Guild Wars 2

Baltzenger.2467:

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.

I was pretty clear in my post that I was sharing thoughts I had while catching up on the thread. If I mentioned it, it’s because while I was reading through I found a particular point worth reiterating or commenting on. I didn’t make it a point to jot down who laid claim to any particular idea first because it all starts to blur together after a hundred posts and that seems kind of… childish? After all, one of the points made in the first post is that this “is not a competition, either between yourselves or the developers in regard to one up man ship.” It’s all about the end result, not who said what first, yes?

Baltzenger.2467:

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.

That particular comment was made semi-tongue-in-cheek to begin with, though I do feel that such posts have the same effect as trying to have a group conversation and having one person scream non-stop for 20 minutes. Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with it inherently, but it leaves no room for discussion, which is kind of the point of the CDIs. Anyways, I think you took it as more of an insult than it was meant, so I apologize if it upset you.

And I’ve been here since page one. We can’t all be Devata

Nike.2631:

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.

Actually, these are all great points that use very real, serious issues with Guild Halls as a springboard for further improving them.

One of the reasons Guild Wars 2 stands out from the MMO crowd is that it discards a lot of ‘MMO traditions’ in favor of systems that allow players to work together rather than against each other. Many of your points touch on that specific ideal; how do you make something ‘private’ and make it community-oriented or even community driven.

I like the point about trick-or-treating, though I envisioned “Pub Crawls” myself. I also like the progression you hint at; Guild Housing simply being the ‘tutorial’ for the tools that will eventually allow players to generate content like jumping puzzles and dungeons. This is something I intended to touch on in my next post, but I’d like to hear your approach.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Gulesave.5073:

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

Well I like convenience. I also like themes. I sometimes vary between the two, depending on what I’m doing.

When I build up my crafting; I like a place that has stations close together but also has guild bank access. When recently building Chef up to 400; I was in the Black Citadel. The guild bank was only a short jog from the chef station and back again. Having utilities close together would be a boon.

When I started in a guild; I barely had any map completion. Getting to dungeons was bad enough but I’m glad I had much more uncovered when we tried bounties. Someway to either get to or bypass unlocking waypoints to get more involved in guild activities like buying a ‘waypoint map’ from a guild cartographer. Just waypoints like WvW does when you enter; no vistas, skill points or p.o.i.

Phase 2 Topic Title: How would you like to see Guild Halls function if they were part of GW2?
Larger instances – We’d use the home instance if it wasn’t limited to just 5. More like the Tower of Nightmares where it was like a world instance.

RP locations – this harks back to the ‘uninstance Salma’ thread where people were asking about it

Choosing themes – As many as we can get. If the Pact and Scarlet can combine tech then we should be able to do the same but we should also be able to make allowances like a Sylvari garden, Charr workshop, Asuran lab, etc. separate if we choose to.
Representation of boosts, banners, et. al. – the ability to have set pieces reflect things like what boosters and banners we have ready and maybe even reflect what is stored in the guild bank. If we store a lot of weapons; more shown in an armoury, food makes a pantry/kitchen full, potions and other boosters fill the alchemy lab

Locations – I prefer using something like the Mists as a base or more random locations that look like the environment they’re set in if we’re gonna do outside areas.

Upgrades – keeps in WvW have a pretty good basis for an upgrade plan; weapons, defenses, utilities. Build on and refine that for more guild-specific stuff.

Currency – Influence. Multiple currencies just complicate matters. Influence flows steadily and most stuff is limited by time and build slots. Add building slots, make the time to build and cost extensive enough. No more currencies.

Overview
Guild Identification System that integrates guild access, globally.

Goal
Address the issues associated with guild visibility in the game and guild hall access in a simple design that doesn’t break the current interface or introduce an inordinate amount of new game mechanics

Functionality
All major cities in the game and a limited number of strategically selected explorable maps should include a “Guild Cryer” NPC that appears next to a billboard model which lists 5 guilds. These 2 elements would always appear together: the Cryer to provide text information and direct access to a player’s represented guild, the billboard to provide in-game information that is up to date and usable for players seeking guilds or interested in guild versus guild competition. This couplet should also be accessible via home instances.

When spoken to, the Guild Cryer will offer a menu that allows players to: Enter my currently represented Guild Hall, Edit My Guild Hall (for leaders only), Review Recruiting Guilds (as a list in-game), Read Leaderboards, or Open Guild Window (recursive option for convenience only). Players who have been granted guest status for any guild can enter that guild’s hall if they are currently representing the guild. As with spvp NPC barkers, the cryer would be a recursive interface for a hot-key selectable menu option that would give players access to the same options window.

The Billboard would be readable text projected onto an in-game model. This text would consist of a “top 5 list” that would have several possible guild related subjects, such most active, most wealthy or most populated. These subjects would use currently available metadata to generate new lists every 3-4 hours. The goal here is to not only provide players usable information; but, also to promote some friendly competition. Players should be able to find new ways to engage the game through comparing their own guild’s successes to those listed on the billboard. Possibly, the billboard model is a static prop that displays a more functional dialog window upon interaction.

Both of these systems (cryer and billboard) assume that Guild Halls are not open world affairs; but, that they exist in some form of instance. This allows guild halls to be as big or small as their associated guilds without disrupting living story, personal story or dynamic event systems that already exist. It would also give an in-game system for recruiting and advertising guilds a chance to develop. As a couplet, the cryer and billboard could have a single map icon. They could also appear in the spvp lobby and in wvw citadels. The airship proposal that is popular as of this writing would be less relevant, as this system centralizes all guild access with no individualized guild representation.

Guild recruiting would be empowered by giving the Cryer the ability to display a list of guilds that are currently recruiting. This list should be filtered by players to suit their play styles according to such things as total members, weekly influence spent, weekly influence earned, guild upgrades, hall upgrades, preferred race, server, et cetera. Inclusion in this list would be via a checkbox in the guild window (off by default) that would allow guild leaders to opt in or out of the program at will. An advancement of this system would push guilds that match a player’s specific play style to appropriate guilds based on actual, recorded data.

Associated Risks
A limited number of maps will have to be redesigned to insert these elements into the game. The Billboard might require some optimizations to prevent data calculation bottlenecks and loading time increases. The Billboard system would require a “backend” to be built that could support in-game leaderboard calculation, server side. It is possible that the Cryer NPCs could be crowded in well populated areas and thus become had to select via the mouse (this should be ameliorated by the recursive hot-key and menu button option).

DarkWasp.7291:

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.

This is funny, if not somewhat cruel

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Devata.6589:

About Progression, of all what I have seen I still think collecting / unlocking blue-prints in the world (no influence, no gold) and build, customize and add functions your guild-hall with the help of them still seems like the most interesting and engaging way of progression.

It would also solve the big guild / small guild issue because you could easily lock stuff you think any guild should have access to behind content easy doable for smaller guilds. (like a dungeon path)

This is a cool idea. Anything that cycles players through fun content is a win.

Chris

You could go as far as them coming from guild events too. I woudn’t go as far as making them specific things, but possibly some sort of token to buy upgrades. Might even be able to tie them in with commendations. Contribution would have a fairly high value.

