Well housing and Guildhalls have already been spoken about so here’s a little idea about it (I hope it gets added befor the start of GW3^^) because I personally don’t want it to end like the (un)personal story^^
I came to this idea, when I thought about the GW1 Guild halls: It’s only a standardized unpersonalized block. You had almost nothing to do with it (unless you waited there for your group, but I’m not speaking about this) even the upgrades were only bought with gold and had no further influence on game play, fun etc.
“Abstract” if you’re too lazy to read So here’s my Idea: There’s a mist instability and a Portal opens: When you go through there’s an idyllic landscape (which is a personal instance for every player). You start to like this isolated Peaceful place and decide to stay there for a while.
Mean while in Tyria there’s war against the elder dragons, chaos etc. As you move through the world you find many friendly NPCs which are sick of this and you decide to tell them about your idyllic, peaceful mist place. They decide to give it a chance and start to colonize this little Town (Via Quests which are treated with the new UI) .
Building your town: I think it’d be really cool if this would be some kind a “Mine craft-like” starting, where the NPCs first builds up a Tent and after a certain Time it decides to stay there and builds a house, which off course needs Mistwoods Miststones etc. (which could be handled as separate currencies to have no impact on the TP), which can be gathered in this little World. With time, there are NPCs like Miners and lumberjacks so you could change the setting to a strategy game-like play style where your NPCs gather things on their own and you could build up a little town etc. This would have an immense personal character and it would feel more like a “home” then the set up ambiance of a “home” instance.
Alive!:You could then have many little events where for example there dies a Rat in the town spring and you’ve got to remove it and find a cure for the sickened people (well i’ve never been capable of good story telling). Or Bandits managed to get your Town, a smaller dragon attacks etc.(well it mustn’t be THAT idyllic^^).
UI: All the building could take place in a guild-panel like UI and – if you’re really scared of any progress- you could make the building Phase, like the blueprint placing in WvW… OR You really make a UI which can be prepared to any strategy game UI like Starcraft, WC etc. It could also be linked with the GW2 Handy App ( I mean who knows^^) where you have a Hay Day/The Tribez/The Simpsons Springfield etc. like Surface. And who ever played such a game knows, that there are A LOT of possible Gem-mechanics so there’d be even an ecological reason if NCSOFT ever runs out of player-milking-ideas.
New PvP Mode: We are in the mists and therefor it should have to do something with PvP to favor the gods. There could be a PvP Mode where you invade others Towns and defend yours etc.
Guild Halls: Back to the Guild Hall -your Guildhall doesn’t get built on its own. So every player in the Guild can send resources and NPCs in order to build up a huge castle for the guild. You could still couple this with influence and guild merits – Your guild requires a certain influence so NPCs are willing to help the guild and merits as payment. Then you have like certain rules how to build a Guild Castle. Due to it’s usage in GvG you cannot allow everything. Of course there would also be the easier, lame possibility
where you have some kinds of Guild Hall-patterns available and you build it up 1 by one. But I think that some creativity should be possible.
The NPCs that are in the Guild Hall could be coupled to guild missions. E.g. if you complete “Save our Suplies” an NPC comes to your Guildhall and enables the research of mines and Turrets (either only as decoration or as a weapon in guild fights?).