Guild Wars 2

I would like to ask that everyone remember that not all guilds will want any form of PvP, and giving guild halls a PvP function may place limitations on them that would otherwise be avoidable.

That is not to say that there is anything wrong with the idea, far from it. Simply remember to balance the non-PvP ideas as well, so everyone can get something good out of it.

Proposal Overview

Visitor’s Area or Public Room of Guild Halls openly accessible to all players once built/enabled for purposes of recruiting, showing off, etc.

Goal of Proposal

Guilds don’t have a good way to recruit players in-game apart from mapchat. Players who wish to join a guild may not have an easy way to evaluate a guild apart from joining the guild first. Having a Public Room in guild halls could ease the recruiting process for both parties.

Proposal Functionality

The Public Room would be attached to the Guild Hall, though a door with guards would prevent non-representing members from entering (similar to the Royal Terrace guards). The Public Room would contain statues/trophies for the guild to display as well as information about recruiting: a recruiting plaque, perhaps, that players could read.

Guild Halls should incorporate a chat channel which allows for communication with players who are not guild members who visit the Public Room.

The Public Room should be an optional add-on which can be enabled and disabled as the guild leader desires.

There must be kick and block functionality for the Public Room similar to custom PvP arenas.

Associated Risks

Trolling and spamming are the greatest risks, especially between WvW guilds. For that reason, it will be essential for these rooms to be turned off and on as needed. Perhaps a better design would be to allow communication between Visitors and Guild Members only, i.e. block Visitor A from seeing chat from Visitor B.

How I see this proposal after this discussion:

Guild Halls

What are they?
They can be either a building on a floating island, an airship, a building on an separate instance, or a building on a main map instance (building plots idea).

How are they?
The wish of many, as stated in posts, is that guild halls should be customizable. We don’t know the extent of possibility for customization, but it ranges from being able to “upgrade” your guild hall through various methods, to completly build it “block by block”.

What is certain, is that we want this to be a new form of progress for guilds, that should be attainable by various methods, and very diverse, just as how diverse guilds can be (from small to big guilds, from pve focused to pvp focused guilds).

Who should be able to acquire one of those?

The opinions vary a lot in this matter, some, I believe, thinking about small guilds, want Guild Halls to be tax free, with no maintenance cost, or without a cost on merits. Others want this to be a long term, organized effort to achieve, with things like having to gather resources from different places and gamemodes (like the idea of using pvp reward tracks to gather resources), should have a maintenance cost and be a way to show others the power, organization and dedication of a guild. Guild Halls could also be prestige things.
I personally believe that the range, and the idea of progression for Guild Halls could embrace all that was stated before, ranging from “easy-to-obtain”, “small” guild halls, to hard to get, more advanced and costly ones.

What else should Guild Halls add to the game?

What is more commonly stated, is that Guild Halls should add convenience apart from the idea of a meeting place, adding things like a guild bank access, armorers, repair, etc. Some doubt that GH should have crafting stations, because we want to avoid the risk of depopulating major cities, so some services should remain exclusive to those places.

There is also the idea of adding more complex systems, like arenas for duels, mini games, new guild activities related to Guild Halls. And that the addition to this systems, should be optional, taking into account that guilds are different, and have different needs.

Proposal Overview
Guild Hall maps with pre-defined layouts, where the function of each room can be selected. What can be placed in the room will depend on the function it is set to.

Goal of Proposal
Without requiring the creation of an overly complex system, to allow people to decide what the parts of their hall are used for. This may become especially important if guild halls become part of any future PvP.

Proposal Functionality
Each guild hall has a pre-made map showing the layout of the rooms. Each room will have a few to several options as to what function it will serve. Options could be such things as “Crafting Room”, “Trophy Room”, “Barrier Room” (for obstacles in PvP), “Barracks”, “Gate Room”, and “Vault” (a target for PvP, required for use in PvP).

The option selected for the room will determine what kinds of objects can be placed within it, and along with the size of the room will also decide how many of those objects it can have.

Associated Risks
This will limit what can be placed where more than just “does it fit” rules would. However, it will also work to prevent confusing layouts and clutter, as well as give guilds reason to press forward to bigger and better halls. People may complain that they can’t put a crafting station right inside the front door and now have to walk to the station.

(I plan to expand upon this idea some when the GvG CDI is made.)

Palador.2170:

I would like to ask that everyone remember that not all guilds will want any form of PvP, and giving guild halls a PvP function may place limitations on them that would otherwise be avoidable.

That is not to say that there is anything wrong with the idea, far from it. Simply remember to balance the non-PvP ideas as well, so everyone can get something good out of it.

This is exactly what I said in my proposal, GvG is a PvP feature and must not be linked with GH that is a PvX feature.

In my opinion GvG map should be a keep separated from GH, there could be customization and all sort of thing you want inside it, but should not be part of GH.

Mixing them will only create more problem to be solved and will slow down development of both.

Please don’t mix them!

Alcarin.9024:

This is exactly what I said in my proposal, GvG is a PvP feature and must not be linked with GH that is a PvX feature.

In my opinion GvG map should be a keep separated from GH, there could be customization and all sort of thing you want inside it, but should not be part of GH.

Mixing them will only create more problem to be solved and will slow down development of both.

Please don’t mix them!

A lot of people want that, though. I think there’s a balance to be found, a system that’s made so that it can do both.

Also, as a vet of City of Heroes, I can say that some defensive/offensive items we had for our base PvP (which never really worked right) made for some interesting decorations even in non-PvP bases. Of course, when a patch broke the bases and made them turn hostile against their owners…

Palador.2170:

Proposal Overview
Guild Hall maps with pre-defined layouts, where the function of each room can be selected. What can be placed in the room will depend on the function it is set to.

Goal of Proposal
Without requiring the creation of an overly complex system, to allow people to decide what the parts of their hall are used for. This may become especially important if guild halls become part of any future PvP.

