Guild Wars 2

Devata.6589:

For the more important ones I agree it should be a reward / unlock for doing something specific like killing a boss or completing a dungeons and so on. But I can imagine there are many many many different type of walls and doors and windows and chairs and decorations and so on available. Imho they would be fine to just randomly (so rng) drop.

That would however still then drop in specific places! so if you want a specific one you know you can do that specific content and should be able to get that soon enough. No general world drops that means you can’t work directly towards them.

Walls, doors, windows and chairs are lovely if the game allowed us to interact with them I can imagine a GH blueprint containing everything needed to spawn the lot minus the NPC’s which are small enough to gain through influence spending.

While I’d love to see housing in GW2 or at least aspects of housing implemented in guild halls, I think instanced, pre-built halls are what’s for dinner.

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

(1) Instanced means you don’t need to have the guild halls loading in the open world, which might save you a load off the server communication. This is, naturally, entirely from a layman’s perspective but this could mean less lag for those loading many guild halls. Also, I played Ultima Online, where structures could be placed in any flat space with sufficient footprint. While you could find some neat places organized out, there was also . . . the “castle eyesore” problem, of someone rushing a castle to a place and taking up a large piece of real estate.

(2) Open World halls could mean a higher chance to show off your guild’s presence, aesthetics, and in general “look at us!”. It can also allow for Dynamic Events to focus around the guild hall which players can partake in, or could be started by the guild officers for public fun times.

(3/4) Fairly simple; you splice the two together. Let there be an exterior Hall Grounds, and an interior Hall Chambers. The Grounds can be public areas for people to visit in, but the interior is instanced and only available via permissions granted. There, now you have both open world and instanced world and can plan accordingly.

JonPeters.5630:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

What you expect to be able to edit?

Hi Jon,

It strikes me than something similar to the original X-COM games base design might work.

Could you allow guilds to design their halls based on a 4×4 grid for example adding combinations of 1×1, 1×2 and 2×2 elements to their guild halls? Each element could also have various options for walls (e.g. dark wood, brick, plastered, painted etc..) and floors (wooden, marble, rugs) etc which could be selectable from a drop down on each element.

These elements could be unlockable to allow larger guilds to have something to work towards. For example an Obsidian floor might cost more in materials, influence (and/or merits) than a less grand floor.

You could also allow another upgrade option for guilds to a 5×5 design or 6×6 design which would come at a cost. Perhaps there could be no upkeep cost for a 4×4 design, an influence only cost for 5×5 and an influence and merit cost for 6×6? Would this allow use to cater guild halls to the needs of guilds of many sizes?

Damar

JonPeters.5630:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

What you expect to be able to edit?

I would expect to be able to edit decorative elements, such as swapping out statues for other statues, or none at all. Or maybe this statue or suit of standing armor could be replaced with a potted plant?

Let’s be honest – I saw the furnishing systems in Ultima Online and Final Fantasy 14 as fun exercises. Especially UO, where you could find special furnishings in the world if you knew where to look . . . and thus get neat talking statues to stick into your house or in your castle. Then crafters could make furniture – in fact they were the primary source of such! NPC tradesmen were only a secondary source of reselling anything a player sold to them . . . but if you wanted a neat armoire or a heavy stone table, you had to find a player.

And FF14 kicked it up a notch so all furnishings are made through crafts and use their own set of materials you have to find at gathering nodes. As much as I admire it, it got tiring to find so many new places to gather and notice all of it was for furnishings I couldn’t yet make. But for those interested . . . it was spectacular to see a fully decorated hall.

Lastly, I suspect it would be nice to edit the general form of a guild hall, such as to lay out rooms and features by the will of the guild’s interior designers rather than by the developers. But that could be an incredible load to work with.

JonPeters.5630:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

What you expect to be able to edit?

Primarily a grid based floorplan. I think being able to make your own floorplan would go two thirds of the way to making a guild hall unique. Appearance/colors and features would do the rest.

But if I was going to be hopeful I’d ask for an editor that would allow me to create a floorplan using bezier splines, multiple floors, and a drag-n-drop system for placing windows, doors, fireplaces, artwork, alcoves, etc. An ability to create my own color channels on the walls, windows and doors. And an ability to tag a room as being for guests, members or officers.

You know, not much.

Damar.5982:

JonPeters.5630:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

What you expect to be able to edit?

Hi Jon,

It strikes me than something similar to the original X-COM games base design might work.

Could you allow guilds to design their halls based on a 4×4 grid for example adding combinations of 1×1, 1×2 and 2×2 elements to their guild halls? Each element could also have various options for walls (e.g. dark wood, brick, plastered, painted etc..) and floors (wooden, marble, rugs) etc which could be selectable from a drop down on each element.

These elements could be unlockable to allow larger guilds to have something to work towards. For example an Obsidian floor might cost more in materials, influence (and/or merits) than a less grand floor.

You could also allow another upgrade option for guilds to a 5×5 design or 6×6 design which would come at a cost. Perhaps there could be no upkeep cost for a 4×4 design, an influence only cost for 5×5 and an influence and merit cost for 6×6? Would this allow use to cater guild halls to the needs of guilds of many sizes?

