Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Gulesave,

There has been a ton of discussion and brainstorming on Guild Hall Content in the thread. Maybe once Jon gets some time he an summarize some of it.

Chris

Chris,

Let me take this from a different angle: What are the things guilds like to do together, and how can the guild hall and its various spaces makes these things easier and more enjoyable?

For example, how can the hall serve as a superior launching pad for jumping en mass into PvE or WvW content? How can the space itself benefit PvP’ers in practicing and testing builds, or organizing and running tournaments? How can it be laid out to enable roleplaying? What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking? How are a guilds’ accomplishments demonstrated in the hall, and how can that be interacted with? How can guild members interact with each other in ways they can’t do elsewhere?

How might the spaces and objects and rules specific to the guild hall improve the overall experience of being in a guild?

Goose.8195:

In GW1, <<snip, sorry, for brevity>>

Once you have a guild, merchants and crafting stations could be available through gold unlocks, similar to Guild Wars 1. These merchants are a flat, reasonable rate for any size guild (same as GW1). I understand that GW2 wants to have a strong community, but people should not be forced to go to LA or whatever other big city if they just want to make a quick stop in at the GH to craft a few sharpening stones. If you want tight community in large cities like that, then add more real content to those cities that encourages people to go there! Chances are if I’m making a quick LA stop for a merch or crafting station, I’m not talking to anyone in map chat anyways. As far as a system for fully customizing guild halls, I don’t really have a good idea on what that could be yet, but some of the other suggestions have been alright (blue prints/crafting/etc). Just make it scale to the size of the purchased guild hall, and as the guild hall gets larger it could inherently become more impressive (More members = more achievements? just an idea).

I do also like the idea of keeping GvG in mind (if this will be introduced in the future) while considering the development of guild halls, which is why I think guild halls themselves should be strictly cosmetic (no strategic GVG advantage to having a guild hall with tons of upgrades and stuff like that) BUT have a separate choice for maybe a fortress or something (similar to your choices in GW1 for guild halls). Maybe the entrance to the actual guild hall could be the only thing used in an actual guild battle, and would house the guild lord, while keeping everything else about the guild hall cosmetic.

Another point (if anyone made it this far), is that guilds are all about the members. I love the idea of being able to showcase accomplishments based on members. Maybe if members unlock legendaries, these can go on display in the guild hall, or if certain titles are unlocked, a statue goes on display similar to the hall of monuments. Achieving certain milestones as a guild together could also result in special banners and other cosmetic things in the guild to kind of show it off. The larger and more active the guild, the easier the grandest and impressive cosmetic upgrades could be achieved. Basically, a system that rewards individual activity as well as guild activity so that small guilds aren’t left out (if a group of 5-10 members are extremely active and have accomplished a lot of cool achievements then they would be awarded for this, but as the guild hall instance gets larger the more impressive the cosmetics could be).

The last thing I just wanted to support was the idea of a central “hub” zone for alliances. Since alliances come and go, I like idea of a central area that anyone from any of the guild halls (guilds) associated with the alliance could port into to meet up with the group. I have also seen the idea of utilizing alliances to help build up smaller guilds, or “share” benefits. Maybe it could be an option for the large guild to actually use some of their “influence” (or whatever the cost of upgrades might end up being), to directly help the smaller guild. This way if the alliance splits, everyone keeps what they earned and no one was forced to give anything to other guilds.

That’s all I have for now, and sorry if I ended up repeating a bunch of stuff that was said already, but I’m really excited to see where this discussion goes!

My personal opinion, simply based on your intro is YES, if we had GW implementation of halls “exactly” as is in GW2, i think there are plenty of people that would be fine with them (speaking out of term). However, GW2 is a new world and a new game, so wouldn’t i be amazing if we could “make them better”, more cool and functional?

Purchasable with gold! Yes! (although i’d discourage scaling). There is simply no need to punish Guild Leaders, that spent a great deal of time and effort to not reap the rewards (sparingly used) as guild leaders that just spammed map chat for randoms.

NOTE: some things people REALLY need to consider, running a guild is actually work. Running a server community, is a hundred times the work (rules, regulations, conflict resolution, etc) Running an alliance could potentially be just as much “work”. So (and i’m totally not for this) suggesting MORE work, for Guild leaders and Alliance leaders, should be 100% off the table. We don’t need MORE work, lol!

I still have to digress, though, Having open world convenience simple can’t be a part of guild halls. I’m really into the design focus of the open world, for better or worse, I still want the world at least populated. (yes, i’m totally against what megaserver has done) but i’d still love to see my fellow servermates in the world ALL the time.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Gulesave.5073:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Gulesave,

There has been a ton of discussion and brainstorming on Guild Hall Content in the thread. Maybe once Jon gets some time he an summarize some of it.

Chris

Chris,

Let me take this from a different angle: What are the things guilds like to do together, and how can the guild hall and its various spaces makes these things easier and more enjoyable?

For example, how can the hall serve as a superior launching pad for jumping en mass into PvE or WvW content? How can the space itself benefit PvP’ers in practicing and testing builds, or organizing and running tournaments? How can it be laid out to enable roleplaying? What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking? How are a guilds’ accomplishments demonstrated in the hall, and how can that be interacted with? How can guild members interact with each other in ways they can’t do elsewhere?

How might the spaces and objects and rules specific to the guild hall improve the overall experience of being in a guild?

Yep those are some good questions. Thoughts folks?

Chris

Unfortunately, each guild has it’s own what to do together thing. There are many focuses, some guilds love to focus on new players, just learning the game. Some are strict and focus on WvW and military combat structure. Some focus strictly on PvP.

Do we include portals to ever mode in halls? That’s totally fine, however, we already have that, don’t we? How does adding guild halls suppliant the ability to jump from mode to mode? Do we remove those abilities once we add halls?

Do we really need to add the ability to test builds to guild halls? If so, then we should, we should make a “comfortable place” for people to test builds. I agree sometimes there is a “queue” (not often mind you) to test a build in PvP (ie megaserver joining)…

The RP is an issue across the game mode, sadly this can’t be totally fixed with halls, but it would (at the VERY least) give RP folks a “safe haven”. The fact that they can’t sit on chairs is one thing, I’m sure there are at least 100 others (although this isn’t a good place to talk about these issues). There are far more than what a GH would solve.

As for the rest, those are defiantly stuff we are actively talking about. Sadly we alll have to trudge through several hundred posts. But we all know, anything worth having is worth the commitment.

I am going to take a stab at a redo on the influence/upgrades being worked into the hall too. Keeping in mind this has only had a few hours to think on it, someone else might have far better ideas to take this one further or a different direction. I can see wisdom the upgrades in different halls being able to be used by their allies. This would make it more advantageous for WvW guild and PvP guilds to work with PvE guilds together to utilize lines the other haven’t worked as hard in. If unlocks for skins etc rather than basics can also come from gameplay, allow us to donate what we have already done to our allies.

Currently, we are working with three currencies: influence, merits and time.

• Influence is theoretically infinite and can be created via money, but the normal input is members playing
• Merits are finite per week and are flawed in their delivery – there are bugs, we either need a work around or a fix on these going forward as I have personally done the same puzzle with guild members 3 times in a row and our guild still couldn’t get completion credit with it sitting there with the timer to start it counting down.
• Time is finite and can be created via influence

I know it was basically said a few pages back that influence is a flawed currency, but I think influence can stay – the flawed component in my experience is the time component. With only the ability to build 2 or 3 things at once with extortionate costs to speed them up, the majority of the currently available buffs are never touched. Also a guild may have members who cannot play at the designated time for guild missions that get penalized for it each week too.

I want to rework the list and remove the influence cost of rushing, replacing it with the guild having to do something to speed it up. This will make it more feasible for smaller guilds to get things done if they work together.
Some of the buffs need a look at for cost. I don’t know how many guilds have worked out their influence intake and where it comes from, but when I worked it out with an intake of around 3000 influence per day for my guild, if I ran +5% Influence for 24 Hrs we would come out ahead by 56 influence, if we had to rush it to clear our queue for missions we would lose 190 odd influence. The guilds that need it most will get nothing out of this.

My idea (today) is that there would be a set piece for the hall that the upgrades are run from. Think GW1 Hall of monuments in layout style with basic reskin options to fit the guild hall. In the centre have something graphical to represent the influence, maybe with a marble run it falls down from once an hour to show what is being earned and it is piped out to each research line. You could even have a partial diversion from the marble run if you were going to donate some sideways to an ally.