Proposal Functionality
Each guild hall has a pre-made map showing the layout of the rooms. Each room will have a few to several options as to what function it will serve. Options could be such things as “Crafting Room”, “Trophy Room”, “Barrier Room” (for obstacles in PvP), “Barracks”, “Gate Room”, and “Vault” (a target for PvP, required for use in PvP).

The option selected for the room will determine what kinds of objects can be placed within it, and along with the size of the room will also decide how many of those objects it can have.

Associated Risks
This will limit what can be placed where more than just “does it fit” rules would. However, it will also work to prevent confusing layouts and clutter, as well as give guilds reason to press forward to bigger and better halls. People may complain that they can’t put a crafting station right inside the front door and now have to walk to the station.

(I plan to expand upon this idea some when the GvG CDI is made.)

This idea is great, it mixes a lot of the suggestions, but puts them on a nice system. It reminds me of games like Rune Factory, where you gather resources, and “contract” an upgrade for your farm/house/etc, and you get this kind of additions.

Were we having such level of customization (and room) on Guild Halls, I think your idea is the best way to implement it.

The only thing I’m not quite convinced yet, is the idea of doing PvP inside of Guild Halls.

Baltzenger, thanks for that cogent summary. It really sums up the ideas in 7 pages thus far in a concise and objective manner.

The key thing for me and ive picked out a few repeats of this in proposals across some posts is the relevance to small guilds. Guild missions were a kick in the teeth to small guilds and yet they were such an excellent idea. Not unique…but perhaps the best ive seen at linking guilds to thriving open world. Small guilds like mine felt left out due to manpowet needed.

Guild halls must be obtainable for all guilds and in a way that is fair to all. Lotro did it well with timescales being linked to upgrades. That way, guilds could develop equally.

Randulf.7614:

The key thing for me and ive picked out a few repeats of this in proposals across some posts is the relevance to small guilds. Guild missions were a kick in the teeth to small guilds and yet they were such an excellent idea. Not unique…but perhaps the best ive seen at linking guilds to thriving open world. Small guilds like mine felt left out due to manpowet needed.

Guild halls must be obtainable for all guilds and in a way that is fair to all. Lotro did it well with timescales being linked to upgrades. That way, guilds could develop equally.

For those of us like me who didn’t get into Lotro guilds, what does this entail?

Baltzenger.2467:

Palador.2170:

Proposal Overview
Guild Hall maps with pre-defined layouts, where the function of each room can be selected. What can be placed in the room will depend on the function it is set to.

Goal of Proposal
Without requiring the creation of an overly complex system, to allow people to decide what the parts of their hall are used for. This may become especially important if guild halls become part of any future PvP.

Proposal Functionality
Each guild hall has a pre-made map showing the layout of the rooms. Each room will have a few to several options as to what function it will serve. Options could be such things as “Crafting Room”, “Trophy Room”, “Barrier Room” (for obstacles in PvP), “Barracks”, “Gate Room”, and “Vault” (a target for PvP, required for use in PvP).

The option selected for the room will determine what kinds of objects can be placed within it, and along with the size of the room will also decide how many of those objects it can have.

Associated Risks
This will limit what can be placed where more than just “does it fit” rules would. However, it will also work to prevent confusing layouts and clutter, as well as give guilds reason to press forward to bigger and better halls. People may complain that they can’t put a crafting station right inside the front door and now have to walk to the station.

(I plan to expand upon this idea some when the GvG CDI is made.)

This idea is great, it mixes a lot of the suggestions, but puts them on a nice system. It reminds me of games like Rune Factory, where you gather resources, and “contract” an upgrade for your farm/house/etc, and you get this kind of additions.

Were we having such level of customization (and room) on Guild Halls, I think your idea is the best way to implement it.

The only thing I’m not quite convinced yet, is the idea of doing PvP inside of Guild Halls.

This, modules, add-ons, and upgrades are all variants on the same thing. Whichever flavor of these kinds of systems people prefer I think it may be the best solution for including GvG/PvP. If guilds don’t want GvG then they don’t build a GvG field. If guilds don’t want PvP then don’t build an arena.

This way, those that do want it can have it and those that don’t, won’t have it. If the GvG/PvP is limited to those rooms and doesn’t impact the rest of the hall then guilds with split populations that like/don’t like will have a means of satisfying both crowds.

I agree, Torsair. Even my smallish guild has members devoted to various aspects of the game. The ability to modularly include all modes with entering each remaining a matter of individual choice would vastly improve the general benefit and flexibility of the system.

Speaking of systems, how many different new systems are we asking to dovetail under the GH umbrella? Obviously it would be wonderful to have a seamlessly integrated mix all hanging off the GH spine, but I can see associated risks in cross-complexity. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask for the sun, moon, and stars right now, but perhaps we should be looking at a means of expansion. Like adding new rings to an orrery, one needs the support post to start.

So what base mechanisms or systems do we need that can get more added without needing to redesign the base later?

I’d like to talk about the underwater areas in the game. Is there a way we could remove fairly large swaths of those to accommodate Guild Hall placement in the game world? What I mean is, can we remove big portions of the underwater regions and allow Guild Hall areas to be placed there instead whether it be open world Guild Halls or new open world content and the Instance Portals to the Guild Hall areas could be placed there. I just don’t see current underwater areas as a viable form of content anymore and yet it takes up a huge portion of the game world. I also don’t see new underwater content as being something that is even in the top ten of what devs or players want to see in the game in terms of direction. Maybe we could get rid of it and put that huge amount of largely unused real estate to good use?

Also, when we are talking about collections as a way to build a guild hall where does that leave smaller guilds? I am of the mind that Large guilds don’t need any easier a time over smaller guilds than they currently have at the moment.

Torsailr.8456:

Baltzenger.2467:

Palador.2170:

Proposal Overview
Guild Hall maps with pre-defined layouts, where the function of each room can be selected. What can be placed in the room will depend on the function it is set to.