Damar

Something like what I somewhat envisioned, but could be remarkably easy to fill up a 4×4 grid or even a 6×6.

Also, if we can steer away from the idea of needing upkeep . . . that’d be super.

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

Hey!
I don’t know much about what benefits we could have, because it depends on how the system will work. For example, if we get a very deep level of customization for how the Guild Halls look, and sum to that, that the GH would be on a major city, for example, then I think the “visual integrity” of the game would be affected.
Or for instance, if the Guild Halls are part of an open world map, it could get capped pretty soon, and bigger guilds could have trouble gathering when other guilds also try to do the same, specially if there are, I don’t know, 4 or 5 Guild Halls, and those belong to big guilds, on the same map.

In my opinion, instanced GH just offer a more “clean” presentation for the system, an instance could be very customizable, without affecting other players. It is private, which at some level, is what we want from a GH, a place of our own, that feels that way. But it really depends, because, if we don’t get this huge level of customization, but instead, we work on presets, or even, we get Airships as GH, then maybe those would “feel” better on an open world map, because of the idea of many airships in the sky, or the chance of “parking” many different airships next to each other, for meetings with other guilds, or who knows what kind of activity we can tie to Guild Halls.

In my opinion, and sorry if it’s not very helpful, it depends. Depends on what we get for starters.

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
*Instanced halls would keep the open world from being cluttered with them.
*Easy access. Teleport into them the same way WvW and PVP works.
*Maximum flexibility. You don’t need to worry about space limitations or what is going on around it. You can, in theory, expand as much as you want.

What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
*Bragging rights. Look at what I got.
*Seriously, look at the this bad kitten Guild Hall we just spent 1250937510985 influence on.

How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
*Have a central guild hall in the open world. When you enter it ports you to your guild hall. Or have doors/portals inside to port you. Kind of like someone turned a Tardis into a hotel.

How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?
*Have representations of guild halls scattered around the cities. They wouldn’t be functional, just skins replacing some existing buildings.
*Have a few themed guild halls in the open world maps in places you can’t reach. Maybe a mountain fortress high in the mountains of Lornars Pass or an Airship flying overhead, or a small tree guild hall just outside of Caledon.
*The key would be tasteful representations and not massive overcrowding.
*If we have customized guild halls, then maybe have a contest. Those who win get to have their guild hall used as a representation in a city.

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

What do people see as the benefits of instanced? social,gathering of guild members only, no show off

What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls? social,gathering of guild members only, has show off, other people can be included well it depends if they has permission. put a war room where officers can preview the battle ground map when the time comes (GvG)

How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls? same as guild wars, GvG

How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced? $_$ like putting a bulletin board in front of the gate or something,where i can apply to the said guild/owner/leader (instead of going to some guildengine.net) i don’t mind being interrogated ingame (customable question also), put some customable quest like, go kill one thousand enemy invader in wvw for 48hrs, or go kill world boss solo, finish dungeon on set time limit, go kill some Xnumber of champion on spvp for some spices.
of course you can buy bulletin board in gemstore and put some tokens for expiration, you know like those on costume arena(pvp token)
i dislike guildengine.net,how much is the 30days? you guys shud take it instead of them.

What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
If they are instanced then they would not be crowding up the normal playable space. I really don’t see how there could possibly be room for the thousands of Guild Halls that should be created in any existing open world areas. I would prefer to link my guild hall to some real existing location via instancing than to have some massive “guildhallfscape” zone filled with thousands of guilds.

What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
Well, it’d be nice to see the outside of the buildings and feel that they have a permanent address.

How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
I don’t really see how, if the guild halls are taking up space in the open world then they would lose the benefits of being instanced.

How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?
The solution I tend to favor is to use a system of phased content, in which there are multiple Hall plots per zone, and you can pick one and build on it, but if someone else builds on the same plot that’s ok. On your own plot, you would always see your own Hall, but on any other plots (or when other players look at yours), they would see a guild hall selected at random from the various ones assigned to that slot, giving a constant impression that some guild is there, without having to represent thousands of guilds simultaneously.

Now I have a series of questions for you Jon Peters,

• What do you see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could you provide the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could you provide the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

;)

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

• Well for me the major benefit of instanced is size. In the open world you’d need to go small or you will not be able to fit all guilds. Secondary to that is “polluting” the world having tons of guildhalls next to each other might be an environmental disaster for tyria

• benefits of open world is primarly visiblity. Work you do making your guildhall pretty will be worth it as others outside your guild will see them and marvel at your achievement / creative genius Secondary to that is an immersive / living world feel that instanced just doesnt have. You and your guild arent the only one existing in your own pocket universe.

• not sure you can. Well short of you guys create a lot more zones so there is plenty of space for guilds to put up their halls. Another possiblity would be some WvW space but for builds. A huge map that can be instanced when it fills up and new asura gates to get you there. I mean something like the different borderlands but in this case they’d be neighborhoods on demand as space runs out. Of course the problem here would be that we’d need dev intervention for new neighborhoods or sacrifice immersion by having an npc you talk to that provides a list of neighborhoods you want to travel to.