Devata.6589:

I suggested donating influence to smaller guilds in the QoL thread but more as a convenience to help out friendly guilds.

The problem with guild-halls is that a guild then would need to have a befriended guild who would want to help them out.

Besides you should really wonder if the guild-hall and all the upgrades should be based on influenced. Pressing a button and waiting for a new upgrade. Much more boring it can not get while so much more is possible. The pro’s of most other options (like collecting the blue-prints in the world) are also that small guilds can do it and it give guilds also more to do in the world.

Influence is the least creative and inspirational way of doing this.

I think Jon was of the mind of making a visual upgrade system, influence is just another currency with a very specific use.

Overview
Guild Hall real estate and functionality elasticity system that adjusts as guild activity fluctuates

Goal
Provide a penalty free system that allows even the smallest guild to build a hall it can be proud of while also giving large guilds services relative to their cooperative efforts

Functionality
All Guild Halls begin as small instances, themed according to guild leader preferences. The size of these instances is initially based on the total achievement points of the guild’s founder. The potential size of a Guild Hall is elastic in the sense that it expands and contracts in direct proportion to its active membership. The types and quantities of services available to a specific Guild Hall are based on the amount of real estate that guild has coupled with the options the guild leader selects and guild rewards earned by guild members. The system should only count members who have logged in and represented the guild within a 2-3 week period. Each counted member would have their achievement points added to a “Guild Achievement” tally. A specific amount of real estate would be awarded to the guild based on the Guild Achievement tally, within a tiered system. Thus, any member joining or leaving the guild could change the amount of real estate available to a guild. Additional real estate could be purchased with guild influence by leaders.

Guild Hall services would be unlocked via a reward system similar to the spvp reward system, allowing leaders to select the upgrades they want to unlock in any order. Although services would be permanently unlocked, a guild could only place a number of services within their hall that fit within their earned real estate. Thus, although a small guild could conceivably unlock all services, it could only use a limited number due to its small size. The Guild Hall Reward Track would also include special events, activities and challenges that would give all guilds a means to earn additional real estate and service unlocks.

As players earn achievement points, they earn real estate for all of the guilds they are active in simultaneously. This way, guild real estate only shrinks due to inactive members. As unlocks are permanent, guilds that go dormant for long periods of time can regain their lost real estate within a 2-3 week period simply by playing the game normally (easy for small guilds, hard for larger guilds that bleed members). The fact that real estate is based on achievement points makes the quality of players in a guild more relevant than the quantity of members. It should be possible for medium sized guilds that play together often to actually have more lavish Guild Halls than large guilds that rely on member churn.

Reward tracks and services are themed by play type (pve, wvw, spvp) and limited subgroups (such as dungeons, world bosses and dynamic events for pve). This will help with recruiting, as guilds will have unlocked rewards relevant to the prevailing play of their members. It also allows guilds to evolve over time without losing potential to change focus with agility.

This system does not directly rely on any farming of crafting materials or gold. It is also tax free. Although it could be enhanced by including Karma as part of the real estate calculation, influence would seem to be sufficient.

It should be noted that this suggestion allows gems to be used to improve Guild Halls; but, it limits the extent of such improvements relative to the achievements of active members. This allows Arenanet to capitalize on player impatience while preventing abuse of the system by players or Arenanet accountants. The goal here is to avoid a braggadocio tax like that associated with commander tags (which don’t intrinsically change gameplay) while still giving players options on how they wish to expand their Halls. The monetization need here is really to allow Arenanet to offset the costs of bandwidth and server space for hosting over a million instances of varying sizes (obviously, in an ideal world, such costs should already be covered by the BLT and new game sales).

Risks
As influence can be bought with gold and gold can be bought with gems, it may be possible for any guild to buy a huge amount of influence to leverage Guild Hall potential. This should be mitigated by tying available real estate to achievement points, which can only be earned through actual play. Guilds that experience mass member losses could quickly lose real estate and associated services over time. This is mitigated by permanently unlocking services and allowing failing guilds to course correct via recruiting and keeping active members. Complications to the system may arise if an alliance system is introduced into the game. This could be addressed by calculating a shared alliance tally, based on involved guild achievement tallies, then applying this new value toward a unique alliance hall instance.

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.

I was going to touch on this as well (Re: airships). I agree it’s probably not the best direction to go regarding halls for the reasons mentioned.

I think beacons or showing-off in open world is pretty counter productive in this discussion. If it’s super popular to address that sort of thing, we should probably have a separate discussion on what could be added or changed that allows guild to better display their achievements.

I’m still concerned the discussion is more about customizing halls than it is about the foundational stuff, like how much customization? what type of assets we would have available? How much space do we need? Are they themed? and so on.

I like the talk about decor as a progression method and some have even talked about acquisition. While i still think the design of the structure(s) should be “stock”.

If we make them too awesome, too customizable and too convenient, then what motivation would players have to use public areas? What sort of internal turmoil among members of a guild does that introduce?

Regarding location convenience, things are spread out in areas where the possibility exists there would be gathering of many players in one spot (think of the old LA bank issues). There is most likely a method to the design of the current LA that reduces a lot of the bottleneck (read trolling) issues we had prior.

I’d like to touch on GvG as a proposition to adding halls to the game. While the GvG scene is fairly small in comparison, it’s also pretty inconvenient and actually helps promote “world stacking”. There may be other ideas in the works to address this, but it would be interesting to have GvG included. I know it’s a discussion to be had later, but if it’s part of a hall, it would likely impact the design concepts around halls.

Retro.6831:

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;

I don’t think the progression as you see it is so great. It feels like yet another boring currency grind. As if we don’t already have way to many of those in GW2. In fact I see it as one of the big negatives in GW2.

And then you even add that putting stuff in the gem-store would be an option. But that does not add to the game that reduces. Buying it with money is not playing a game and grinding gold to buy it (what would make most sense because what guild-members is else going to pay it?) is again grind.

Not to mention that you will likely see that the part you buy from the gem-store is just a little better then the one you could get in the game.

No I would still prefer the blue-prints that are unlock-able in the game. That seems like a much more interesting way to go that also get guild-members stuff to do other then grind grind grind influence or some other currency.

Thats how I see it.

Iason Evan.3806:

So you are concerned with larger guilds feeling “punished” but the current game totally punishes small guilds.

Yes. Exactly. Feelings and perceptions are important. In a situation like this there is no solution to remove the inequality completely without hampering one side or the other. Currently small guild are punished because they don’t have numbers, that’s not something the game developers have any control over. Implementing game mechanics to hamper larg e guilds is a different ball game.
You know that thing with the train and the fat guy? No… here’s a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem Although it’s not directly relevant here. What I’m getting at is that action carries more weight than inaction (in my opinion). Small guild are hampered by the inaction of developers, however the only effective action would be to hamper large guilds.
Again what I’m saying is, less people shout at me if I don’t push the fat guy on the tracks and just let whoever die. Inaction carries a different perception to action, we are more often help accountable for our actions than inaction.

Iason Evan.3806:

The fact is, by the logic you used above small guilds are being punished in game right now. Large guilds would be punished by earning stuff at the same rate as small guilds with guild halls should they ever be implemented? I don’t agree with that assessment at all.

