Guild Wars 2

“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.”

Again, I’d personally prefer everything to be under ‘initially’ so GH’s are introduced in their entirety in one big update. But what I’m listing here is trying to draw out implementation as much as I can as an example. (Gradually introduce different levels of customizability).

1. Initially:

• An updated guild window (first step in acquiring GH), travel button
• At least location selection (and GH Theme selection if Approach 3)
• (A limited GH is available, no customization)

2. Introduce customization:

• Item shop (some items)
• Workbench: building items, edit mode (substantial tools to place items)
• Item catalogue (/item wardrobe)

3. Eventually add:

• More items/rooms to item shop
• Workbench: build mode (for Approaches 1&2)
• For Approach 3: GH Theme system to allow upgrading from your ‘very basic GH’

4. Some of the last things you could implement:

• Multi-storey GH’s
• High-end items
• Guild Materials system (plus bank collection tab for them)
• Large scale ‘opening GH to the public’ system
• Activity/game roster system (for GvG’s too)

• Physical Guild Workbench seen in your GH at all times. Using it brings up Workbench interface with different tabs:
  • (major) Build and Unlock Items: essentially crafting station functionality with different tabs to view purchased blueprints and the guild bank (/view recipes and bank). An item blueprint can be selected and (if there are enough of the right materials) placed in a build queue. Items have different build times. E.g. a table would take longer to build than a chair, and an ‘awesome chair’ would take longer to build than a ‘lame chair’. Some really awesome and big items could take up to a week?
    • EDIT: (minor) Items themselves need to be implemented. The sheer number of item possibilities makes items collectively seem like a major implementation, but individually they’re minor things that can be added one by one. Most items should be easy models, while some items with functionality may be more difficult to implement (e.g. a butler that follows a custom path you choose, and says phrases you prepare –seen in my original post).
  • (major) Build Mode:
    • For Approaches 1&2: a 2D grid tool (think aerial Sims customization) is used to create your GH structure by drawing walls OR adding/expanding ‘room blocks’. (Put the multi-storey customization in this tool?) Maybe have a ‘preview’ and ‘finalize’ option to allow playing around with build mode. Let the guild leader (and selected ranks) be able to ‘finalize’ a building design. But it would be cool if everyone could have a play around with drawing up designs, so maybe add a feature that allows users to submit their design for all guild members to see (and vote on?), the guild leader (and/or selected ranks) could then ‘finalize’ this new design. (Items in rooms that have been edited out or removed end up/stay in the item catalogue). Have a reset button (with multiple ‘are you sure?’s’) to reset your GH to scratch?
    • For Approach 3 Build Mode is redundant.
  • (major) Edit Mode: to place/move/remove items you have unlocked in your ‘item catalogue’. Common items like chairs can be place multiple times, but high end/rare items can only be placed once (e.g. mounted Tequatl head). Have
    • Either use that 2D grid tool (less freedom) to place items by having the item catalogue next to the 2D grid
    • OR make a third person system like Orcs Must Die which allows the placing of items on floor/walls/rooves, and allows items to be rotated. Or you could just use the aoe ground-targeting that weapon skills use, but it would be good to see exactly size/shape of the items you’re placing, and have the ability to rotate items. While you’re in edit mode running around your GH, you can easily access the item catalogue to choose items to place. A reset button (with multiple ‘are you sure?’s’) to empty your GH of items (they are still in your ‘item catalogue’)?

• (major) Guild Materials: original post about them under ‘Guild Materials’ within the spoiler. What needs to be implemented: how they are awarded, and then deposited in the ‘guild materials collection tab’ in the guild bank. Once your guild unlocks an item that had ‘guild materials’ as a requirement, your guild members are no longer awarded those ‘guild materials’. (E.g. once the mounted Tequatl head has been made at the workbench and added to your item catalogue, no more ‘Tequatl Scales’ drops are awarded. Your ‘guild materials collection tab’ could then remove the ‘Tequatl Scales’ slot.)
• (major) Activities/Games (and potentially GvGs). A roster system to play with/against individuals, teams, or guilds?
• (major) Opening Your Guild Hall to the Public: like I mentioned before

