Guild Wars 2

timmyf.1490:

Sure, airships are neat, but we had airships at launch with the Pact. Been there, done that. Guild Halls give us the opportunity to go somewhere new or strange or perplexing. We should be embracing that opportunity!

Let’s try this with your earlier example.

“We’ve had volcanos since launch. Let’s go somewhere new!” “We had jumping puzzles since launch. Let’s go somewhere new!” “We’ve had buildings since launch. Let’s go somewhere new!”

Your argument can be used against every single thing you’ve stated. So, I’ll reiterate it this way. Your idea was jumping puzzles as a guild hall, so why not have midair jumping puzzles on an airship? Having rigged scaffolding and plunges and drops, like how Zephyr Sanctum was, but in an airship? That incorporates things you said would be interesting, plus my idea of an airship.

Yes, we’ve SEEN airships since launch, we’ve been in them, we’ve fought on them. But they’ve never belonged to us. And that’s where the difference is.

Guild halls are just buildings. Jumping puzzles and volcanos are just part of the environment. But having any of that in a guild hall form? Something we can customize and edit to suit or needs or wants? THAT is what makes it interesting.

I’m truly sorry that you can only be so short-sighted with regards to airships, because I think there are some amazing ideas that can be put into them. But, imaginations only go so far with some people. Literally anything that can be done in this game can also be implemented “in the air”, so any time you think up a new guild hall idea, just do me a favor? At least try to picture it in airship form at least for a minute before scoffing away the idea of airships completely.

(Also, floating ruins of a castle/dungeon/mausoleum? Think about that. That sounds cool to me. Just because we’re using the term “airship” here, it doesn’t specifically have to be a “ship”. Like how “guild beacon” isn’t just a huge beam of light cast skyward.)

I’m not saying there should not be airships. I’m saying there should be a lot more than just airships. We’ve exhausted a lot of pages talking about airships and I’d love to hear other ideas. Just my two cents. That’s all I have to say on the matter, I’ll go back to lurking now.

There are different kinds of air ships too; the militaristic ones from the pact or the zephyr ones. Another possibility is mobile Asuran floating cube buildings. There are a number of possibilities from. i don’t know blimp charr war machines.

It may also may be an opportunity to finally learn more about that floating castle in kessex hills.

timmyf.1490:

Devata.6589:

Because you would be able to have a all the things you mention as guild-ship.

You can have these things in a ship?

timmyf.1490:

Super Adventure Box Guild Hall
Hollowed-out body of an Elder Dragon
Volcano
Underwater in a dome
The catacombs below Divinity’s Reach

Though to be fair, you very well could have a jumping puzzle on an airship. I don’t necessarily want to argue specifics, just keep in mind that limiting yourself to an airship means there’s lots of other potentially amazing ideas that aren’t being considered. Mine are examples, but I’m sure there are other far better ideas we haven’t heard yet.

Never start the creative process by narrowing your options.

Super Adventure Box Guild Hall. Easy

Hollowed-out body of an Elder Dragon. Obviously why not?

Volcano. Most definitely.

Underwater in a dome. That would would be a bit tricky. Then you would need something like water in a dome and then in that the guild-hall in a dome. So doable but a little hard.

The catacombs below Divinity’s Reach. Well the catacombs below Divinity’s Reach is a specific thing and is no airship so no. But you could build something like it and have it be your guild-hall airship.

daft inquisitor.1605:

jheryn.8390:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yep a Beacon mechanic is a way to show of your guild and its progress.

Chris

Woo Hoo a BACON mechanic!!! Who doesn’t love bacon? I’m in!

Oh… Beacon mechanic. Nope. I’m out.

I’m just not into the whole airship as a guild hall. Especially if guild halls are open world instead of instanced. How would an airship fit into an open world concept with other ground halls. I just don’t see it happening. Or happening well.

The airship guild halls were only one suggested way of implementing the halls system, and only one suggestion of how the beacon system would be implemented.

Please, don’t abandon the discussion just because you don’t like the idea of airships. For starters, it’s already been essentially taken off the table (for now) in the discussion. So, feel free to just speak your mind about what you think would work well, or what you would like to see.

First, I understand the beacon concept and what it entails. Where did I indicate that I did not?
Second, I understand airships were only one way of implementing a guild hall system. Again, did I give any indication that I thought otherwise?
Third, I’m not abandoning the discussion about airships or any guild hall. I am contributing to it. Expressing what you do NOT want to see is as important as what you do. Much earlier in this thread I expressed what I would like to see. Please don’t attempt to direct my or others conversations to fit your idea of how conversation should flow.

daft inquisitor.1605:

Really, there are hundreds of ways the “beacon” system could be implemented. It’s just a name that was taken to mean, “Way of expressing your guild’s presence and achievement in the world”. It could literally be anything, not necessarily a physical beacon, or an airship, or anything else already discussed.

Again, I understand the beacon system. I never said nor did I indicate that I had any misconceptions about its function. If you read that so literally into my humor attempt then I don’t know what to say to you.

daft inquisitor.1605:

(Chris already said to kind of step away from the “open world” system for the time being, and it was pretty much assumed that the airship guild halls would be an open world thing, especially how they would show their presence.)

I have been following the thread closely and I also know this. But since airships were a part of the conversation I quoted and they were assumed to be an open world concept, then doesn’t it make sense that I comment in that context? Especially if I don’t find the idea appealing?

I like knowing what people want and do not want. I would not have responded to your post except that I don’t believe that anyone should be dictating other peoples’ input. And that is what you were attempting to do with me. I think people, including myself, should also say what they don’t want to see as long as it is not done in a hateful way. If you took my post in question as such, I assure you it was not meant that way.

I believe you need to accept when people feel inclined to express what they do not want as long as it is done in a non-hostile fashion. Also do not patronize or condescend when they do because that is how your post came across to me.

daft inquisitor.1605:

Having rigged scaffolding and plunges and drops, like how Zephyr Sanctum was, but in an airship?

Zephyr Sanctum was an airship.

timmyf.1490:

I’m not saying there should not be airships. I’m saying there should be a lot more than just airships. We’ve exhausted a lot of pages talking about airships and I’d love to hear other ideas. Just my two cents. That’s all I have to say on the matter, I’ll go back to lurking now.

What daft inquisitor is saying is that all those other idea’s could be implemented as airships giving the added ability that they are not fixed in one place.

So there is no need to limiting anything

Devata.6589:

timmyf.1490:

I’m not saying there should not be airships. I’m saying there should be a lot more than just airships. We’ve exhausted a lot of pages talking about airships and I’d love to hear other ideas. Just my two cents. That’s all I have to say on the matter, I’ll go back to lurking now.

What daft inquisitor is saying is that all those other idea’s could be implemented as airships giving the added ability that they are not fixed in one place.

Right. A guild hall in the caldera of a volcano. In an airship.

It seems like you’ve made up your minds that airships are the only possibility and that any other idea must be shoehorned into airships. That’s fine. I’m not here to convince you otherwise. I just wanted to express my concern that by trying to make everything part of an airship, we might be leaving out some cool ideas or functionality that people who haven’t already made up their minds might like.

