Guild Wars 2

Zaklex.6308:

There’s only one little problem with that tunnel/cave in the back of Scarlet’s home in Prosperity in Dry Top, the only way to get in there is to play the episode that includes the mission that opens that up, and if you don’t have that mission unlocked or want to pay for it(and don’t know which episode it is from the meager description), then you’re up a creek without a paddle.

Um… this… isn’t true…
…
…
Although that’s a rather abrupt response, so I’ll explain. You see changes to the open world we can classify as Living World (i.e. like adding Dry Top or adding new areas to Dry Top) while the instanced story content would be Living Story. Living World is free and available for everyone.
Now you have to remember however that the doorway to Scarlet’s Room isn’t always open, and undoubtedly you stumbled across it while it was closed and so might erroneously believe that access is limited to those who have access to the Living Story. But in honesty the door is closed when the town event is up. If you go there while the event is not up, or just finish the event than the door will open.

zallis.2138:

A lot of times it just seems like the official forums are where all the angry peasants and hobos gather up to yell at Lord Arenanet from outside the castle.

This, so much this. I think most of those people aren’t even active players… I think the only reason they come here is to complain… I sometimes wonder if ANet shouldn’t implement a policy that prevents people from posting on the forums if they haven’t logged-in to the game in 6 months. Sure you’d be hurting people who want to honestly return to GW2 and have real questions. But on the other hand it would also lock out a lot of the pitchfork and torch wielding crowd…

Zaxares.5419:

I think he’s asking how the various spirits/demons that make up the armies of the Gods get formed. To that, I think that it varies. In some cases, they are formed from the souls of the deceased (Balthazar’s Eternals are obviously drawn from the souls of valiant worshippers).

In some cases, they are living (or dead) creatures that happen to dwell in the Mists, such as Dhuum’s Terrorweb Dryders.

In some cases, they are transformed from living mortals, such as Abaddon’s Margonite followers.

Well my knowledge of GW1 is limited (more like barely existent) but I do remember:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Razah specifically:

The protomatter that makes up the Mists strains toward creation, often spawning demonic creations in nightmarish forms. Not all creatures from the Mists are demonic, however. When the Mists come into contact with a suitable human template, for example, it can copy that form, creating a sentient entity with humanoid appearance and an almost human mind.

So the mists naturally creates things, the mists is proto-reality, it by its nature takes shape, and sometimes it produces living things such as demons. As we’ve seen with the fractals, the mists also have a habit of echoing and copying (sort of) things that already exists.

Interesting question. Seeing as how we have the Shadow Behemoth, and have a couple of areas in the world where we she shadow-y creatures, there’s at least some indication that there are already incursions from the mists (although we have no indication that it’s an organised incursion and not to a couple of creatures wandering off).
The main question of course would be, why would any of the ‘lesser gods’ care about Tyria? Presumably the mists is a varied and fairly populated place, so why would Tyria be so special. Abaddon specifically only used Tyria as a means of escaping his prison and seemingly didn’t care much beyond that, and Dhuum and Menzies also show little interest in Tyria.
So if the higher beings from the mists do invade, ANet would probably have to provide some motivation as to why, and why they didn’t invade the world of marshmallow people and flying bunnies.

Erukk.1408:

Menzies and Dhuum aren’t lesser gods. If I had to give them a classification, it would probably be more along the lines of “powerful higher beings”. Dhuum lost his godiless to Grenth, and Menzies is… something. He’s said to be the evil half-brother of Balthazar, but he’s never been described as a god.

zallis.2138:

Dhuum isn’t a lesser god, he was a god, but Grenth overthrew him. Menzies seems more like a demigod to me. I think the only reason he has any power is because Balthazar is a god and he shared some of it. Cause I don’t think Balthazar was a god to begin with, I think all the gods pulled a Kormir and seized the status. And I think when Balthazar did that, he took Menzies with him and then he turned evil afterwards.

Well we can’t say either way unless we feel like another discussion regarding the nature of godhood (spoiler there really isn’t much agreement).
Dhuum is specifically an ex-god (I would say fallen god like Abaddon, but unlike Abaddon he was officially usurped and his power to a certain extent taken). Menzies would be more of a demi-god (presumably a full-blooded version of whatever species the other gods belong to… if they even share a single species), seeking to usurp and steal his half-brother (Balthazar’s) position and power (seemingly godliness is a transferable quantity as we see in the case of Kormir). Although all of this is without asking the question, what race does the gods belong too? Certainly as noted some type of higher entity, if Dhuum even de-god-ified was still rather powerful.

JandNTeam.7630:

Tao.5096:

Happy Ending written on the floor in rainy day.
I have an idea for making Zhaitan a world boss which spawn once a week with good battle system, but I’m sure Anet isn’t interested in reconstructing something that’s already dead.

He is risen so he come back to life again. (jk) it would be on hell of a mess to fight him again, defiantly on world boss scale.

I don’t know about you but I never saw the body :P
So bring it on ANet!

Tao.5096:

JandNTeam.7630:

five people vs one dragon yea..

you’re fighting one in story mode….alone.