At Politics level 1, allows negotiation for buying a guild plot, or multiple plots at once to expand the size. Each cost the same amount to unlock. So a large guild could unlock it in one hit, a smaller guild could start with what they can afford and expand when they can afford it without having to fund an expensive unlock on the line. Use the Upper/Surface/Underground choices to align it for working out GvG interaction of halls.

I would split it so each line has its own queue of what is building, with up to two building on each line. Unlocks still come under the same heading, but don’t take a traditional slot. We could talk to the master NPC for the line who undertakes the research themselves while their krewe is building stuff.
You can no longer pay in influence to rush things, instead guild members undertake quests that could be pulled from a list like dailies. Visually once the rushing has been activated it could be like Timewarp on that section of the hall for a few minutes. Unlocks could have very specific things to do to gain a rush like the collection achievements.

1/2

I would redo the idea of missions to allow multiple attempts at missions during the week before reset without having to build another mission. Individuals could still get credit for a bounty that was on the guild’s (or allies) list even if someone had captured it earlier. It is only hurting the small guilds and off-peak players in the current form. Megaserver has us crashing into each other and can scale things horribly for guilds already in a challenge making them fail when it isn’t their fault.
Activating a second set from the build queue does not gain the guild any extra rewards which would still be capped, but would reroll what they have if they want another challenge. Alterations to missions will be under the research lines.

Politics

• When you contract Asuran outsourcing you will visually have a krewe working in your hall in the appropriate area.
• Move all the banners into the politics line.
• Create a new buff that hires a mesmer to do a reverse timewarp on a banner wall in the hall Allows the banners to stay there for a certain number of hours. Could need to go make the mesmer food or fetch alcohol to bribe them to hold the buff up for the maximum time.
• Take out the field crafting stations, I don’t know anyone who uses them outside of free bank access when they drop from missions. Replace them with extra crafting stations for hall components or crafting bulk superior siege blueprints without having to kill our mouse on the mystic forge.
• Replace reduced waypoint costs with a custom tuned, one-way asura gate in your hall for 24 hours. Select the location via region, explorable zone, area, waypoint.
• Guild rush, have a map on a table show where the rush is located. A gambit for this would be to get a number of members through without trap detection active for them so it would take teamwork to guide them through.

Architecture

• It has already been described back in the thread how the bank areas could come into the game well, I would add in the possibility of a few strong boxes that we could use to deliver items to guild members with traceability instead of having to take things out and mail them to them if they lack permissions. If they don’t come and pick things up in 24 hours it goes back in the bank.
• Move the trek into here, and use it as a means to research architecture and materials. Running it with a gambit of the minimap being blacked out (no parties or squad for cheating), each Trek location could have a random chance to give something to unlock an aesthetic piece. Each subsequent one you get to in quick succession increases the odds of it dropping. Treks all have graphics attached, display them on a wall or by hologram in the hall when looking for them.

Art of War

• Remove the tier difference from guild bounty so there is only one. Put timers on each bounty once they are chosen as a target on the list with an accept dialogue, but not the whole list at once. Allow to run with gambits, or time restrictions such as the original captured in set time, by betting with NPCs in the hall for a possible reward. This could be the NPCs contributing to the hall or reducing the cost of something.
• Requiring a server gated area in the alliance communal area, add in either the ability to donate WvW buffs to the alliance for claiming as an alliance, or queue rolling claims automatically between guilds. I can see issues either way, but something to make teamwork worthwhile.
• Unlock and build the GvG area of the hall
• Training dummies
  2/2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Gulesave.5073:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Gulesave,

There has been a ton of discussion and brainstorming on Guild Hall Content in the thread. Maybe once Jon gets some time he an summarize some of it.

Chris

Chris,
For example, how can the hall serve as a superior launching pad for jumping en mass into PvE or WvW content? How can the space itself benefit PvP’ers in practicing and testing builds, or organizing and running tournaments? How can it be laid out to enable roleplaying? What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking? How are a guilds’ accomplishments demonstrated in the hall, and how can that be interacted with? How can guild members interact with each other in ways they can’t do elsewhere?

How might the spaces and objects and rules specific to the guild hall improve the overall experience of being in a guild?

Yep those are some good questions. Thoughts folks?

Chris

For example, how can the hall serve as a superior launching pad for jumping en mass into PvE or WvW content?
-Special Asuran gates/teleporter pads, that will teleport an entire squad (30-40 people) into a brand new copy of whatever PvE map they choose. It’s not guild locked but it does guarentree they all get into the location just before an event or such.
(Cooldown would be needed to avoid the obvious exploit of constantly opening new Orr maps for the resources.)
-WvW realtime map that gives a visual representation of whats happening currently (I think I saw a suggestion earlier with something similar in a war room?)

How can the space itself benefit PvP’ers in practicing and testing builds, or organizing and running tournaments?
-Testing Dummies for each armor class, Aoe, with a condition applied etc.
-A Duel arena with an option to set PvE or PvP versions of skills.
-A waiting area for entering a custom arena

How can it be laid out to enable roleplaying?
-By existing and being at least partially customisable it will
-Intractable furniture would be a massive plus (sitting on seats, bonus the poor people in the priory classroom finally learn how to sit).

What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking?
-Doesn’t need an intensive, people like to check out the competition to see are they winning or loosing.
-Daily Gawker Achievement.

How are a guilds’ accomplishments demonstrated in the hall, and how can that be interacted with?
-Already discussed this at length, rare display items, leaderboards for various things. Mannequins to show off alternate sets, Ultra hard challenges that reward unique guild items.

How can guild members interact with each other in ways they can’t do elsewhere?
-It’s nothing major they can just relax, talk without random chat/emote spam making it difficult to follow a convo
-Easier to take group photos, and select scenery to do so.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

VodCom.6924:

Devata.6589:

About the connecting guild-halls. Have a look at this suggestion from Retro on page 1.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/first#post4454383

Is anybody managing a new thread to summarize this CDI-topic ?

If not, do you mind if I start one ? I’m starting to get lost.

Go ahead VOD that would be awesome. Which reminds me i need to send out goodies to those who helped with logistics on the last phase.

Chris

I wish i had time to sort every post in these CDIs. Some days i can do conglomerate posts, but most times I really wish i could just dig deeper into concepts.

All is well with the world, and i’m glad to participate! Thanks Chris, you (and i’m sure several others at Arena reading) is enough for us to continue this journey with everyone involved. I love the re-caps, those folks definitely deserve a medal, or something. A giant hug, i dunno? Can we all get group hug?

Thanks for hosting this stuff.

Arewn.2368:

Airship halls above zones strikes me as useless. From the ground, the ships would be indistinguishable from the airships floating above Orr. That is to say there would be no difference whether it was an actual player’s ship or some random NPC that floats by. From the ships, the ground would be indistinguishable from a backdrop that matches the zone it’s supposed to be over. All this does is limited the “type” of guild hall you can make to being variations of Airships, instead of Castles/Airships/Lodges/etc that you could otherwise have available. Edit: just saw your post on this matter, your suggestion makes the whole “it’s above the zone” idea even more pointless, it would be completely and utterly indistinguishable from the ground. It might as well just be a sky instance with a backdrop that looks like “insert zone here”.

Thanks for writing all thatt. Saves me from having to write them!

As for the airships they also have an inherent space issue. The biggest airship we see in the game is the pact ship we fight on at the end of Arah story mode and even that one is relatively small. I would expect the guild hall space to be at least as large as the citadel in the WvW borderland maps.

If people really need a way to show off their guild halls it could be added as a segment to the Points of Interest show. “Guild Halls Showcase” or whatever.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Re: “What happens to the alliance guild hall…”

The answer is simple: Alliances as an entity do not get guild halls but rather an instanced place to call home which does not receive upgrades (perhaps aside from cosmetic revisions) and thus nothing is lost if the alliance dissolves for whatever reason.

This doesn’t allow small guilds to work with others in regard to progression of the guild hall though.

Chris

Not necessarily true. I co-run a small guild and while we haven’t attempted guild missions or anything, we do pretty good for ourselves. We had a small guild in GW1 and were still able to kit out our hall with everything.

Small guilds are not incapable of doing things in the game to build out a guild hall if the requirements are set forth that way. If the guild has to raise a set fee to purchase the hall and then pay out for other additions, they could do so. They may not get it done as quickly as the larger guilds but it could be done.

I’m on the fence about alliance halls. While I think they have potential benefits, I am leery of how the politics would work if the alliance hall was customizable. I think it is necessary for it to be instanced but have limited custom features in it. Most of the custom options, be it NPCs or decorations should be with the guild halls.

