the support-role).

The TLDR here would be: give every player something to specialize in so that this player would feel special in a guild while he unlocks stuff for himself (prestige-items) as well as for the whole group (useful items).

I like this, but would want to make sure we don’t deny access to core features. Someone suggested guild hall upgrade trees as guild hall structures. I think you could make an argument for structure types. Ones that contain core features vs more unique specialized structures that guilds must choose some number of to build.

What about looking at how the WvW level system work?
There, you are never denied any core features, but since you can have “masteries” on certain aspects of WvW, there are subtle roles among players that run in organized groups. For example, “the ones that have ram mastery” or now the “Golem drivers”.

At this point we could start talking about Guild Hall research points. Something that can be spent, that is limited, and that can be acquired by the guild (at this point I think merits are ruled out).

In my opinion, the way to balance how Guilds could access every core feature, but keep the specialization as a way to diverge progression, is that for every core feature you have to research in two ways:
a.- A way to adapt the feature to the number of members (something along the way of making a feature more efficient, so more members can benefit from it, without queing for it). Example: A room for meetings becoming larger, or a farm producing more crops. (depends on the features)
b.- A way to make the feature expand, become more specialized. For example, getting more merchants, or the armorer getting more items to offer. Or getting better quality furniture, or more fancy models for the rooms, and so on.

Guild Hall Function Breakdown

- Basic Guild Hall: Basic in the sense of functionality; it doesn’t have to be a shack in the middle of nowhere! You have a structure which is based on a theme you choose when you build the hall (say, you want a norn look to it, or maybe a charr characterization). Inside you have the basic ‘functions’; a vault/stash/trove system represented by different structures which evolve out of the main hall. A crafting area where you can get your emblem-inlaid armor and weapons when you purchase that upgrade. Any upgrade you can get will be reflected here, so you don’t lose access to functions . . . but they may be in odd places. Every guild is guaranteed a Basic Guild Hall.

- Ornate Guild Hall: For a modest investment in Influence, Merits, Gold, and Materials one can begin the work of making the Basic Guild Hall over. First you can start getting architects, carpenters, stonewrights, et cetera who can be tasked with remodeling certain aesthetic aspects. For this ‘level’ of guild hall, this is pretty much all you can do – make it look different and add things. Basic functionality is not severed, and there is no tangible benefit from this level.

- Master Guild Hall: Through a process of steadily achieving more and greater activity, you can unlock this level of guild hall. What you get is the ability to reassign spaces to different functions, such as deciding you don’t like the armory where it is and moving it upstairs. There will be certain aspects you can’t rearrange (no moving the Guild Lord if GvG is a thing) but for the most part the whole hall becomes modular and able to be puzzled out as far as the guild wishes to work on it.

Desirable Functions

- Supplier and Armory: Where you can get your guild emblem gear, along with other merchants you can upgrade over time.

- Vault: A room with a large iron vault not unlike that the Black Lion Company used to have. The banker politely refuses anyone access if they’re not allowed.

- Stash: A secondary vault somewhere else in the structure. A guard at the door stops players who aren’t allowed in there, and tells them to take it up with the officers if they want access.

- Trove: Hidden deeper in the guild hall, guarded by a couple humorless guards who turn away those not authorized.

- Training Room/Practice Range: A place where you can use training dummies to test things out, including a firing range for those who love their ranged weapons. Add in siege weapon training potential if GvG becomes a thing – don’t want players to be unfamiliar with the defense and offensive siege weapons!

- Lord’s Chamber: Placed at the top of a turret room, or otherwise separated from the rest of the hall. Important only for GvG.

- Meeting Hall: Generalized area which everything connects to where guild meetings can take place, or where trophies can get displayed.

- Alliance Meeting Chamber: An instanced place where a guild in an alliance can go, basically a large chamber which connects to all guild halls of the alliance but you need to go through this chamber to reach them.

- Asuraball Field: A place to play the sport which was invented solely for the entertainment of the bookahs!

For those suggesting “defend the guild hall events,” what happens if the guild fails the event? What rewards come from succeeding and how are those balanced against other game play modes? How is it kept from being a mob-wave farm fest while still feeling rewarding to use? What makes it special to guilds as opposed to just finding events in the world to do? Would the guild have the choice to just never trigger such a thing?

I’m not dissing the idea, as it certainly could be fun to have an option for action and adventure surrounding the hall, just wondering about these factors.

JonPeters.5630:

I like this, but would want to make sure we don’t deny access to core features. Someone suggested guild hall upgrade trees as guild hall structures. I think you could make an argument for structure types. Ones that contain core features vs more unique specialized structures that guilds must choose some number of to build.

That was me building off of Baltzengar’s idea.

As an example, take the game Rogue Legacy and it’s tree system. I wasn’t basing this on it at first, but now it makes more sense.

In that game, you collect gold. Once you die, you use said gold to buy traits in your castle (1/3/for example). The moment you unlock a new tree, your castle would expand, adding a new addition, as well as each trait boosting your character in either magic, DMG, def, etc. Basically, the middle part of the castle focused on one stat, and the other two sides focused on different stats.

