Guild Wars 2

I was just reading this:
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/guild-warss-heart-of-thorns-expansion-avoiding-the-mmo-progression-problem

Pretty standard issue little hype generator article. But there was one quote in there that details that caught my eye, details I don’t remember actually being specified yet.

usgamer.net

And that’s only the beginning of Heart of Thorns. There’s the new guild halls within the Maguuma Jungle; you’ll find them by exploring the jungle and your guild can then claim them. These halls will match different environments and themes within the jungle, and you can grow and expand your claimed territory.

Maybe I’m just reading too much into this?

It sounds like these are actual physical claimable properties in the open world. Now I’m a big advocate of that sort of thing, but I had assumed they were instanced like in GW1 (and that’s ok too). But I haven’t actually seen this elaborated on either way yet.

Did I miss something? Is this author taking a little too much liberty here? Or do I totally misunderstand what’s being said? I need this answered. Now! At 3:34am CST.

As far as I can tell we have had no such clarification from Anet themselves, so as far as I am concerned, any details not given by Anet are pure speculation and wishful thinking.

The quote on the HoT website reads:

Your guild has roamed the world together. Now, it’s time to claim a piece of it. Work with fellow guild members to claim and grow your own guild hall in the heart of Maguuma.

I have bolded the parts that may have caused the author of that article to think that Guild Halls will be open world entities, but really the above statement could just as easily mean an instanced Guild Hall with a Maguuma theme.

Until Anet does a deep dive on Guild Halls all we can do is speculate at this point.

Someone isn’t going to come in and magically give clarification on things, wait for the official blog posts.

Just using logic, there’s no way it can be open world. The mega server structure means that there is no single server that’s guaranteed to always be there. There are literally thousands of guilds. Probably tens of thousands.

So if the Guild Hall was open world, then it would have to be the same on all servers and how could they have tens of thousands of Guild Halls that way.

What probably happens is you quest to find the guild halls, and when you claim one for your guild, it opens an instanced version of it, like a home instance for guilds that portals from that map.

That’s the most logical interpretation.

Vayne.8563:

Just using logic, there’s no way it can be open world. The mega server structure means that there is no single server that’s guaranteed to always be there. There are literally thousands of guilds. Probably tens of thousands.

So if the Guild Hall was open world, then it would have to be the same on all servers and how could they have tens of thousands of Guild Halls that way.

What probably happens is you quest to find the guild halls, and when you claim one for your guild, it opens an instanced version of it, like a home instance for guilds that portals from that map.

That’s the most logical interpretation.

I agree, Vayne. I think that is the most probable implementation.

There was a lot of discussion about this in the Guild Hall CDI. I think there’s a chance the guild halls themselves will be instanced pieces of the open world. Meaning: you can walk to your guild hall’s entrance in Maguuma. When you step through the portal, you’re in your instance.

Think of it the same way Home Instances work.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We’ll definitely have more to say on guild halls in the future. The releases at the announcements were sort of appetizers, giving an overview of many things. But we’ll serve up more of a tasty entree in each of the “deep dive” features that we offer.

Still no information as to when we will start seeing these Deep Dives I take it? (Hehe, worth a try)

If I remember correctly, Gaile had said that we’ll start knowing more in early February, so I think we won’t have to wait much longer. ;-)

By the way, I too agree with Vayne, even if the hall occupies a place in the open world, it has to be instanced, like player homes.

It may be something where your guild needs to do something in the expansion area to unlock it and then players are given an item to port themselves there similar to HoM.

Ayrilana.1396:

It may be something where your guild needs to do something in the expansion area to unlock it and then players are given an item to port themselves there similar to HoM.

This is what it sounds like pretty much. You have guild missions that take you all over the world. It sounds like you may have to do some mission or series of guild missions to unlock a guild hall.

I doubt there will be an item you have to hold. No reason to make us carry an extra item on all our characters. In GW1 you just click the “Guild Hall” button and teleport there. I"m sure it"ll be the same.

Instant teleport to your guild hall wouldn’t be game breaking. You can already instant teleport to Heart of the Mists for quick access to the bank and trading post.

I am sure it will be implemented somewhat in the same way they did it in GW1.

—> You take a boat and visit the isles
—> Isle that you like you claim for your guild by using celestial sigil

In GW2, they may end up giving us guild missions to complete to obtain sigils to claim individual isles. That means there may be difficulty scales in these tasks. It would not make much of a practical sense for a small guild to claim a huge guild hall and vice versa. I believe, they will also add subsequent missions in guild missions for expanding guild hall size, facilities etc.

From PvE standpoint, it’d make a lot of sense to use guild halls as staging ground for embarking on mega challenges (guild raids??) against tough mordrem bosses. Guild halls may serve as strategic hub in PvE domain for guild centric activities.

I just don’t want LA 2.0 as my guild hall. I want NPCs there who will know about my guild (already implemented similar concept in GW1 for one of the outposts in EoTN iirc) and its achievements. NPCs that can give guild members daily quests/tasks/challenges to complete. Some sexy NPCs to look/interact with maybe as well — Lydia anyone? <lol>

There are many things that they can do with guild halls. But, do they have the funding to do so? I look at Guild Hall as guild activity center more than a convenience store.