Goal of Proposal
Without requiring the creation of an overly complex system, to allow people to decide what the parts of their hall are used for. This may become especially important if guild halls become part of any future PvP.

Proposal Functionality
Each guild hall has a pre-made map showing the layout of the rooms. Each room will have a few to several options as to what function it will serve. Options could be such things as “Crafting Room”, “Trophy Room”, “Barrier Room” (for obstacles in PvP), “Barracks”, “Gate Room”, and “Vault” (a target for PvP, required for use in PvP).

The option selected for the room will determine what kinds of objects can be placed within it, and along with the size of the room will also decide how many of those objects it can have.

Associated Risks
This will limit what can be placed where more than just “does it fit” rules would. However, it will also work to prevent confusing layouts and clutter, as well as give guilds reason to press forward to bigger and better halls. People may complain that they can’t put a crafting station right inside the front door and now have to walk to the station.

(I plan to expand upon this idea some when the GvG CDI is made.)

This idea is great, it mixes a lot of the suggestions, but puts them on a nice system. It reminds me of games like Rune Factory, where you gather resources, and “contract” an upgrade for your farm/house/etc, and you get this kind of additions.

Were we having such level of customization (and room) on Guild Halls, I think your idea is the best way to implement it.

The only thing I’m not quite convinced yet, is the idea of doing PvP inside of Guild Halls.

This, modules, add-ons, and upgrades are all variants on the same thing. Whichever flavor of these kinds of systems people prefer I think it may be the best solution for including GvG/PvP. If guilds don’t want GvG then they don’t build a GvG field. If guilds don’t want PvP then don’t build an arena.

This way, those that do want it can have it and those that don’t, won’t have it. If the GvG/PvP is limited to those rooms and doesn’t impact the rest of the hall then guilds with split populations that like/don’t like will have a means of satisfying both crowds.

The thing with me is, I love the idea of doing GvG, but I think it would be better tied to sPvP rather as a part of GH. The same with the idea of duels, I love that idea, but I don’t really want it to be tied to Guild Halls either. To me the best scenarios for GvG and duels, is, well, GvG as a part of sPvP, and duels as a thing we can do anywhere in PvE.

Is not a matter of “who wants it can have it”, but rather, “since we want it, lets have it in the best way possible”. Also, maybe is better to leave open the possibility and focus on Guild Halls as a system itself, rather than moving the discussion towards pvp modes, even if those can be tied together, they need an own separate CDI for them.

Iason Evan.3806:

Maybe we could get rid of it and put that huge amount of largely unused real estate to good use?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding but what huge amount of real estate? Of the explorable areas I’d say less than 5% is water. Or are you talking about the non explored areas such as between Caledon and Bloodtide?

Iason Evan.3806:

Also, when we are talking about collections as a way to build a guild hall where does that leave smaller guilds? I am of the mind that Large guilds don’t need any easier a time over smaller guilds than they currently have at the moment.

I believe collections were mentioned as a means of supplementing building costs for smaller guilds. That way they aren’t as hindered by a lack of members to gain influence. But you can’t restrict that to just smaller guilds, doing so would be unfair to larger guilds. I’d imagine though, that larger guilds would have enough influence to not need/want to use a collection method for building a guild hall.

If you have any thoughts on a system to help smaller guilds that wouldn’t also penalize larger guilds then please share. How do you think a collection system should work?

Before i begin, i would like to know if guild halls ties into player housing. If the two are linked then maybe i can go in-depth on how the two systems can be used together to create player driven hubs instead of town specific hubs.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Gulesave.5073:

Hrmm, I really like the idea someone mentioned of linking the Guild Hall to GvG. Build a long, narrow map with a place at either end for a Hall to slot on. Aspects of the greater map are influenced by upgrades to your Hall. Set up a start time and duration, check a few boxes for rules and victory conditions, and fight your way into the enemy keep for glory and loot!

Aside from that, I think a special room in the Hall could be the perfect place for dueling.

This just makes me think of Facing Worlds.

http://www.pcgamer.com/why-facing-worlds-unreal-tournament/

https://www.google.com/search?q=unreal+tournament+facing+worlds&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=9UosVLbwINKHsQTmyYLgCw&ved=0CB8QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=963

And wasn’t “Facing Worlds” a terrible map due to the relatively easy ability to just kill anyone trying to come across?

Might as well set up Coagulation, for giggles. Hmmm . . . actually not a bad idea.

Torsailr.8456:

Iason Evan.3806:

Maybe we could get rid of it and put that huge amount of largely unused real estate to good use?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding but what huge amount of real estate? Of the explorable areas I’d say less than 5% is water. Or are you talking about the non explored areas such as between Caledon and Bloodtide?

Iason Evan.3806:

Also, when we are talking about collections as a way to build a guild hall where does that leave smaller guilds? I am of the mind that Large guilds don’t need any easier a time over smaller guilds than they currently have at the moment.

I believe collections were mentioned as a means of supplementing building costs for smaller guilds. That way they aren’t as hindered by a lack of members to gain influence. But you can’t restrict that to just smaller guilds, doing so would be unfair to larger guilds. I’d imagine though, that larger guilds would have enough influence to not need/want to use a collection method for building a guild hall.

If you have any thoughts on a system to help smaller guilds that wouldn’t also penalize larger guilds then please share. How do you think a collection system should work?

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

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

TexZero.7910:

Before i begin, i would like to know if guild halls ties into player housing. If the two are linked then maybe i can go in-depth on how the two systems can be used together to create player driven hubs instead of town specific hubs.

Or post your idea anyway? The point at the moment is to brainstorm ideas about guild halls without restrictions from devs.

A small idea how to make individuals stand out in Guild Halls:

Think of Hall of Monuments, but for the top 3 players of that guild in certain categories.