Why do you think that it would be a hurdle for small guilds to work together. If multiple guilds want to take on a guild mission for a single guild, the alliance hall is a place to meet. It is a lot easier than trying to do it on a PvE map or central city.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Re: “What happens to the alliance guild hall…”

The answer is simple: Alliances as an entity do not get guild halls but rather an instanced place to call home which does not receive upgrades (perhaps aside from cosmetic revisions) and thus nothing is lost if the alliance dissolves for whatever reason.

This doesn’t allow small guilds to work with others in regard to progression of the guild hall though.

Chris

I said “simple”, mind you. It is the simplest method and the one least prone to drama.

If you want, take the part with my idea of “resources” now being needed for upgrades (requiring work and effort) instead of Influence (which you can just dump Gems into) and append this:

Alliance Supply Agent: Your (guild leader/officers/anyone with permission) can now send resources through the Supply Agent to a unified stockpile, or alternatively direct to another guild in your alliance. For a small fee they can also send items from your Guild Vault/Stash/Trove.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nighthawk.6453:

About Open world vs. Instanced GH: what if we sort of combine both? Guild claims some structure in the open world, unused by events, PS and NPCs and it becomes entry point for instanced Guild Hall. Non-guild players can see some basic decorations, like tag and icon, and props tied to upgrades.
Players of the guild that owns the building can enter it’s instanced version. Instanced version is “bigger on the inside” and has interior tied to location, i.e. asura lab or sylvari leaf house for building in Maguuman, human tavern or house for building in Kryta, etc.
Pros:

• GH has Open World noticeable representation.
• GH are spread around the world.

Cons:

• Limited amount of buildings in each area (can be solved by adding more houses, or zone part specifically for houses) .
• Guild members can’t see the exterior without leaving GH.

This is a really good idea.

Chris

Didn’t I already suggest this up-thread when talking with Devata?

Edit: Seems I did . . .

Sorry if i missed it Tobias. Sometimes ideas shine through more after evolution of the discussion.

Chris

Also, I don’t care entirely about full credit. I’m sure someone else brought it up well before me. Bad ideas are like that

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Gulesave.5073:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Gulesave,

There has been a ton of discussion and brainstorming on Guild Hall Content in the thread. Maybe once Jon gets some time he an summarize some of it.

Chris

Chris,
For example, how can the hall serve as a superior launching pad for jumping en mass into PvE or WvW content? How can the space itself benefit PvP’ers in practicing and testing builds, or organizing and running tournaments? How can it be laid out to enable roleplaying? What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking? How are a guilds’ accomplishments demonstrated in the hall, and how can that be interacted with? How can guild members interact with each other in ways they can’t do elsewhere?

How might the spaces and objects and rules specific to the guild hall improve the overall experience of being in a guild?

Yep those are some good questions. Thoughts folks?

Chris

What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking?
Recruitment. People are visual and being able to see what a guild has been able to do outside of what is stored in the guild bank could be a big deal.

How are a guilds’ accomplishments demonstrated in the hall, and how can that be interacted with?
Hall of Monuments held areas that displayed account/character achievements. That had less purpose since unless you ran in with a party, no one would see it. A guild takes pride in what they achieve so perhaps a portrait room that autofills in the portrait of each guild bounty completed. The key is to make it about the guild and not individuals in the guild. If you really want to get into specifics of individuals than a leaderboard for WvW or PvP kills might be fun. If a guild is geared specifically towards those parts of the game, it would be a driving focus for them.

How can guild members interact with each other in ways they can’t do elsewhere?
They can have a guild party and invite guests. Run contests that involve only the guild. Celebrate important guild events (some of these guilds go way back to GW1 days).

Right now there just is not a good way to do it especially now that guilds cross servers. When we wanted to throw our server party, we had to do it in WvW because that was the only place we could gather as a server. In that same vein, guilds should be able to have a gathering place for whatever events they would like to run.

Khisanth.2948:

Arewn.2368:

Airship halls above zones strikes me as useless. From the ground, the ships would be indistinguishable from the airships floating above Orr. That is to say there would be no difference whether it was an actual player’s ship or some random NPC that floats by. From the ships, the ground would be indistinguishable from a backdrop that matches the zone it’s supposed to be over. All this does is limited the “type” of guild hall you can make to being variations of Airships, instead of Castles/Airships/Lodges/etc that you could otherwise have available. Edit: just saw your post on this matter, your suggestion makes the whole “it’s above the zone” idea even more pointless, it would be completely and utterly indistinguishable from the ground. It might as well just be a sky instance with a backdrop that looks like “insert zone here”.

Thanks for writing all thatt. Saves me from having to write them!

As for the airships they also have an inherent space issue. The biggest airship we see in the game is the pact ship we fight on at the end of Arah story mode and even that one is relatively small. I would expect the guild hall space to be at least as large as the citadel in the WvW borderland maps.

If people really need a way to show off their guild halls it could be added as a segment to the Points of Interest show. “Guild Halls Showcase” or whatever.

While the idea of zeppelins was also thrown around the air-ship idea was more in realm of Zephyr Sanctum http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr_Sanctum and the Wizard’s Tower http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower was is both much bigger and the Citadel would likely fit in there.

@Chris,

Could we take a look at the other end of the spectrum with guildhalls at some point. I know everyone wants to make sure small guilds get in on the fun and I think we have that in order.
I would like to know how guilds are going to stand out, you have 100 guilds with 100 guild halls how do you stand out? What rare/difficult content stuff could you have? what sort of unlocks would this give? What would you do to ensure there are “prestige” rewards for guildhalls in each area of the game? How would you ensure they remain rare and don’t become a fixture in every guild hall?

If people have a problem with skill being the lockout for the high end stuff how would they gate it instead? Bare in mind that anything that doesn’t act as a Y/N* barrier would eventually be overcome/gained by a large amount of guilds.

*(Pass/fail , you either succeed completely and get the reward or you fail and get nothing, tokens , or partial gain would lead to oversaturation)

I just remembered that there was in fact a summarize made before:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/7#post4459255
and I think there was even a small follow up on this one a few pages later, not 100% sure about that.

Sorry, don’t know if this has been suggested or not…search function is not very friendly.

My suggestion is also make guild halls a hub where guilds and alliances have access to Asura gates for different instances to world bosses (like Tequatl for example).

How this would work is that guilds or alliances can start paying towards construction of an Asura gate that will have a personalized guild/alliance instance for a boss kill. These should be a permanent addition. Perhaps just charge a fee (Devide it among participating guilds) to activate the gate once constructed and allow guilds/alliances to run it the same amounts of times as the boss is available in a day.

As for the guild halls they should be sort of like a guilds (or alliances) personal edge of the mists map with different forts (or guild halls) belonging to the different guilds in the alliance. If it is one big guild allow officers and leaders to maybe start construction on a second or third guild hall which could be either themed with wvwvw, pvp, pve or all three. Gates could be constructed for connecting to different instanced maps or different types of activities. I believe it would work best if it was like how the wvwvw maps are accessed (There are gates that connect you to all four maps).

Conski Deshan.2057:

@Chris,

Could we take a look at the other end of the spectrum with guildhalls at some point. I know everyone wants to make sure small guilds get in on the fun and I think we have that in order.
I would like to know how guilds are going to stand out, you have 100 guilds with 100 guild halls how do you stand out? What rare/difficult content stuff could you have? what sort of unlocks would this give? What would you do to ensure there are “prestige” rewards for guildhalls in each area of the game? How would you ensure they remain rare and don’t become a fixture in every guild hall?

If people have a problem with skill being the lockout for the high end stuff how would they gate it instead? Bare in mind that anything that doesn’t act as a Y/N* barrier would eventually be overcome/gained by a large amount of guilds.

*(Pass/fail , you either succeed completely and get the reward or you fail and get nothing, tokens , or partial gain would lead to oversaturation)

Guilds with the ability to “stand out.”
But i don’t think those are in the context of halls, If you do than i think we should focus on that? Why can’t guilds that have a focus not stand out to to some of the suggestions so far (i.e.e PvP, WvW prowess) with concepts like displaying those achievements? Maybe we can talk about how to display those thing in a positive way? Like having a Bulletin Board to talk about the stuff our guilds do? I’d love to understand how we can make those achievement (or desire prevalent?)

Sadly i think we are off topic, so i guess i bow out, but i still fail to see how having a talk about halls influences “what they have achieved” I mean there are several discussions about “why have guild halls at all” that focus on achievements.

ardasica.4531:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Re: “What happens to the alliance guild hall…”

The answer is simple: Alliances as an entity do not get guild halls but rather an instanced place to call home which does not receive upgrades (perhaps aside from cosmetic revisions) and thus nothing is lost if the alliance dissolves for whatever reason.