I came into this discussion not knowing exactly what I wanted, so I’ve tried to keep an open mind about ideas. Some I like (SAB GH is AMAZEBALLS!!!) and some I do not (open world airships, primarily.)

There’s some great ideas in this discussion, but I feel like there’s also a lot of heavy-handed “your idea only works if you do it my way” going on and I find that upsetting.

I am only down with Airship Guild Halls if we get parachutes and we can parachute back down to the map that our guild hall is flying in.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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)

Yep let’s foucs ont his for a while and discuss progression of a Guild Hall.

Chris

I feel like having a ‘construction tree’ (like a skill tree, but that allows for construction of multiple predetermined structures but still allows for customization) would be a strong contender for progression for the hall structure themselves. Also having a building manager NPC/UI could allow for slots to be set for each structure you build which allow for different things to be changed within each room, like a ‘lighting’ slot which allows for different lighting options to be added/removed. Other options could be ‘paint’ for colouring walls, ‘banners’ for banner placements/options, ‘tapestries’ for artwork to be added on bare walls, ‘theme’ which includes options for different festive themes like wintersday or halloween. You could even add different texture options for walls/stairs/columns this way.

Getting a certain tequatl piece could require the guild to have 10% of the guild attending a single tequatl kill, or requiring the guild members to run tequatl XX number of times repping their guild, and this option could vary depending on guild size. There’s also options for easier and harder content to be added, challenges like “complete TA Aetherpath in under 20 minutes with 5 members of the guild” could be the requirement for getting a recipe to build a certain prestigious item, or in rare cases an entire building structure. There could also be far easier tasks like “Complete all 3 AC paths with 5 members present in one day” There could also be a clause in these tasks that allows for smaller (husband/wife or 2-4 member) guilds to be able to complete these tasks as well providing that all members of the guild are present. It would simply be the task of making these challenges spread out through all 3 game types in order to satisfy everyone.

timmyf.1490:

Devata.6589:

timmyf.1490:

I’m not saying there should not be airships. I’m saying there should be a lot more than just airships. We’ve exhausted a lot of pages talking about airships and I’d love to hear other ideas. Just my two cents. That’s all I have to say on the matter, I’ll go back to lurking now.

What daft inquisitor is saying is that all those other idea’s could be implemented as airships giving the added ability that they are not fixed in one place.

Right. A guild hall in the caldera of a volcano. In an airship.

Yeah, like this: http://static.planetminecraft.com/files/resource_media/screenshot/1222/InPVIS_2389564.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eUFLw9TQSQ

timmyf.1490:

It seems like you’ve made up your minds that airships are the only possibility and that any other idea must be shoehorned into airships. That’s fine. I’m not here to convince you otherwise. I just wanted to express my concern that by trying to make everything part of an airship, we might be leaving out some cool ideas or functionality that people who haven’t already made up their minds might like.

I came into this discussion not knowing exactly what I wanted, so I’ve tried to keep an open mind about ideas. Some I like (SAB GH is AMAZEBALLS!!!) and some I do not (open world airships, primarily.)

There’s some great ideas in this discussion, but I feel like there’s also a lot of heavy-handed “your idea only works if you do it my way” going on and I find that upsetting.

“It seems like you’ve made up your minds that airships”

Lol, not at all. I’m did not make my mind up on airships. Just want to help you understand what people are talking about if they talk about air-ships. Because you seem to be fixed in the idea it would have to be something like a zeppelin or anything in that direction.

“and that any other idea must be shoehorned into airships” No because you have this fixed or limiting idea on air-ships you seem to think that when people are talking about them they are limiting other suggestions while most of those suggestions would fix into that idea of air-ships that people talk about. Thats why I try to show you what people where talking about when they where talking about airships.

“I came into this discussion not knowing exactly what I wanted, so I’ve tried to keep an open mind about ideas. Some I like (SAB GH is AMAZEBALLS!!!) and some I do not (open world airships, primarily.)”

You see thats what I mean. You limit yourself thinking that the one would exclude the other. But the SAB GH could be an airship. See this thing here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower That is also what people talked about when talking about air-ships.

But what makes all this sort of funny is the little fact that SAB is build as a giant floating ‘airship’. Remember how you walked over the clouds to get there? And that it was floating in the air?
http://www.guildwars2hub.com/sites/sardu.tentonhammer.com/files/gw291.jpg
http://www.xpboostcomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/gw006.jpg

Anyway, nobody is limiting any body’s idea’s. Maybe some people are limiting their own idea’s.
I did like the idea of air-ships because of the way they could be implemented. If we have instanced guild-halls then it could still have some benefits but many of the benefits are taken away. So no, I would be fine with something else as well. Just helping you to understand what people are talking about.

Huddo.1065:

_RE ’War over space’ (if GH’s were open world)_

Not that I’m _for_ open world, but I’m having a crazy thought. What if guilds had the ’war over space’ in a similar manner to GW1 Factions:

GW1 Wiki

hide spoiler

"Factions introduces the continent of Cantha where two warring factions, the Luxons and the Kurzicks, are locked in a global persistent war. Players are able to join in this conflict, assisting their chosen faction in claiming towns on the game map."

I’m not saying that we should split up all guilds into to warring sides or alliances, but have a similar system in which guilds who earn the most ’_something_’ are able to control towns could be pretty cool open world guild hall material.

This strikes me as the most obvious path: Simply have both versions of Guild Halls (instanced for every guild, and limited/one per zone open world ’halls’).

The instanced ones speak for themselves, they are there for every guild with whatever progression/reward system that is decided on for them, featuring a large number of base design options and customization, but all of them will be a building of sorts.

Then you can have open world, non-instanced guild land claims, one guild claim area per PvE world zone, so approximately about 20 contestable claims for each server region (NA/EU/Asia). These could be anything from a castle, to a village, to a lumber yard, or a mine, you name it. Each would have the added benefit of generating something for the clan (a mine would generate a daily supply of metals to the guild bank, a village could generate gold taxes. etc). Different guild claims could have different values, meaning some areas would be hotly contested over, while others less so.

These open world guild claims would be less customizable than instanced ’halls’, primarily to save performance as well as keeping in mind that ownership of open world guild claims is not permanent and based on, you can guess it, the much asked for GvG functionality.

Open world guild claims could effectively be challenged by another guild, where the outcome of a single match could flip ownership. A challenged guild would ’auto accept’ any given challenge, and the match would have to occur within a 24 hour period, giving both sides of a match enough time to gather their groups, groups that can vary in size from 1 to whatever a realistic cap is. The reason for this is that a perfect 30 vs. 30 isn’t always going to be possible, even within a 24 hour window, and at some point the system must simple go ahead with whatever vs. whatever in order to keep things moving. Perhaps a 2 day grace period can be added after successfully winning a guild claim so the winning guild has at least 2 days of benefits to reap.