• 5 highest ranking PvP players: a statue of them with their current armor, dye and weapon will be displayed on a victory podium.
• Winner of weekly duels in the Guild Arena: A npc with his skins (looks like the player) will act as a duel practice npc, using the same weaponset.
• Player with a certain number of rare minis: his minis will have double the size inside the Halls.
  …

This way several players from a guild could show off their speciality in their guild. Crafting experts will shine as well as PvP masters, as well as dungeon veterans, as well as lucky ones.

Iason Evan.3806:

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

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

Sorry, individual posts started bluring together 4 pages ago.

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

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Gulesave.5073:

Hrmm, I really like the idea someone mentioned of linking the Guild Hall to GvG. Build a long, narrow map with a place at either end for a Hall to slot on. Aspects of the greater map are influenced by upgrades to your Hall. Set up a start time and duration, check a few boxes for rules and victory conditions, and fight your way into the enemy keep for glory and loot!

Aside from that, I think a special room in the Hall could be the perfect place for dueling.

This just makes me think of Facing Worlds.

http://www.pcgamer.com/why-facing-worlds-unreal-tournament/

https://www.google.com/search?q=unreal+tournament+facing+worlds&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=9UosVLbwINKHsQTmyYLgCw&ved=0CB8QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=963

And wasn’t “Facing Worlds” a terrible map due to the relatively easy ability to just kill anyone trying to come across?

Might as well set up Coagulation, for giggles. Hmmm . . . actually not a bad idea.

Actually, the very link that I posted is a video review of why Facing Worlds was an absolutely superb team-vs-team map. It’s actually incredibly highly regarded in the Unreal Tournament community, and there are a lot of subtleties to the design that make it an actually remarkable map.

Yes, you can snipe across the map if you’re good enough, but at the same time the enemy team can be doing the exact same thing. The fact that the map is mirrored so perfectly automatically negates any “simple strategy”, as your enemies can do the exact same thing to you that you do to them.

EDIT: It looks like the video link is actually broken. Here it is directly on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMmwkO3RfTo

Torsailr.8456:

Iason Evan.3806:

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

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

Sorry, individual posts started bluring together 4 pages ago.

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

Think of it in a different way with different currency: it would be rather unfair for 500 members of a guild to pay 2000 influence to use a merchant’s services and have a smaller guild’s 5 members pay the same amount for similar service. Its more of a convenience thing; greater number of people should pay more because there are more of them that are using said feature. To help with prices skyrocketing with inactive members, leaders can declare certain members inactive and revoke their access (reversible)

Torsailr.8456:

Iason Evan.3806:

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

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

Sorry, individual posts started bluring together 4 pages ago.

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

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

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

timmyf.1490:

Proposal Overview

Visitor’s Area or Public Room of Guild Halls openly accessible to all players once built/enabled for purposes of recruiting, showing off, etc.

Goal of Proposal

Guilds don’t have a good way to recruit players in-game apart from mapchat. Players who wish to join a guild may not have an easy way to evaluate a guild apart from joining the guild first. Having a Public Room in guild halls could ease the recruiting process for both parties.

Proposal Functionality

The Public Room would be attached to the Guild Hall, though a door with guards would prevent non-representing members from entering (similar to the Royal Terrace guards). The Public Room would contain statues/trophies for the guild to display as well as information about recruiting: a recruiting plaque, perhaps, that players could read.

Guild Halls should incorporate a chat channel which allows for communication with players who are not guild members who visit the Public Room.

The Public Room should be an optional add-on which can be enabled and disabled as the guild leader desires.

There must be kick and block functionality for the Public Room similar to custom PvP arenas.

Associated Risks

Trolling and spamming are the greatest risks, especially between WvW guilds. For that reason, it will be essential for these rooms to be turned off and on as needed. Perhaps a better design would be to allow communication between Visitors and Guild Members only, i.e. block Visitor A from seeing chat from Visitor B.

I said before that guild-halls could be using doors like in WvW castles and that it then would be possible for guilds to choose to have there guild-hall open for everybody (like white doors or and and everybody can use them) or for guild-members only (orange doors, only guild members can enter).

However if you would be able to set this option not only as a guild-hall feature but could do that for every door (this door, guild only, this full access, this guild + alliances) then you would be able to create your own Visitor’s Area the way you want it.

How about that?

Baltzenger.2467:

How I see this proposal after this discussion:

Guild Halls

What are they?
They can be either a building on a floating island, an airship, a building on an separate instance, or a building on a main map instance (building plots idea).

How are they?
The wish of many, as stated in posts, is that guild halls should be customizable. We don’t know the extent of possibility for customization, but it ranges from being able to “upgrade” your guild hall through various methods, to completly build it “block by block”.

What is certain, is that we want this to be a new form of progress for guilds, that should be attainable by various methods, and very diverse, just as how diverse guilds can be (from small to big guilds, from pve focused to pvp focused guilds).

Who should be able to acquire one of those?

The opinions vary a lot in this matter, some, I believe, thinking about small guilds, want Guild Halls to be tax free, with no maintenance cost, or without a cost on merits. Others want this to be a long term, organized effort to achieve, with things like having to gather resources from different places and gamemodes (like the idea of using pvp reward tracks to gather resources), should have a maintenance cost and be a way to show others the power, organization and dedication of a guild. Guild Halls could also be prestige things.
I personally believe that the range, and the idea of progression for Guild Halls could embrace all that was stated before, ranging from “easy-to-obtain”, “small” guild halls, to hard to get, more advanced and costly ones.

What else should Guild Halls add to the game?

What is more commonly stated, is that Guild Halls should add convenience apart from the idea of a meeting place, adding things like a guild bank access, armorers, repair, etc. Some doubt that GH should have crafting stations, because we want to avoid the risk of depopulating major cities, so some services should remain exclusive to those places.

There is also the idea of adding more complex systems, like arenas for duels, mini games, new guild activities related to Guild Halls. And that the addition to this systems, should be optional, taking into account that guilds are different, and have different needs.