Well technically you were fighting with the proto-Pack and the Claw Island soldiers… lore wise at least.

kolompi.1287:

Personally i believe arenanet will do as they wish, not caring what pvers or pvpers want.
In this case i would say keep it as it is.

That’s not something you’d expect from a profit driven organisation. Rather they’ll do what they think is best, not caring what pvers and pvpers say is best. Which speak neither volumes towards what Anet thinks or players say.

JusticarArkiel.1564:

Eric.6109:

Karizee.8076:

I’m shooting for a full stack of Siege Commander spoons. Up to 7 so far.

Do Tequatl instead; his spoon is very close to a “sure drop”.

i call BS, ive done teq 25 times since i unlocked the spoon collection, and not once has it dropped. gotten the stupid rune of the sunless everytime though

RNG man, RNG.
I’ve been getting so many of them I’m going to see if I can’t get me a full set and then petition Tequatl to exchange sunless weapons for spoons :P

Deli.1302:

What part of RNG do you not understand?

The part where I have to be the counter balance to the lucky players

Valento.9852:

Someone suggested having them to be bought by 200laurels, as it’s a top end-game stuff it seems fair (though I myself don’t have nearly that many laurels).

And I’ve spent about 200 laurels on trinkets alone… so that would be the sort of change that would make me both happy and kinda sad…

Zaxares.5419:

That’s because Halloween 2013 actually REMOVED content from 2012. Reaper’s Rumble was gone. Ascent to Madness was gone. The 2012 skins were no longer attainable. Titles from 2012 like Pumpkin Carver were no longer achievable despite the fact that pumpkins were still around and carvable.

Yeah that was sad.

Zaxares.5419:

In its place we had an OK (but a bit short) story involving the Bloody Prince, but despite the build-up, all the Bloody Prince and King Thorn do is sit in the Labyrinth and trade insults.

I kinda liked the insults actually…

Zaxares.5419:

To make it worse, Halloween 2013 cranked up the sinks for Halloween items to an insane level. 1,000 Candy Corn for a Cob? And 10 of those for a mini or a bag?? It made players very angry that what was supposed to be a fun, “treats for everyone!” festival had turned into a grindfest.

Yeah, ANet seems to be balancing difficulty towards the hardcore of the player spectrum. Undoubtedly there was a lot of players to whom 10,000 candy corns were barely a challenge to farm. However for us more casuals it was kinda unreasonable… In fact a lot of content (particularly RNG) seems balanced towards the insane hardcore farmer players…

laokoko.7403:

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Just run Living story on every alt you have at lv 80. You can get 100s of lockpicks.

why do you have to run it on alt. Can’t you just rerun it on your main?

Rewards are only received the first time around. So you can replay it on a character but you won’t receive rewards.

Liz.1497:

- I had to do a bit of research to find out that the living story stuff wasn’t available for me as someone who never finished their personal story? I’m sure that was evident when the living world stuff first started but a little mail with a basic summary for returning players would have been nice!

No you don’t need to have completed your personal story first. You just go to your story interface and click the start LS button.

Liz.1497:

- Expecting to start at season 1 part 1, I proceeded to where the mail told me to go for my first living story mission: err, nope! I ended up in a radom instance with random NPCs I didn’t know that talked to me like we were old friends and I was supposed to know all that?

Yeah that could have been better communicated in game. Was communicated out of game but that’s not really a excuse. Again though if you go to your story interface you can see which ones are locked and unlocked.

Liz.1497:

Who is Scarlet?

Actually even if you had the entire Season 2 you still would have been a bit vague in regards to who she was :P
Basically to summarize: crazy Sylvari, blew up LA awakened a sleeping Elder Dragon.

Liz.1497:

Long story short, for someone who had no idea about drytop it was incredibly frustrating to navigate!

Completely agree. The problem is that there’s only 1 way to move between the various sections of Dry Top. Now Dry Top was released bit by bit, so you can basically see the logic here (i.e. each section had to be fairly self contained), but I do think ANet could have built a few more ramps here and there (just because going through a runnel at the back of the small room is kinda not easy to stumble across).

Liz.1497:

• Do you think the living world format in it’s current form will provide new and returning players with a good experience?

Not a bad system, although you’ve basically noted some of the sort comings.

Liz.1497:

• What would be a simple, easy to implement way to fix the problems you see?

ANet needs to include a diary or some other in game system of conveying lore (the current story interface isn’t good at that I’m afraid). Even if it’s just a collection of NPC bios (although it could be far more than that).
In the case of Dry Top, I think the nature of the events are somewhat to blame. The lack of event chains (which worked so well in Malchor’s Leap and other zones in terms of getting players to explore the area, and well as well a narrative) is non-existent in Dry Top and have been replaced by short, high repetition, isolated events.

Zaklex.6308:

They do provide a little hand holding, it’s called the part of the compass that points you in the direction you need to go(the little green arrow around the edges and/or green star on the map the points the the next location), also, this game is designed to be free roaming and not hand holding. There are no set paths in most of the locations, Dry Top is the first area that makes you take only one route to reach your next destination, it’s almost linear in that sense, but it fits the terrain so it makes sense.