But what I am going for is something that requires one point (or resources), and at different points you may unlock a special room made for that path. Or a special decoration, while each effect would help you in some aspect of the game (a talent that increases wxp for example, or lowers guild merchant prices).

As for going down a path, there should be incentive to basically reach the top, and not spread yourself across (unless they want to). Example: there are 3 beginning talents, each costing 1 skill to acquire. After choosing one, you unlock the second one down that tree only, but it costs 2 skill points, not only that, but the other two beginning ones ALSO cost 2 skill points now. Whichever one you choose, the third one will always cost 3.

Another way points could be done would be like the gw1 system for characters specializations (like beastmastery or marksman, etc). The more points you put in one stat, the more expensive it becomes.

Serophous.9085:

JonPeters.5630:

I like this, but would want to make sure we don’t deny access to core features. Someone suggested guild hall upgrade trees as guild hall structures. I think you could make an argument for structure types. Ones that contain core features vs more unique specialized structures that guilds must choose some number of to build.

-snip-

Another way points could be done would be like the gw1 system for characters specializations (like beastmastery or marksman, etc). The more points you put in one stat, the more expensive it becomes.

I think that is the way to go. That would also mean that guilds could choose to focus on only one feature and be unique because of that, even have a competition against other guilds focused on the same aspect.

At the same time, I was reading the previous version of your post where you mentioned the TaN guild, and I’m thinking…how awesome would be if guilds could develop services in the game, and the more deep you are into a particular branch the higher quality your service is, this could make a new layer of economy into the game, and let people compete on another level too.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

All good points and this one is very valid:

‘I think, for smaller guilds, the basic bonuses should be obtainable easily. Examples like a guild armorer merchant or something. But the bigger, longer, and higher stuff should stay the bigger and longer. Yes, big guilds will reach it faster than smaller guilds, but that’s the nature of the beast. Bigger guilds are going to get to the bigger and better stuff sooner.’

This is also a very acute point:

‘As for guild alliance halls. They could work, and would be neat. The only issue would be, what happens if the alliance breaks apart? who gets the hall?’

Initial thoughts are that members of the Alliance would each get an instance of the shared guild hall. And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-:

Chris

And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-:

But why?

That is a much more important question. It’s Anet who talks about a living and breeding world. Open world guild-halls (and housing) that people can build them-self will be able to do that. Even more so then dynamic events and the living world.

An instance makes is less interesting and more put away, in addition it’s out of the game in a way, or better said it’s out of the game-world.

Donari.5237:

For those suggesting “defend the guild hall events,” what happens if the guild fails the event? What rewards come from succeeding and how are those balanced against other game play modes? How is it kept from being a mob-wave farm fest while still feeling rewarding to use? What makes it special to guilds as opposed to just finding events in the world to do? Would the guild have the choice to just never trigger such a thing?

I’m not dissing the idea, as it certainly could be fun to have an option for action and adventure surrounding the hall, just wondering about these factors.

Continuation from this post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/16#post4468722

Your Guild Win: gain influence and resources + rank in global ranking of guilds
Your Guild Lose: lose influence and rank in global ranking of guilds

Rewards if you win:
>Unlocks for your Guild Hall
>Rewards similar to other Guild Missions
>Gold for your guild, in full upgraded Guild Halls (one time in a week)

Thematic Enemies:

If the Guild using the Drop Zone have a similar Guild Hall ambiented in Orr
[img]http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/7/74/Orr_Farmhouse_concept_art.jpg[/img]

They can send zombies to attack your Guild Hall, if you activate this minigame:
Risen Corrupters for example
[img]http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/fb/Risen_Corrupter.jpg[/img]

If you unlock more features in your Guild Hall, you can send more type of enemies in the Guild Hall Defense minigame, and Defend best when other guilds send enemies to you.

The statistics of the enemies, equivalent to their level in other maps. Easy: 10-40, Medium: 40-60 (Can attack Veterans), Hard: 60-80 (Can attack Champions)

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Devata.6589:

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Devata.6589:

Did you read the thread and know what the air-ship suggestions where about?
Basically the idea whas you could build your own airships and for idea’s of what would be possible see the Wizard’s Tower http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower and the Zephyr Sanctum http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr_Sanctum

In short, yes, I have read the thread…and many ideas that have been listed are fine and actually quite cool…but in perspective…may take a long time in development to get them into the game. Which is why I suggest start small, get the GHs in, get some quick wins with the community, and keep a group(obviously not their only thing) working on new additions to go into GHs say every 2-3 months(some go in automatically, some may need a Guild to “work” toward adding them to their GH). Each small addition could build on the background supporting system development to work up to the big adds that many are suggesting here and get them into the game.

I would expect them keeping adding new stuff to it. But you first do the bulk of work and then start adding stuff, not the other way around.

OK…apparently this is now Devata’s Thread, and I do not fit in with his expectations of contribution.

Chris and Jon, this was a good thread with many good point-counter-point ideas and discussions, but since 1 person has now decided to deride any suggestions, not only mine, that are not in line with what they think should be done, I will no longer add input to this thread.