Good summarization I think. Reading it I only miss two things.

1 Some people suggested zeppelins.

2 Guild-halls, like you say, should create goals and so but in addition to that should also make guilds more part of this game. Give guilds more a place in this game / the world. Not this separate entity it is now.

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

Proposal Overview

Making the Guild Hall accessible to the public/private. Finding a place to put Guild Halls and overall making a Guild Hall that is worth coming to.

Goal of Proposal

The goal of this proposal is to not only make it easier to prevent lag issues but also to allow people access to your Guild Hall without taking up too much room in city instances. Also making it worth going to your Guild Hall and not just occasionally glance at it or stay there just for a short Guild meeting.

Proposal Functionality

I propose that like people can buy an Instance for PvP arenas why not do as such with Guild Halls. You can make it an instance list that shows all the Guild Halls that the players can select and enter if it is not password protected by the Guild. In this way we can have many Guild Halls created that won’t cause much lag, crashes or even lower graphic settings due to the amount of people within.

What, though, would make it worth going to your Guild Hall? In many MMOs of the past I have not found one reason to enter my Guild Hall. You get all the buffs the guild puts in it without having to step foot in there. So why not make it worth going to by not just making it unique and how you build and customize it (creating a small , medium, or large Guild Hall) but by also adding features to it. Daily Nodes Garden/Backyard being put in the guild is a given. Why not go further though? Why not add a jumping puzzle to it that leads to a grand or magnificent chest.

But, by far the one thing that I believe should be added to the Guild Hall is… a dungeon. A daily or weekly Guild Dungeon that has a 5 team, 10 team, or 15+ team level at the end of which you earn merits to upgrade and customize your Guild Hall and tokens that can go towards brand new Guild Armor. In some ways Guild dungeons have been created (Guild Puzzles) so why not take it a step further with this idea in mind. As such a Guild Dungeon should be added to the architecture list in order to create it but should give the guild access to any of the 3 team levels depending if you can pay for it with your merits.

Associated Risks

Like a Custom Arena one risk that could come to fruition is having a single person own the Guild Hall that leaves the guild or quits the game. A Guild Hall should be owned by the guild and not be owned by just one individual as such a Guild Hall should somehow be created by the guild rather than purchased and owned by a single person at the gem store.

Alcarin.9024:

~
Proposal Overview
GH customization like WvW siege

Goal of Proposal
Provide a GH customization system that could be easy/fast to implement by developers (use already available game mechanics).

Proposal Functionality
My idea of customization is inpired by WvW siege.
You could buy items blueprint from an NPC (or produce them with the existing influence system). Using the blueprint will change your weapon skill and allow you to correctly place the item (just like siege weapons), placing the item will create the raw structure that need to be built.

The kind and size of items can be a lot different and may depend on GH map size and terrain. It could be allowed to build buildings (if there are no technical impediments with such large objects, such as collisions etc…), or only items like furniture, statue, fountain, ecc….
There can be texture variation for each items (they are essentially different items, you are allowed to chose one when buying it or just after using it, like selecting stats for legendary weapons), allowing different color and material for some items.

Resource:
For WvW siege, supply are needed to complete the siege. GH items could be free of charge (you only have to buy them) or they can need resources in order to be completed. In example you could need wood in order to build a platform, or need metal ore/lingot in order to build a statue, or cloth to build a carpet, soulbound items may be required in order to require a wide guild mates partecipation. Some items may give a buff when interacted (when completed) so resources should be needed to complete them (in example, a flag that give magic find may require cloth, metal, and ecto).
If is possible to build interactive items, could be great to build (in example) crafting station in this way, so if your guild want a tailoring station in their GH, they must gather enough cloths to complete it. If it is difficult to build items like crafting station in this way, you could build a “crafting station prototype”, this item give you a single skill when interacting to it, that skill activate the crafting station destroing itself and at the same time create kittenable crafting station in the same place with the same look.

~

I do like the idea while I wonder if changing that system to do this would be much easier as building a new system.

But what I would personally do different is that I would see the blue-prints not ans one-use items but basically unlocks.. it might be items you can store in a special guild-bank but it would then be things you can get from doing a dungeon (as a drop from the boss or as reward for completing it) or by doing guild-missions and so on and so on.

Why? Because this gives guilds a lot to do with more reasons. And that is what I would like to see. In addition it would be fun while the currency way would create yet another boring gold or influence or whatever grind. Not to mention that changing things would cost again a lot of influence.

So I would like to see the many many many blue-prints you can get all over the world (with your guild) to be unlocks then you can then freely use but could work just as siege. You place it and then have to build it. Possibly with mats or with a similar system as we see in WvW with supply packages. Guild-members need to bring then and then are able to build it. Just need to be careful there that that itself will then not become another new grind.

This would solve the boring grind while adding a lot of things to do for guilds and it would not make building a guild-hall trivial.

Palador.2170:

Alcarin.9024:

This is exactly what I said in my proposal, GvG is a PvP feature and must not be linked with GH that is a PvX feature.

In my opinion GvG map should be a keep separated from GH, there could be customization and all sort of thing you want inside it, but should not be part of GH.

Mixing them will only create more problem to be solved and will slow down development of both.

Please don’t mix them!

A lot of people want that, though. I think there’s a balance to be found, a system that’s made so that it can do both.

Also, as a vet of City of Heroes, I can say that some defensive/offensive items we had for our base PvP (which never really worked right) made for some interesting decorations even in non-PvP bases. Of course, when a patch broke the bases and made them turn hostile against their owners…

Because of the many differed suggestions it’s hard to go into detail. But I would say if GvG is some predefined map where you play it then there is no need to do it in a guild-hall or let it be a blue-print you can unlock and then build in your guild-hall if you like.

Would you want to make it more dynamic and basically let the multiple guild-halls be the GvG map then you could create PvP maps where guilds can fight each other (being it by attack each others air-chaps or guild-halls on the ground) While it would still be necessary to switch from PvP to PvE mode at any time.