• this is tricky as well. You’d need some way to have players visit each guilds instance. That would mean having incentives for people to visit other guild’s guild hall and a system that allows you to quickly list and choose which guild halls you want to visit. This can perhaps be achieved though a voting system where guilds strive to create the best guildhalls so that they rank up high and players will go visit them to see what can be done and how much pretty guildhalls can get. of course the problem here is for the non pretty guilds they may end up marginalized which would be bad.

Open-world guild halls would add a new layer to the “living world” concept and experience, so if possible, I think that should be the goal. It seems quite harder to implemented than instanced, though.

Benefits for open-world:

• Dynamic events could be designed for the halls (say, mobs trying to raid the hall, and event chains where guild players would take that fight to the mobs’ home);
• World would feel more alive;

How those benefits could still exist in instanced halls:

• Make dynamic events in the open-world for guild resource gathering. This would still give some life to maps;
• Make the portal’s locations different for each guild hall, spread around the world map, and give those entrances a small hub for guild members.

•What do people see as the benefits of instanced?

Instanced content means no disruption to the main game. No excessive loading as you move from one area to the next. Megaserver technology will likely clash with open world Guild Halls. Coding will be easier for Instanced Guild Halls. If there are any serious errors or exploits, Instanced Guild Halls can be shut down temporarily to fix. This encourages developers to experiment more with Guild Halls to improve their functions without worrying about breaking the main game.

•What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?

None. The potential problems and limitations are too many. Do you really want to GM police gold sellers / trolls camping a popular Guild Hall ?

•How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?

You have to consult your coders to come up with a reasonably do-able system. GW2 does not have the resources of other bigger MMOs.

•How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

(1) Use NPCs that pop up menus to search for guilds’ names and enter (teleport) into their Guild Hall Instances. You can reuse the code and interface from Black Lion Trading Post.

(2) You can have airships hovering over cities that transport players to Instanced Guild Halls. Ownership of these airships are on a weekly bidding system based on gold. These can serve as a gold sink.

Remember that any open world system for Guild Halls will result in competition for real estate space and there will always be players that feel left behind as they have less manpower or gold compared to others.

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

First of I want to say that I see Guild Halls as a complete structure, which means you can go around it and inside. It is basicly a full fledged building.
This means it is no “Rabbit Hole”, just a door you enter and come up in the Hall interior, feeling like Hoghwarts or the Tardis (bigger on the inside, etc…)

What do people see as the benefits of instanced?

• Better performance (loading times, serverload, etc. )
• More customizeable options?
• Privacy
• Control
• Outside (exterior or outside world) and Inside (interior or Guild Grounds) do not have to be linked (Tardis principle or seperae instance in the Mist)
• No dependency on the terrain (more or less. However you can expand the dungeons as much as like underneath, without thinking about underground strucktures, as well as going up as much as you like without cutting someones elses view of the world)
• Easier? to implement into a GvG systems (like having a map where to Guild Halls are next to each other and have them spawn there as battlegrounds with a field in between. Like in GW1?)

What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?

• Ability to show off
• Creating a Neighborhood, or Communities next to each other.
• Feeling integrated into the gameworld
• Possibilities for GvG
• Possibilities for a WvW integration. Alliance against Alliance, represented by their Neighborhoods

How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

• Interrior and exterior can be seperated models, reducing ressources needed to load
• Placeholders can be used easier for outside display
• Rabbit Holes can work as gateways (i don`t like that)
• Quick loadtimes would help GvG (if not possible, then do not use it)

Open guild halls just a pain in my charrs tail. No enough for everyone, no enough space etc…
In instanced ghs you can change/modify things, there is place for minigames, game modes (i want dota and survive the vawes sooo badly beside the gvg)
Costumizable ghs also a nice idea. There should be paths where you cant add/remove anything (as you cant place sieges everywhere) but everywhere elso you should add trees, bushes, statues, asura gates etc

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

JonPeters.5630:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

What you expect to be able to edit?

I would expect to be able to edit decorative elements, such as swapping out statues for other statues, or none at all. Or maybe this statue or suit of standing armor could be replaced with a potted plant?

Let’s be honest – I saw the furnishing systems in Ultima Online and Final Fantasy 14 as fun exercises. Especially UO, where you could find special furnishings in the world if you knew where to look . . . and thus get neat talking statues to stick into your house or in your castle. Then crafters could make furniture – in fact they were the primary source of such! NPC tradesmen were only a secondary source of reselling anything a player sold to them . . . but if you wanted a neat armoire or a heavy stone table, you had to find a player.

And FF14 kicked it up a notch so all furnishings are made through crafts and use their own set of materials you have to find at gathering nodes. As much as I admire it, it got tiring to find so many new places to gather and notice all of it was for furnishings I couldn’t yet make. But for those interested . . . it was spectacular to see a fully decorated hall.

Lastly, I suspect it would be nice to edit the general form of a guild hall, such as to lay out rooms and features by the will of the guild’s interior designers rather than by the developers. But that could be an incredible load to work with.

FF11 had a the housing crafting and most interior was being crafted (some need to be earned)

However I certainly like the revamp and synergy of the crafting system you ar ehinting here.