If a defending guild fails to accept the challenge, the victory defaults to the challenging guild. If a claim owning guild disbands, ownership goes into a neutral state, the same as all guild claims would be in on the day this system launches. Claiming a neutral claim simply requires any high ranked guild member to walk to the spot and interact with an object. Neutral claims do not offer any grace period and can immediately be challenged, similarly guilds that ’win’ a claim without a fight because the defenders didn’t show up, also receive no grace period. These are limitations to prevent exploiting ’intended trades’ between two guilds to achieve permanent immunity to actual challenges.

The matches would, ideally, occur in a copy of the guild claim, to give that impression of actually fighting over the area... Proper Guild Wars. Eventually such a system could see expansion to alliances between different guilds, to fight other guilds or alliances, and have a constant ’war map’ with territory borders displayed similarly to GW1 Factions... Additionally, the system could even have some PvE tie-ins such as Dynamic events that originate from these guild claim spots... Perhaps guilds regularly have to defend their claims from these event ’invasions’. Finally, the owning guilds may affect some things on the map their claim is in, such as doubling all experience, loot, or harvesting yields in that zone for either their members (could you imagine how hotly contested the Cursed Shore guild claim would be?!). But all of that is for later.

Anyhow, just my thoughts on this matter. I’m not actually in a guild in GW2 that could participate in this (but if it was added, I would certainly look for one).

Iason Evan.3806:

I am only down with Airship Guild Halls if we get parachutes and we can parachute back down to the map that our guild hall is flying in.

Guess that would be doable. But then you get back more to the realm of open world airships. Still you could visualize a map below you and when you jump off have an animation that plays while loading in the map.

daft inquisitor.1605:

jheryn.8390:

- snip -

Jesus, someone’s being defensive. Holy hell man.

Not defensive, just reactionary to condescending and inappropriate comments such as the quote above.

jheryn.8390:

daft inquisitor.1605:

jheryn.8390:

- snip -

Jesus, someone’s being defensive. Holy hell man.

Not defensive, just reactionary to condescending and inappropriate comments such as the quote above.

I wasn’t being condescending, and there was nothing inappropriate about my post. You, sir, have let something get under your skin that inappropriately influenced your reading of my post. And I don’t appreciate being replied to in such a manner as what your previous post displayed.

Devata.6589:

timmyf.1490:

Devata.6589:

timmyf.1490:

I’m not saying there should not be airships. I’m saying there should be a lot more than just airships. We’ve exhausted a lot of pages talking about airships and I’d love to hear other ideas. Just my two cents. That’s all I have to say on the matter, I’ll go back to lurking now.

What daft inquisitor is saying is that all those other idea’s could be implemented as airships giving the added ability that they are not fixed in one place.

Right. A guild hall in the caldera of a volcano. In an airship.

Yeah, like this: http://static.planetminecraft.com/files/resource_media/screenshot/1222/InPVIS_2389564.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eUFLw9TQSQ

Do not want. Dislike. Please, no.

Just my opinion, but I would not appreciate something like that in Guild Wars 2.

Guys, guys! Remember to stay on-topic, per the OP rules.

Regarding open world/instanced mixing, this could well satisfy everyone. At least, so long as the open world ones don’t dominate or fill up the landscape, that being one of the major downsides to open world. But if a few are there for those of a mind to compete to control them, while the rest of us can just stay out of the scrimmage, that could help a lot to resolve the dichotomies of interest.

Just please posit ways to prevent flame wars and bad feelings over who won and who lost. WvW works on that by the regular resets of starting positions, but the main maps can’t be made all identical to facilitate not caring which specific keeps one holds.

timmyf.1490:

Devata.6589:

timmyf.1490:

Devata.6589:

timmyf.1490:

I’m not saying there should not be airships. I’m saying there should be a lot more than just airships. We’ve exhausted a lot of pages talking about airships and I’d love to hear other ideas. Just my two cents. That’s all I have to say on the matter, I’ll go back to lurking now.

What daft inquisitor is saying is that all those other idea’s could be implemented as airships giving the added ability that they are not fixed in one place.

Right. A guild hall in the caldera of a volcano. In an airship.

Yeah, like this: http://static.planetminecraft.com/files/resource_media/screenshot/1222/InPVIS_2389564.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eUFLw9TQSQ

Do not want. Dislike. Please, no.

Just my opinion, but I would not appreciate something like that in Guild Wars 2.

Thats perfectly fine. Just wanted to show you that it would be possible as airship and what some people mean when they talk about airships.

(Not that it had to be in mine-craft bits, don’t think anybody wants that, but it was the best image / video of a volcano as floating airship I could find )

Donari.5237:

Guys, guys! Remember to stay on-topic, per the OP rules.

Regarding open world/instanced mixing, this could well satisfy everyone. At least, so long as the open world ones don’t dominate or fill up the landscape, that being one of the major downsides to open world. But if a few are there for those of a mind to compete to control them, while the rest of us can just stay out of the scrimmage, that could help a lot to resolve the dichotomies of interest.

If you read my post just a few posts above yours (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/25#post4474634), you’d see one possible solution to the landscape slaughter issue that would come with having non-instanced guild land ownership.

Having both systems, ’safe’ instanced and open world contested, would in my opinion satisfy the biggest number of players. Anyhow, that’s my contribution to this thread, take care.

Donari.5237:

Guys, guys! Remember to stay on-topic, per the OP rules.

Regarding open world/instanced mixing, this could well satisfy everyone. At least, so long as the open world ones don’t dominate or fill up the landscape, that being one of the major downsides to open world. But if a few are there for those of a mind to compete to control them, while the rest of us can just stay out of the scrimmage, that could help a lot to resolve the dichotomies of interest.

Just please posit ways to prevent flame wars and bad feelings over who won and who lost. WvW works on that by the regular resets of starting positions, but the main maps can’t be made all identical to facilitate not caring which specific keeps one holds.

The question is if ‘a few’ is even possible. You see the air-maps would solve the space problem but still apparently that would not be possible. So maybe space is not what is the issue.

Then again, we don’t know what is so it’s hard to know what would work / be possible and what wouldn’t.

Iason Evan.3806:

I am only down with Airship Guild Halls if we get parachutes and we can parachute back down to the map that our guild hall is flying in.

A use for those *&%# KITES!!!

Wait no…forget I said it…no no no…oh crud, here we go…:)

Just clarifying, I think an Airship should be a type of GH, but not the only type. I’m partial to having a nice Norn Hall with a feast hall, trophy room, etc. but also with some outdoor type area reminiscent of the GW1 Guild Halls where other stuff can be located(like a Forge building for the Guild Armorer and Weaponsmith, etc.) and general ambience area where some fun GvG sparring or 1v1 or whatever can happen).

Raap.9065:

If you read my post just a few posts above yours (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/25#post4474634), you’d see one possible solution to the landscape slaughter issue that would come with having non-instanced guild land ownership.

Having both systems, ‘safe’ instanced and open world contested, would in my opinion satisfy the biggest number of players. Anyhow, that’s my contribution to this thread, take care.

This is treading closer to the territory of GvG which is a future CDI. Lets try steering this conversation back towards the desired topics.