This doesn’t allow small guilds to work with others in regard to progression of the guild hall though.

Chris

Not necessarily true. I co-run a small guild and while we haven’t attempted guild missions or anything, we do pretty good for ourselves. We had a small guild in GW1 and were still able to kit out our hall with everything.

Small guilds are not incapable of doing things in the game to build out a guild hall if the requirements are set forth that way. If the guild has to raise a set fee to purchase the hall and then pay out for other additions, they could do so. They may not get it done as quickly as the larger guilds but it could be done.

I’m on the fence about alliance halls. While I think they have potential benefits, I am leery of how the politics would work if the alliance hall was customizable. I think it is necessary for it to be instanced but have limited custom features in it. Most of the custom options, be it NPCs or decorations should be with the guild halls.

Why do you think that it would be a hurdle for small guilds to work together. If multiple guilds want to take on a guild mission for a single guild, the alliance hall is a place to meet. It is a lot easier than trying to do it on a PvE map or central city.

I think we can all agree small guilds need some help, but let me introduce them to a way to “support” the small guilds via alliances (not my idea but i love it) Guild sponsors (i wish this forum had a better search function). I known at least in some (maybe many cases) transferring excess influence and merits to smaller guilds would be a really nice feature of alliances. Balance on Arenas side however might be a problem.

munkiman.3068:

Alethia.3597:

daft inquisitor.1605:

I just want to chime in that I do like that idea for the “central hall” joining 5 guilds together, as an alliance feature. I think it looks interesting, but I’m just wondering how that would impact the building of separate guild halls. Would that possibly stunt the growth or how you’d be able to design your hall, with needing to have one “entryway” no matter what?

Think of the gateway into the hub as being fluid. It could be like the gate from EB into Obsidian Sanctum, but a guild could put it anywhere in the hall they liked. From the central hub looking out you could see the halls, but not necessarily through the entry point.

Playing devils advocate here, there are definitely some hurdles to overcome. One point brought up earlier is population cap. Doing some fairly well known mental numbers (based solely on teamspeak numbers) lets say these maps could technically hold somewhere between 180-320 players. Obviously these maps can’t be entirely fluid, since my pentagon model assumes 5 guild per alliance, that’s a potential of 2500 players. This is most probably out of scope. So each section would have to be instanced.

This provides a challenge (how much of one i have no idea, but there’s my “out of the box” thought i can’t work out). I thought about the central hub being uniformly consistent so that the adjacent view is equal on all sides. However, you would still need to “zone” into the central hub and of course, that hub could and likely would, be full, from time to time. That’s one point. Another is how seamless that transition would be. I look to Destiny for a seamless zone transition, but that too may be out of scope and we’d have to deal with portals.

Another point to this is if Arena could theoretically make it so we could see adjacent maps layout knowing full well those could change over time. Guild A leaves, we need to load another view. Obviously we wouldn’t be able to see players running around those maps.

Lastly, and not so “big o deal”, can Arena create maps that join up seamlessly? I’m thinking of this on a GvG level too (even though that’s not part of the convo). Can we have a GvG that joins 2 maps when triggered? I dunno, but that would totally expand on the variations of maps and learning how to properly fight on those maps, dynamically.

Lots to think about with a proposal like this, which is totally not my own, but an adaption of several ideas and a concept to “solve” alliance hall ownership.

Crap, someone suggested guild sponsors (just to offer context) a few pages ago. Basically donation influence and merits to smaller guilds in the alliance. I think that would be a cool mechanic, if added.

I think we had it in the last CDI too. My brain is having trouble keeping up with everything now.

Drip feeding influence across might be tricky, maybe we can just talk to an NPC who would walk across to their hall and dump a bucket of influence over in their hall as a simple transaction with a visual. Maybe there could even be an event so we had to defend it like a doylak so they could get it.

Ack, sorry guys and gals I didn’t mean to monopolize the thread, just trying to get caught up.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Re: “What happens to the alliance guild hall…”

The answer is simple: Alliances as an entity do not get guild halls but rather an instanced place to call home which does not receive upgrades (perhaps aside from cosmetic revisions) and thus nothing is lost if the alliance dissolves for whatever reason.

This doesn’t allow small guilds to work with others in regard to progression of the guild hall though.

Chris

Is that a bad thing?
Since alliances are temporary, the progress that “small guilds” could achieve towards this goal, will be lost eventually.
Why not look at how current guilds work in tandem right now?
I often see the word “emissary” or “ally” on guilds that work with others, basically meaning that if you want to help other guild (right now), you join that guild as an “emissary” or an “ally” and help them.

Now if we separate the idea of halls and alliances, we can think of ways that allow members of other guilds (or alliances) to help a particular guild with some of the work required to get or improve a Guild Hall.
We don’t want to define what alliances can and cannot do at this point, alliances have different terms depending on the context.
What kind of agreement can have a group of small guilds regarding the building of a Hall/Halls. Well, “you help me, and I help you” comes to my mind.

Devata.6589:

I just remembered that there was in fact a summarize made before:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/7#post4459255
and I think there was even a small follow up on this one a few pages later, not 100% sure about that.

Thanks Devata, this is the small follow up I made after that one:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/13#post4466306

But to be fair, I think we really need a new summary at this point, to know where we still have open roads of discussion, and to include the questions that have been made by Chris and Jon.

Maybe the working together with an alliance thing will be as simple as if someone gets a rare drop to unlock something it has say 5 copies of it so you can drop one in a donation bin in someone else’s hall. They are soul or account bound so you have to have access to someone’s hall for them to get it. It won’t help if someone wants to charge a fee to do that for a guild though which could result in “selling” it.

If we can donate influence between allied guilds and we can count allies as guild members when it comes to anything like raids and missions I see most of the working together to get things sorting itself out. A lot of small guilds already did this banding together doing events to unlock one guild bank, then play in the next guild until they had their guild bank.

It might need to have a time lock on it though, so maybe they get to keep the upgrade as long as the alliance lasted a month to stop the selling thing.

Responding to Chris Whiteside and Jon Peters simultaneously this time.

From what I gather, Chris is after information about alliances and how they might operate/function and Jon is looking for the means with which guilds go about creating actual upgrades/visual improvements?

I feel like I’ve come up with a system, that allows large guilds, small guilds and alliances to -all- acquire what they want.

First, the framework: whether a guild is purchasing a general upgrade/improvement OR whether they are specializing, these three “routes” would be present and usable to all guilds regardless of size. I do personally lean toward the specialization theory of GH’s as I feel it solves alliance issues. Some example specializations categories that I will call on here for ease of explaining the system are WvW, PvP, Adventuring, and Dungeons.

Guild A goes to purchase the first tier of a Guild Hall Specialization. They have 3 “routes” to obtain this. The first route is very basic:

The first route (Best for Large Guilds): A glorified scavenger hunt linked to the particular specialization. Let’s say this guild chooses WvW as its’ specialization. First, the guild must choose the specialization to be sought by the Guild Leader or allowed guild member locking in this option from the User Interface or speaking to an npc. Once that is done, guild members must represent the guild to obtain the items necessary, say, tokens. These would drop off enemy players and high importance NPC’s (Tower/Keep Lords) in WvW. They stack to 250, are bind on pickup, and are taken to the Guild Hall (or appropriate NPC) and deposited.

When the guild acquires and deposits, say, 10,000 of these (easily adjustable), tier 1 is unlocked for the specialization (or general guild upgrade without the “locking in” from above if specializations are done away with). The next “tier” in the upgrade line would require a larger number and so on. However, there’s no time gate here! As soon as the huge guild throws in the tokens, the job is done! Boom, onto the next tier!

(Stay with me through this)

The second route (best for small guilds): When any guild member logs in and represents the guild, a timer starts. Now, if we’re using the specialization requirement from above, they would again, have to “lock in” their choice and represent the guild etc. However, there’s no scavenger hunt (if specialization track, then you’d still need to play the game mode linked to it, here, let’s say WvW again, so go into WvW). What happens is, it takes 3 weeks total time = 504 hours of at least one person representing.

Example: Let’s assume, at 2 pm, Guild Leader logs on and starts representing this small guild, the clock has started, second after second starts ticking away at the 504 hours. He plays for 8 hours. Further, one hour after he logged in at 2 pm, a second guildie logs in at 3 pm, the time is -not- additive. It’s one person only that is counted. So if two are on (or a thousand are online at the same time) it’s irrelevant as long as one is representing (and playing the appropriate game mode if specialization method used) then seconds tick away at the 3 week total. No one on in the middle of the night? No time ticking away. Want the upgrade? Log in and represent (and play the right mode if applicable).