Probably someone mentioned this before but :

-Put the roof over a racial home instance and call it a Guild Hall.

-Remove ore mining from that cause god knows no one mines that.

-Add NPCs, furniture, bathroom and a quaggan (or skiritt) with a broom . Make it acquirable through gems and/or gold and/or merits depending what is bought.

-Maybe add weekly stuff where guild members will collect certain items from open world for certain stuff. I remember we did something similar in GW1 for some event but i can’t remember what (i’m not talking about Yakkington)

And you’re set.

JonPeters.5630:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

What you expect to be able to edit?

The obvious things i guess

Overall appearance
I was thinking of having a main hall and the ability to add new rooms with different purposes (predetermined or adjustable).
All parts could be themed by races or factions and could be mixed and matched.
(New pieces/designs of the same theme could be aquired by unlocks in a tiered progression. For example: Charr hall starts as a simple camp and goes up to Charr fortress or Black Citadel design)

Interior Furniture and decorations
Let us simply place things.
How we get it can be different systems (crafting, unlocking, buying, gem-shop, archievments, etc..)
Let us basicly play a little the sims (without pools of doom and blocking the way out)
This does not only means on the ground, but maybe also some things on display on certain walls.
Of course some outside decorations would be nice

Souroundings
If we go with an seperate instanced Guild Hall, i would like to choose the land where it is placed. There could be several themes like Asura flying rocks, Maguuma jungle, Charr branded lands, etc…
(Can be part of GvG as well, as both Guild Halls could be placed next to each other and the lands could mix in the middle, like a gradient. I bet it would look amazing)

Extra: Lighting
These are more in the unlikely category, but i just throw them out:
Lighting (dark, purple, blue, holy, choose your style and annoy your members)-

I think it would be good if acquiring new stuff for your guild hall worked like it does with blueprints. You buy a blueprint for an item with influence, decide where you want to keep it, put down the initial item and then everyone in the guild grabs a hammer and has to use a skill to help build it.

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

Excellent post Jon cant find eneught +1.

I believe the trick here is to use both concepts, couse gw2 is not prepared to a fully open world Guild Hall concept, that would create something like a new HA (Heroes Ascent), several overflows sharing the same queue, combat list and the same maps like a public match zone(crown pavilion would be an excellent place to test this),

“For a fully openworld guild halls only thing i can imagine is a guild builted a tower with a gvg camp that apears in all overflows like a sandbox game, but this design doesnt look good for gw2 overflow system, if a most guilds decided to get the same GH how many overflows there would be?”

There are several benefits for instanced guild halls, as customization, being deditacated to guild members w/o overflows, could be adopted into player home instance wich could lead to a guild home instance where guilds could develop their zone/guild hall etc, pretty much a very similiar concept to GW1 with space for improvements and further design(concept) changes.

And sorry the bad english.

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

• Not limited in size to an open world area. No performance impact on maps where GH might be located in. Private spot only for guildies and guests to visit.
• Showing off to other players, not just guests members. Possible interaction with nearby events.
• An area only accessible by members, maybe with a separate map/local chat channel, to simulate a private instance.
• Publicly visible outer “shell” with an interior that’s only accessible by members. Bigger on the inside than it looks outside?

If the guild halls become instanced, I’d like it to be an instance you can log into. Now, for example the home instance, you get kicked out into the host city/area if you log into a character that has logged off there. This would give players a spot with a fast loading time to park characters in, because all the major cities have become slower to load into after the megaserver system got switched on.

This are my random thoughts of a good/nice/warm guild hall.

The guild hall is a big place to hang out with your guild. Doing nothing/activities/checks with things like:

Wall of fame and Shame
Fame
(most..)

• Influence earned
• Represented time
• guild missions

Shame

• opposite of fame…
• Failed moments (most deaths etc…)
• slackers
• non/low representing

Guild activities

• Living chess
• Duel mode
• (bar-)drinking mode
  # share alcohol
  # mix drinks (with special effect, drunk, collors, what ever…)
  # share your creations with others
• Dance party
• Keg brawl V2.0 1 vs X , throw kegs around in the group 1 man tries to obtain the keg

WvW statistics

• list of claimed objectives
• list of captured objectives
• average guild people in wvw (borderlands/EB/EotM/obsidian sanctum)
• etc…

PvP statistics

• Total guild team wins
• Total solo wins (solo and teams less then 5)
• Best player
• etc..

Additional

• Guild bank
• Guild gear (special gear/skin unlocks, unlocked by guild activities/influence/merrits)
• spending time/doing activities in Guild Halls earns influence/merrits/commendations
  build in:
• jump (puzzles), learn to jump
• learn to dodge
• etc..

These are just some random thoughts I would like to see in the guild hall. Make it a place to hang out with your guild to enjoy life in Guild Wars.

Proposal Overview
Event/Participation based unlocks/progression for Guild Halls

Goal of Proposal
By messuring the activity of the Guild in certain activities unlocks are granted which reflect the main areas a Guild is activ.