How are ways that we can implement progression within the halls that adds meaningful content to the game? I’ve mentioned a few things but I know there are far more that can be cooked up and refined. (and how can these be shown as a beacon?)

Another option for a beacon could be some kind of global or server buff every time a guild completes something significant to do with either the guild hall itself or some sort of progression, accompanied by a message that appears in the chat box. Any time a guild on a server completes something everyone on that server could get a 25% MF/karma gain/ exp gain boost for a time along with all the guild members. (Sort of along the lines of favour of the gods in GW1?)

What about Tixx’s Infinirarium? It shows that airships can be as big as castles, and have very interesting shapes.

Also, its mechanic, if Guild Halls would be airships, then you can move them, map instances (open world maps) could have air space trafic, and a limit at so, so if the air space is full, you enter another instance of the megaserver, but as an object, not as part of the map itself.

All this, while the “inside” of the Airship is an instance, again, just like Tixx’s Infinirarium.

http://www.devilsmmo.com/sites/default/files/uploads/images/guildwars2/wintersday/wintersday-concept-art-3.jpg

man…I miss wintersday already…

Listen, being the proponent of airships I am, I would just like to note that I understand some people don’t like the concept, and some people don’t want that as the only concept.

I have pointed out someone who I thought disliked the airship idea for all the wrong reasons (fearing lack of customization and variability, of which there doesn’t have to be), however I’m fine if airships end up not being a guild hall style. I would prefer it, but I can live without it.

The most important thing I think we need is variety and choice. I love how many ideas people have thrown around for different themed guild halls. We can do them on the ground, we can do them in the air, we can do them in the water… it doesn’t matter to me, as long as we get that wide selection so people can have what they want out of a guild hall.

(That being said, I would not be opposed to a guild hall on the back of a giant flying sea turtle. Just throwing that out there.)

I had an idea for the alliance halls.

Because of how much trouble it would cause to have joint ownership, when guilds leave the alliance, I think one guild has to be put as owner of the alliance hall.

Think of it like this:

One guild starts and alliance and is now the alliance leader. They then recruit other guilds to fill in the officer, elder member, member, and recruit positions. When building the alliance hall, it is the leader guild that queues the upgrades. Other members of the alliance donate the fund/materials to build the hall, but in the end the leading guild owns it. That way people understand where things are going when they put effort into an alliance’s hall and if they leave they know they won’t be taking anything with them. If the leading guild decides to leave the alliance, they pass the leadership and ownership of the guild hall on to another guild within the alliance.

Baltzenger.2467:

What about Tixx’s Infinirarium? It shows that airships can be as big as castles, and have very interesting shapes.

Also, its mechanic, if Guild Halls would be airships, then you can move them, map instances (open world maps) could have air space trafic, and a limit at so, so if the air space is full, you enter another instance of the megaserver, but as an object, not as part of the map itself.

All this, while the “inside” of the Airship is an instance, again, just like Tixx’s Infinirarium.

http://www.devilsmmo.com/sites/default/files/uploads/images/guildwars2/wintersday/wintersday-concept-art-3.jpg

Yeah that is what I meant with how you could still visualize the guild halls (if they where airships) even if it was instanced. So then the guild-halls would still be the beacon. You would only not have the feeling of really flying and seeing outer guild-halls (like if it was open world in sky-maps). But in the world you could see your ship fly by randomly.

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?

…

Yep those are some good questions. Thoughts folks?

Chris

If Guild Halls were instances connected to real PvE zones (via some kind of doorway that took you into an instance if your guild had its hall in that location), guilds could pick a Guild Hall near their favorite activities. For instance, if a guild had a favorite dungeon they ran daily and there was a Guild Hall entrance site near that dungeon, guilds that wanted to could select that hall location for their Guild Hall and then they could just be a stone’s throw away from their favorite content whenever they stepped outside.

It has the advantages of giving the guild an instanced place to call their own, and any number of guilds can select that portal as their location, but it also still gives meaning to the choice of which hall to pick other than just the aesthetics of “I like the Guild Hall site one near CoF because it’s all molten-looking” (not to say that that wouldn’t also be an equally valid reason to select that site versus another).

JonPeters.5630:

• How do we build customization into this upgrade system where there currently is none? Someone suggested this and there were some talk of separating clear core functionality from the unique customized features, but that is sort of where we stopped.

I’ve wrote a possible answer on page six, I’ll expand it alittle bit here:
Basically we can use the current influence system to build consumables, there should be a consumable for each type of objects (1 cons to build chair, 1 to build table, etc…). Using a consumable give you a popup that let you choose from various skin for that item. Chosen the skin you get an enviromental weapon (same functionality that WvW siege weapon have) that let you position the item and then you can build it.
Simple, a lot of possibility, and relatibely easy to do.
For consumable popup I thought about the one that we already have when choosing weapon stats for legendary, but a popup with a preview of the skin will be aewsome.

JonPeters.5630:

• What changes to influence and guild progression should happen to make it more intuitive if we went with buildings?

With such system to build customization items for GH, we can use influence to create consumables, and than requesting crafting materials from guild mates to build items. Crafting materials could be new special crafting material that can be gained trough guild activity (in that way is rewarded guild activity). Those items could be soldable on TP or be soulbound (or both).
I think that those new crafting material are useful to feel GH more handcrafted and more rewarding (expecially if some materials are rare).

I’ve also solved some possible problems that such system may cause in my proposal

Regarding Alliance Hall

Someone talked about private instanced zone in PvE that can be claimed and accessible only by the guild that claimed it. I think that this functionality should be bound to Alliance, not guilds. The system should work like GW1 Factions cities, a ranking system for Alliance should unlock and reserve small zone in PvE AND WvW areas that shouldn’t be instanced. In those are should be available some discounted items/mining node/etc… or some kind of buff that can be taken only by Alliance members.
Why not instanced? Considering the amount of player that may be inside an alliance, it seems unreasonable to have a map where they all can meet at the same time.

An area or a privilege could also be given to PvP, some aesthetic items or a special temporary reward track for the first 5 ranked alliance in PvP (signs, flags, or statue could be placed in Heart of the Mists, to celebrate the first 5 ranked alliances).
For this system to work, alliance must be limited in players (number of unique players, also counting not representing ones), not guilds, so a lot of small guild can form an alliance and be stronger than an alliance composed by few big guilds.
Alliance Rank should represent the weekly activity of alliance members.
There could be 3 Rank type (PvE/WvW/PvP), each alliance can parecipate in only 1 category (member activity in each game type are summed), or can partecipate in all of them (member activity is counted only in the category that they are playing).

AlienMenace.7516:

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?

…

Yep those are some good questions. Thoughts folks?

Chris

If Guild Halls were instances connected to real PvE zones (via some kind of doorway that took you into an instance if your guild had its hall in that location), guilds could pick a Guild Hall near their favorite activities. For instance, if a guild had a favorite dungeon they ran daily and there was a Guild Hall entrance site near that dungeon, guilds that wanted to could select that hall location for their Guild Hall and then they could just be a stone’s throw away from their favorite content whenever they stepped outside.