Now, let’s talk about how this second “route” ties into the first “route” above. They are mutually exclusive. Meaning, Guild A has 9800 tokens and 480 hours representing, it doesn’t matter. Either you have 10,000 tokens and you get the upgrade OR you represent for 504 hours and you get the upgrade. There, now big guilds can burn through a scavenger hunt, speeding up their upgrade, but if a guild knows it can’t obtain 10k tokens in less than 3 weeks, run “route” 2!

It might not seem fair for the “route” 1 people. Well, they’re doing something they would already be doing and they’re acquiring the upgrade faster. So as long as they toss 250 tokens at an npc before logging off, they’re good.

The third route: Gold. That first tier upgrade for the WvW specialization? It’s 1,000 gold. Pay it and it’s yours. No time-gate. No rep. Done. Why? Simple – economy. Everyone will want these guild hall upgrades. Everyone. If you give the rich folk the ability to have something a few weeks or months ahead of people, they’ll do it, and then, the economy is awesome! With so much less gold out and about, fewer people buy gems, gem prices drop, meaning more gems for less gold. Those folks that didn’t go the gold dump route and went route 1 or 2, they can now buy more pretties off the TP for less golds. The next tier in the upgrade for this “route”? 2,000 gold. 3000 for tier 3, then 4k and so on. “Route” 3 assumes Anet is looking for gold sinks.

Continued below to discuss alliances, possible loop holes and any adjustments that may seem necessary…

A special note on specializations, and to address Chris Whiteside in regards to alliances. I’m hopeful specializations are placed in, because I would suggest that after the first specialization is completed in its’ entirety, the tier one for the next selected specialization would cost (examples)40k tokens for "route 1, or 1.5 months of time from “route” 2, or 5k gold at each tier from “route” 3 to obtain.

This doesn’t preclude guilds from obtaining all specializations, but it certainly encourages alliances. A guild member could represent an allied guild and help them run “route” 1 or 2. Maybe a direct donation from the big WvW guild to the smaller PvP guild they are close with to help them unlock the PvP Specializations Guild Hall. Why because any guild member from the WvW guild could then represent that allied PvP guild and obtain the specialization features of that guild in the given game mode without the extremely expensive/long grind of getting to it with the original guild. Even if they didn’t help, they’d seek out an alliance with a guild that has the desired specialization to obtain the benefits of all game modes for their primary guildies to keep their guild attractive.This encourages cooperation among large portions of the player base.

Potential Loop Holes Explained: Let’s assume that people see “route” 2 above and think they’re going to start making their own one man upgraded Guild Halls to later sell them. The breakdown:

If one person alone is trying to boost it up, its 504 hours of game time for the first tier of an upgrade alone. Further, he has to be representing this guild, and it’s just him. If he ever stops repping to get bonuses from other guilds, the time stops too. It’s Captain Loner, for months on end to push it to one completely upgraded Specialization Path. Using the increasing difficulty for additional specialization (such as PvP, WvW, Dungeons), our hero would be playing for more than a year(s) at least, all by himself, to get all the specialization paths. Tough to exploit.

A final note on “route” 2, if it’s deemed too harsh, it could allow for a total of 2 players or 3 players to combine overlapping time to march toward the amount needed…

One last side note to Chris. I know the Specializations I posted about in my previous post are a mountain to climb dev time wise, they can certainly be watered down to require less man hours.

Actually, I’ll say, on a side-side note, the Dungeon one, that allows players to give themselves 50% increased damage taken and 50% increased condition duration upon entering a dungeon would be easily implemented. It could provide the hard mode many people are after, especially if it came with the speed run copper loot bonus that stacks and resets if something isn’t killed after a time. No additional gold is earned over what’s normally given upon completion of the dungeon path, this hard-mode exists to give players an economic and challenging reason to engage dungeon wildlife. Tweaking this further, to allow for greater build variations – increase healing received by 200% from other players only. Just a thought.

Editing this the following day. You know, middle sized guilds can kind of be in a rough spot with the above system. So, maybe an exact middle ground could be allowed. Example: 5000 tokens and 252 hours. I say exact because if not, then you’re left trying to calculate how many seconds/minutes equate a token and the reality is, the more people after tokens, the less they should mean time wise. So, if you just chop them both in half and combine them, it should give guilds comprised of 30-50 a reasonable option.

Devata.6589:

I just remembered that there was in fact a summarize made before:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/7#post4459255
and I think there was even a small follow up on this one a few pages later, not 100% sure about that.

cool, yeah that’s one of the post that got me thinking about the pentagon thing thanks for reposting this. i couldn’t find it using google… Pretty good idea in some senses.

My suggestion:

Alliance – General huge plot of land
Guild – Hall with land plots dedicated to members
Player – Houses placed on that guild land

So the issue with guild halls is very similar to the issue with player owned housing. You can’t open it to be completely open world without inviting a massive land-rush. But having tight instances isn’t that cool either.

I’ll focus on Guild Halls but I should note: I’m envisioning an alliance owned piece of land where all members can walk around and visit one-another’s houses and guild halls. The status of the alliance determines the size of the land. The status of the guild hall determines how much of it is dedicated to that particular guild’s housing.

Important:———
A Guild without an alliance can still have a Hall that creates a land instance equal to the size it would have been allowed in an alliance. A player without a guild can still access his house via a new spot or portal in the home instance.
———————————

The Guild Hall would have usability features unlocked through time gating. So stuff like merchant and crafting access will be accessible to a tiny guild just consisting of a father, his two kids and his sister for example.

Increasing the land allowed to a guild hall would be more of an activity thing. A bigger-fancier hall would could take up more of the housing lots available to the alliance. Therefore, a large and active guild (500 members with 130 active most days) would devour most of the available land by itself. However, bunches of small guilds that take up 5-15 lots each aren’t going to be that much of a hindrance on the alliance.

The goal is to create a system where smaller guild halls have an appeal to alliance leaders. Alliances that just want to coordinate the best in GvG/WvW can opt to choose guilds that lean their guild halls harder toward functionality features and minimize land. Members of said guilds can still be subsequently in another guild with a land based guild hall if they want to have their house surrounded by neighbors.

Basically, 3 distinct upgrade types:
1. Guild Hall upgrades that help coordinate/show-off competitively
2. Guild Hall upgrades that improve the aesthetics of the hall itself and provides land for housing around/behind it
3. Unlocks for PvE boosts, merchants, parties and player rewards

Optimizations:
1. Can only plot your house under one guild and Guild Hall under one alliance
2. If necessary, alliance only displays Guild Halls which splits into a Guild Hall instance which may split into several neighborhood instances (Possible joining of two small guild halls into a single instance)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Re: “What happens to the alliance guild hall…”

The answer is simple: Alliances as an entity do not get guild halls but rather an instanced place to call home which does not receive upgrades (perhaps aside from cosmetic revisions) and thus nothing is lost if the alliance dissolves for whatever reason.

This doesn’t allow small guilds to work with others in regard to progression of the guild hall though.

Chris

What if a alliance guild hall allowed the function to “loan” a builder to another guild, speeding up the construction of a project?

This doesn’t allow small guilds to work with others in regard to progression of the guild hall though.

It makes sense though. The small guilds should each be progressing their own guild halls, then the Alliance would just have a shared meeting place that nothing would be lost as the alliance shifts.

Rambodacious.7495:

If one person alone is trying to boost it up, its 504 hours of game time for the first tier of an upgrade alone. Further, remember, he has to be representing this guild, and it’s just him. While he represents, there’s no bonuses of any kind, from any guild. If he ever stops repping, the time stops too. It’s you Captain Loner, for months on end to push it to one completely upgraded Specialization Path. Using the increasing difficulty model, our hero would be playing for more than a year(s) at least, all by himself, to get all the specialization paths.

It might need some work, as far as I know when someone idles out while repping a guild and stays on the character select screen they might count as online and in the guild. At least on the roster they show up as part of your guild and online which has caused a lot of confusion for us since launch. In that case, it would take Captain Loner 21 days if he stayed connected which some of my guild members have days on end, so it is theoretically possible.

Alethia.3597:

Rambodacious.7495:

If one person alone is trying to boost it up, its 504 hours of game time for the first tier of an upgrade alone. Further, remember, he has to be representing this guild, and it’s just him. While he represents, there’s no bonuses of any kind, from any guild. If he ever stops repping, the time stops too. It’s you Captain Loner, for months on end to push it to one completely upgraded Specialization Path. Using the increasing difficulty model, our hero would be playing for more than a year(s) at least, all by himself, to get all the specialization paths.