Good Luck, and I hope more constructive things like this can take place.

Sure, I list up what people did say before because some people maybe don’t read back or missed it or simply ignore it and then I am the bad guy?

Also not sure where I said anybody was not allowed to think differently.

All I am getting frustrated over is seeing the same ‘problems’ being put up while possible solution have been giving for them pages ago. Think about it this way. I am not ignoring your suggestions but maybe you (and with you I do not mean you, you but just in general) are ignoring other people solutions. Not on purpose btw but still.

You like instances and thats fine, and then the question is why? And if you then say for example it go’s faster (what you did in the last post btw) thats a good reason, instance will likely go faster. Or if you say “Because guild halls need to be as big as maps” sure thats not possible in an open world way and there are a few more of these reasons in favor of instances. (That I btw collected in a post a few pages back). And there might be more.

But if you would say “there is no room” then I say, there have been multiple solution given for that pages ago. And no not mine solution. The air-ship / air-map idea was not mine! Now you could say.. I do not like that solution because…. That would also get the discussion going forward. But just coming with the a reason as “there is no room” is ignoring those suggestions made before.

And yes I am now repeating all those things all the time but I did not make it my thread. I just prevent older suggestions from being ignored. Else the discussion will not go forward but backward.

JonPeters.5630:

munkiman.3068:

Devata.6589:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Devata.6589:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

~

~

~

The common theme with open world is the ability to go anywhere as you please. Thus the keyword “open.” It’s all one big instance without restrictions. To lock non guild members out makes it not ‘open world’ anymore, as the hall becomes its own instance. It’s own map. Similar to crossing from Queensdale to Kessex, for example. Open world guild halls (at least to me) would be much closer to how the lodges function in Hoelbrak.

I’m not sure on the airship proposal. I’m not keen on air ships to be honest. But, that’s just my perspective on it.

Open world means your guild hall is in the open world. That does not mean that there are no restrictions and it does also not mean everybody can get inside it. But everybody could walk or fly past in.

You know just like in real life your house is in the open world but you can’t build everywhere you like and the door prevents unwanted people from getting in.

Basically, my vote is a no. There is an expectation to guild halls IMO, that it’s a private place for Guilds to gather, especially on top of it issues with megaservers and population. As discussed already, what is the population cap of a guild hall? 150-200-400? Right now open world won’t hold much more than 150 people in most cases and we are talking about server plots on maps that are capable of holding something like 1000 players or more?

I’d also like to see Guild halls mapped out like they were in GW, where you had 2 sides (2 structures) that supported GvG, which isn’t possible in an open world scenario. I’m of the mind that you solve every issue discussed by just making them an instance, besides boring and showing off.

Devata,

I don’t want to call you out, but because you are such a strong proponent for open world, what kind of systems, tied to guild halls would you like to see to help gain some of the benefits that you feel make open world so compelling.

P.S. I agree that open world is super compelling, but also feel like in an already live game you can see both the resistance you are going to get from existing players and the difficulties you will have to overcome of decisions made in the past.

Jon

Oow I am a strong proponent for open but the frustration that is obviously visible here on my part is more that to me it feels like a thread does not move forward if you anybody ignores older suggestions. And don’t get me wrong. Forward does NOT have to mean open world.

But if a reaction is.. Instance because there is no space in the open world I do feel the need to point out there have been made multiple suggestion that would allow for open world without that problem. To go forward it would have to be, instance because of new reason or a reason that has no solution or solution x is not good because. Or at least that how I think about it.

And why I feel like open-world would be the reason. A short list.

- More immersive then walking into a portal and loading in.

- Building the guild-hall would give more pride and so more reason to go for it.

- It gives guilds much more a place in the world. An instance feels like.. well an instance. A separate thing.

- It makes the world more the feeling of a living world / you have an impact on the world. Exactly what Anet advertises the game with, that living breathing world players have an impact on. You seeing people building there own guild-halls, changing it. The world literally changes in a way that living story updates can’t. If you have open world guild-halls that people build them self that will change on a daily base and really done by the players. If it would be the air-ship you would see them flying over. That all makes it feel more alive.

Events spin in circles so don’t give that same effect of you impacting the world. The living story go’s on also without players participating. But if you 1 build your own guild-hall / homes / other things and 2 do that in the open world then you have a real impact on the world like the game advertises.

- Lastly it fits better with the hole idea of social play. The reason Anet for example did go for open-world-bosses in stead of putting them in an instance and really the hole game is based on that idea (see last Points of Interest: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/on-youtube-points-of-interest-episode-7/). They want players to interact with each other, not hide in instances. While some people might prefer that, it’s not what GW2 is about.

Instanced guild-hall seems to go in against everything GW2 tries to be. A living breeding social world where people interact with each other and have a real impact on the world.

I prefer instanced Guild Halls, Guild Halls that are available for any size Guild, and Guild Halls that are not gated behind merits, as merits are difficult for smaller Guilds to obtain.

I like some of the tree suggestions; it seems like it would be fun to specialize in certain GH ‘traits’, so to say.