Yes, they are but not as a direct action of the games developers. Also I have to disagree with the all or nothing logic you’re apply. Just because something can’t be done in such a way as to make everyone equally happy doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it. No perfect solution ever exists, ever. So as a designer one can only aim toward a solution which best meets the constraints and requirements, which has the most benefit with the least deficit (or whatever a more apt antonym for benefit is).

Agrik.7465:

I’ve found small guilds able to advance guild progressions in multiple areas involving guild influence (architecture V, politics VI, etc. where tasks required to achieve such are not directly tied to numbers. Guild missions on the other hand are restrictive as set up such that a small guild cannot realistically achieve them (for the most part), even gradually. Thus I’d suggest influence over merits as currency for guild-hall production, but other means of producing halls that do not require multiple members all working at once (crafting, spending gold, etc.) could reasonably allow small guilds to advance their guild halls over time.

I’m arguing from the point of view that no effective means can be implemented to allow small and large guilds to progress at the same pace without the usage of an artificial restriction. Further there is a underlying assumption that no system can exclude the influence of numbers i.e. no system which is based on group activity (I’m assuming it’s group activity given that we’re talking about guilds and guild halls) can negate the influence of numbers without artificial means. Now you’re saying that such a system can be put into place. If so I’m wrong and please ignore everything I’ve said regarding this point since it was all based on a false grounding. However before I’ll admit defeat (I still feel I’m right) I’ll need to know more about exactly how such a system could function.

jheryn.8390:

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.

Open world is off the table for now. The best we can hope for is the beacon style system (although I don’t remember seeing much discussion around how it would work… maybe I skipped it, there’s a lot of pages).

daft inquisitor.1605:

I think the true issue is that people are downsizing what they think of when they think “airship”.

In a game that has airships its pretty clear that when talking about airships they’d use the in-game airships as a frame of reference. Perhaps ‘airships’ isn’t the right word to use for the very fact that it causes confusion. Flying Fortress / Tower / Fort is my suggestion.

Raap.9065:

snip

I suggested something similar to that many pages ago, didn’t get too much traction since everyone was still focused on exclusive-or-ing the conversation.

NeedMoreDinosaur.4250:

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

Given that the one kinda leads to or requires the other I don’t think we can so cleanly separate them.

Haven’t read the entire thread I admit, but the only ideas I have shall be posted, just to get them out and on the thread.

Not sure if it’d be possible, but it might be kind of cool to make it so different size guilds need different size guild halls. So a larger guild needs a larger guild hall etc.

Another idea would be to do something like what they did in the Log Horizon anime, and either change current cities/add new cities and make it so guilds actually buy entire buildings in those cities that function as Guild Halls. This has the added advantage of allowing ANet to make the cities more immersive.

I can just imagine guilds buying some of those far flung buildings in Divinity’s Reach that you can only see way up on the wall. Or maybe buying a set of rooms high up on the Pale Tree/etc.

Devata.6589:

I don’t think the progression as you see it is so great. It feels like yet another boring currency grind. As if we don’t already have way to many of those in GW2. In fact I see it as one of the big negatives in GW2.

And then you even add that putting stuff in the gem-store would be an option. But that does not add to the game that reduces. Buying it with money is not playing a game and grinding gold to buy it (what would make most sense because what guild-members is else going to pay it?) is again grind.

Not to mention that you will likely see that the part you buy from the gem-store is just a little better then the one you could get in the game.

No I would still prefer the blue-prints that are unlock-able in the game. That seems like a much more interesting way to go that also get guild-members stuff to do other then grind grind grind influence or some other currency.

Thats how I see it.

I have to agree with Devata on this one, a lot of the suggestions are literally just grind this currency then grind that resource (wood ,stone etc).

Put each thing behind a specific activity or introduce guild achievements that unlock them. If you make something hard you don’t have to make it take ages. Try to get out of the mentality of “we must use currency”.

And due to the conflict of interest it creates you can’t put any guild hall stuff in the gem store.

The best option would probably be to balance for a guild with 100-200 active players and not use merits for functional upgrades of the hall. The guilds that have more than 200 players would finish functional upgrades quicker, but there would still be cosmetic upgrades (some of which might cost merits, materials, coins, KARMA-please do this, dungeon tokens etc).

If player curencies (wallet/materials) are used please add a “gathering phase” to an upgrade. The gathering phase would be that the leader/officer/upgrade ordering dude would order the upgrade, but only pay for part of it (maybe because he doesnt have the coins/karma/materils/etc). The next guildie could add some to it. Once the price is paid in full (whether its from guildie 1 or guildie 47) the upgrade will begin building just as it always would. this would build somewhat of a kinship among guild members because they would be dropping resources into the upgrade as opposed to funneling them to 1 person (some resources are soulbound/account bound)

Guild halls have the potential to be a good karma sink especially on the cosmetic end. It would be similar to buying from karma merchants except you could give some materials as well (maybe the karma is what convinces them to build it or something). It could look something like this:

Chair- 15 greenwood planks (made of wood), 1 bronze ingot (chairs are held together with nails/bolts/screws), 50 karma (convince chairbuilder to make the chair)

Awesome Throne- 500 Ancient planks (large wooden chair), 200 gold ingots (plated in gold), 400 gossamer bolts (it has a soft cushion), 5 orichalcum ingots (screws/nails/bolts), 5 orbs (mounted on chair somewhere), 50k karma (merchant/builder needs a lot of convincing to build this thing) 5 gold coins (karma isnt enough to convince merchant/builder)

Uber Chair of Awesomeness- 50 Spiritwood Planks (intricate wooden chair), 500 Ancient Planks (uses more than one type of wood), 5 Deldrimor Ingots (screws/bolts/nails), 20 Bolts of Damask (soft cushion), 500 Gossamer Bolts (more softness for cushion), 200 Gold Ingots (gold plated), 20 of each type of Orb (its very shiny), 200k Karma (giant shiny chairs require lots of convincing to build), 50 gold coins (think of it as insurance for your many rare materials…)

oh, started to ramble. mainly just let us use karma on stuff please.

Proposal Overview:

Upgrade for the Guild Hall : subcontractor crafter. A QoL upgrade to introduce new players to crafting.

Goal of the proposal
Allow rookies in the guild to refine their materials and get introduced to crafting without forcing them to level up their craft.

VodCom, why are you suggesting this ?
Allow me to tell you a story:
My guild recently recruited rookies that never played the game before. When they asked about crafting we told them that they should better get to level 80 and accumulate a few gold coins. Once they accumulated the sufficient funds, we introduced them to crafting and they used their financial power to get to level 400 quickly and proceed to craft their end-game gear.

However they had a problem. During their level up, their bank and inventories became invaded with unrefined raw material. They understood naturally that armorsmiths would use ore. However they were not sure about keeping cloth, leather or jewels or just selling them.

I think guild halls could get an upgrade that could solve this issue.