It has the advantages of giving the guild an instanced place to call their own, and any number of guilds can select that portal as their location, but it also still gives meaning to the choice of which hall to pick other than just the aesthetics of “I like the Guild Hall site one near CoF because it’s all molten-looking” (not to say that that wouldn’t also be an equally valid reason to select that site versus another).

Or, if Guild Halls are mobile instances like Airships, you can “park” your Guild Hall on the map of your choice for the activity that you will do.

For example, if you are doing Guild Missions, and as usual, people tend to “ping the WP” to the place you need to go, instead you can say “everyone onboard”, and move the Guild Hall to the selected location, and drop them there, that way if, for instance, Guild Halls can give buff to the surrounding area, like magic find, or extra stats, it makes sense to try to play “under the wing” of your Guild Hall.

I’m gonna attack some of the points Jon raised earlier.

JonPeters.5630:

• We need to discuss how the building system would incorporate old upgrades but also provide new ones.

To get a good idea of this, I want to run down some of the upgrade types which we have available. We have:
Level-up upgrades: These are the ones that you get which boost your level. Architecture 1, architecture 2, architecture 3, etc.. What I was thinking here with my initial suggestion is that the level of this upgrade dictates the size and grandeur of a core building which the other upgrades are either attachments to, or which exist within the building in some way.
Functionality upgrades: These ones add functionality to the guild. There are the politics ones, which give you a flag and weapon/armor contracts, there’s the guild bank and workshop in Architecture, and I would probably argue that the guild mission unlocking upgrades function in a similar way.
Flags: They’re uh, flags, and you stick them in the ground. People click on them for buffs. There are so many of them that I think they deserve their own category.
Buffs: These are the ones which are not flags! They give guild wide bonuses that you don’t have to find and click on and they last for a certain time. Helpful!
Consumables: These are things like guild catapults and golems, and the buffet tables, and the portable crafting tables. They’re some kind of service which create an object in the world which isn’t a flag.

So, onto the actual question: let’s incorporate.
Level-ups can be big buildings which have a large hall structure. They’re big, main social areas, and they’re big enough that you can customise the layout of furniture to a significant degree and maybe even the floorplan.
Functionalities could be smaller buildings which may be connected to the main building or they might not be. Some things, like the Deep Cave, wouldn’t make sense to attach to your main building because it’s an uh, cave.
Flags are, um… Flags. Do flags need to be changed? Maybe there could be some kind of duplication system where if you place a flag out in the world, a duplicate is also placed somewhere in the Guild Hall, so that if you want to check if your guild has any flags active, you go there and hey-o flags.
Buffs could be maybe visually represented by NPCs scooting around in your guild hall. If you have +Gold Drops active, John Smith visits your guild hall. In NPC form. He’s probably too busy to log in and do it.
Consumables could possibly have some room here. Catapults and golems would probably want to stay in WvW, but buffets could be in a hall which you go to to eat, and crafting stations could just be, uh, crafting stations.

JonPeters.5630:

• What kind of new upgrades would be possible because of the system turning into buildings?

Assuming that the guild hall is going to replace cities to some extent, which city functions would people want? Banks, crafting tables, TP merchants, regular merchants?
I’m going to jump the gun here and assume you’re going to put some more specific reward-driven stuff in Guild Halls. What if you run COF a whole bunch of times as a guild, and that rewards you with a giant potion that you can drink from forever which is basically a permanent feast?
Speaking of feasts, we should be able to make a SUPER FEAST, which is a guild upgrade that has all food buffs for like, a day. You get 100 pizza tables and you put them in the super feast machine and your guild gets pizza for an entire day

JonPeters.5630:

• What changes to influence and guild progression should happen to make it more intuitive if we went with buildings?

Possibly look into making buildings cost actual building materials. You need wood for building, metal for bracing, cloth for flags and leather for… Rugs? We have a pretty big glut of Elder Wood in the market so I don’t think it would be a big problem to help flush that. There’s even the same amount of material levels as there are guild levels!
Maybe some other stuff out in the world could be cool too but I dunno what specifically. Maybe look into personal currencies, materials, personal rewards, achievements for ideas.

JonPeters.5630:

• How do we build customization into this upgrade system where there currently is none? Someone suggested this and there were some talk of separating clear core functionality from the unique customized features, but that is sort of where we stopped.

If you mean functional customization; I dunno. If we’re building this out of currency, it’s not like a talent tree or something like that. It needs to be looked at differently, which is kinda weird. I think that, beyond which temporary buffs a guild chooses to build and run, there’s only so much which can be done.
If you mean cosmetic customization I don’t think upgrades should do that. Outside of the very large upgrades that levelling up guild halls and building new buildings brings, it should be handled by other mechanics. We shouldn’t have an upgrade system to build, say, a chair.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yep let’s focus on this for a while and discuss progression of a Guild Hall.

Chris

Sorry been away at a conference all day.

I’m going to split my suggestions into separate parts so that issues with one part don’t drown out my entire idea.

Proposal Overview
However you plan to show unlocks and progression. split them into two categories in a manner similar to collections: Basic and Rare.

Goal of Proposal
By splitting it you solve a perception problem,
People will expect to unlock everything under basic and that can contain most functional upgrades.

By indicating the second category is rare/prestige players will know not to expect their guild to be able to complete them all.

Proposal Functionality
A separate category under whichever system is implemented for these rare or prestige upgrades.

A second suggestion would be hidden upgrades, they don’t appear under any category and are only shown when unlocked. (I’m aware that anyone who wanted could Dulfy these but the idea is to lower public perception of them and as such lower their expectation of having them all.

Associated Risks

-Guilds may still expect them all and as such not complete the goal of the proposal.

Proposal Overview
Introduce some “Discipline” distinction.

Goal of Proposal
To try and prevent guild homogony and introduce some pride into your guilds activities, an additional bonus would be encouraging guilds to branch out into other content.

Basically a PvP Guild’s hall should have access to different unlocks to a WvW,PvE (low,mid,high) and vice versa for each area.

Proposal Functionality
Achieved by placing unlocks (by unlocks I mean the skins/items for the halls etc) behind each area of gameplay

I also see each area of game-play having some form of meta achievement which unlocks a particular theme of structures.

This isn’t a hard gate, if you want both the PvP , WvW and High PvE unlocks you can get them all you just have to play all those areas of content.

Associated Risks
Some Guilds may dislike having to do a variety of content. To this I say if you want to have all the options for a guildhall I expect you to have mastery of every form of gameplay.

Proposal Overview
Statue unlocks from killing Ascended versions of creatures + “Ascended Arena”.

Goal of Proposal
This is a very simple form of Prestige that I think wouldn’t cause any contention.
You get a statue of the Ascended monster you kill and can place it anywhere in your hall. (bonus this is low development time if it’s a similar manner to minis)

Proposal Functionality
THIS IS NOT A RAID and is not intended as such.
From your guild hall (for most of them*) you can choose to fight an Ascended version of a creature (scales,centaurs,skritt etc). I see this being a 10-15 person thing which teleports the group/s to an arena with the creature.

