Guild Wars 2

dear anet

you’re announcing a lot of new guild features for when HoT is released, and you’re clearly assuming that every player will pick up HoT. what happens if not every member of a guild buys HoT? i’m assuming that they’ll not get any benefit from the new features like the guild boost slot or guild hall, or be able to earn the new guild currencies (seriously anet, yet more currencies? you already have a gazillion, guess another 3 won’t matter -_-).

the reason i ask is: i’ve recently convinced some friends who’ve played other MMOs with me previously to get on gw2, since there’s an expansion coming up, loads on content, etc. etc. and we’ve made a guild together. then you lot announce the kittenest pre-purchase of an expansion ever (so i’ve been apologising that i’ve made them spend money early on something they could have gotten free with the expansion).

some of them are students who don’t have a lot of money to spend, and they’re not going to buy HoT at this price. others are quite impressed with the game and will consider buying it. i just feel betrayed (like a lot of old players), as you’ll clearly gather from some posts on the forum and elsewhere on the internet, and i would rather pick up another game (go homeworld remastered omgonly£10onsalelololol) than spend on HoT.

so, how will anet handle guilds being split across the gw2-HoT chasm?

btw, searching for “guild” on the forum is a bit pointless, since every mention of “guild wars” will also come up -_-

I think I read somewhere that non-HoT players could be invited into the guild hall.

I wouldn’t quote me on that though.

from what I understand from the articles:

People without HoT won’t be able to get personal guild buffs like MF, access any feature that is inside Guild Hall.
They will be able to get other guild-wide buffs like reduced WP cost (if the guild has it unlocked), do normal guild missions like usual and earn guild commendations.

The new currencies are for guild, not personal. People can help getting them, but they won’t have and use them by themselves.

I think the Guild Initiative will be their method of bridging the gap between HoT/non-HoT players. Obviously I don’t know for fact, but it sounded like a lot of the basic services will be available here while more specific ones, especially ones related to the six buildings, will only be available within the guild halls.

“The Guild Initiative is a new organization that will set up its headquarters in Lion’s Arch and begin registering guilds for the cause. They’ll provide registered guilds with access to their facilities and support staff, as well as assign missions for those guilds to complete to maintain their fitness and contribute to the general welfare of Tyria.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-halls-taken-from-the-enemy/

In one of the blogs I read that the Guild Panel will include a button for fast travel to the Hall. Hopefully that includes non-HoT members, who just can’t step out of the Hall instance into the surrounding jungle.

Here, from the same blog post:
While the Initiative Headquarters is not a full guild hall, it will provide access to existing features that we’re moving out of the guild panel for those guilds that do not upgrade to the expansion.

This completely sums up my situation as well. Small guild of friends and friends of friends some of whom started playing a day or two before the announcement, not all of them can afford the expansion and others don’t particularly want to buy it after this fiasco. Deleting their current accounts for a refund and buying the pre-purchase instead? No. Even though some of these accounts are only a few days old, they’ve become attached to their characters. If they went for the refund, I doubt they’d put that money towards a pre-purchase. Losing your account on the first week of play isn’t exactly going to leave a good impression.

But yeah, potentially split guild here that might struggle with guild halls. =/