I’m not fond of the airship suggestion, especially if they are visible in the sky. But, if Guild Halls are instanced, then if a Guild should choose an airship theme, I’d have no problem. Many themes to choose from sounds like a good idea, as long as it didn’t take forever for the Dev team to create. Maybe just a few to start, with more and more selections added as time progresses (with a reasonable cost to change themes at any time, of course).

Then move the conversation forward.

Right we’ve had lots of talk about all the inclusive stuff and low end play. New question:
What stuff is there going to be at the high end?
What items/structures/skins do you see for advanced play and top guilds?
How should we determine what play is the skilled play and therefore worthy of extra rewards?
How do you show that your guild and guild hall is the best darn guild there is?
And the problem that I have difficulty answering: How do you gate the PvP and WvW unlocks as currently there’s no way to distinguish the good from the bad?

Donari.5237:

In response to https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/18#post4470072

I understand your frustration. I think the point in a CDI where the same things keep being said is the point where it’s time to narrow down the discussion. But in this case I’m still seeing new commentary, thanks in part to Jon and Chris’ injected questions, and some new approaches to solutions. To me, we’re not yet moving backwards or wearing circular ruts; those who post things that truly have been hashed out can just be left alone to catch up while the new phase of dialogue proceeds.

I left out a repeat of my assumed instance benefits because I’ve stated it several times in this thread and others, and figured you already knew my stance since you have been reading and passionately participating. Since you ask, though:

Infinite space to accommodate all the guilds. Permanence so when you come back after six months away everything is exactly where you left it. Deeper customization. Less load on everyone’s clients to render (ok, that one I didn’t say before). More aesthetic settings (I’m thinking like LotRO’s neighborhoods, scaled up and more customizable, with only guild members able to control space in the neighborhood). The ability to have something that is more than one building – calling it a “hall” doesn’t mean it has to literally be one. More ability to expand.

I’m very keen on airships, and they seem best suited to doing what you want. I just find myself shying away from airships being the only choice. When I saw videos of WoW’s intended housing I found myself glad I wasn’t there any more – just because some people like the idea of building up a fortress and “customizing” it by adding more barracks and higher walls, doesn’t mean everyone finds that to their taste. Some of us want cozier settings, or non-military ones. Just as some guilds would rather have a stately manse or a spiraling set of pods up a tree or a large tavern with a lot of floors.

I guess the focus in all that depends on the functions intended for a guild hall. Is it a home or is it an office meeting space? How much fluff should it have versus how much game play function? Is it for bragging rights or for privacy? Preferred answers to those questions lie behind almost every post in this thread. Hopefully the final design philosophy will incorporate the various approaches and let each guild tilt their hall to the factors that matter most to them.

Well thanks for understanding what I was talking about.

And yes many of the things you now mentioned are indeed in favor of instances. I only wonder why you think deeper customization would only be possible in an instance?

And I completely agree that different guilds should be ale to build different themed guild-halls. Lets say unlocks work with blue-prints that unlock as drops or something like that. I would for example expect those more war like skins / items to drop or be rewarded in WvW or PvP while the more asura ones would be rewarded in asura area. In that way any guild can build what he wants.

They can even mix things.

The WoW way does also not seem ideal to me.. I mean you could get a better system then just unlocking tiers and being able to decide where to build place a what building.

“How much fluff should it have versus how much game play function?” I think placing the fluff as drops / unlocks in the world means a guild-hall can give guilds more game-play in the game.

CureForLiving.5360:

I did realized while rereading this thread that I never actually considered open world guild halls to be completely non-instanced, that is to say that you can move from the outside to anywhere inside without loading screens. My perception was always that the outside would be visible to everyone on the map, and customisable by the guild but to go inside would be to entered an instance (and most likely like the tardis it would be bigger on the inside). I think it’s very possible to have an guild hall located in the open world, with areas that exist in the open world but which also have instanced parts for things such a guild rituals.

I agree. One problem I however came with is that if you let people build there own guild-halls. What is inside? And how do you force an inside if you even want to force that. I mean, you could build a small forest as guild-hall if you could build the guild-hall yourself. A forest however does not have a door you walk into. However it sure would have it’s benefits if the outside would be open world but the inside would be an instance.

However especially if you have some pre build rooms (like a ritual room like you talk about here) that would be a good solution.

I don’t think it does any good to start repeating suggestions to not have them “buried” in the thread, because by doing so, the thread is getting very messy and hard to read. I do not know if the purpose of this is that “we” get to a consensus, because how will we? It’s better to just post your suggestions/ideas (once!), answer to the questions proposed, and move on.
I’m sure the team will read the whole thread and not just the last pages, also, if something needs to be further discussed, we will be asked to expand on that, like we have been doing to this point.

I mean, it shouldn’t be that an idea gets more attention because it is posted more times on the same thread…

Conski Deshan.2057:

Then move the conversation forward.

Right we’ve had lots of talk about all the inclusive stuff and low end play. New question:
What stuff is there going to be at the high end?
What items/structures/skins do you see for advanced play and top guilds?
How should we determine what play is the skilled play and therefore worthy of extra rewards?
How do you show that your guild and guild hall is the best darn guild there is?
And the problem that I have difficulty answering: How do you gate the PvP and WvW unlocks as currently there’s no way to distinguish the good from the bad?