Devata.6589:

Baltzenger.2467:

How I see this proposal after this discussion:

Guild Halls

What are they?
They can be either a building on a floating island, an airship, a building on an separate instance, or a building on a main map instance (building plots idea).

How are they?
The wish of many, as stated in posts, is that guild halls should be customizable. We don’t know the extent of possibility for customization, but it ranges from being able to “upgrade” your guild hall through various methods, to completly build it “block by block”.

What is certain, is that we want this to be a new form of progress for guilds, that should be attainable by various methods, and very diverse, just as how diverse guilds can be (from small to big guilds, from pve focused to pvp focused guilds).

Who should be able to acquire one of those?

The opinions vary a lot in this matter, some, I believe, thinking about small guilds, want Guild Halls to be tax free, with no maintenance cost, or without a cost on merits. Others want this to be a long term, organized effort to achieve, with things like having to gather resources from different places and gamemodes (like the idea of using pvp reward tracks to gather resources), should have a maintenance cost and be a way to show others the power, organization and dedication of a guild. Guild Halls could also be prestige things.
I personally believe that the range, and the idea of progression for Guild Halls could embrace all that was stated before, ranging from “easy-to-obtain”, “small” guild halls, to hard to get, more advanced and costly ones.

What else should Guild Halls add to the game?

What is more commonly stated, is that Guild Halls should add convenience apart from the idea of a meeting place, adding things like a guild bank access, armorers, repair, etc. Some doubt that GH should have crafting stations, because we want to avoid the risk of depopulating major cities, so some services should remain exclusive to those places.

There is also the idea of adding more complex systems, like arenas for duels, mini games, new guild activities related to Guild Halls. And that the addition to this systems, should be optional, taking into account that guilds are different, and have different needs.

Good summarization I think. Reading it I only miss two things.

1 Some people suggested zeppelins.

2 Guild-halls, like you say, should create goals and so but in addition to that should also make guilds more part of this game. Give guilds more a place in this game / the world. Not this separate entity it is now.

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

Thanks

About those points:
1.- To me zeppelins are airships, so there’s that.
2.- About the way Guild Halls help fit guilds into the GW2 universe, I think it’s a given? I mean, unless you have a proposal to achieve this goal, what I understand from the thread is that, Guild Halls by themselves serve this purpose. Of course, the part where we put them as part of maps, or as airships in the sky, etc, is related to that concept too.

edit: Oh and thanks Chris, I’m trying to be helpful

Baltzenger.2467:

Devata.6589:

Baltzenger.2467:

How I see this proposal after this discussion:

Guild Halls

What are they?
They can be either a building on a floating island, an airship, a building on an separate instance, or a building on a main map instance (building plots idea).

How are they?
The wish of many, as stated in posts, is that guild halls should be customizable. We don’t know the extent of possibility for customization, but it ranges from being able to “upgrade” your guild hall through various methods, to completly build it “block by block”.

What is certain, is that we want this to be a new form of progress for guilds, that should be attainable by various methods, and very diverse, just as how diverse guilds can be (from small to big guilds, from pve focused to pvp focused guilds).

Who should be able to acquire one of those?

The opinions vary a lot in this matter, some, I believe, thinking about small guilds, want Guild Halls to be tax free, with no maintenance cost, or without a cost on merits. Others want this to be a long term, organized effort to achieve, with things like having to gather resources from different places and gamemodes (like the idea of using pvp reward tracks to gather resources), should have a maintenance cost and be a way to show others the power, organization and dedication of a guild. Guild Halls could also be prestige things.
I personally believe that the range, and the idea of progression for Guild Halls could embrace all that was stated before, ranging from “easy-to-obtain”, “small” guild halls, to hard to get, more advanced and costly ones.

What else should Guild Halls add to the game?

What is more commonly stated, is that Guild Halls should add convenience apart from the idea of a meeting place, adding things like a guild bank access, armorers, repair, etc. Some doubt that GH should have crafting stations, because we want to avoid the risk of depopulating major cities, so some services should remain exclusive to those places.

There is also the idea of adding more complex systems, like arenas for duels, mini games, new guild activities related to Guild Halls. And that the addition to this systems, should be optional, taking into account that guilds are different, and have different needs.

Good summarization I think. Reading it I only miss two things.

1 Some people suggested zeppelins.

2 Guild-halls, like you say, should create goals and so but in addition to that should also make guilds more part of this game. Give guilds more a place in this game / the world. Not this separate entity it is now.

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

Thanks

About those points:
1.- To me zeppelins are airships, so there’s that.
2.- About the way Guild Halls help fit guilds into the GW2 universe, I think it’s a given? I mean, unless you have a proposal to achieve this goal, what I understand from the thread is that, Guild Halls by themselves serve this purpose. Of course, the part where we put them as part of maps, or as airships in the sky, etc, is related to that concept too.

edit: Oh and thanks Chris, I’m trying to be helpful

About the zeppelins. I was not the one suggesting it so not sure but what I got from it was that they expected basically multiple models of zeppelins that you could unlock and then the ability to color them the way you like. While the air-ships where more like flaunting guild-halls you could build from the ground up. Of course you could then also build a zeppelin but it’s a completely different approach. So that’s why I did see it as separate things.

PlagueParade.7942:

But, by far the one thing that I believe should be added to the Guild Hall is… a dungeon. A daily or weekly Guild Dungeon that has a 5 team, 10 team, or 15+ team level at the end of which you earn merits to upgrade and customize your Guild Hall and tokens that can go towards brand new Guild Armor.

+1
They can even call it raid or smt. Or smply develop a guild missions, and add some dungeons, raids with a bosses, etc, etc to them. And put all of this guild things into the Guild Halls. It would be really interesting. Most important thing is to encourage people to enter this place (GH), otherwise nobody will come there, as in many other mmorpgs. Appearance is also important, but do not kid yourself – noone will come back there without incentives. GH can be ugly, but when it’s useful, then every1 will teleport there, and stay for a long time – enjoying time spent with the guild.