It might need some work, as far as I know when someone idles out while repping a guild and stays on the character select screen they might count as online and in the guild. At least on the roster they show up as part of your guild and online which has caused a lot of confusion for us since launch. In that case, it would take Captain Loner 21 days if he stayed connected which some of my guild members have days on end, so it is theoretically possible.

A solid point. Looks like what’s needed is code to ensure actual in-game time and/or making sure log in screen time is not counted. I will say, if we run the specialization method, the person would have to actively be in WvW or a Dungeon or in an adventure (non-city) zone in Tyria etc depending on the path they’re trying to unlock. In that sense, just the log in screen problem would need to be looked at.

Really, if someone wants to hit their keyboard every few minutes, while sitting in a Dungeon by themselves for weeks and months on end, doing nothing, I say let them have at it. In my mind they’ve earned the reward through endless hours of tedium.

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

I honestly believe that if you don’t want to make it impossible for small guilds to expand, all quality of life components should be fairly easy to get for all guild sizes. Like with the game itself, big coffers and long time spent grinding should be rewarded with cosmetic items.

Large guilds should be able to build large expanses with statuaries and other grand decorations, but the functions of a guild hall should be found in any size guild.

BilboBaggins.5620:

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

I honestly believe that if you don’t want to make it impossible for small guilds to expand, all quality of life components should be fairly easy to get for all guild sizes. Like with the game itself, big coffers and long time spent grinding should be rewarded with cosmetic items.

Large guilds should be able to build large expanses with statuaries and other grand decorations, but the functions of a guild hall should be found in any size guild.

I couldn’t agree more. Merchants, the BLTC, repair vendors etc. should all be fairly easy to get. Making your Hall look “Legendary” should be the grind.

How about this for a guild alliance hall?

The Alliance hall would be for comestic stuff only, no bonuses, nothing, just make the place look pretty. This would sidestep the whole issue of “spent time and resources for alliance bonuses, and lose it when alliance breaks.” Yes, losing the time for cosmetic stuff would suck, but at least it was just cosmetic.

essentially, the alliance hall should be a meet and planning area, or another place to just hang. If dueling is implemented down the road, yes a dueling room. Perhaps even a noteboard on a wall or something to announce things, or plans.

Another function is that if there is a time factor at all in expanding guilds (such as building rooms, research, etc), there is an “alliance builder” which can be loaned out from one guild to another to help speed up the process of ONE of the other guild’s projects. If the alliance breaks while that guy is loaned out, the builder leaves, and the time is set back to what it would have been without the builder.

The last one would be a resource exchange bank. Example: Guild 1 puts up in one slot they are looking for 2000 logs. For every 1 log they receive from guild 2, guild 2 would receive 3 mithril. This rate of exchange can be set to anything, even 1:1 if they want, and the two guilds can come to an agreement on what those exchanges would be.

BilboBaggins.5620:

I honestly believe that if you don’t want to make it impossible for small guilds to expand, all quality of life components should be fairly easy to get for all guild sizes. Like with the game itself, big coffers and long time spent grinding should be rewarded with cosmetic items.

Large guilds should be able to build large expanses with statuaries and other grand decorations, but the functions of a guild hall should be found in any size guild.

I think only cosmetic rewards for very heavy long-term commitment would feel a bit like a waste of time.

Take the example I posted earlier (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/20#post4470884):

• a upgrade (guild expeditions) would have it’s basic functions early on (npc creates portals to event-locations to many known places every 15 minutes – do event or kill number of enemies to get a “mission completed” and earn guild-ressources)
• players can unlock new locations added to those portals by simply finding and completing them in the world when being in a party with at least 1 other guild member
• higher level unlocks would be more rewarding events / meta events (you get more guild currency for doing the balthasar-chain by using the portal)

You see? Basically unlock a bigger variety of missions/expeditions on higher levels. The activities may be known from normal play (or may not, some portals would lead to less-known / less-frequented events) but offer new rewards by doing them “as a guild” by using the portal in the guild-hall. Long time commitment would see “new” content as rewards.

Doing the Lyssa event through guild-portals may also offer new cosmetic rewards for the guild-members. The expedition-npc could create portals based on Anets metrics of events that haven’t seen many people in the last weeks. I think that rewarding ONLY cosmetics wouldn’t feel as a very fresh experience for people though, just give them something “new” to do here and then.

Veteran xxKILLZORxx may have played since beta and achieved everything, but he may have had no reason to do a Kessex Hills event with a full group until now (e.g. for a new cosmetic, for guild ressources,…)

Iason Evan.3806:

BilboBaggins.5620:

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

I honestly believe that if you don’t want to make it impossible for small guilds to expand, all quality of life components should be fairly easy to get for all guild sizes. Like with the game itself, big coffers and long time spent grinding should be rewarded with cosmetic items.

Large guilds should be able to build large expanses with statuaries and other grand decorations, but the functions of a guild hall should be found in any size guild.

I couldn’t agree more. Merchants, the BLTC, repair vendors etc. should all be fairly easy to get. Making your Hall look “Legendary” should be the grind.

I tihnk everyone is in agreement that the basic stuff should be easy. But we dont want to include EVERYTHING from a city in a guild hall, as we dont want cities to empty out. So some restrictions such as the trade vendor, mystic forge, and crafting will probably be left out and kept in the cities, while guild armorer and weaponsmith, siege vendor, guild bank, and some others would still be placed in the guild hall.

There could still be SOME high end features for larger guilds as well. Asura gates to dungeons could be one. Its not necessarily something a guild needs, but would be nice to have.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Gulesave.5073:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Gulesave,

There has been a ton of discussion and brainstorming on Guild Hall Content in the thread. Maybe once Jon gets some time he an summarize some of it.

Chris

Chris,
For example, how can the hall serve as a superior launching pad for jumping en mass into PvE or WvW content? How can the space itself benefit PvP’ers in practicing and testing builds, or organizing and running tournaments? How can it be laid out to enable roleplaying? What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking? How are a guilds’ accomplishments demonstrated in the hall, and how can that be interacted with? How can guild members interact with each other in ways they can’t do elsewhere?

How might the spaces and objects and rules specific to the guild hall improve the overall experience of being in a guild?

Yep those are some good questions. Thoughts folks?

Chris

For example, how can the hall serve as a superior launching pad for jumping en mass into PvE or WvW content?
-Special Asuran gates/teleporter pads, that will teleport an entire squad (30-40 people) into a brand new copy of whatever PvE map they choose. It’s not guild locked but it does guarentree they all get into the location just before an event or such.
(Cooldown would be needed to avoid the obvious exploit of constantly opening new Orr maps for the resources.)
-WvW realtime map that gives a visual representation of whats happening currently (I think I saw a suggestion earlier with something similar in a war room?)

How can the space itself benefit PvP’ers in practicing and testing builds, or organizing and running tournaments?
-Testing Dummies for each armor class, Aoe, with a condition applied etc.
-A Duel arena with an option to set PvE or PvP versions of skills.
-A waiting area for entering a custom arena

How can it be laid out to enable roleplaying?
-By existing and being at least partially customisable it will
-Intractable furniture would be a massive plus (sitting on seats, bonus the poor people in the priory classroom finally learn how to sit).

What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking?
-Doesn’t need an intensive, people like to check out the competition to see are they winning or loosing.
-Daily Gawker Achievement.

How are a guilds’ accomplishments demonstrated in the hall, and how can that be interacted with?
-Already discussed this at length, rare display items, leaderboards for various things. Mannequins to show off alternate sets, Ultra hard challenges that reward unique guild items.

How can guild members interact with each other in ways they can’t do elsewhere?
-It’s nothing major they can just relax, talk without random chat/emote spam making it difficult to follow a convo
-Easier to take group photos, and select scenery to do so.

I agree with some of your points. I’d like to add

What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking?
-Doesn’t need an intensive, people like to check out the competition to see are they winning or loosing.
-Daily Gawker Achievement.

Guilds imo will always visit others guild halls for social reasons. Alliance guilds might host alliance meetings in rotation for example.

Mmm, not exactly what I’m thinking of as “new content” when it’s just old content reheated with restrictions or extra stuff placed on it. That was my big problem with “Hard Mode” most of the time through GW1: except for the early areas, monsters barely changed except to be granted more health and defense.

I’d like new content to be, well . . . new.