This is not some super high health version of the creature its a version with more mechanics and un-ignorable effects/impact. The closest GW2 comparison I can make is Queens Gauntlet for guilds?

My dream version of this The following is a spoiler for the MMO FFXIV is something along the lines of Ultima hard mode from FFXIV. (It’s actually unique fight wise within FFXIV too)
http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/The_Minstrel%27s_Ballad:_Ultima%27s_Bane

I find this to be quite a nice technical fight there is a learning component, a competency component and a team work component which is everything I’d want displayed to get a prestige item for your hall. (I didn’t actually manage to successfully complete this in the month I played but it really stood out to me as an impressive fight.)

Associated Risks
-The usual people taking issue to not getting all the stuff
-Really small guilds (>5) may get left out but I wouldn’t want it soloable.

Proposal Overview
Special Weather conditions as a Prestige unlock. (I’m not talking about Night/Day/Rain)

Goal of Proposal
A second set of prestige unlocks that minimize contention.

Proposal Functionality
This is more a description of a possible reward from whatever prestige content is done (I think by now people know what I have in mind).
For special weather conditions I can think of three currently:
-Aether Storm: This is the weather condition from the rope bridge part of the Aetherblade dungeon, the waves looked amazing. It sets any visable sea to that turbulence, causes a constant thunder storm.

-Pre-searing: This ramps up the bloom on the guild hall and causes rainbows to appear around the sky.

-Orrian Terror: This causes the guild hall to become foggy, with miasma present in the air, bonus could be dragons in the skybox.

Associated Risks
-I suspect the Aether weather conditions are not dynamic but a carefully crafted set piece so it may take work to implement.

@Chris:
I just finished watching your presentation on The Modern Role of a Game Designer, it is a very good presentation, and even if this is going to be a little bit offtopic, I think it can be helpful to make a reflection on it, considering how good this CDI has been going.

I’ve worked as an independent designer for about 5 years (since I was about 17), I’m always eager to learn about the industry, and specially about the logistics of development and design, so I find your presentation very illustrative, and I can relate many points made there to personal experience, (more specifically, personal mistakes), so thanks for sharing.

We have a very good momentum in this thread, the fact that even the press is interested on what’s going on here is very exciting. I think that even from my amateur point of view, I can say that the features and ideas we are discussing have enormous potential for the game, not just because of how interesting and compelling to the players is the idea of having a customizable personal space, but because of how transverse it is among different game modes. (Making this a potentially interesting topic for almost every player of the game)

It makes so much more sense, after watching your presentation, the processes that we are following.
I just wish at this point, out of curiosity, to know what do you guys think of the idea of Guild Halls, after reading what we have until know, your personal preferences, or what do you think fits or doesn’t into the current game. I don’t think that at this point the discussion can be “contaminated” at all. Well, at least, I would like to know, to further understand how our ideas are understood, or seen, from a more educated perspective.

And because, I think we should keep this momentum, not just for this CDI, but for the following ones. To me, and to some I think, it was a huge step to go from “suggest what you think would be accepted” to “suggest what you would like, no restrictions”, and something tells me that it isn’t the only huge step we’re gonna make during this process.

For upgrades, I think it would be cool to incorporate some minor fantasy power engineering. One example would be with Asura Gates or Waypoints.

To run a gate, a guild would need:

• Power generation to keep it on
• Power to run the targeting system
• Temporary power to get the target markers charged up

To build the gate itself, the guild would need:

• Devices (that require power) that can assemble Asuran technology

Power itself could be generated in a number of ways and can even be used to create more power. For example: it could be used to power one of those big spinning sprinkler things to help crops grow, some crops could be used to generate power.

Any sort of factory thing for building siege/gates/whatever could require mass amounts of leather for belts.

Certain areas of the persistent map could be tapped for power (say a waterfall or coal mine.)

If the land/hall/housing/neighborhood sort of system was added in conjunction with floating islands. Power would be needed to keep the mini islands (player housing) tethered to the bigger islands (alliance/guild halls).

I would love to see guild halls in GW2 gives the guild a place to go and maybe add like taverns and arenas for PvP battle training just a few suggestions maybe even a hooters just kidding you guys are doing a great job keep up the work

DarkWasp.7291:

For upgrades, I think it would be cool to incorporate some minor fantasy power engineering. One example would be with Asura Gates or Waypoints.

To run a gate, a guild would need:

• Power generation to keep it on
• Power to run the targeting system
• Temporary power to get the target markers charged up

To build the gate itself, the guild would need:

• Devices (that require power) that can assemble Asuran technology

Power itself could be generated in a number of ways and can even be used to create more power. For example: it could be used to power one of those big spinning sprinkler things to help crops grow, some crops could be used to generate power.

Any sort of factory thing for building siege/gates/whatever could require mass amounts of leather for belts.

Certain areas of the persistent map could be tapped for power (say a waterfall or coal mine.)

If the land/hall/housing/neighborhood sort of system was added in conjunction with floating islands. Power would be needed to keep the mini islands (player housing) tethered to the bigger islands (alliance/guild halls).

I’m sorry, I just pictured a room with a massive wheel, with skritt on it running. Something shiny would be dangling in front of them.

Thus, infinite power.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Donari.5237:

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?

Yes, this is precisely what I was asking. I know in GW1, my guild was in several different alliances over the multitude of years that I played. Sometimes alliances just don’t work out for a variety of reasons and guilds go their separate ways.

What happens in such a case, when the guilds split, to all the effort that was put into these ‘shared’ halls. The man hours, the funds, etc. When they join another alliance that has it’s own shared hall already, do they now have their hall, the old shared hall, and then the shared hall for the new alliance as well? This could get cumbersome. Do they lose the old shared hall instead and thus all the effort put into it? That could really tick some people off. Or do shared halls simply no longer exist if the alliance does not exist? Could this not be a double edged sword – ie, as much deterant as incentive to build such an item?

Yeah this is a real problem. This could completely preclude Alliance functionality on our Guild Halls discussion. Can we have some ideas to beat this problem please and see if we can solve it?

Chris

I don’t think that the actual building/ship ITSELF should be tied to alliances. Alliances should allow, let’s say, up to 3 guilds to “join instances” so that your buildings are in the same area, with a small town in the middle, perhaps, or roads with typical defenses and such. The instances would be designed so a guild hall could be ‘lifted’ out of a “1guild” instance into a “2guild” or “3guild” instance, and thus, if the alliance breaks up… you’re back to the 1guild appearance.

I would love to see, let’s say, a hanging bridge going between back rooms of the castles/airships, as well as front door visibility.

This means that alliances would allow you to gather in your own guild hall -as well- as in public space for your alliance, and yet it’d be easy to split up if needed.

Serophous.9085:

I’m sorry, I just pictured a room with a massive wheel, with skritt on it running. Something shiny would be dangling in front of them.

Thus, infinite power.

Devs. If you do nothing else.

Do this.