Proposal Functionality:

A subcontractor crafter is:
+an upgrade of guild crafting stations
+a crafting station that can refine anything up to level 450 (rookies can store more mats in the bank without having to level up the craft or rely on others)
+is unlocked separately for each crafting profession (requires at least one member of level 500 in the given profession)
+comes along with an NPC that detail to rookies :
-> Which profession use what
-> Has the NPE tutorial on crafting
-> Can include tips and tricks for crafting (guild officers are the ones that write these tips)

Ex: “Don’t try to level your crafting level at the same time as you level your first character : it is not worth it”
“Exotic Celestial recipes are too expensive, go directly for ascended”
etc…

Associated Risks:

Reducing the incentives to level your crafting for any of your character, since you can now access to a marginal crafting for free.

Guild Hall Instance AND Open World aka Legendary Guild Hall

Chris Whiteside.6102:

/snip…but I would like us (for the sake of focusing the discussion) to move away from Open World Guild Hall discussion.
Put simply I am removing the proposal of open world Guild Halls specifically from our brain storm.
I do however want us to continue to talk about some of the benefits open world brings…
Chris

Proposal Overview:
Make a Very Long-term Guild goal, to allow with much effort and time, a Guild to move their Guild Hall from an Instanced environment to an Open world existence.
Goal of Proposal:
To have both Instanced & Open world Guild Halls
Proposal Functionality:
For numerous reasons Chris has steered us toward an Instanced discussion and I agree but wanted to propose a consideration for a possible option down the Guild Hall road.
Associated Risks:
The risk of Open World Guild overpopulation will be drastically curtailed. But we still have the same issue of making it attainable for both small and large guilds alike. And some may find this too much grind but I look at more like a Legendary Guild Hall

Question: What if we had a long term goal (i.e. 1-2 years down the Guild Hall development road) to be able to move your massively developed Guild Hall from the instanced environment where all the other guilds reside, to being allowed to now have your Guild Hall exist in the open world.

I know this is kind of a way out of the box idea so I will not waste a bunch of time fleshing it out.

Quick overview:
A Time Gated period(unable to be worked around) from your Guild Hall’s inception, you and your dedicated guildies, through a herculean effort, have upgraded their Hall to the final Open World upgrade step; are now granted the opportunity to move their Hall somewhere out to the open world.
This would allow a long term progression goal to the guilds who are dedicated to their Guild Hall in both time, energy and enthusiasm.

As I have not seen this come up in any of the previous 25 pages I just thought I would throw it out there.

Ykfox.3825:

Haven’t read the entire thread I admit, but the only ideas I have shall be posted, just to get them out and on the thread.

Not sure if it’d be possible, but it might be kind of cool to make it so different size guilds need different size guild halls. So a larger guild needs a larger guild hall etc.

Another idea would be to do something like what they did in the Log Horizon anime, and either change current cities/add new cities and make it so guilds actually buy entire buildings in those cities that function as Guild Halls. This has the added advantage of allowing ANet to make the cities more immersive.

I can just imagine guilds buying some of those far flung buildings in Divinity’s Reach that you can only see way up on the wall. Or maybe buying a set of rooms high up on the Pale Tree/etc.

that would be end overflows( i pray for that), cities would be crowded as cities should be, and Lineage had that(similiar) system, was pretty fun to mess with people stuff until they kicked me and close the door ^^,

Gobble D Goop.4081:

The best option would probably be to balance for a guild with 100-200 active players

Can you explain why you believe it should be balanced around such a high number of guild members? My primary guild has 56 members and the largest guild I’m in (A wurm kill guild) has 236 and thats for a guild whose sole purpose is to benefit players. Off the top of my head I can only name 3 other guilds from my server with anything like those numbers.

As for the rest of your post, everything but the Karma can be converted to or from gold and is also a massive grind so would not recommend.

VodCom.6924:

*
Allow me to tell you a story:
My guild recently recruited rookies that never played the game before. When they asked about crafting we told them that they should better get to level 80 and accumulate a few gold coins. Once they accumulated the sufficient funds, we introduced them to crafting and they used their financial power to get to level 400 quickly and proceed to craft their end-game gear.

However they had a problem. During their level up, their bank and inventories became invaded with unrefined raw material. They understood naturally that armorsmiths would use ore. However they were not sure about keeping cloth, leather or jewels or just selling them.

No comment on your idea, but the advice I would always give newbies would be to level two crafts as you’re leveling. You usually get enough ingredients to get each 75 levels for one craft around the same time you move on to the next tier of drops (and if you do non-overlapping crafts like Artificer and Jewelry or armor-smith you can level both). That and it gives you the levels when you need them instead of wasting them at level 80.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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?

That is an interesting issue. Alliances in this context are pretty complex because of this one point.

Chris

When you are in an alliance, the alliance will either:
- Ask for a weekly gold contribution to buy upgrades.
-Or players will join in events to earn upgrades.
-Or you can have a upgrade token system where tokens are earned or bought.

Either way effort has to be made/bought.

-If a guild would split off the alliance they could buy out according to the upgrades bought by the guild trough Guildtokens. Earned upgrades can not be bought off, since it was a alliance collaboration/event that got everyone something when they finished it.

So the guilds can make a requests to be bought off when they have to leave,quit, or have inactive guilds. (inactive guilds can be kicked and automatically be bought off after one month)

The price for each upgrade that has to be bought off is equal to the original price.
Also make easier upgrades buy-able and the bigger ones earned.

Iow: have every member of the guild complete either a WvW, Spvp or Dungeon achievement. (Or participate in an instanced alliance event)

How would this work?
-Guildtokens that can be earned trough guild events/gold.
-Guildtokens can be used to buy upgrades, bulk siege etc.
-Guildtokens can be used to buy Alliance upgrade tokens
-Guild and alliance tokens are currency held by the guild.
-Members can save up tokens to buy and place upgrades directly if they choose or donate them to the guild.
-Guildleaders can designate people to spend guildtokens and place or move upgrades.
-Moving upgrades costs one token.
-The guildhall can not be sold or disbanded without notification and/or buyout for members that spend Guildtokens.
-Earned upgrades are permanent.

Side note: Maybe a split between decorative and practical upgrades can be made with the suggestions mentioned above in mind.

Cheers.

PS: I also want to sneak in an idea where you can “Kick the Quaggan” trough an interact option.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Gobble D Goop.4081:

The best option would probably be to balance for a guild with 100-200 active players

Can you explain why you believe it should be balanced around such a high number of guild members? My primary guild has 56 members and the largest guild I’m in (A wurm kill guild) has 236 and thats for a guild whose sole purpose is to benefit players. Off the top of my head I can only name 3 other guilds from my server with anything like those numbers.

As for the rest of your post, everything but the Karma can be converted to or from gold and is also a massive grind so would not recommend.

The 100-200 is so that the larger guilds dont get bored when the complete everything. i can think of at least 3 on my server (maybe 4) that fit this bill (consider that i am refering to people that represent the guild, not inactive people). If every server has 3-4 guilds that have that many active players, then that equates to ~70 guilds just on NA servers, and that is also assuming that populated servers only have 3-4 of these large guilds. These guilds invested the time to recruit their members and build to high numbers. They should be rewarded for doing this and keeping their guild together, not punished with very low requirements that can be reached in a weekend of queing upgrades or needing to wait on a time gate just so that smaller guilds can keep up.