• (minor) Updated Guild window to allow unlocking GH’s in Architecture (or move some guild hall related upgrades into a separate ‘guild hall’ category –this is where Approaches 1, 2, 3 upgrades would be upgraded)
• (minor) Real Estate Agent NPC to allow selection of your GH location, and if using Approach 3: selection of ‘GH Theme’. (Gives you your instance after GH’s have been unlocked by your guild).
• (minor) Travel Button to GH (in guild window)
• (minor) Guild Rank Permissions
• (minor) Update Guild Bank to have a materials collection tab (so materials don’t take up bank slots like they currently do. 1000 limit? More than 250 please), and a ‘guild materials’ collection tab (see later)
• (major) Item Shop. Interface accessed by talking to NPC storefront in LA? The interface could be ‘Gem Store’ style: having tabs for different kinds of items, and/or tabs for different rooms/purposes.
  • E.g. sorting by chairs: all possible chairs are shown in a list with a picture and description. Chairs your guild hasn’t unlocked have a “Buy Blueprint – X influence” on it, while ones you have unlocked are greyed out and say “Already Unlocked”.
  • E.g. sorting by garden: all garden related items are shown with “Buy” option or “Already Unlocked” message.
  • Clicking “Buy” only buys the item blueprint and it’s placed in the ‘Guild Workbench’ (next concept). ‘Unlocked items are greyed out’ if: that item’s blueprint is already in the Guild Workbench OR (step 2) the item has actually been crafted and added to your guilds ‘Item Catalogue’ (see later).
  • The Item Shop has huge potential: so many categories, items, room themes etc. I’d hope that new item content is regularly released. I hate to say it, but some really special item blueprints could be purchased in the Gem Store instead (mentioned briefly in my original post. E.g. ‘Riding Broom Cupboard’ that lets users pull out Riding Brooms and race around the GH).
• (minor) Item Catalogue: ‘GH item wardrobe’. After an item has been created from blueprints and materials at the Guild Workbench (next dot point) it’s permanently unlocked in this ‘item catalogue’ similar to unlocking skins in the existing wardrobe system. It’s accessed (an interface?) in the Workbench or while in Edit Mode (next dot points).

• Previous Approaches 1 & 2: expanding your GH was by upgrading either the size of your block of land, OR upgrading how many ‘room blocks’ you can have. Pros: enables complete freedom of how you design and build your GH. Cons: harder to implement?
• new Approach 3 using GH themes: you can upgrade your GH along themes, each upgrade stage makes your GH physically grow larger.
  • GH themes (not to be confused with ‘location themes’, although I could see them potentially being combined). Theme examples: Mansion GH, Castle GH, Airship GH, racial GH’s –Floating Asura Cube GH, Sylvari Tree GH, Norn Great Lodge GH, Charr Iron Keep GH, (Human would be Mansion?), hello expansions: Canthan Palace GH, Elonian Kodash Bazaar GH.
    • Mansion: small house—>medium house—>small mansion—>large mansion (even bigger than Caudecus’s Manor?)
    • Castle: (I’m thinking WvW types of buildings here). Camp—>tower—>keep—>castle.
    • Airships: (could/should be in the sky, like how PVP map Temple of the Silent Storm is). Small airship—>large airship—>multiple airships (up in the air that you can jump to and from)—>to something as big as Wintersday’s “The Toymakers Airship”? (But where would you put a garden?) (Thought: still have ground area but have the airships moored to a wharf?)
  • When you first get a GH in a new theme, your GH is stage 1 of that theme. E.g. for ‘castle’ theme your stage 1 GH is a supply camp. (And just to clarify the themes – it is a theme. Regarding ‘castle’ theme, the supply camp and towers would need to be redesigned a tiny bit to actually have a building with at least one room. Towers would need rooves, keeps too.)
  • Option to change themes (for an influence cost)? Progress on each theme is persistent? E.g. if you got to ‘tower’ stage on your way to ‘castle’ and change theme to ‘airship’, and after a while in airship you go back to ‘castle theme’ you pick up from ‘tower’ stage (i.e. you’re not forced to go back to ‘camp’).
  • Pros: progression, theme variety, easier to implement since ‘set upgrade stages’. Cons: lacks the freedom of how you design or build your GH.