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

See, if they are “joined” in the same instance, with bridges going between them, each guild can choose to specialize on some aspect of guildery with full access available to alliance guilds whose castles/airships are attached to theirs. So if my small guild doesn’t WvW but I want access to the WvW upgrade aspects, I hop down a bridge to the neighbor guild and borrow a cup o’ sugar.

As long as it isn’t incorporated directly into YOUR guild hall, I think it will work. You get access to the other guild’s stuff (within reason) until the alliance breaks up, and like a clean divorce, they take their stuff home.

If you want to redundantly have your own guild hall create the same upgrades, you can do so, too.

Surbrus.6942:

GW2 “end game” is about fashion, playing around and giving yourself different looks. The old PvP lockers allowed for a lot of playing around with armour skins that you have unlocked, as well as getting better previews than the preview window. Unfortunately that functionality no longer exists.

A potentially neat idea would be to basically bring that functionality back for a sort of “Guild Hall fashion room” upgrade so to speak, where people are free to change their looks without eating up their transmutation charges. Perhaps even give upgrades to allow for “free” hair style kit usage within this designated area as well. You would actually have to spend the charges/hair style kit to keep the look outside this designated area.

This would allow for a lot more use of skins that may otherwise not see as much use due to the trans charge restrictions, bringing back the functionality of the pre-wardrobe PvP lockers for testing out unlocked armour looks.

Even better – The entire Guild instance allows totally unlocked (temporary) transmutations, allowing you to set a “guildie outfit” while you’re at home with your family. You can roleplay to your heart’s content inside the guild hall. You still have to use charges as normal outside the instance.

This would be huge, massive, for RP guilds.

Lock it behind a Guild Wardrobe add-on, which the guild can unlock with some RP-friendly achievements like, “20% of guild members have unlocked one full set of Race clothing”.

Krosis, I like you. Very very much.

First off, I’m a little late to the “party” here, am I to assume by the existence of this CDI that guild halls WILL exist in gw2, as they did in gw1?

Brutal Augus.5917:

First off, I’m a little late to the “party” here, am I to assume by the existence of this CDI that guild halls WILL exist in gw2, as they did in gw1?

Nothing of the kind is certain. CDIs make no promises, they simply provide inspiration (and sometimes problem solving when we really get a rhythm going).

Donari.5237:

Krosis, I like you. Very very much.

<3

I’m just now getting to the dev questions, so let’s tackle! (argh, it lost my edit, let’s try again)

For those summarizing, let’s call this
Proposal: achievement-based guild housing progression as well as
Proposal: building-based guild progression categories

(Dev Q’s)

• incorporate old upgrades but also provide new ones.
• new upgrades possible because of buildings?
• changes to influence and guild progression to make it more intuitive?
• How do we build customization into this upgrade system where there currently is none? Someone suggested separating clear core functionality from the unique customized features.

Okay, so influence is super basic, and easy to game for larger guilds, right? I’d like to see guild achievements used directly to open up building upgrades.

These achievements could range from events the guild has done together to an accumulation of individual repping members’ achievements, which would really give people additional reasons to go accomplish those fun cheevs. Those based on percentages would benefit active guilds over inactive guilds, but not necessarily large -or- small guilds. (these should still be “easy” for the vital guild components and challenging for rare items/elements that aren’t necessary)

To make this intuitive, whenever a guild accomplishes something, a messenger arrives and announces in the guild instance, on guild chat, and on an in-house display board that _word of the guild’s heroic deeds have reached the ears of (some group), and to encourage the guild to keep up the good work, they are sending workers to help construct X related building or component.

For instance: “The Asura are delighted that you have used our portals over 10,000 times! Please accept this complimentary portal to our great city, which only accidentally warps you to a random location only one in fifty times!”

Or “The Order of Whispers has decided [The Guild] could use a chaperone. To ease the inconvenience, we will fund the creation of an espionage room within your dungeon, which our chaperone will occupy. We are watching.”

Scaffolding goes up, NPCs run about, the building is finished, opening up new avenues of upgrades for said building, cosmetic and functional.

Each new upgrade comes with a physical representation, abstract (sturdier looking walls) or directly related (a raucous bar with bartender). Elements that are not physically represented now (flags and buffs) would be made real through pennants on the front gate or emblematic kites, for instance.

The physical structures would dictate the categories.

• “Kitchen” or “Commissary” or “Bar” – food and general temporary buffs
• “Wardrobe” or “Seamstress” – aforementioned clothes swapping/shopping, flags
• “War Room” – PvP, GvG, WvW
• “Asuran Research Facility” – Portals, jumping puzzles, SAB
• “Trophy Room” – Quests, live events, statues representing important kills, achievement tracking (besides the G button of course)
• “Vault” – Guild banking
• “Commons” – practice dummies, flying mounts (hey had to try), party space, the requisite ever-shifting hedge maze (c’mon, it’s cool)
• “Parapets” – pumpkin chucking trebuchets, quizzing new guildies before allowing them entrance and telling them their mother stank of elderberries.
• “Fishery” – using skritt as bait, clearly (too far?)
• “Front gate faire” Silly contests and rides
• “Dungeon” Espionage missions, a jailed clone of a guild leader who lost GvG

For the purposes of this list I’m imagining an instance containing a castle next to a lake with a nearby hill/cave. This seems to be compatible with the 2-guild and 3-guild alliance instance I mentioned above, with plank bridges between guild halls for ease of use of the other guilds’ buildings.

Benefits: While the guild leader can ask their guild to focus on certain things, at the same time many elements will come naturally based on what the guild enjoys doing. Add-ons could be specifically tailored to specific kinds of play – some elements could even be opened up by, let’s say, any of 3 achievements, giving people flexibility where it’s important. Guild upgrades are tangible, and placed in intuitive categories, with intuitive goals to attain those upgrades rather than “Do anything at all to get 1,000 arbitrary points, including spend gold.”

Possible problems: Some people don’t like achievements, and would be particularly vocal if they aren’t carefully selected, especially if they appear to be grindy, boring, or unrelated.

Whatcha think?

Some thoughts I’ve put together over the last 15 or so pages;

On Smaller Guilds
I feel as though a good deal of the last dozen pages have been careening off topic, spinning our wheels over Alliances as a mechanism to address the demand that smaller guilds be able to progress at the same rate as larger ones. This concern with smaller guilds, while something we must certainly keep in mind, should not dictate the entire discussion.

In my opinion, to build the system with smaller guilds as the focus would diminish the investment made to develop guild halls, which will be a substantial undertaking. Yes, by focusing on larger guilds it may take a small guild a year (or more) to “complete” their guild hall, but at least large guilds will not blow through it in a weekend. By limiting guild halls so that smaller guilds are able to participate on the same level as large ones, there is a serious risk that the system will be far too shallow.

On Leveling the Field
Having said that, there are ways to level the playing field without making smaller guilds suffer. First, every guild should have a basic guild hall, so even the smallest 1-man banking guild can have access to the housing system.