As for the grind, it isnt that much. ill use the uber armchair for this example:

Uber Chair of Awesomeness- 50 Spiritwood Planks (intricate wooden chair), 500 Ancient Planks (uses more than one type of wood), 5 Deldrimor Ingots (screws/bolts/nails), 20 Bolts of Damask (soft cushion), 500 Gossamer Bolts (more softness for cushion), 200 Gold Ingots (gold plated), 20 of each type of Orb (its very shiny), 200k Karma (giant shiny chairs require lots of convincing to build), 50 gold coins (think of it as insurance for your many rare materials…)

At first glance, yeah that looks terrible, but remember, this is a GUILD achievement. You wont be the only one contributing. Say you and your 49 buddies in the guild decide to build this thing. if you divide it semi evenly, you only have to contribute 1 spiritwood, 10 ancient planks, maybe a deld ingot/bolt of damask, 10 gossamer bolts, 2 gold ingots, 2-3 orbs (there are 7 types, ignoring the unobtainable azurite orbs), 2k karma, and 1 gold. most people probably have that just sitting in their bank right now. and thats just the expensive item i listed. large guilds would still laugh at how easy it would be to build this thing.

This is exactly why I think guild progression should be based on group and collective achievements instead of common token-based resources. With the former, you can tune a reward so it requires a little or a lot of effort, no matter the size of the guild, without making people feel cheated (like one would by saying bigger guilds have to “spend more”). The latter (tokens) is just not feasible when it comes to making it feel fair for both small and large guilds.

Gold, karma, influence, they all have their problems when it comes to guild progression – I say do not use tokens of any sort (at least for the main production – gold sinks might still be productive when it comes to buying disposable foods/flags, once enabled).

Gobble D Goop.4081:

Conski Deshan.2057:

Gobble D Goop.4081:

The best option would probably be to balance for a guild with 100-200 active players

Can you explain why you believe it should be balanced around such a high number of guild members? My primary guild has 56 members and the largest guild I’m in (A wurm kill guild) has 236 and thats for a guild whose sole purpose is to benefit players. Off the top of my head I can only name 3 other guilds from my server with anything like those numbers.

As for the rest of your post, everything but the Karma can be converted to or from gold and is also a massive grind so would not recommend.

The 100-200 is so that the larger guilds dont get bored when the complete everything. i can think of at least 3 on my server (maybe 4) that fit this bill (consider that i am refering to people that represent the guild, not inactive people). If every server has 3-4 guilds that have that many active players, then that equates to ~70 guilds just on NA servers, and that is also assuming that populated servers only have 3-4 of these large guilds. These guilds invested the time to recruit their members and build to high numbers. They should be rewarded for doing this and keeping their guild together, not punished with very low requirements that can be reached in a weekend of queing upgrades or needing to wait on a time gate just so that smaller guilds can keep up.

As for the grind, it isnt that much. ill use the uber armchair for this example:

Uber Chair of Awesomeness- 50 Spiritwood Planks (intricate wooden chair), 500 Ancient Planks (uses more than one type of wood), 5 Deldrimor Ingots (screws/bolts/nails), 20 Bolts of Damask (soft cushion), 500 Gossamer Bolts (more softness for cushion), 200 Gold Ingots (gold plated), 20 of each type of Orb (its very shiny), 200k Karma (giant shiny chairs require lots of convincing to build), 50 gold coins (think of it as insurance for your many rare materials…)

At first glance, yeah that looks terrible, but remember, this is a GUILD achievement. You wont be the only one contributing. Say you and your 49 buddies in the guild decide to build this thing. if you divide it semi evenly, you only have to contribute 1 spiritwood, 10 ancient planks, maybe a deld ingot/bolt of damask, 10 gossamer bolts, 2 gold ingots, 2-3 orbs (there are 7 types, ignoring the unobtainable azurite orbs), 2k karma, and 1 gold. most people probably have that just sitting in their bank right now. and thats just the expensive item i listed. large guilds would still laugh at how easy it would be to build this thing.

Devata.6589:

I don’t think the progression as you see it is so great. It feels like yet another boring currency grind. As if we don’t already have way to many of those in GW2. In fact I see it as one of the big negatives in GW2.

And then you even add that putting stuff in the gem-store would be an option. But that does not add to the game that reduces. Buying it with money is not playing a game and grinding gold to buy it (what would make most sense because what guild-members is else going to pay it?) is again grind.

Not to mention that you will likely see that the part you buy from the gem-store is just a little better then the one you could get in the game.

No I would still prefer the blue-prints that are unlock-able in the game. That seems like a much more interesting way to go that also get guild-members stuff to do other then grind grind grind influence or some other currency.

Thats how I see it.

I specifically mentioned that there was more to my post coming, so you may have to take a wait-and-see approach before you rush to completely dismiss my suggestion.

That said, Influence is an existing currency that players understand and already generate through a variety of activities. I get that many in this thread think they can do better than Influence and consistently describe it as something players have to ‘grind grind grind’ to generate. However, like Daily Achievements, more often than not you are working towards completion just by naturally playing. Yes, you can consider Daily Achievements a grind if you log in and that’s all you focus on. In that regard, anything you have to do more than twice can be dismissed as ‘grindy’, from combat to gathering. But that’s not really true, is it?

Influence works because it’s a basic, universal currency that players generate for their guild simply by playing the game. The problem is that, with the exception of Merits for a few unlocks, it is currently the only method of guild progression, and it is strictly a vertical progression at that. The basic building blocks of guild halls, the “Content Packs” I mentioned, would be unlocked with Influence in any order the guild likes, picking only which ones they want to utilize. I have not mentioned furniture, amenities, etc., which would use more advanced methods (i.e. Blueprints) to unlock.

One of the notes for my follow-up post is that completing various activities as a guild (PVP, WvW, whatever) reduces the influence cost of related Content Packs. Guilds who want WvW-themed Content Packs on the cheap would WvW together, for example. This extends across all game types.

As I mentioned in my post, if the cost associated with upgrading the Guild Hall is aimed at low-end guilds (or even no upgrade costs at all) the end result is that large guilds will blow through the content much faster than the long development cost justifies.

More to Follow.

daft inquisitor.1605:

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.

You don’t believe you were?
You accused me of abandoning the discussion of airships (your words) when I did not. I only expressed my dislike for the idea. You went on at great length to discuss a proposed beacon system as if I was not only ignorant of a what it was but how it would work. You told me how I should structure my posts (what you want to see, etc. again your words). You informed me that both airships and open world had been abandoned as a topic but I was responding to a brand new post about those very same things. So obviously the topic had not been abandoned. Heck, you are still posting about them.

You said you didn’t appreciate the way I responded to you. That is a two way street. I didn’t ask for your initial feedback either, which came across as condescending to me whether you meant it or not.

I am opposed to airships as guild halls for MANY reasons. I could go on about all the reasons I think they are not good, but many others have covered most of those reasons pretty well and they don’t need to be rehashed.