• Asura gate in and out: after entering GH instance, Asura gate behind you, courtyard/front of GH in front of you
• Maintenance upkeep: it makes sense to me that you should pay (with influence or gold –they’re related) your butler, maid, cook, gardener. Make it fairly regular (every week or 2), and if you don’t pay them after a while they leave and you have to re-hire them. If they leave you won’t get food, the GH would get dirty, your garden will go crazy. It would be cool to visually see your GH tend towards disrepair if you’re not looking after it. (Upkeep provides a small incentive to be a bit more active with your GH).
• GvG possibility: using your GH and opposing guild’s GH as the ‘ends’ of a GvG map. So it’s like you’re fighting from your GH – you could respawn in there?
• (My ‘Blueprints’ for creating items is basically equivalent to recipes)
• Most likely a guild rank permission will need to be made that allows guild members to enter Build Mode or Edit Mode.

Points From Overview

• 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

• Have a guest list for your GH. Guild members can add/remove names of non-guild members from it. The non-members can see what GH’s they are guests of and go to them using a GH interface (next dot point)? (This could be expanded to allow the adding of Guilds to the list)
• GH NPC in LA to open up an interface to show details about all guild halls set to public – a screenshot of their unique guild hall, what mode (party, RP, GH tour), number of people inside etc. Be able to select a GH and travel to it if’s it’s not full.
• When is a GH instance full? Population limit? Some guilds get really big, LA population limit could be interesting at a GH party.
• Could eventually have a scoring system that allows you to sort by ‘highest scoring guild halls’ which means people would need to be able to leave a rating after visiting your guild hall (a sign-out book). If guild hall is ‘public’, have option to enable these ratings. (Scoring system – guild hall leader board – is a whole other issue, but e.g. visitors leave rating out of 10, and your guild hall receives an average rating. Rating reduces gradually so other guild halls can rotate through ‘Top 20’ guild halls or something).
• A guild rank permission that, whilst in your GH you can activate public ‘open house mode’ (via guild window?) that would add your GH to the GH interface (that NPC in LA)

• Activities/games/minigames: things to do is what will keep GH’s alive. I’ve already listed a few I think, but here’s some more examples:
  • Races, soccer (Asuraball?), bowels, crochet, make obstacle courses with traps etc in the dungeon, jumping puzzles, duelling, etc
  • Be able to set up a roster to challenge teams or individuals in these activities/games.

• (Thought: for GH Tours, let the butler take people around. Let guilds customize a tour path which the butler will follow and be cued to say custom phrases at certain areas in the GH – that would be quite fun. Custom phrases would use existing profanity filter etc)

Item Categories
Sorting items by Item Categories:

• Furniture: chairs, tables, bookcases, benches, doors etc
• Decorations: rugs, paintings, statues (of characters too?), candelabra, chandeliers, drapes, flags etc
• Materials: e.g. for walls, floors: woods, stones, metals
• Plants: (plants native to your location theme?)
• Services:
  • Asura gates? e.g. to WvW, major cities
  • NPC’s: e.g. butler, maid, cook, gardener. (Maid example: hire an Asuran scientist and his golem to keep your GH clean. Cook example: get him to cook a meal that he or the butler serves to you)
  • Vendors: guild bank, merchant, crafting (not forge, not TP ?)
• Activities: Keg Brawl, Sanctum Sprint, Southsun Survival, Crab Toss, 1v1 boxing ring (duelling), box of fun, bobblehead laboratory, enchanted broom cupboard (yes a cupboard full of brooms you and your guildies can use and have broom races!)
  • (just thought of an ‘outfit wardrobe’, allows you and guildies to dress up in the outfits you have unlocked in your GH)
  • Blueprints for some of those later ones could potentially cost Gems (or really high amounts of guild influence?)

• For each kind of item it would be great to have variety. E.g. there could be several types of chairs ranging in influence price. Maybe have tiers for each kind of item (for some reason I’m thinking of how the utility skill unlock system has tiers of skills), so there could be a few variations of chairs in tiers 1, 2 and 3. This is better than having a single ‘superior item’ at the highest price which everyone gets just because it’s the expensive one. Have a few ‘highest price’ items for variety. (This goes for any item: multiple tables, bookcases, paintings, stairs etc).