Proposal Functionality
Similiar to reward tracks in PvP, every member contributes some points to an Guild-Event-Unlock-Track (name pending).
Everything a member does, progresses the associated bar and at some points new things are being unlocked for the whole Guild.

Things to be tracked: Events, WvW participation, PvP fights, Dungeon Runs, Jumping Puzzles, Crafting, World Completions, Personal/Living Story participation, Daily/Monthly completion, etc… (No Archievmentpoint tracker)

Example 1:
A lot of guild member do Jumping Puzzles. First unlock, would be a new room to add to the Guild, which offers a simple jumping challange.
The more JPs are done, the more the room evolves, till it is a very hard JP for the Guild.
I imagine a JP training room set up at the beginning, which has simple jumps, but then goes crazy later on (I somehow remember the later Tomb Rider Mansion taining grounds, where you have stretch your imagination to get to the hidden parts)

Example 2:
The Guild does a lot of WvW and they unlock a Map of the Mists to display. This map gets bigger to include borderlands or gets even an extension like the Edge of the Mist.
Later unlocks could include a War Room , which has a merchant offering Guild Themed Golems (Golems bearing the Guild Emblem for example) or special WvW Guild Armor and Weapons.

Rewards: Rooms, evolving rooms, unique items(armor, weapon, consumeables), unique decorations, etc…

Associated Risks
- Some players might not like the overall direction a Guild is evolving , wanting other benefits (Though they might not have an influence anyway, if the leader does not want to put certain things in)
- Forcing members to work into a certain direction (instead of working together)
- Balancing the rewards on low member guilds (points needed based on (active) members maybe?)

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

Instanced Benefits
-Allows for much larger structures, I can’t imaging vigil keep/claw island sized structures being placed everywhere in the open world.
-Requires far less development time which is critical because I’d like to see guildhalls by Q2 2015.
-Better privacy no one can see or interact with you unless you let them into the hall.
-Allows for settings that would otherwise be unavailable, i.e Private Islands, floating rock guild halls, A wizards tower type hall etc.
-The population count on a map would only consist of guild members and not be wasted by randoms.
-Guild hall can be used in GvG, as several people have suggested.

Open World Benefits
-Much better for visually showing off.
-increases guild presence and attachment towards a certain area.
-integrates the guild more with the world and allows for large scale PvE events using the guild hall.

Benefits of instanced into the Open world
-You can’t without redesigning entire maps to have enough room for massive structures which would take months separate to actual guild hall development. Even then space would still be limited and many guilds would not get locations they actually wanted, Neighborhoods would be even worse dumping players in some relatively sparse space with a bunch of other guilds.

Benefits of open world in Instanced
- You can address showing off by allowing guesting, also by giving the option to make a guildhall publicly viewable (but they can’t interact with the NPC/merchants).
-Large scale PvE events such as sieges are still possible they’ll just be restricted to guild members which is fine too would have to scale very well.
-Can’t think of a good way to address guild presence atm.

Rambodacious.7495:

I see you and Devata’s points. The problem is, there are many people who want to unlock content playing a game mode they’re happy to play, that they want to play. There are a lot of people that stick to one game mode and plan to for their duration of time in this game. Anet wants profitability, and one of their ongoing business models is that player’s can play how and when they want.

Really, when you think about it, it’s not that big of a deal to allow someone playing 60 hours of WvW to unlock what someone that played 20 hours of WvW, 20 hours of Dungeons and 20 hours of SPvP unlocked. They both had fun and they both played for the same amount of time. Give them both a reward – now everyone is having fun their way. I get that you want the population to spread around and try different game modes, but I don’t think it leads to maximum profitability for the reason above.

I reiterate that HOW the unlocks happen should be generic, BUT, the WHAT is unlocked is where our time in this thread should be spent, especially now that it’s a foregone conclusion that GH’s will be customizable.

I have no problem with basic unlocks being generic but I think advanced unlocks should be content specific. Of course players want to have something gotten in their way. I’m sure there’s people who’d want legendaries via doing Jp’s alone it doesn’t mean they should just be allowed to do so. Giving all the content through one means does not encourage improvement and branching out of activities. It just leads to excessive farming of the easiest method. Many people won’t play the content they like they’ll play the content that’s fastest anyway.

For instance, Wooden tower,Stone tower, Mithrail tower, Elder-wood tower could be generic unlocks BUT.
Diamond encrusted glowing Arah tower; should be an Arah exclusive unlock
Flaming tower of Balthazar: Should be a Pvp exclusive unlock.
Rainbow Glowing beam tower; should be a WvW unlock.
Rotating Fractal tower: should be a Fractal unlock.
Guild flag tower: should be an advanced guild mission/ new guild dungeon unlock.
(This is an example they don’t have to be towers).

Is there any official information on how many guilds are active?

I expect this number to be enourmous .. what makes any approach of real estate philosophy in open world very, very hard.

Almachial.5493:

Is there any official information on how many guilds are active?

I expect this number to be enourmous .. what makes any approach of real estate philosophy in open world very, very hard.

Should be. Just think about the abandoned and Single Player Guilds, who just use it as storrage room.

However it could be mitigated with a guild point barrier and that guilds have to claim the land.