What would you unlock? Well it depends. You you building your guild-hall yourself or have a predefined guild-hall and only put stuff in it?

And unlocking it basically in ways that make sense. I think I gave an example of portals. Something like have a claim on a WvW keep to unlock the portal to that WvW map.

Unlocking a wall for your guild-hall in WvW style might be a possible drop in WvW or you unlock it for destroying x walls or repairing x walls. Stuff like that.

And how to show it. Well that again depends on if it’s build yourself. If so there might not be the one best unlock but there is the guild who designed / build the best looking one and that could just as well be a small guild.

Devata.6589:

Well thanks for understanding what I was talking about.

And yes many of the things you now mentioned are indeed in favor of instances. I only wonder why you think deeper customization would only be possible in an instance?

And I completely agree that different guilds should be ale to build different themed guild-halls. Lets say unlocks work with blue-prints that unlock as drops or something like that. I would for example expect those more war like skins / items to drop or be rewarded in WvW or PvP while the more asura ones would be rewarded in asura area. In that way any guild can build what he wants.

They can even mix things.

The WoW way does also not seem ideal to me.. I mean you could get a better system then just unlocking tiers and being able to decide where to build place a what building.

“How much fluff should it have versus how much game play function?” I think placing the fluff as drops / unlocks in the world means a guild-hall can give guilds more game-play in the game.

The more customization you have with open world guild halls, the more opportunities for guilds to absolutely destroy the beautiful and immersive world that ANet has created. Unless guild halls are a separate thing out in the Mists, where you’d basically be “instanced” off anyway.

Customization should trump open world if there is a conflict, this isn’t an open world sandbox anyway. And seeing the guild hall of “Uber looter Dudz” doesn’t make it feel like a Living World to me.

I am 100% behind having different themes however, and getting “blueprints” and decorations for those themes in areas of the world it makes sense thematically to get them. And I’m all for a reason for a guild to go out into the world together.

However, if it works anything like the very grindy Collections system, I’d be against that. Not that there couldn’t be some hard-to-get grindy rewards, but that’s pretty much all the Collections system was, which has made it a great disappointment so far. I hope nothing in the guild halls unlock system works like: “Buy all these items you don’t want off the TP to get one item you do want.”

Addressing Jon Peters’ Guild Upgrades Here

A Foreword: All Guild Halls come with a Mystic Forge of Zommoros. More on this throughout.

Section I
(Skip this section if you do not want the current Guild Upgrades available in game to be visually and physically interacted with inside upcoming Guild Halls)

I’ll only touch on this briefly as it has been discussed, but I do think it’s a great idea if you want to add it in so guilds can visually see their progress from the upgrades currently in game. Not everything could have a visual look associated with it, but things that could, like building the Guild Emblem under the Politics category – would then appear on the walls of the Guild Hall and/or on majestic flags hanging down from the ceilings etc.

Section II
This section will provide additional features arriving with the inclusion of Guild Halls that all guilds would have access to without specialization.

Again, many posts have mentioned these and they would be under a General Upgrade tab. Portals to various areas, target dummies, a jumping puzzle, etc.

Section III
Specialization is targeted at a specific game mode and comes at only a moderate cost to allow for all sizes of guilds to acquire their first specialization. You must move up the Tiers within a given specialization. The first specialization is relatively cheap as per above, each new specialization (if allowed at all) would be nearly exponentially more expensive to give larger guilds something to work on over several months. If not allowed, then the guild can completely remove its specialization and build a new one, over time, for a moderate price. The areas that a guild can specialize in are:

WvW
PvP
Adventuring
Dungeons

WvW – Specializing in this category provides:
Tier 1. WvW Vault – Every enemy player that by someone actively representing is killed provides the Vault 5 copper. The money is never removable from the vault, but instead allows the Guild Leader and members with permissions the ability to use the vault to purchase upgrades directly with it, like traps, improved walls etc in WvW.

Tier 2. WvW Guild Finisher – A giant, like giant, gleaming flag pole shoots down onto the enemy with a banner blowing in the wind, the guild emblem prominently displayed on the flag. (I know a guild finisher already exists, but this one’s better :)

Tier 3. Unlocks the ability to toss a designated number of WvW badges into the Guild Zomorros alter to gain Increased Magic Find, Karma, WvW Experience while in WvW for 2 hours.

Tier 4. Unlocks the ability to replace one of the 4 objects placed in the Mystic Forge to be replaced with WvW Badges. Example: 50 Badges replaces a fine item, 100 masterwork, 150 rare, and 250 badges replaces an exotic. Can’t replace more than one object, so it would still take 3 exotic items and 250 badges for one go.

PvP – Specializing in this category provides:
Tier 1 – PvP Vault – Each first, unique kill of an opponent in a map provides the PvP Vault 20 Copper. We don’t want it to require a lot of kills to allow for the regular strategies to prevail while still allowing people to fill their vault’s coffers easily. The vault cannot be withdrawn from, but can be used to purchase a Custom Arena Starter Kit or Time Tokens.