Room Themes:
Room themes could exist: to sort items by theme or room. Room themes could include: a dining room, study, throne room, games room, observatory, kitchen, workshop, bedroom, hall of monuments, quest hall, dungeon, basement… Anything and everything! Some examples:

• Forge: e.g. armour set mannequins, weapon stands
• Garden: To allow a courtyard/garden outside of Hall. e.g. plants, garden beds, fences, water fountains (fountain of characters too? –I would just love to say it would be awesome if I could get a fountain of my Asura striking a pose with water shooting out his mouth), ponds, hot springs, (ambient creatures?)
• Achievement Rooms: (to put ‘displays’ such as the ones seen in GW1)
  • Hall of Monuments: high level achievements that individual guild members have achieved.
    • member with the highest AP, most hours clocked, highest pvp rank, highest wvw rank etc.
    • (E.g. the item in the shop that you purchase is the ‘AP display’ and once it’s placed in your GH it has the name and details of the member with the highest AP in the guild).
  • Quest hall: Items to show your guilds questing of Tyria.
    • A bounty wall showing all the unique guild bounties your guild has completed. E.g. bounty posters with a “captured” stamp on the ones completed. (Buy from shop the ‘bounty wall’).
    • Paintings of guild puzzles completed. (Buy from shop painting blueprints if you’ve completed it)
    • Combined guild WvW achievements. Buy from shop ‘displays’ for: combinded yakslapper, combined SMC captures.
    • All the items requiring ‘guild materials’ (mentioned under the “Build and Unlock Items” spoiler under Guild Workbench).
      • The taxidermy items – mounted Tequatl head, mounted Howling King head, stuffed abomination?
      • Siege equipment items to place outside.

Edit Mode:
Place, move and remove items in your GH.

• View guild ‘item catalogue’ (/GH wardrobe): shows all of the items you can place around your GH
• While you are in Edit Mode you can access the ‘item catalogue’ wherever you are in your GH so you can place items everywhere
• Place items like Orcs Must Die? which allows placement of items on floor, walls, rooves. Add functionality to rotate items being placed on the floor (like Team Fortress 2?). (A backup option: place items using that 2D grid tool used to build the GH’s structure)
• Some items (e.g. chairs) can be placed in your GH multiple times, while other items (e.g. mounted Tequatl head) can only be placed once.
• A big reset button (with multiple ‘are you sure?’s’) to empty your GH of items (they are still in your ‘item catalogue’ – items are unlocked permanently) (Guild leader only)
  • Reset Workbench to being outside since you have to have one at all times
  • To move the Workbench pick it up like Team Fortress 2?
• (Issue? Limit the number of items that can be placed? Or how many per room?)

Build and Unlock Items:

• Items require blueprints (see Item Shop later) to be made, and once it is made it’s permanently unlocked and placed in a guild ‘item catalogue’ that would act similarly to an account wardrobe where all items unlocked are shown
• Similarly to queuing upgrades in guild tab, you could queue the construction of items in the Workbench. Items would have different build times, e.g. a basic chair could take 2 hours to be built/unlocked while a luxury armchair might take 5 hours
• For quality of life you could add to the guild window a Workbench tab, which shows blueprint construction progress (view only, to use the Workbench you have to physically go to it in GH)

But what are items made up of? (Remember it’s a one off thing)