Open World doesn`t mean we suddenly have thousands of Guild Halls present everywhere.
It could mean a map where a certain amount of Halls are like a neighborhood, and only the ones who are related to that map X are shown and loaded if you enter.

Almachial.5493:

Is there any official information on how many guilds are active?

I expect this number to be enourmous .. what makes any approach of real estate philosophy in open world very, very hard.

I did ask this question on the first page of the CDI – Guilds Qol and Logistics Thread. Maybe Chris is not allowed to give out Metrics info?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Logistics-and-QOL/first#post4392358

I really like the idea that many zones have 2-3 slots for a guildhall. You can build your guildhall on this spot; when someone occupies that space already you still can, but you can only see your own hall when it’s built. Others see a random guild’s hall. You can set favourites though, so that you’ll always see that specific guild’s hall when you enter the map.

What I’d also like to see is the prices proportional to the size of the guild. A wooden hall would cost 2000 pieces of wood logs for a one player guild and 2000×100 = 200000 pieces of wood for a 100man guild. Bigger guilds will have bigger halls though.

The advantage of this open world guild hall: other players can participate in events, even if not member of that guild. If the hall got damaged from npc-enemies, every player around can donate materials / do events in order to repair the halls. Fully repaired halls and other done objectives might start meta-events on open world bosses etc.

Almachial.5493:

Is there any official information on how many guilds are active?

I expect this number to be enourmous .. what makes any approach of real estate philosophy in open world very, very hard.

There’s a WvW stat site (can’t remember the link but someone mentioned it earlier in the thread) That shows 30,000 unique guilds have claimed objectives. Assuming at least 50% were one man guilds that’s still 15,000 guilds.

Jaken.6801:

Almachial.5493:

Is there any official information on how many guilds are active?

I expect this number to be enourmous .. what makes any approach of real estate philosophy in open world very, very hard.

Should be. Just think about the abandoned and Single Player Guilds, who just use it as storrage room.

However it could be mitigated with a guild point barrier and that guilds have to claim the land.

Open World doesn`t mean we suddenly have thousands of Guild Halls present everywhere.
It could mean a map where a certain amount of Halls are like a neighborhood, and only the ones who are related to that map X are shown and loaded if you enter.

That is not open world , that is the third option that was also mentioned Semi-instanced.
Open world: Integrated into existing maps
Semi-instanced: Specific maps for Guildhalls that are normally accessible/sharable
Instanced: Private maps for each guild (guesting possible).

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

It is very difficult to answer these questions as we do not know what kind of features the guild hall will have and for what purpose the guild hall will serve. I can voice a general opinion but not very specific one.

What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
Less lag and privacy. Most importantly, will not get placed on different instance due to map population. More flexibility and customizations.

What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
Able to publicise your guild and show off to everyone how amazing your guild hall is.

How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
Guild hall entrance can be made to accept only guild members while outsiders can still see the external of it. However, flexibility and customizations will become limited due to environment.

How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?
It is possible to create a guild halls district instance where guild halls are located.

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?

Scalability and variety. You could have any number of instanced Guild Halls while placing them in the open world would either mean hundreds and hundreds of Guild Halls littering the landscape or a limit on how many guilds can have guild halls. Variety is probably a lesser quality and is more related to how the instances are implemented, but for example if each main city can have a a guild hall then they can have different themes. Imagine the difference between a Charr Guild Hall and a Guild Hall located in the mists.

JonPeters.5630:

• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?

Bragging and prestige. Well depending on how customization the outside is and if none guild members have access to the inside. But the basic idea goes that a random players is leveling through a zone and comes across a guild hall, sees all the trophies, all the unique architecture etc.

JonPeters.5630:

• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?

From my perspective the main benefit is scalability. Alas there’s only so much land that can be devoted to Guild Halls unless we create Guild Hall zones but that would simply be a different type of instancing… Also it further depending on if there’s any noticeable impact that a open world Guild Hall has on the surrounding zone (i.e. is the guild hall just a static building on a mountain or does it start quests, change event changes etc.)

JonPeters.5630:

• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

This is probably where the Guild Hall Zones come into play again, given areas dedicated to Guild Halls makes it possible for players to explore these areas and thus see and experience the variety of different Guild Halls.

This is a rather biased statement but I still prefer my proposal of having primarily instanced Guild Halls but providing a set number of open world Guild Halls for guild to war over, that way the landscape isn’t cluttered and everyone still gets a Guild Hall.

I just wanna put one concern up regarding guild-sizes. There’s lots of casual players in the game that have a place in a guild. The guild can have 300+ members, of which maybe 50 are active daily players.
Scaling based on the total members would mean, the 50 daily actives would need to pay for having 250 less active/inactive players. Something I would like to see avoided.
Otherwise this could end up meaning less active/temporary inactive players would get kicked…

@Jon
And in relation to paying for the guild, I recall that sometime guild contribution was datamined. A certain % of the players farmed income went to the guild bank. Was this already thought up by you guys in relation to guild halls?