Edit:
And how about afkers? In the main maps when we are afk for a long time, then system kicks us, whats great, but IMO would be great to be able to afk in the GH
I think it would look cool – every guild member who likes to afk would have his own place etc, etc

Part 1/9
I see two options here

1. A static Guild Hall (GH) similar to GW1 with a few vendor upgrades.
2. A hugely customizable GH system that allows progression in terms of: aesthetics, GH size/layout, items and item placement.

General Concepts (covering both options)

• Instanced GH’s (like GW1)
• Guild Architecture upgrades tab would need to be reworked. Add a ‘guild hall’ upgrade to build your guild hall and receive your instance (or move some guild hall related upgrades into a separate ‘guild hall’ category)
• Several location themes to choose from (like GW1)
• Travel button to GH instance in guild window
• GH’s should be private places to hang out with guild members, but with the option to invite non-guild members
• GH’s should be a ‘home’ for your guild, not player housing but guild housing
• GH’s should not replace cities or Lions Arch (so, leave out mystic forge and/or trading post?)
• GH upgrades/customization should at least use existing guild influence (includes gold) and merits as currency

Option 1: Static GH
Overview:
Basically GW1 style GH.

Issues:

• Not personalised to a guild (only difference would be the location themes)
• It doesn’t really add that much, there needs to be incentive to go to a GH

continued…

Part 2/9

Option 2: Highly Customizable GH
The level of customizability is what needs to be decided (on the developer end) eventually. Right now I’m thinking of games with customizability/construction/item placement such as Sims, Orcs Must Die and Runescape (lol) that we could look to for reference. (Someone mentioned Skyrim construction, that looks pretty awesome too).

Here is my idea on a ‘pretty much everything is customizable’ basis.

Overview:

• High level of customizability allows all GH’s be unique, giving members ownership/pride.
  • GH design/layout
  • Numerous items that you can place in your GH
  • Achievement displays for accomplished guild individuals, or achievements accomplished by the guild
• Progression in terms of building up your GH
  • Start as a single room ‘hall’, and expand to a multi-storey mansion, keep, castle (or airship?) etc
  • Unique items that require saving up ‘guild materials’ rewarded for doing guild achievements
• Allow GH’s to come alive, bring different communities together
  • Throw parties/tours/events – show off GH
  • Have lots of activities/games
  • Make GH’s the ‘go to’ spot for fun events

Functionality
Once the GH upgrade has completed in guild tab, a guild leader can (talk to a GH NPC to) choose (and preview?) a theme location to put their GH. Once chosen you then receive a block of land, with a simple single room hall.

Physically Progressing Your GH (Three approaches – I couldn’t decide on one):

continued…

Part 3/9

Guild Workbench

• A physical crafting table that must exist somewhere in your GH at all times (to make it cool, while something is being worked on have a ‘worker’ NPC standing at the workbench?)
• Allows guild leader (and selected ranks?) to enter build mode to expand your GH
• Where you go to build and unlock items using blueprints from the Item Shop (see later)
• Allows guild leader (and selected ranks?) to enter edit mode to place/move items

continued…

Part 4/9

continued…

Part 5/9

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Item Shop

• A shop where you can buy blueprints for all kinds of items (for all kinds of rooms). (It could be a storefront in LA somewhere?)
• Filling your GH with the items you want (and placing them where you want) is what allows you to make GH’s unique. Blueprints are the first step in being able to create items.
• Since we’re talking about a Guild Hall, blueprints should be purchased using the already existing guild currencies: influence and merits.
• Items would range from low to high influence costs, with high-end or bad-a** items costing some merits too.
• (who can spend influence or merits at the shop? selected ranks?)

Some examples (but I could list off things forever):

continued…

Part 6/9

continued…

Part 7/9

continued…

Part 8/9

Opening Your Guild Hall to the Public

continued…

Part 9/9

Other Things Worth Mentioning

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Issues:

• Smaller guilds wouldn’t be able to upgrade things, or build the high-end items that cost ‘guild materials’ as fast. (I guess that’s expected?)
• Managing who in a guild can edit the GH, what they can edit (a guild rank permission mentioned would hopefully eliminate any griefing). But you don’t want everything to be done just by a guild leader.
• Can use lots of existing game assets and some systems, but for high levels of customisation a lot of new tools and systems need to be made
• And lots more I’m sure

End Note
I’ve shared my thoughts optimistically hoping that GH’s could become something huge, fun, accomplishing and meaningful. I’ll be happy with whatever we get (even if it’s as much customisation as a Pokemon secret base) but there’s just so much potential. If the amount of effort that goes into Living Story (or SAB, etc) goes into something like this, GH’s would be so awesome and enrich the GW2 experience by further putting the “Guild” in “Guild Wars 2”.
(Next CDI: Putting the “Guild Wars” back in “Guild Wars 2”)

SEE FURTHER DISCUSSION ON THESE IDEAS IN ANOTHER POST BY ME

Iason Evan.3806:

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

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

I wasn’t saying we dont need a solution. I very much agree with you that small guilds have an unfair burden to meet to enjoy the same content that larger guilds can. I’m just not sure I agree with your sliding scale.

If a guild hall is built on a sliding scale with an upgrade cost each time the guild grows that could pose problems for a guild. If a guild hall is on a sliding scale, would other features be? That could make for a hefty upgrade cost.

What about using other things to pay for influence besides gold? Materials/karma/badges? Allow people to spread out the burden of building beyond just earning influence. Do you think that would allow smaller guilds to attain things more easily?

If the consensus is customizable guild halls and the problem is how to accommodate the smaller guilds, the answer is simple. Do what they already did with guilds.

Obtaining a guild hall is of moderate difficulty for everyone. However, the bells and whistles are not only time gated (like upgrading a guild is now), but also expensive (like upgrading a guild is now).