Tier 2 – Unlocks the ability for every guild member actively representing the guild in a PvP game to throw their guild emblem onto the ground via ground target. This is activated from a tiny icon above their utility interface. The emblem is of moderate size, but hovers relatively high above the ground so as not to encumber combat.

Tier 3 – Unlocks the ability to acquire pvp tokens from winning custom, solo queue and team queue games. One token awarded from a custom arena win, two for a solo queue win and three for a team queue win. Throwing 4 of these tokens into the MF allows for a 2 hour buff that gives Karma after a PvP game (more karma for a win and assuming 7 minutes of more of participation) and 5% increased Rank Points for 2 hours.

Tier 4 – Unlocks the ability for pvp tokens to be used to replace one of the 4 objects placed in the Mystic Forge. Example: 4 tokens replaces a fine item, 8 for masterwork, 15 for a rare, and 25 tokens replaces an exotic. Can’t replace more than one object, so it would still take 3 exotic items and 25 tokens for one go.

(Continued…)

Adventuring – Specializing in this category provides:
Tier 1 – Adventure Vault – Every monster a guild kills in an open world zone gives the vault 2 copper. This money cannot be withdrawn, but gives members with appropriate permissions the ability use use the vault to directly purchase armor repairs once per day.

Tier 2 – Unlocks the ability for guild members to purchase guild waypoints. Guild waypoints are one-time use consumables that a guild member with appropriate permissions can spawn on the map with a ground target ability after double clicking the object from their bags. The waypoint lasts 15 minutes before it dissipates. Cannot be used in combat or while stealthed. Can only be seen by people actively on the particular map instance and can be used by everyone on the map.

Tier 3 – Unlocks the ability for the guild to generate one Event Battle Standard once per day. Maximum of 7 can be stored. A guild member with appropriate permissions throws down an EBS and monsters, common to that zone, spawn and scale upwards in difficulty (champs etc.) with the more players that are present.

Tier 4 – Unlocks the passive ability of every representing guild member to provide every other representing guild member, within 1500 yards in a given zone, a buff that increases Karma, Experience and Magic Find by .5%. Capping at 10%. Time to hang out more eh?

Dungeons Specializing in this category provides:
Tier 1 – Unlocks the Dungeon Vault – Every dungeon mob that players kill puts 5 coppers into the vault. Guild members with appropriate permissions can use the vault to directly purchase armor repairs once per day.

Tier 2 – Unlocks the ability to purchase the Speed Run Token. This can only be purchased through using the Dungeon Vault money. This is a one time consumable, usable only once inside a dungeon, that provides the user and all actively representing guild members present, the speed run buff, lasting for 30 minutes. The speed run buff provides all affected members a buff whereby every mob killed, drops two additional copper(special note below) to each member, per mob, stacking infinitely and lasting 60 seconds before resetting back to zero. So, if a group killed 10 mobs back-to-back, in addition to the normal loot received, they would also have looted an extra 110 coppers (1.1 silver). 2+4+6+8+10+12+14+16+18+20 = 110 coppers. It pays to clear dungeons folks.

Special Note – This is 1 copper stacking up in the lower dungeons, 2 copper in mid-tier dungeons, and 3 copper for high end dungeons like Arah etc.

Tier 3 – Unlocks the ability to purchase a guild waypoint inside the dungeon. This can only be purchased using the guild vault funds. Allows party members, not in combat to travel to the waypoint or rez at the waypoint when dead. Lasts for 3 hours.

Tier 4 – Unlocks hard mode. This is free for all guild members and is activated by a small button above a guild members utility bar. When activated, every representing guild member receives an uncleansable debuff. They take double damage from all direct damage attacks and damage over time attacks. All condition durations are doubled. All damage dealt is reduced by 50%. Healing received form abilities is not affected. Passively increases magic find by 100%. All cash loot received is doubled. Yes, this stacks with the Speed Run consumable. 4+8+12+16 etc. etc.

Responding to Chris Whiteside

I love the idea of the alliances you posted, but I think each guild should have to build/improve their own structures. If you represent a given guild within the alliance then you can take advantage of their buffs. This would allow guilds of varying specializations from above to band together and give all of their players access to all aspects of the game without having to grind out their own upgrades. Also, with this change, small guilds could then benefit with little to worry about.

Allowing a special channel for Alliance Chat would be great too.

Honestly, smaller guilds could just ally with the larger ones and get all the bells and whistles. Bigger guilds would want it, because it’s a few more people repping the guild here and there throwing coppers into the Guild Vaults per above. Everyone wins.

As far as how to go about actually unlocking the tiers/upgrades etc from above? I’ll get to that tomorrow.

Sorry for the late additions to this party, I’m a military guy so times are hectic.