Progression should be based on expanding upon that basic core, rather than unlocking necessities. For instance, improving your guild hall should add more rooms, but these rooms do not function any different than the original ‘basic’ space. If a small guild wants to have a “crafting room”, it should not be tied to progression but instead decision; you can have a crafting room or a practice arena. Yes, large guilds will have access to both, but large guilds also have a large number of players with a diverse set of interests, so having both simultaneously makes sense. Smaller guild can switch between the two if they so desire, or work towards maintaining both.

In other words, progression should be horizontal, not vertical. Progression gets you more & different, but not necessarily better.

On Progression
I’m going to assume that the scope of guild halls is such that the layout of the rooms can be modified but that brick-by-brick construction has too many potential complications to work within the context of Guild Wars 2. A guild hall is essentially a set of modular template rooms that players can move about their plot.

In my mind, this is best accomplished by replacing the existing vertical structure (“Architecture II, III, IV, etc.”) & having a large number of modular ‘content packs’. Think of them as Lego sets; they are purchased individually & built around a specific theme, but fit together with all of the other pieces. As you purchase one set, the cost of all others (either all sets or just sets within that specific theme) increases; choosing what features you want becomes part of the decision making process.

For example, say I have my “Starter” set that all guilds receive for free, which includes the plot, a few basic rooms & a few decorative / landscaping options (since you can edit the whole plot). I’m happy with the hall itself, but want a more elaborate outdoor space. So I would spend influence to unlock the “Landscaping” set, which would include a variety of features built around the outdoors. For example;

“Landscaping Set”

• New room templates that are built without solid walls that can be used as verandas, loggias, balconies or pergolas.
• A larger variety of plants & trees, as well as fountains & ponds.
• A small mini-game themed around the outdoors.

Packs can cover all sorts of different elements; a basement pack that unlocks an underground space & includes lots of ‘basement-themed’ rooms. A pack of rooms that include Daises (raised sections, like a stage), or different stairwell types, different ceiling elevations, rooms that have multiple floors (lofts), odd layouts (long halls), different roof styles, different window types. The cost changes based on how much is included; a large pack of different windows would be cheap whereas a large themed set with lots of components would be priced more.

There is no end to these modular packs, and precisely because they are modular, there is no vertical progression. It also means that Guild Halls become a new platform for content delivery; ArenaNet can add a few new Packs to the system at any time, in the same way they can add a new fractal, new guild missions & such.

(And yes, it also raises the potential for there to be certain Gem Store-only packs, though I will come to that later).

More to Follow
I’m working on another post that will delve into less guild-specific content, mode-specific unlocks & how this is all tied into my earlier post on Guild Neighborhoods & competitions. I don’t want to be one of those guys who fires off six huge posts at once; not only are they insufferable to read but they also drown out any potential discussion because there’s just so much to respond to.

Retro.6831:

Some thoughts I’ve put together over the last 15 or so pages;

Well, to be fair, most of what you just said have already been discussed, your proposal of horizontal progression in particular I remember well because I proposed it. Not saying that your ideas are bad, or that it is improper to post them, but I’d watch better how you refer to other posts, because, well I personally haven’t made any “six huge posts at once” and I can understand that those tend to be harder to follow, but if you find “insufferable” or derailing a post (or posts) that happened many pages ago, I don’t see the purpose of bringing it up, specially while even the devs have stated how good this CDI has been, and how “unrestricted” people should feel about posting their ideas.
Let’s keep it cool.

Other than that, welcome to the thread, I like most of your approaches to the topics discussed, I’m waiting for the next part.

And Now a Word from the Other Half (or more)…
I’m going to play Devils Advocate for a moment. If you’re reading this thread you’ll probably hate me long before I’m done… But keep reading: there IS a punch line.

Adding Guild Halls is the Worst Possible Use of Developer Time.
Guild Halls represent the worst of the worst in content design Return-on-Investment (RoI). Lets look at why:

1. Few people get to benefit from it. Guilds are hugely self-selecting, believing the majority contributing to the game’s income must also be in guilds. We’re not. Lots of people don’t join guilds, will never see guild halls, and get absolutely NOTHING from this use of Developer time. If other games’ publicized figures hold true, around half of all MMO players run solo. Even the players who are in guilds will only ever see an extremely limited sub-set of the Guild Halls that are created. A fraction of a fraction seeing a fraction of the results = terrible RoI.

2. Even fewer actually get to have fun with the system. Not everyone in a guild can have the privilege of designing the Guild Hall. Take that previous fraction of the players being served and move the decimal point again to get the number of people who will ever seriously get to look at the guildhall construction screen and spend time playing this most exclusive of mini-games. Systematic exclusion = terrible RoI.

3. Everything being discussed is ‘Temporary Content’. We just spent all of Living Story Season One relentlessly hammering home that temporary content sucks. I’m sorry but guilds fold. All that energy put into a great hall occasionally turns to dust without contributing to attracting or retaining new customers afterwards. Temporary content = terrible RoI.

So Why are You Smiling?
These three concerns can be countered, but they must be countered deliberately.
Examples follow~

1. Showcase, not Lockbox. Guildhalls must be visible to more than guild members. While they can have private spaces, non-guild players should be able and even encouraged to tour guild hall ‘common areas’. Offer interactive guest books and readable plaques for rules or contact/application info so guilds can passively promote themselves to visitors. Or a “Candy Bowl” item that the guild can pay some currency (coin or influence) to charge up, and non-guild visitors can click on it once per day to receive a treat, draining 1 charge. The possibilities for promoting “Guild Hall Trick or Treating” and getting the broader community involved are essential to driving up RoI.

2. Integrated Personal Spaces. Along with or preceding Guild Halls, we would benefit from players being able to craft their own personal chambers. Such spaces would go directly into the hands of a much broader number of users while providing an opportunity to test-bed construction systems for larger spaces. Once you have them, Guild Halls can incorporate them by placing doors in the shared space that lead to personal spaces, allowing EVERY member of the guild a sense of presence and an opportunity to contribute to the whole. Don’t make design of the Guild Hall the sole province of the Executive Council of Executiveness. Maximum inclusiveness = better RoI.

3. Competitive & Permanent Modules. ArenaNet needs to be able to tap the energy and enthusiasm of the best designers to build a growing library of Permanent content. A full Guild Hall will only resonate with its original occupants, but elements can be extracted to be enshrined as permanent canon. Allow Guild Halls to incorporate instances within the larger structure – let guilds buy a designated “Jump-Puzzle Lot” where they have optimized tools to create a challenge complete with starting and finish lines and recording best times, all within a detachable space. When the guild is happy with their creation they can submit it for review (using a very limited number of submission slips per year to ensure only best efforts are pushed forward). Submissions that meet with ArenaNet approval are copied into a permanent record and become part of the game forever, something for all future players to enjoy. As the tools evolve other ‘kits’ become possible, until we might see a “mini-fractal/dungeon builder box” that populates the Fractals of the Mist with new challenges. Permanent content = better RoI.

Wait, You Said You Don’t Even Like Guilds!
It’s true. Its also no accident every one of these things gives non-guild players things to do alongside their more social comrades under the banner of ‘Adding Guild Halls’.
Win-Win = Best RoI.