There, small guilds have a guild hall and access to all the “game-changing” features it provides with some elbow grease, but don’t get all the bells and whistles the large guilds get as quickly.

Tada.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

With that out of the way, let’s move on to more difficult problems, GvG. My proposal was to remove current WvW on account of massive population and coverage imbalances and server stacking. Guilds queue up much like players currently do in SPvP. They meet on a battlefield similar to GW1 GvG, but on a much larger scale with the current WvW elements (supply camps, keeps, towers, siege weapons, WvW talent trees yada yada).

Remember that when visited normally in their instanced Guild Hall in PvE it’s the customizable PvE experience everyone has already been describing in this thread. This is a way of providing ANET the opportunity to fix all current player complaints in one fell swoop. See my detailed post here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/first#post4454359

Thoughts?

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

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

Guild halls should be more than commodity; they should add gameplay opportunities
Its a mark of your status, its convenience but, it should also add to the gameplay of all game modes. I know GvG will be another CDI but, it needs to be said: much like in GW1, the halls need to be a setting for elements like combat. GvG hosting – much like personal PvP arenas – could be one of the temporary upgrades to halls.
As Airships or mist islands, halls could also play a part in WvW: you could have a War upgrade that lets you open a path your hall from the claimed fort (i.e. asura gate or rope up to the ship), for allies to come in and use the upgrades (i.e. bank or shops, maybe extra siege if its an airship) but that would make your “hall” vulnerable to attack for a while if the fort is claimed by an enemy.
In PvE, maybe the Halls could give you the opportunity to unlock a type of land claiming; the Lionguard are spread thin after Scarlet’s attacks and having a large and influential guild back one of their outposts could be a big help – and a trigger for special defense events.
I’m sure you guys can think of other gameplay opportunities that halls may unlock!

Guild Halls should be an extension of current systems, not separate
Don’t introduce new currencies for Guild Halls; use what we have. Guilds have been hoarding Influence and Merits for this for a while. However, it does not mean we have to stick to those currencies. Here’s ONE way it could work:

• Use Influence to secure a plot of land with basic structures (Architecture guild upgrade); this upgrade adds the Guild Hall tab to the guild panel where you can find it’s own upgrade queue and the button for members to travel to the hall
• From the Guild Hall tab, you would use Influence and/or Merits (depending on the quality and style you want) to hire workers to build structures and merchants for services. Special structures or decorations could require players to contribute crafting materials like wood or rare items like specific event trophies (i.e. elemental lodestones to have elemantals patrol your hall).

In conclusion, I want to share a random though came to me while writing this: Floating islands in the mist or airships/zepplins? Why not both?
Following my idea on gameplay integration, the Mists island would be the basic plot of land you get and would open up the possibility of setting a gate in an Edge of the Mists or PvE fort, as well a being a GvG sPvP map. And, in order to send support in the Borderlands or Eternal Battlegrounds, you would need an Airship, who could be upgraded with cannons. The airship would be permanent but, it could be shot down or sabotaged from the inside if enemies get to it during an attack.

What do you guys think?

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

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

Devata.6589:

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

Donari.5237:

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

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

+1 more vote for “No Upkeeps.”

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

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

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

Torsailr.8456:

I wasn’t saying we dont need a solution. I very much agree with you that small guilds have an unfair burden to meet to enjoy the same content that larger guilds can. I’m just not sure I agree with your sliding scale.

If a guild hall is built on a sliding scale with an upgrade cost each time the guild grows that could pose problems for a guild. If a guild hall is on a sliding scale, would other features be? That could make for a hefty upgrade cost.

What about using other things to pay for influence besides gold? Materials/karma/badges? Allow people to spread out the burden of building beyond just earning influence. Do you think that would allow smaller guilds to attain things more easily?

IDK that using influence is the answer. Huge guilds have millions of influence. That in turn means Huge Guild=No Gate. When I had mentioned using gold, I meant straight up spending gold for upgrades. It’s the most readily available currency to players, it can be mailed(i.e. other guildies mail the gold to the leader in order to help with the purchase of said upgrades etc.). I think Influence is problematic in that small PvP guilds don’t earn as much.

If a better system than scaling is viable(and I am fully sure someone can come up with one)to make the playing field level between large guilds and small guilds, I am all ears on it. It’s not my intention to derail the thread, I can just see the chasm now between large guilds and small guilds when this gets rolled out. The upgrades in GW1 were static. Some of the smaller guilds in my Alliance in that game had to pay 100k to unlock some of those amenities. For 100 person guilds in GW1, that wasn’t an issue whatsoever. For a 10 person guild though? It adds up quick over multiple services being purchased and as you can tell by my post, I don’t think that’s fair to smaller guilds.

A few thoughts of mine;
Why not use gathered materials (wood/metal/leather/cloth) as components in guild hall construction?
How does claiming WvW objectives play into Guild Halls? Should the WvW objectives be Guild Halls? Can they be used as a model for them, and can Guild Halls be used as a model for WvW objectives?
How do existing guild upgrades play into the Guild Halls, both visually and mechanically? The most pertinent one I can think of is the Guild Workshop; will we visually be able to see a second Guild Workshop at the Guild Hall?

Sarrs.4831:

A few thoughts of mine;
Why not use gathered materials (wood/metal/leather/cloth) as components in guild hall construction?
How does claiming WvW objectives play into Guild Halls? Should the WvW objectives be Guild Halls? Can they be used as a model for them, and can Guild Halls be used as a model for WvW objectives?
How do existing guild upgrades play into the Guild Halls, both visually and mechanically? The most pertinent one I can think of is the Guild Workshop; will we visually be able to see a second Guild Workshop at the Guild Hall?

I think it would be wise for Anet to allow the community to do a little bit of development here. Give people enough time and they can create some amazing things that the staff over at Anet may not have resources currently available for.