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
  The best guild hall system I have ever seen was in the first MMO I ever played in 2003. It was in Star Wars Galaxies and it was open world. We had a med center, a shuttle port, a cantina, a capitol building(guild hall)and all of our houses were arranged around this. Nothing makes a world feel lived in more than players’ characters living in the actual game space. If you are stopping short of open-world housing/guild halls you are missing out on something you will never be able to replicate. If guild halls were the closest thing to personal housing ever implemented in this game and that was in the open world? I’ll take what I can get.

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• Ease of use if it has one-button travel to it like The Mists.
• Plenty less developer headaches than open-world implementation.
• For me, the best part of instanced Guild Halls is not having to look at map/local chat. It’s not because I am anti-social, it’s that people have a really easy time of not being very cool in them.

The last two questions can’t happen in my opinion. You know when a baseball player says there is nothing like winning a World Series and no one else knows what it feels like unless they win it? That’s what open-world guild hall/housing is like. Putting it in the game is the only way to know. Walking out the front door of your Guild Hall into Tyria(with no loading screen) <——You can’t replicate that in an instanced guild hall.

Kootje.9271:

I just wanna put one concern up regarding guild-sizes. There’s lots of casual players in the game that have a place in a guild. The guild can have 300+ members, of which maybe 50 are active daily players.
Scaling based on the total members would mean, the 50 daily actives would need to pay for having 250 less active/inactive players. Something I would like to see avoided.
Otherwise this could end up meaning less active/temporary inactive players would get kicked…

well it would get a huge problem if a 200-man guild will have to pay the same for upgrades as a two man guild, because it’s horribly unfair towards small sized guilds imho. Maybe a scaling based on the daily/weekly average of logged in players?!

How many guilds exist in the game? Loads upon loads. How many guild hall placements can there be all over the game, and how many guilds would want to put their GH far away of cities, for example around Fireheart Rise? The actual real estate that players can use to place Guild Halls is rather limited, and some people are even suggesting not to add an upkeep cost, which means once a lot is taken, there is no way to remove it / lose it, therefore, with the growing number of guilds/players there will be a time when there is no room for all guilds.

Suppose that 3 guilds with 200+ active members total, want to gather in order to do Guild Missions. If the Guild Halls are open world then that’s completely impossible. Too much lag, too much graphic clutter, too much spam on map chat, too many commander tags are only a few of the problems, not being able to play with your friends/guildies is the greatest issue, we already have this with the Megaservers, open world guild halls would make this even worse.

What happens if/when they implement GvG option that involves open world Guild Halls? The 2 competing guilds will have a very hard time getting all their members on the zone to fight the other guild, and what about neutral people? They will just watch 2 guilds fighting each other? What if while 2 guilds are fighting, then 2 other guilds in the same zone decide to fight as well?

I don’t feel like Open world Guild Halls can really work in this game.

JonPeters.5630:

The point of this question is to first generate wild ideas before discussing details of those designs and figuring out what problems/edge cases those details create that must be solved.

Jon

some fast brainstorming:

Guild leader option to buy a fraction of mist crystal to make a guild floating island, being the MIST a infinite world,:
Guild Research Tree – being asura, dregdge kodan human etc, and those tech’s would affect the guild , on PVE and WvW events guild’s could deploy some of their tech on the field.

@JonPeters

What do you expect to be able to edit?

• With low hopes or at the bare minimum, I’d expect a GH to have a simple vendor/service upgrade system (to the extent of GW1)
• With high hopes and a mindset that all concepts are feasible I’d expect either: a low customization system allowing you to edit some things, OR a high customization system where you can edit pretty much everything. It’s all about being able to customize your GH extensively so it looks and feels unique.
  • 3 Approaches for physically editing your GH
  • ’Edit mode’ to place items where you want, and edit what items you have in your GH by implementing an ‘Item Shop’ for variety.

Guild Halls: Instanced vs Open World
The definitions of ‘instanced’ and ‘open world’ are pretty open here, but I think we all get the gist of how a guild hall could be implemented in these two ways.

1. Benefits of an instanced GH

• Simpler? and just makes sense (to me..)
• (Because my concepts were based on an instanced GH, everything about my proposal are benefits?)

2. Benefits of an open world GH

• Visibility, like others have mentioned: allowing your GH to be seen in the world.

4. How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

• Opening Your Guild Hall to the Public: points I mentioned before. (Accessing instances from the open world e.g. LA).
• Additionally, if a ranking system was put in place I’d like the idea (that others have mentioned) of showing off the highest ranking GH’s in set open world zones. For example: have a zone ‘Guild Hall Lane’ somewhere in Lions Arch where the top few GH’s are there for all to see. (This would only work for Approaches 1&2 which actually allow physical GH customization, rather than set GH models seen in Approach 3 – see my post on these approaches for more details).
  • The public could have the option to select one of these GH’s and queue up to join its map instance.
  • If a guild in one of these zones loses rank/popularity OR turns off ‘public mode’ then the next highest ranked GH is shown instead.
  • If GH’s are allowed to be huge, show a ‘scaled down’ version of it (don’t shove several huge 1:1 GH’s in LA)
  • Hopefully if the ‘zones’ for showcasing are small then the map wouldn’t need to be altered too much. Or when you’re close enough GH’s are ‘loaded in’ and rendered (i.e. not permanently in map –downside: would need to load GH’s in every time you’re close to make sure you see the most recently highest ranked GH’s).