I never personally called you out for liking them and would not. I also would most certainly not use the language you did to respond. So truly who is actually defensive? You are the one who commented on my first post. Not the other way around. If you open up dialog by responding to someone else’s post, you might want to acknowledge that they may not like what you say or interpret your words as you think they were written down.

At the start of this thread, at least on the first pages, we talked about how we wanted small guilds to have access to the features we are discussing. I think that is a consensus at this point. We want small guilds to have, at least, access to Guild Halls.

But a completely different thing is, what kind of progression do we want.
Is it long term objective based kind of progression? Vertical? Horizontal?
Do we want some kind of progression that doesn’t depends on how many members do you have in your guild? Time gated?
Should it be diverse? or focused on some specific activity (like gathering resources)?

I think those are the questions we should be asking, instead of if we should balance it around 100, or 200, or 500 members. Because the problem with that is, well, not really thinking outside of the box.

We should come up with a way that is enjoyable, compelling, and interesting, that will net us a system of progression that will last, and hopefully, that will renew itself as new players come into the game.
At the same time, we shouldn’t lose focus on what we expect from Guild Halls, apart from convenience and self expression, we need it to be a link between game modes (so every player can benefit from it), and it needs to be something worth having. Something that reinforce identity among guilds, and serves as a way to gain prestige in the game.

Guys, you’re dragging down the thread.

krosis.7598:

Guys, you’re dragging down the thread.

I agree, please let’s keep it cool guys, we have been doing it so good.

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?

There are NO promises made here. But some CDI’s HAVE come to the game, such as the wardrobe.

I can weigh in on that. I believe that all vertical progression (GH upgrades, merchants, random NPCs, etc) should be done fairly quickly by most moderate-large guilds with many smaller guilds finishing in about 4-5 months. Horizontal progression (shinies!!) is where the prestiege and “grind” (depending on what is implemented for this) should lie. Some of the horizontal progression could be done by purchasing stuff with the currencies that we already have. Everyone seems to like the blueprint idea, so perhaps the rest of the progression can be done, as many have suggested already, by hunting down blueprints in LS, WvW, PvP, Dungeons, Fractals, Activities, random drop from mobs/nodes/skritt bandits. I could even see random karma/Wvw merchants selling some.

jheryn.8390:

-snip-

Most of your post is utterly innacurate. I have neither the time nor the inclination to go back and correct you on “what was said” and what wasn’t. And even more, you’re not letting it drop, and are derailing the thread over some petty discussion.

Just let it go, and get back to the actual subject of the thread. I don’t want to deal with this crap, and this is neither the time nor the place for it anyway.

Retro.6831:

~

I posted that about 8,5 hour later so I figured I waited enough. I also don’t dismiss dismiss your suggestion. I only talked about the progression part.

Also the part of “you get is as you play” is not really true. In general if I would really want to get the most items I would like in this game the only option I would have would be to grind gold (or buy it with gems). Now for influence that would not be a problem for our guild, yes we would likely earn enough along the way in fact we did safe up influence just in case it would be needed for guild-halls. However for smaller guilds it would be grinding to get the influence they need but more importantly it would nod ad any incentive to really do stuff.

For me grinding means doing something unrelated to what you want to get many times to get a currency to then buy what you need. Farming on the other hand is doing something multiple times working directly towards what you want. I don’t mind farming but I dislike grinding. However most of the guild-hall stuff I would place behind unlocks. Complete a dungeon, unlock blue-print X. And a little bid of farming for the smaller things. A wall (specific skin) or one of the many Halloween mask you can hang on the wall and so on that our guild can farm the Halloween dungeon for because those unlocks drop there. It just adds much more value to the game then.. Well we have people running around and repping us and they to completely unrelated stuff be somehow we get influence for that and with that we then unlock stuff for the guild-hall.

“Influence works because it’s a basic, universal currency that players generate for their guild simply by playing the game.” You see what I mean.. It’s as boring as it sounds.

“I view Influence as very good at unlocking basic features” Yeah me to, just not for more specific things like unlocking things for your guild-hall, only to unlock your basics.
However we have a different idea of basic I think, looking at your previous post. For me it means the basic starting point and maybe basic unlocks like a guild-bank. But you are talking about much more “(“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.”

To me that seems like building your hole guild-hall is based on that influence, and then some nice little gimmicks like furniture you would want to do in another way. Imho all that should unlock in the game and nothing of it should be a purchase.

“One of the notes for my follow-up post is that completing various activities as a guild (PVP, WvW, whatever) reduces the influence cost of related Content Packs. Guilds who want WvW-themed Content Packs on the cheap would WvW together, for example. This extends across all game types.”
Again the purchasing and currency things. Sorry but to me personally that feels extremely boring and like I said if there is one big negative to this game at this moment it’s exactly that.. All the currency stuff. Don’t work directly to what you want but get a number (currency) up and then buy it. That does not feel like rewarding but necessary work.

Just play WvW and do something specific there to earn that WvW thing. An example I said before. Claim a keep in WvW and hold the keep for 1 full week to unlock a portal to that map. That would be a thousand times more interesting and engaging and rewarding and more fun to unlock that portal then to just do some WvW to get a currency up (or down) to then buy it. But thats how I see it.

Devata.6589:

Retro.6831:

~

Just play WvW and do something specific there to earn that WvW thing. An example I said before. Claim a keep in WvW and hold the keep for 1 full week to unlock a portal to that map. That would be a thousand times more interesting and engaging and rewarding and more fun to unlock that portal then to just do some WvW to get a currency up (or down) to then buy it. But thats how I see it.

You add a nice reward for doing that, and I’ll be a happy frolicking quaggan.

maybe the reward could be a happy frolicking quaggan for your GH, at least for doing that in a BL. Especially after they were exterminated by having large amounts of landmass dropped on their homes.

Well, a Guild Hall should give players/guilds something they don’t already have, I mean, only an instance where the guild can hang out, wouldn’t be anything new. I’ve seen someone mention customizations, building and how you could “show this off” to other guilds/players etc, that would be cool.

But let’s face it, a lot of players already left GW2 for AA and other games because of the heavy stagnation in both WvW and GvG where they felt developers worked against those two game modes.
For good guilds/players to either come back or not leave GW2, the Guild Halls should give guilds the opportunity to do proper GvGs where guilds can fight guilds even though they’re not in the same matchup/tier/league. This is one of the things that would make guilds/players come back, I’m sure of it.

Baltzenger.2467:

Devata.6589:

Retro.6831:

~

Just play WvW and do something specific there to earn that WvW thing. An example I said before. Claim a keep in WvW and hold the keep for 1 full week to unlock a portal to that map. That would be a thousand times more interesting and engaging and rewarding and more fun to unlock that portal then to just do some WvW to get a currency up (or down) to then buy it. But thats how I see it.

You add a nice reward for doing that, and I’ll be a happy frolicking quaggan.

Indeed, and that is something a Large Guild that does WvW could do and may desire to have in their Guild Hall. While a Small Guild, like mine, wouldn’t mind NOT having this portal and just jumping in via the UI or from Lion’s Arch. And MUCH more entertaining than just grinding away at whatever to get it.