I’m going to be doing some major work on this post so to start:

Instanced vs Open World – This is largely a matter of opinion, however, with all the talk about GvG and guild activities I think we would be out of sorts if we didn’t discuss making an “uber” map for guilds. With that in mind, I suggest a standalone map/instance built off of each region borrowing the architecture from that region. For instance a guild instance in Kryta would borrow architecture from humans, with a mixture of the ecosystems appearing in those areas: plains, hills, forests. In general using the same tile sets to build the areas. The map is only accessible to non-guild members via an Asura Gate in a specific map (for instance I would like my instance in Mount Maelstrom because I like the feel there). Guild members can access an upgrade that allows members to purchase a tele-stone similar to the home instance one. Guild members exiting via the portal are returned to their original area, circumventing using the stone as a freebie wp. Once entered you start out at the south area of the map, the map at start has nothing in it. It’s a blank slate. This is where things can get interesting.

Guild Upgrades – We all build them. They need to have a physical impact on our guild maps. So we divide them into several categories.

• Architecture – Allows structures to be added to the zones, from defensive fortifications to amazing keeps. These objects require resources (think ore, wood, cloth, leather, tier’d mats) and time to build.
• Politics – This is where PvP and Wvw bonuses are, as well as specific building functions. Gives bonuses to WvW resources. I.E. Banners, Guild themed gear, bonuses to point cap times, build times, etc. Allows for alliences with certain races ( I.E. Fully upgrading a “Iron Legion” research option nets you a roaming Charr warband to take on people entering your area. Upgrading “Asuran Technologies” to max level could get you Golems, Laser Turrets, Laser traps etc. Crafting stations, repair stations, etc all fall under this category.
• Dungeoneering – Grants bonuses to certain dungeons, for instance, leveling a research under this category for AC can offer small increases to drop rates within the dungeons (time gated research, not resource gated) For instance it increases the number of tears you get for a run. Make it so that the initial buy for a given dungeon uses influence, and crafts an Asuran gate to that dungeon. Only guild members can access the portals, when guild members use the portals they grant the bonuses I’m talking about, the only way to level the research after the initial buy in is by having members run that dungeon to completion.
• Beastiary – This entry is similar to the slayer achievement line. This tracks the slayer achievements of all members, when a certain percentage of your guild has completed the relevant Slayer achievement you can add those monsters to your instance. The monsters only drop bags related to their respective races, and are allied to the guild whose map they are in. With all these defensive options I am sure you can see where this is eventually heading.

So from all of this we arrive at our actual destination. What’s the point of all these upgrades?

The answer, Guild vs Guild combat. Entering a guilds portal drops you at the southern end of the guild instance. The guild hall is in the very north of the instance. You now have to battle your way through all the mobs, traps, difficult paths etc to reach their hall. Capping the hall disables all of the guilds bonuses until they retake the hall, OR 12 hours have passed. They can’t use guild siege pieces, can’t use banners, and any guild armor/flags/finishers show the capturing guilds symbol instead of their own. This will be a significant investment however as fighting your way through mobs (ranked vet. – champions) plus fending off the opposing guild members in an area where they decided the builds (for instance making part of the area a jumping puzzle where you can set up knockoffs etc) would add an entire new combat dynamic for guilds, separate from what currently exists.

And that’s my idea…. I think it’s entirely feasible, with some man-hours as all the tile sets exist minus the ability to add structures. The difficult part is designing the map and implementing the systems, which nothing I’ve mentioned here should be beyond the limits of the engine. One thing to note about the map is each map needs an inaccessible valley beside the Hall. This allows the “last line of defense” so to speak to be very much in favor of the defenders. Basically, this should be a cliff with a jumping puzzle from one side to the other, in order allow for desperation plays, area control, knock backs, etc.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

Devata.6589:

Well thanks for understanding what I was talking about.

And yes many of the things you now mentioned are indeed in favor of instances. I only wonder why you think deeper customization would only be possible in an instance?

And I completely agree that different guilds should be ale to build different themed guild-halls. Lets say unlocks work with blue-prints that unlock as drops or something like that. I would for example expect those more war like skins / items to drop or be rewarded in WvW or PvP while the more asura ones would be rewarded in asura area. In that way any guild can build what he wants.

They can even mix things.

The WoW way does also not seem ideal to me.. I mean you could get a better system then just unlocking tiers and being able to decide where to build place a what building.

“How much fluff should it have versus how much game play function?” I think placing the fluff as drops / unlocks in the world means a guild-hall can give guilds more game-play in the game.

The more customization you have with open world guild halls, the more opportunities for guilds to absolutely destroy the beautiful and immersive world that ANet has created. Unless guild halls are a separate thing out in the Mists, where you’d basically be “instanced” off anyway.

Customization should trump open world if there is a conflict, this isn’t an open world sandbox anyway. And seeing the guild hall of “Uber looter Dudz” doesn’t make it feel like a Living World to me.

I am 100% behind having different themes however, and getting “blueprints” and decorations for those themes in areas of the world it makes sense thematically to get them. And I’m all for a reason for a guild to go out into the world together.

However, if it works anything like the very grindy Collections system, I’d be against that. Not that there couldn’t be some hard-to-get grindy rewards, but that’s pretty much all the Collections system was, which has made it a great disappointment so far. I hope nothing in the guild halls unlock system works like: “Buy all these items you don’t want off the TP to get one item you do want.”

Well the sky-map idea was similar to the mist but it would be more ‘open word’ because you are there together with all the other guild halls and see them all.