3. How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
A bit harder.

• If there’s an open world ranking system, allow some features of it within the instance. E.g. whilst visiting a public GH instance you’re able to leave a rating/score of the GH.

Aeolus.3615:

JonPeters.5630:

The point of this question is to first generate wild ideas before discussing details of those designs and figuring out what problems/edge cases those details create that must be solved.

Jon

some fast brainstorming:

Guild leader option to buy a fraction of mist crystal to make a guild floating island, being the MIST a infinite world,:
Guild Research Tree – being asura, dregdge kodan human etc, and those tech’s would affect the guild , on PVE and WvW events guild’s could deploy some of their tech on the field.

Brainstorm on your brainstorm, what if your guild can even befriend dredge/kodans/skritt and get them to accompany the guild on bounties and missions.

RE ‘War over space’ (if GH’s were open world)

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

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

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?

Privacy, more space for own guild, permanent content without worring about losing it.
More customizable, less discrimination for small guilds, endless posibilities for expantions and guild social systems, security.

JonPeters.5630:

• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?

More “realistic” approach, could open a new branch of Guild Wars like events, more recognition of bigger guilds.

JonPeters.5630:

• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?

If what you suggest is having a part of the GH in the open world for the “owner” and an instanced part for the “rest of guilds that didn’t won the fight for the GH but still need one” I don’t like this idea.
If what you suggest is having “The Great Guild Hall Keep” in DR everyone can explore and making an instanced version of it for every guild, I’m not with you either. Its immersion breaking like what I mentioned in one of my 1st comments: “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 .”

JonPeters.5630:

• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Maybe we could have one or one per map, major structure in the open world which the best GvG clan of every server can occupy. The contesting could be monthly. Can’t come up with anything right now really.

Q: what kind of thing would you be ok with static placement?
A: Banners/flags/doors/windows,staircases only make sense in certain locations (but please do make a freestanding banner too).

Q: What kind of things do you think work fine with grid placement?
A: The overall guild hall , if we’re doing it in a select from several prefab
rooms/corridors,gardens sort of thing.

Q: What stuff would you want to have free placement?
A: wall and room decorations, Defensive placements can use the WvW method without an expiry timer. Some functional/minigame items may have to be grid placement to prevent them from breaking.

Placed things can have an intractable point where options can be changed, I.E swich your roof from wood to the ultimate skritt shiny sistine chapel skin if it’s unlocked.
Fireplaces turn on/off , curtains open/closed etc.

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

What do people see as the benefits of instanced?

Privacy, more variety in locations, not constraint by current map design, scalability, gh can expand and cover more ground/become bigger easily, larger/varied buildings, less lag, easier GvG, ability to be around only with your guild members, ability to MEET with your entire guild without depending on other guilds doing their own activities (see Megaserver), no issues of upkeep/taxation

What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?

Easier to show off guild accomplishments, allows the Guild to “create” content for other people in the zone, allows the existing mobs/dynamic events to interact with the Guild Hall, for example Centaurs might attack the Guild Hall if it’s placed around the Ascalon Settlement, easier to attract new members, allows guilds to HOST big community events (not restricted only to their guild) in their guild Hall without limitations, for example to need for anyone to port inside.

How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

I read this post:

Huddo.1065:

RE ‘War over space’ (if GH’s were open world)
Not that I’m for open world, but I’m having a crazy thought. What if guilds had the ‘war over space’ in a similar manner to GW1 Factions:

GW1 Wiki

hide spoiler

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

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

and it gave me a really crazy idea. Have both instanced and open world Guild Halls. Earning the benefits of both at the same time. Instanced Guild Halls will be acquired in some way and maintained by their owners without problems/upkeep, but, the same way Town ownership worked in GW1, if a guild manages something they would earn the right to have actual land in the open world.

• An Open world Guild Hall would have to have no loading screen but still have permissions on who enters.

• It would have to be seamless entry too. That’s if you wanted to do it right.

• No fixed or grid placement. They are terrible when compared to the freedom that free placement offers you.

• You’d also have to implement junk drops from mobs in the world as things to use to decorate with.

As a side note Jon, the people who are really going to spend time with this are the same type of people that Carbine totally took for granted when they were designing WildStar. They were so rigidly clinging to the raid system in that game that they lost sight of the people that just wanted to level to 14 and then play house. The bulk of the design should be around them. Why? Because the dude(me) that gets a “Fractal Guild Hall Drop” will put it in the hall and then just head straight back into the Fractals. Holly Homemaker will spend hours finding the perfect spot to place that item. That’s who it should be for.

If you are going to actually design a guild hall system, do it for the Holly Homemakers. Designing an open world guild hall system for people like me that spend 90% of our time in combat wastes what the guild hall is aesthetically. Design it for the people that want to spend 90% of their time in the guild hall.

Take that idea you had about guilds controlling points out of the guild hall system if it’s open world. Ultimately the Guild Hall has nothing to do with control points.