A mixture of acquisition using Influence for some of the more basic upgrades/features, a “Token” reward for an unlock for doing something like defeating a World Boss with 5+ members present(not random, MUST drop when this is achieved or it becomes a Boss-Grind…maybe do a tier style reward if you have 10+ or 20+ members present) or having 5+ members in a party all complete a specific Jump Puzzle together(again could be tiered for # of Guild Members Present at same time), and Achieving certain goals or tasks like the “WvW Hold a Keep” suggestion. This mix should make it fun, while allowing for rewards to be set based on what a Large Guild may desire(and be able to attain) as opposed to things a Small Guild might see as necessary(and again, be able to attain).

Gobble D Goop.4081:

The 100-200 is so that the larger guilds dont get bored when the complete everything. i can think of at least 3 on my server (maybe 4) that fit this bill (consider that i am refering to people that represent the guild, not inactive people). If every server has 3-4 guilds that have that many active players, then that equates to ~70 guilds just on NA servers, and that is also assuming that populated servers only have 3-4 of these large guilds. These guilds invested the time to recruit their members and build to high numbers. They should be rewarded for doing this and keeping their guild together, not punished with very low requirements that can be reached in a weekend of queing upgrades or needing to wait on a time gate just so that smaller guilds can keep up.

As for the grind, it isnt that much. ill use the uber armchair for this example:

Uber Chair of Awesomeness- 50 Spiritwood Planks (intricate wooden chair), 500 Ancient Planks (uses more than one type of wood), 5 Deldrimor Ingots (screws/bolts/nails), 20 Bolts of Damask (soft cushion), 500 Gossamer Bolts (more softness for cushion), 200 Gold Ingots (gold plated), 20 of each type of Orb (its very shiny), 200k Karma (giant shiny chairs require lots of convincing to build), 50 gold coins (think of it as insurance for your many rare materials…)

At first glance, yeah that looks terrible, but remember, this is a GUILD achievement. You wont be the only one contributing. Say you and your 49 buddies in the guild decide to build this thing. if you divide it semi evenly, you only have to contribute 1 spiritwood, 10 ancient planks, maybe a deld ingot/bolt of damask, 10 gossamer bolts, 2 gold ingots, 2-3 orbs (there are 7 types, ignoring the unobtainable azurite orbs), 2k karma, and 1 gold. most people probably have that just sitting in their bank right now. and thats just the expensive item i listed. large guilds would still laugh at how easy it would be to build this thing.

In your uber chair example is that per chair or for an unlock that’s place-able forever? That still requires each player to contribute 5-10g of resources which sets back their own progress , would a method that does not cost individual progress while increasing guild progress not be better?

A second issue is that you’re going purely by player numbers, lets say for arguments sake we divide players into five skill* categories similar to how they do it in other mmos:
Tier 1 : Top 1% ]
Tier 2: Next 9% [ __ ]
Tier 3: Next 20% [ _ ]
Tier 4: Next 30% [ _______ ]
Tier 5: Lowest 40% [ _________ ]
I would expect a 20 man guild of tier1 players to progress both faster and beyond the ability of a 200 man guild that say consisted entirely of Tier 5 players. But say for arguments sake your method goes through, how do you propose to allow Tier 1 and 2 player guilds to show off if they can’t compete with the sheer numbers of the other tiers?

That tier system is actually what I apply to every area of game-play, how rare is an item? easy lets see what % of the player-base could get access to it if they genuinely tried. How difficult is a piece of content? Lets look at how many could complete it if they tried?

EDIT: The weird brackets next to the tiers is meant to be a pyramid but it won’t load in correctly when entered.

Gobble D Goop.4081:

maybe the reward could be a happy frolicking quaggan for your GH, at least for doing that in a BL. Especially after they were exterminated by having large amounts of landmass dropped on their homes.

Hm, since the door has been opened, can we talk about guild pets now?

Falx.8427:

But let’s face it, a lot of players already left GW2 for AA and other games because of the heavy stagnation in both WvW and GvG where they felt developers worked against those two game modes.

To be fair, there’s no documentation for “number of players that left since AA started”, or anything like that. There’s nothing to base that statement on, and honestly, I’ve seen plenty of threads around from people saying, “I left GW2 to play AA, but came back because [feature] was terrible.”

For as many players as “left” for another game, there has also been a growing population, as there always is. There are very few games that give the type of combat we have in GW2, and almost everyone I’ve seen try a “new” MMO ends up coming back because they just can’t go back to the old style MMO combat.

a permanent upgrade would make the most sense. There could be a wardrobe type thing for unlocked skins for furniture and whatnot. not using resources would probably be better, but the idea of building something from scratch with materials just sounds so interesting.

daft inquisitor.1605:

Gobble D Goop.4081:

maybe the reward could be a happy frolicking quaggan for your GH, at least for doing that in a BL. Especially after they were exterminated by having large amounts of landmass dropped on their homes.

Hm, since the door has been opened, can we talk about guild pets now?

There was a post several pages back that had something like pets.

From what i gathered from it, if some/most of your guild members had the slayer achievement for the creature, then it could be placed on your map. (this post was focusing on the GvG aspect). The pets would be npcs that would try to stop an opposing guild.

I think the slayer achievements are a good way to go with placing pets (although this would exclude things like Quaggans and Kodan, but i guess they could be recieved from other things)

I also like the idea of “crafting” the hall and things to put in it. Perhaps not all of them — after all, one can buy a building without having to pour the foundation oneself — but team construction can be so much fun. Especially if you can see the construction stages when making buildings or planting gardens. Even making it very phased, eg start with some sticks in the ground or a hunk of furrowed dirt. Add enough mats, now you have scaffolding or baby plants. More, and you have a have finished structure. Then complete to have it in useable form.

I know I keep going back to other games for examples. But why not extract the fun things that worked and then give them an ANet twist? So: Horizons had huge community projects. That game had no PvP, it was all the players against the undeadish foe. It also had a deep crafting system that took a ton of mats to make things, but the whole server could come together to harvest nodes, transport mats, craft them into structure components, and apply them to buildings. New land masses could be accessed once a bridge was built to them. Friends could help friends build up their housing plots. It was just so nice to design a plot by placing design elements in a grid and then watch it come to life over time (also laggy, and everything on a Brobdinagian scale compared to the avatars, but we can do better here). AoC also had guild forts to build, iirc; my guild started one but we didn’t stick with the game. It was the same idea of everyone contributing mats as they had resources and time, until it became real walls.

LotRO didn’t allow building structures, but crafters could make and trade many of the things that went in them. Rugs, beds, dressers, paintings, etc, some learnable just by getting better at crafting, some requiring rep with particular societies. It was most satisfying to walk into my house and step on a beautiful rug I’d made. Other objects came from seasonal festivals (I loved my white wicker chairs).

So while I agree a skin locker for hall components and contents is a good idea, filling it in the first place should allow a sense of creation.

My video about ideas on guild progression and building
http://youtu.be/BpCObeKsbBw

Devata.6589:

I posted that about 8,5 hour later so I figured I waited enough. I also don’t dismiss dismiss your suggestion. I only talked about the progression part.

Some of us have to sleep & work, man. It was midnight local time when I posted, just before bed.