• Blueprints (see Item Shop below – but: guild influence, merits)
• Regular materials? (e.g. that chair could cost X wood planks –which planks? Depends if it’s a basic chair or a luxury armchair)
• ‘Guild materials’: a ‘guild material’ currency to put towards building certain items
  • Guild influence is based on guild activities, these materials could be too. This kind of concept would incentivize guilds to do things together. Only for some things, not everything. High-end, bad-a** items such as:
  • Dungeon related items for your GH: for example there could a few Ascalonian Catacombs items such as a ghost statue or a mounted Howling King head which require X or Y amount of ‘AC guild materials’ to create (so: blueprint + regular mats + ‘AC guild mats’). To get these ‘AC guild mats’ guild members have to complete AC together with a minimum of 3 members in the dungeon instance. Each member present would therefore receive an ‘AC guild material’, so your guilds total number of ‘AC guild mats’ can go up by 3, 4 or 5 (how many completing the instance). E.g. the ghost statue might cost 50 ‘AC guild materials’ while the mounted Howling King head might cost 100
  • World boss related items for your GH: for example a mounted Tequatl head. Similarly, killing the same Tequatl rewards each guild member 1 ‘guild mat’ (let’s call it Tequatl Scale) with a minimum of 5 members required to be present: if 5 members kill the same Tequatl, each member receives 1 Tequatl Scale, so your guilds total number of Tequatl Scale’s goes up by 5. The mounted Tequatl head could for example cost 200 Tequatl Scales (so: blueprint + regular mats + ‘200 Tequatl Scales’).
  • WvW related items: for example guild siege to place out the front of your GH. E.g. a guild trebuchet. Trebuchet ‘guild materials’ would be awarded to its operator once that treb destroys a wall or gate. The operator would receive 1 ‘treb guild mat’ for destroying a paper gate/wall, 2 for reinforced gate/wall, and 3 for fortified walls. The guild treb to place in your GH could for example cost 50 ‘treb guild materials’ (so: blueprint + regular mats + ’50 trebuchet guild mats’). (Same thing for catapult and siege golem but costing a different number of ‘guild materials’)

• A ‘materials collection’ tab in guild bank could be introduced to deposit these ‘guild materials’, the current “deposit collectibles” inventory feature could deposit them to this collection tab.
• (Issue?: might need to make the ‘guild materials’ guild-bound so people don’t receive them while working with one guild, and then deposit them in another guild.)

Build Mode:
To build physical GH structure: walls, floors, roof? stairs/ramps? Oh and doors, you’ll need doors.

A 2D grid tool of some sort which represents your block of land. (that Runescape picture again).

• Approach 1: drawing/placing walls to create rooms. (Think aerial Sims build mode)
• Approach 2: use the grid tool to place new room blocks adjacent to existing blocks, or have a ‘merge rooms’ option that would make selected rooms merge into one. (also maybe an option to just move a room and its contents)
• Approach 3: not needed since set structure upgrades

• (Thought: to allow circular rooms in approaches 1&2, there could be circular blocks etc).
• I’ll raise multi-level GH’s here. The grid tool could be used to place stairs/ramps etc to go up levels, or down levels into basements/dungeons. Stairs/ramps (trap doors?) would be items that are built/unlocked (see below). (E.g. a goal could be to make a multi-storey mansion or castle. Number of storeys allowed could be an upgrade, at cost of influence and a few days build time).

• A big reset button (with multiple ‘are you sure?’s’) to reset your GH to scratch – no building, items removed to ‘item catalogue’. (Guild leader only)

Note: I’ll mention the GH being built up/expanded and land sizes. Customizing a building in regards to physical layout and size is cool, but don’t forget that the land size includes outdoor areas: gardens, plants, courtyards (something I’d be keen to see).

Approach 1:

• The size of your block of land starts off small and can be upgraded to be larger (at the cost of influence, plus a few days build time)
• tiny-small-medium-large-giant. (I’m thinking Sims here, the larger your block of land the bigger the building you can make, the more rooms you can fit inside it, the more outdoor garden stuff you can have etc) – The size of your block of land dictates how much you can expand.
• Designing GH and its rooms/areas is very free form (again; like the Sims)

Approach 2:

• The size of your block of land starts off giant and the number of rooms you are allowed starts off small, so what you upgrade is the number of rooms you’re allowed.
• +X rooms. Add to total number of rooms allowed. (Small hall in a large block of land that eventually gets built out to fill the block of land) – The number of allowed rooms dictates how much you can expand.
• Limiting number of rooms sort of implies ‘room blocks’. These would be a certain size that you could add to your GH. Sort of like this – lol Runescape.
• (Room blocks could be built (at the cost of influence) in the Workbench (below) and for example take 2 days per block to upgrade)
• Having blocks could potentially be easier to use but reduces the creative freedom seen in Approach 1.

In another post by me.

A guild hall is a gathering place for a guild in the Battle Isles. It is a private area that the guild leader can choose the setting of. It is also used to access Guild versus Guild battles, by clicking “Guild Battle” at the bottom of the Party Formation window. Your guild hall can be accessed from the Guild Menu.