Higher tiers of guild missions? Well, add tougher bounties to the mix, which could inherit the “lockout system” of the assault knights to keep crushing zergs from burying them. Make treks find more difficult spots to reach, requiring some knowledge of trivia and areas in the game. New guild rushes which require more effort split between the racers and the escorts, perhaps. As for new guild puzzles, not done those yet . . .

Or go ahead and recycle event areas like the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance, but mix it up. Perhaps the missions are set up differently:

Bounty: An Inquest krewe leader is trying to sneak in to set up an experiment which jeopardizes Pact forces. Go in and eliminate the threat! (Defense of the altar area, then cleaning out mechanisms around the rim of the area, then attacking the krewe leader himself.)

Rush: Become free Sparks and navigate through the course to shed excess energy to power Pact mechanisms keeping the Risen from overruning the Cathedral grounds.

Special Event: Once the guild has acquired enough notoriety over their presence here, turn aside a Risen Champion like Tequatl but behaving differently, landing in specific spots to fight for a time and trying more to disrupt the defenses for the other Risen to overrun the Cathedral. Its attack method changes depending on where it is, and when it’s in the center it leeches off the temple energy until chased away. Let it leech too much, and it wipes the Pact presence – failure.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

FYI I would not put a hard gate on number of guildees required for Guild Hall creation.

If it’s instanced of course not since there would be little downside to giving eveyone a guild hall whether they use it or not. Open World guild halls however would be problematic if guilds have one but don’t use it (i.e. you’d end up with ghost towns or need to implement some sort of upkeep system).

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Personally I think I’d prefer instanced Guild Halls over open world ones anyway, since I wouldn’t necessarily want people wandering into my hall uninvited.

One could do open world with access restrictions. Even if it’s just an if-statement disguised as a front door.

[quote=4469962;LanfearShadowflame.3189:
The common theme with open world is the ability to go anywhere as you please.[/quote]

This is getting a bit dictionary-ish (although precision of language is important in communication), but my perception of open world is simply a shared world, not a restriction less world.

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

A Guild Airship would be cool…but not as a Guild Hall…maybe make it an option…I know many would like to be “Sky Pirates”…I dunno…I’m on the fence on this one…

Me too, I think some of the suggestions regarding airships could make for an interesting form of gameplay but as a guild hall… well maybe it could be a type of theme (i.e. wizard tower).

Edgar Doiron.2804:

Unless we can do airship battles, I don’t want any Guild Airships

This. Airship have more gameplay-type value than Guild Hall value. Unless we’re talking about something like Wizard Tower.

Iason Evan.3806:

1.) Is it OK for it to take more time for smaller guilds to get upgrades than for larger guilds only because of size? If so, why?

Because any sort of artificial restriction would have to be, well fairly intense, in order to allow a 5 man guild to progress at the same pace as a 300 man guild. In fact the restrictions would have to be so restricting that most likely players in large guilds would feel as if they’re being punished for being in a larger guild.

Donari.5237:

One thing concerns me with your proposed fixes so far: you’ve a couple of times mentioned losing the plot and having to find another one.

Donari.5237:

There will be terrain preferences, views, convenient travel access, zone preferences, and so on.

My idea of primarily having instanced guild halls but having limited/fixed number of open world guilds that could be competed over (either pve or gvg) essentially takes the negatives of an open world guild hall and makes useful. No guild won’t have a guild hall, but those that wish to have an specific open world guild hall will be able to compete for them, some would be more desirable of course and these would have more competition while others would be less desirable but easier to get. Granted this is more of a GvG suggestion but does allow for both instancing and open world

Donari.5237:

Do you have a solution that lets a plot be permanent once acquired, doesn’t make guild hall areas into cookie cutter subdivisions in isolated areas, and makes every site equally “cool” to guilds placing a hall?

You can’t and doing so would be silly. Permanent open world guild halls lead to ghost town as inevitably players come and go. Having limited number of fixed location guild halls also allows for unique designs. As for cool… well that’s subjective and technically refers to a state of detachment or apathy (i.e. keeping it cool, saying cool under pressure etc.), but that last point is me being pedantic again :P

Devata.6589:

Air-ship battles, or events in the airmaps where you fight against dragons and so on.

Again I’d rather say we introduce airships and airmaps as a type of gameplay, rather than attempting to combine it with guilds halls (which might in practice limit what could be done with airship-combat). Although the effort to do something like this… would be intense…

Palador.2170:

If you want one of these open map spaces, you have to fight for it in GvG.

Like my suggestion many many pages ago… which didn’t get the loving I would have liked but then again… pride and ego and all that

Khisanth.2948:

Guild hall sellers.

You get a guild hall I get a guild hall, when we get together we get another alliance guild hall with functionality specifically aimed toward an alliance (thus guild specific functions aren’t shared via the common guild alliance hall. I can build up my guild hall without having to worry about the divorce because we’re not in community of property, thus I get to keep my own stuff and not share them.

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.

Which is a difficult topic. You see currently all guild hall upgrades either give access to gameplay (guild missions) or give upgrades to gameplay (guild magic boost). The current system exists completely separate from the idea of a guild hall. As such the current upgrade system cannot really be revamped to include guild halls. Rather creating additional upgrade paths for guild halls would make more sense.
Guild halls would have two very broad categories, aesthetics (that is, furniture decoration etc.) and services (merchant, grafting stations, way points, etc.). Although aesthetics could be expanded and upgraded in several ways (such a collecting blueprints, completing world events etc.)

Devata.6589:

All I am getting frustrated over is seeing the same ‘problems’ being put up while possible solution have been giving for them pages ago.

The structure of the thread (a linear progression of posts) isn’t idea for topic discussion. Something like a tree-structure would allow for separate threads or topic based discussion. However we have what we have.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

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.

I guess that’s a very real concern :P
Well I guess if we have open world guild halls they could each have a set theme, and allow for set upgrades or decorations to be added, which collectively is consistent with the surrounding zones theme.

Drewan.5681:

I personally loathe the idea of airhsips or a ‘sky map’

I would love if I could have a nice sturdy norn lodge in the mountains.

To each their own, if it’s instanced then we could have both (assuming with have an ‘outside’ included within the instance space i.e. the instance space isn’t just the a room).

Nighthawk.6453:

About Open world vs. Instanced GH: what if we sort of combine both? Guild claims some structure in the open world, unused by events, PS and NPCs and it becomes entry point for instanced Guild Hall. Non-guild players can see some basic decorations, like tag and icon, and props tied to upgrades.
Players of the guild that owns the building can enter it’s instanced version. Instanced version is “bigger on the inside” and has interior tied to location,

This sounds familiar (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/4470346)…

Blaeys.3102:

As the leader of a 300+ person active guild, I would also be against the idea of heavily themed guild halls (airships, caves, etc) because it could easily feel out of place in a diverse guild (an asura wouldnt want to be in a tree, for instance).

Yeah, but other would very much like having themed guild halls. You could simply just choose the neutral theme then.

Tryxtr.6295:

Way too many ideas in here to comment on all of them, but here’s my thoughts on a few.

I know right!

JonPeters.5630:

To be fair I prefer open world design, but think its very hard to overcome many decisions that have already been made in the game.

True, true, true. Some functionality simply can’t be stapled on. Still, as a dev with a deeper insight into this matter, you couldn’t perhaps list some of these decisions? At least we can either discussion them or see how any why they would make open world guild halls difficult.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Put simply I am removing the proposal of open world Guild Halls specifically from our brain storm.

Oh! Sorry I’m only seeing this now… a bit sad about it but ok.

CureForLiving.5360:

Iason Evan.3806:

1.) Is it OK for it to take more time for smaller guilds to get upgrades than for larger guilds only because of size? If so, why?

Because any sort of artificial restriction would have to be, well fairly intense, in order to allow a 5 man guild to progress at the same pace as a 300 man guild. In fact the restrictions would have to be so restricting that most likely players in large guilds would feel as if they’re being punished for being in a larger guild.

Exactly, these kind of “restrictions” be punishing big guilds, in order for small guilds to get everything at the same pace, and can cause some serious problems. That 300-man guild might have 10 or 20 active players for various reasons, so if you add any restrictions based on size, the 300-man guild with 10 active players will get everything done much slower than a 10 man guild with 10 active players? That doesn’t make any sense and it punishes active players within big guilds.

Giving smaller guilds a chance is one thing, but punishing big guilds just because they have lots of members is a terrible idea.

Donari.5237:

One thing concerns me with your proposed fixes so far: you’ve a couple of times mentioned losing the plot and having to find another one.

Donari.5237:

There will be terrain preferences, views, convenient travel access, zone preferences, and so on.