Devata.6589:

Also the part of “you get it as you play” is not really true. In general if I would really want to get the most items I would like in this game the only option I would have would be to grind gold (or buy it with gems). Now for influence that would not be a problem for our guild, yes we would likely earn enough along the way in fact we did safe up influence just in case it would be needed for guild-halls. However for smaller guilds it would be grinding to get the influence they need but more importantly it would nod ad any incentive to really do stuff.

Again, that’s because of the way current guild progression works; there are expensive tiers of vertical unlocks with little or no choice on how you progress. There is no flaw with Influence itself, only in the way it is currently being used. A unified currency allows players to spend it on whatever option they like, whereas an approach without currency means the tasks you must perform to unlock something becomes much more specific.

In my mind, Guild Packs are cheap (let’s say in the range of 1000-5000 influence depending on how much is included) and merely the basic components of a guild hall (modular room templates, basic furnishings). The bigger part of Guild Halls (higher tier furnishings) are much more involved and function sort of like… “Guild Achievements”, though that particular word is so loaded I almost hesitate to use it.

Devata.6589:

Complete a dungeon, unlock blue-print X. . . . A wall (specific skin) or one of the many Halloween mask you can hang on the wall and so on that our guild can farm the Halloween dungeon for because those unlocks drop there.

See, we’re on the same page here, I’m using Influence as a ‘core’ currency so that guilds (regardless of size) can build the structure of their halls quickly and then upgrade them by playing together as a guild. I thought I was pretty clear on this in my previous post;

Retro.6831:

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.

. . .

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

For example, say that my guild wants to have a large, two story room as the centerpiece of our guild hall. That room is part of a Content Pack, unlocked with influence at my discretion (i.e. it is not locked behind vertical tiers, I unlock it when I want it). However, if we decide we want to decorate it with Exotic-tier statues of King Adelbern, those are Furnishings which are unlocked by running AC explorable as a guild group. So when you say…

Devata.6589:

“I view Influence as very good at unlocking basic features” Yeah me to, just not for more specific things like unlocking things for your guild-hall, only to unlock your basics.

… we are on exactly the same page. I just haven’t had the time to read all 26 pages in real time, process the multitude of excellent suggestions, apply those thoughts and perspectives to my own ideas and write up a full explanation. If I’m going to use up my spare time (which I’d rather spend playing Guild Wars 2 than writing about it), I’d at least like it to be for something well thought out. That means you may have to have a little patience and wait for people to sleep, run errands and work, then get back into the thread, catch up on what people have been discussing and consider their opinions in shaping a suggestion.

Not everyone can dominate the thread 24/7 as you’ve been doing and honestly, I’m not inclined to rush the collaborative process (that is, reading what others are saying and allowing that to influence my suggestions before I make them) just for you.

Devata.6589:

To me that seems like building your hole guild-hall is based on that influence, and then some nice little gimmicks like furniture you would want to do in another way. Imho all that should unlock in the game and nothing of it should be a purchase.

Yeah, it really seems like you need to wait because you seem to be fixated entirely on Influence being included at all when I’ve repeatedly explained that only the basics are unlocked via influence, not the “hole guild-hall” as you put it.

I know making a Guild Hall available for small guilds have been mentioned and pretty much approved of, however there is then mention of doing dungeons or events with 5 members present. I just want to say that there is small and then there is SMALL.

My guild is just me and 5 RL friends, we are lucky if there is 3 or 4 of us on at one time. I am not asking for it to be quick for a guild like mine to get a hall but please make it possible. We may not do a lot of the major content but we have great fun running around open world together and doing general events so I would ask that at least basic items are available in open world and not just from world boss events, major WvW or dungeons (we aren’t keen on PUGs). Influence, random drops, crafting, even gold are fine to put into getting a guild hall as they are readily available to all.

I know its our choice to be small but I want the guild hall available to all.

there are several discussions going on, but from what i can tell, most people believe the guild hall and many of the basics should be easily accessible to guilds of all sizes. The dungeon/event/WvW stuff seems to be for the fancier furniture/pictures/tables/etc. world bosses normally aren’t too bad for getting things since you can just follow the zerg around for them. Same with WvW (unless your server is having a bad time).

at any rate, if A-Net implements what the consensus seems to be, then your guild should be fine.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Many thanks VOD

CDI Summary below:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Guild-Hall-CDI-The-complete-summary-edition/first#post4476652

Chris

You’re welcomed Chris.

Though I think orpheal (who is the ultimate expert on this kind of stuff) has something in reserve for us. I guess he plans to do a more fleshed out summary this weekend.

In the end we might end up merging his thread and mine.

I think basing any guild progression on random drops of anything, blueprints or other items, is completely counter productive. Player efforts are already hampered by random number generators and a loot system that is happy to remove earned rewards simply because a player hasn’t noticed them or is too busy trying not to die to pick said rewards up. It would be greatly demoralizing, especially for smaller guilds, to be forced to rely on random numbers when consistently good effort has been put forth.

Basing guild rewards on random number generators would be equivalent to asking guild leaders to throw their members into the mystic forge in the hopes that every 4 members in could potentially yield 1 quality member out. I don’t think any worthy leader would take such a gamble, especially after taking the time to carefully craft a guild of quality members who work well together. I say that in full knowledge that many large guilds simply rely on member churn to pad their numbers rather than paying much attention to what kind of people they have recruited. Making guild hall features more like legendary weapons than team arena rewards splits the community unnecessarily.

Another way of putting this, for those who love the game, might be: If the possibility of your soul mate marrying you was based on a slot machine rather than whether or not you loved each other, would you bother asking your soul mate to marry you?

You know what a messy relationship a guild can be. Maybe guild rewards should help simplify that relationship rather than complicating it.

MakubeC.3026:

Proposal Overview
Getting the concept of Guild Halls right.

Goal of Proposal
Few bullets on how to approach Guild Halls.

Proposal Functionality

• GH should be instanced.
• The theme for the Instances should NOT be one singular place where every guild has a “different version of the same building”. Like a Mansion or a Cave .
• Rather they must be a place where Guilds could logically coexist, even if they in reality don’t (A Neighborhood full of mansions, a mountain full of caves, The Mists, One Airship out of hundreds in the airport).
• They should be customizable to some degree.
• Must have different themes (Asuran, Human, Norn, Charr).
• Should be tiered or at least flavored, unlocking greater locations but also leaving the option of not upgrading or changing (Tier one: Guild Cave. Tier Two: Guild Airship. Tier Three: DR Mansion). But my guild is small and pirate themed, so even when we can upgrade to a mansion, we stayed with the airship.
• Should have a sparring area for guild members.
• Should have a section where you can see information about guild mates (AP, Number of Characters, Hours Played, Little Summary about him he wrote).

Associated Risks
Not considering any of these could result in something. And no, this is not a threat.

So far the thread has proven my bulltets from page II were on track.
But I haven’t seen much regarding Info about your Guild Mates features.
I think this could be a great addition. Maybe displaying the GW2 leaderboards (PvP, APs) sorted by Guild and things alike that integrate the guild and make the GH a place where you can go to check out your guildies progression.