About the way of collecting them. No I agree most stuff should unlock in pretty clear ways that does not feel like a grind. Just boss x rewards this, path 1 of dungeon x rewards that all paths rewards something else.

That said, some RNG drops would not be bad imho and they would likely drop while you ware working towards one of those specific ones.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning All,

Due to recent events I must confess that I am only properly knowledgeable up to roughly page 12 but I want to jump in and start discussing things with you. I hope that is ok.

I want to emphasize that my questions, thoughts, and brain storming are theoretical and should not be taken as a given. With that said I want to start at the foundation.

Ok lets assume that in the world of the CDI Guild Halls have a lot of horizontal progression such as the ability to create buildings, upgrade them and customize the whole experience. What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

An idea I wanted to throw into the mix would be could small guilds have a shared Guild Hall with an Alliance?

Chris

The answer to what is the smallest size guild this system should be suitable for greatly depends on if this system will be released alongside player housing or not. If there is no player housing incoming, then the smallest size guild this is useful for should be one person.

No seriously.

If there is no other outlet incoming for creating your own place in the world (and the personal home instance is completely inadequate for that currently), people are going to want to create guilds just for this one feature. And if it keeps them in the game and playing then why shouldn’t they?

But even putting aside that concern as being outside the scope of this CDI, guild features in MMO’s almost always make the crucial mistake of encouraging larger guilds, at the expense of punishing smaller guilds (such as our very own Guild Missons system!). And I’m not sure why. Many people want to be in a guild “where everyone knows your name” as opposed to a larger guild where “no one cares who you are”.

I feel that any size guild should be able to get any unlock for the guild hall. The currency should simply scale to the number of players in the guild. Thus the difficulty remains consistent no matter how many players you have.

In addition, I feel our current Guild Missions system shows exactly how to NOT do a guild reward system. Locking certain types of Guild Missions behind certain research trees that are for certain types of game play, and having to unlock one type of guild mission before others. There are guild missions locked in the WvW oriented research trees. Why? I don’t know. You would think there would be WvW oriented guild missions there. But nope. Let’s put guild bounties in there… just because we have nothing else to put in there. It’s these kind of random and illogical gating I would greatly hope to avoid with any guild halls implementation.

On the matter of Guild Alliance Halls, I have nothing against those necessarily, but they are absolutely not a replacement for small guilds having their own guild hall.

From a RP’ers perspective though, that could be a really awesome way to have a fully RP’ed town or other shared experience. I think the RP community would really enjoy that.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning All,

Due to recent events I must confess that I am only properly knowledgeable up to roughly page 12 but I want to jump in and start discussing things with you. I hope that is ok.

I want to emphasize that my questions, thoughts, and brain storming are theoretical and should not be taken as a given. With that said I want to start at the foundation.

Ok lets assume that in the world of the CDI Guild Halls have a lot of horizontal progression such as the ability to create buildings, upgrade them and customize the whole experience. What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

An idea I wanted to throw into the mix would be could small guilds have a shared Guild Hall with an Alliance?

Chris

The answer to what is the smallest size guild this system should be suitable for greatly depends on if this system will be released alongside player housing or not. If there is no player housing incoming, then the smallest size guild this is useful for should be one person.

No seriously.

If there is no other outlet incoming for creating your own place in the world (and the personal home instance is completely inadequate for that currently), people are going to want to create guilds just for this one feature. And if it keeps them in the game and playing then why shouldn’t they?

But even putting aside that concern as being outside the scope of this CDI, guild features in MMO’s almost always make the crucial mistake of encouraging larger guilds, at the expense of punishing smaller guilds (such as our very own Guild Missons system!). And I’m not sure why. Many people want to be in a guild “where everyone knows your name” as opposed to a larger guild where “no one cares who you are”.

I feel that any size guild should be able to get any unlock for the guild hall. The currency should simply scale to the number of players in the guild. Thus the difficulty remains consistent no matter how many players you have.

In addition, I feel our current Guild Missions system shows exactly how to NOT do a guild reward system. Locking certain types of Guild Missions behind certain research trees that are for certain types of game play, and having to unlock one type of guild mission before others. There are guild missions locked in the WvW oriented research trees. Why? I don’t know. You would think there would be WvW oriented guild missions there. But nope. Let’s put guild bounties in there… just because we have nothing else to put in there. It’s these kind of random and illogical gating I would greatly hope to avoid with any guild halls implementation.

Thank you. +1

“Well the sky-map idea was similar to the mist but it would be more ‘open word’ because you are there together with all the other guild halls and see them all.”

I personally am not sure I would want to see them honestly. It sounds immersion breaking and I even tend to avoid Lion’s Arch and use Divinity’s Reach instead so as to avoid player types I would rather not encounter. Why would I want to see those types near the community I enjoy being with?

I understand that in certain games that’s an awesome idea. Sandbox games that are about that kind of thing. But GW2 isn’t a sandbox.

However, there’s certainly room for compromise. In SWTOR’s new housing a person can choose to make their stronghold public or not public. Which would seem to make everyone happy.