My idea of primarily having instanced guild halls but having limited/fixed number of open world guilds that could be competed over (either pve or gvg) essentially takes the negatives of an open world guild hall and makes useful. No guild won’t have a guild hall, but those that wish to have an specific open world guild hall will be able to compete for them, some would be more desirable of course and these would have more competition while others would be less desirable but easier to get. Granted this is more of a GvG suggestion but does allow for both instancing and open world

I would also like to have both instanced and open world Guild Halls, instanced without fees/upkeep or any other way to keep them, and open world that requires some competition to get and you lose the Guild Hall if you don’t meet the requirements. That way we can get the benefits of both Instanced and Open World GH without many of the drawbacks.

munkiman.3068:

Conski Deshan.2057:

@Chris,

Could we take a look at the other end of the spectrum with guildhalls at some point. I know everyone wants to make sure small guilds get in on the fun and I think we have that in order.
I would like to know how guilds are going to stand out, you have 100 guilds with 100 guild halls how do you stand out? What rare/difficult content stuff could you have? what sort of unlocks would this give? What would you do to ensure there are “prestige” rewards for guildhalls in each area of the game? How would you ensure they remain rare and don’t become a fixture in every guild hall?

If people have a problem with skill being the lockout for the high end stuff how would they gate it instead? Bare in mind that anything that doesn’t act as a Y/N* barrier would eventually be overcome/gained by a large amount of guilds.

*(Pass/fail , you either succeed completely and get the reward or you fail and get nothing, tokens , or partial gain would lead to oversaturation)

Guilds with the ability to “stand out.”
But i don’t think those are in the context of halls, If you do than i think we should focus on that? Why can’t guilds that have a focus not stand out to to some of the suggestions so far (i.e.e PvP, WvW prowess) with concepts like displaying those achievements? Maybe we can talk about how to display those thing in a positive way? Like having a Bulletin Board to talk about the stuff our guilds do? I’d love to understand how we can make those achievement (or desire prevalent?)

Sadly i think we are off topic, so i guess i bow out, but i still fail to see how having a talk about halls influences “what they have achieved” I mean there are several discussions about “why have guild halls at all” that focus on achievements.

I feel it is on topic, I mean for me Personal housing and Guildhalls are both about showing off. I’ve been looking forward to guildhalls forever and I will have fun decorating it. But the thing our guild will spend time doing is finding the rarest shiniest most prestigious thing and sticking those in our hall so I’d like to know what sort of systems we’re going to have for that.

Plus I want to make sure we avoid having every maxed out hall looking identical because that’s no fun which is usually where the harder to get stuff comes in.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Re: “What happens to the alliance guild hall…”

The answer is simple: Alliances as an entity do not get guild halls but rather an instanced place to call home which does not receive upgrades (perhaps aside from cosmetic revisions) and thus nothing is lost if the alliance dissolves for whatever reason.

This doesn’t allow small guilds to work with others in regard to progression of the guild hall though.

Chris

Have Alliance Halls and Guild Halls. These would function almost exactly the same, except that Alliance Halls would (obviously) be shared between the guilds of an Alliance, whereas a Guild Hall is only for one particular guild. Because Alliance Halls are shared, whatever currency is used (for the sake discussion, let’s say that it’s just influence) would have to be pooled between the Alliance guilds before the upgrade. One way to do this would be an Alliance Coffer. Instead of simply sending your guild’s influence directly to the upgrade, your guild panel would have an option to “Donate Influence to Alliance Coffer.” The influence in the Coffer, once there’s enough of it, would be used by the leaders to upgrade the Alliance Hall.

The Alliance Coffer would only be used for Hall upgrades; all other upgrades would be handled by the individual guilds as usual.

So, what about when a guild leaves? Whenever a guild donated influence to the Alliance Coffer, the amount of influence would be recorded and added to the total amount of influence that guild has donated. Let’s say Guild X has, over the year they spent in Alliance A, donated 300,000 influence to the Coffer. Now Guild X wants to leave (or is voted out). Guild X gets 300,000 Alliance points to take with them. If Guild X joins a new Alliance, then those 300,000 points are automatically donated to the new Alliance Coffer.

What about the Alliance Hall of Alliance A? Alliance A would keep all upgrades they had previously made in their Hall, but the Alliance would accrue a deficit of the amount donated by the guild that left. In this case, 300,000 influence. Alliance A would have to pay off that deficit prior to commencing new upgrades.

I would also suggest that, if a guild leaves an alliance but does not want to join a new one, it would be possible for them to convert their Alliance points (ie. the influence they donated to the Alliance) into upgrades for their own Guild Hall… but only into Hall upgrades, and not back again. That is, if you spend the 300,000 Alliance points on upgrades for your own Guild Hall, but then want to join an Alliance again, you would have to start donating to it from scratch.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

To be clear Alliance were put forward as a suggestion focusing on allowing smaller guilds to help each other out and thus under that light there is progression and loss.

There doesn’t need to be. Helping each other is best achieved by alliance system letting the guilds do that directly.

There are several ways how allied guilds can help each other.

First, and most basic, is player numbers. That is the most obvious, and the greatest weakness of small guilds – alliances help to circumvent that by pooling the players from all the allied guilds together.
The core thing is an alliance chat channel that allows for intra-guild coordination. Then comes game mechanics treating allied players as your guildies. I mentioned before how guilds could assist each other with guild missions, but even such basic things as increased influence gain when doing events/dungeons with allies (the same as if you were doing them with guildies) would help.

The other advantage big guilds have is the speed at which they can upgrade. Big guilds have way bigger influence income, which means that not only they are far less likely to have downtimes between upgrades, but often can use additional influence to speed up production time. They can also easily pass the merit barrier lot of small guilds will struggle with.

Merit problem can be dealt with in alliances by a simple expedient of being able to do guild missions together (which i think should be possible. It is rather unreasonable to expect five guild alliance to complete the same guild mission five times just so every guild could benefit. If it would not be possible, then at the very least there should be additional allied assist reward that would make repeating missions worthwhile)

I have several ideas for helping influence generation, but i am not sure if using them would be good – and i think, that, even if any were to be introduced, there would need to be some restrictions placed, to avoid easy powerlevelling of small guilds by big ones.

That still leaves third resource – time. Here the guilds could help each other in several ways. First is the production slot contracting idea i mentioned earlier – a guild “locks” one of its production slots, which then can be used by another guild in alliance, to start a third (or fourth, or fifth) consecutive upgrade. Or a guild could use the same unused slot to accelerate production of a specific upgrade being done by an ally.

And of course the ability to share upgrades between allies would allow each guild in an alliance to concentrate on only one upgrade category, which would help the alliance to reach high levels in all upgrade paths much faster.

As you can see, none of the above requires any alliance specific progression, or any guild investment that would be lost to alliance if a guild were to leave it.
(well, production slot sharing could be considered such an lost investment – so, perhaps, to prevent it such activity could generate influence for the guild that dedicated its slot to help others)

guilds should be able to customize a map( about the size of lions arch) with different themes, for example a winter map, fire map, under water map, sky map or better yet just a nice peaceful green land full of rabbits, bunnies and lots of dolyaks. This guild map could have a main house which could also be customized as in a castle, mansion or something like the hall of monuments.
Another great feature could be picture frames. With picture frames maybe guild leaders can upload print screens of their guild, guild leader or special event which the guild enjoyed to place on the wall of their guild house for memory sake/ decorations.This idea should give all members of the guild benefits, as players would be able to instant teleport and use the facilities available in their guild mainland, such as asura gates, merchants, crafting stations and even the mystic forge all with a cost. All in all it would be another lions arch but you will be hanging out with guild mates and friends. I also think it would be great if people could visit other peoples guild lands to look at the different styles etc( maybe all of the benefits such as crafting etc should go if your a visitor)
This is your guilds land to control, there should be as many options as possible to change the style so it does not seem like each guild looks the same or has the same features. So maybe you could keep selling new themes in the gemstone per month or so. (Halloween theme would be cool)
Since this is a guild effort, it would involve every person in the guild to contribute, kinda like making a legendary but with a hundred more people, so it should be impossible to obtain with a 4 man guild. It should involve a lot of cash, guild reputation and missions to be done to get the best of the best looking map.
This could also effect the living story, so instead of scarlet attacking lions arch, maybe she could have attacked your guilds land instead. From here who knows maybe we could start seeing some guild wars as in two guilds raid each other’s maps for rewards on their own.

Hi fellow contributors,

I have started a summary thread for the Guild Hall CDI.

Feel free to check here if your suggestion has already be posted and catch up with other contributions

And try to stick to the proposed posting format suggested in the OP. It makes the summarizing job much much easier.