And ANet has received a lot of hate for the hand holding (even though it’s clearly needed in some situations). But yeah Dry Tops single path of navigation is something that needs to be improved (surely some innovative Skritt can build a ramp!).

TKIB.9061:

As a returning player you are bound to miss the stuff implemented when you are gone.
Don’t expect a mail in game to explain in detail which skill/trait has been updated.
Same thing with the living story.

Not skills / traits but an explanation of the Living World and how it works wouldn’t hurt (at least for players returning after a long time).

Wanderer.3248:

If you started watching Game of Thrones halfway through Season 2 you’d have no idea what was going on either.

Different expectation however mainly because of different mediums. I think it’s up to ANet to decide how high they want to make the barrier to entry (which in the case of games is ideally very low).

Zaklex.6308:

Well, A.net created the Journal just for this issue

I’ve attached some screens of a alt who hasn’t started LW yet. The issue with the Journal is that the text descriptions are kinda short and not too informative. Also players such as Liz seem completely unaware of its existence (or else she would have noticed the ‘play this episode’ button which would have allowed her to not have to complete her personal story first.

Kulvar.1239:

For the title : the Doctor have many faces and few people know what he look like. Even his friends can’t recognize him sometimes because of his body changes.

A “group of adventurers” don’t work well. Imagine you’re in GW3. What history will be teached? That an “adventurer” was second to command of the Pact, of an unknown specie, with an unknown gender, member of one of the Order but we don’t know which one, with an unknown name, but he help defeat Elders Dragons, had a vision of how Tyria and the Elders Dragons are linked and organize a G5 with the major races.

In real life we know people from ancient history. The Durmand Priory have archives of everything but never mentionned this character? Nonsensical.

I’m reminded of Dragon Age. They kinda had the same problem at least in the first game and it’s kinda expansion, the second game the PC could only be a human named Hawk (so they basically did a Mass Effect). I think they just went with referring to the PC by his or her title (Warden-Commander, Hero of Ferelden etc.).

Well we do know the general theme of the laws. Ministry is trying to ensure the nobility stays in lofty positions of power and privilege while Queen Jennah is attempting to remove the class-ism. The only law I know for certain is the trial by combat law that comes up in the personal story, however it;s made fairly clear that it’s more of a anachronism.

Iason Evan.3806:

So you are concerned with larger guilds feeling “punished” but the current game totally punishes small guilds.

Yes. Exactly. Feelings and perceptions are important. In a situation like this there is no solution to remove the inequality completely without hampering one side or the other. Currently small guild are punished because they don’t have numbers, that’s not something the game developers have any control over. Implementing game mechanics to hamper larg e guilds is a different ball game.
You know that thing with the train and the fat guy? No… here’s a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem Although it’s not directly relevant here. What I’m getting at is that action carries more weight than inaction (in my opinion). Small guild are hampered by the inaction of developers, however the only effective action would be to hamper large guilds.
Again what I’m saying is, less people shout at me if I don’t push the fat guy on the tracks and just let whoever die. Inaction carries a different perception to action, we are more often help accountable for our actions than inaction.

Iason Evan.3806:

The fact is, by the logic you used above small guilds are being punished in game right now. Large guilds would be punished by earning stuff at the same rate as small guilds with guild halls should they ever be implemented? I don’t agree with that assessment at all.

Yes, they are but not as a direct action of the games developers. Also I have to disagree with the all or nothing logic you’re apply. Just because something can’t be done in such a way as to make everyone equally happy doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it. No perfect solution ever exists, ever. So as a designer one can only aim toward a solution which best meets the constraints and requirements, which has the most benefit with the least deficit (or whatever a more apt antonym for benefit is).

Agrik.7465:

I’ve found small guilds able to advance guild progressions in multiple areas involving guild influence (architecture V, politics VI, etc. where tasks required to achieve such are not directly tied to numbers. Guild missions on the other hand are restrictive as set up such that a small guild cannot realistically achieve them (for the most part), even gradually. Thus I’d suggest influence over merits as currency for guild-hall production, but other means of producing halls that do not require multiple members all working at once (crafting, spending gold, etc.) could reasonably allow small guilds to advance their guild halls over time.

I’m arguing from the point of view that no effective means can be implemented to allow small and large guilds to progress at the same pace without the usage of an artificial restriction. Further there is a underlying assumption that no system can exclude the influence of numbers i.e. no system which is based on group activity (I’m assuming it’s group activity given that we’re talking about guilds and guild halls) can negate the influence of numbers without artificial means. Now you’re saying that such a system can be put into place. If so I’m wrong and please ignore everything I’ve said regarding this point since it was all based on a false grounding. However before I’ll admit defeat (I still feel I’m right) I’ll need to know more about exactly how such a system could function.

jheryn.8390:

I’m just not into the whole airship as a guild hall. Especially if guild halls are open world instead of instanced. How would an airship fit into an open world concept with other ground halls. I just don’t see it happening. Or happening well.

Open world is off the table for now. The best we can hope for is the beacon style system (although I don’t remember seeing much discussion around how it would work… maybe I skipped it, there’s a lot of pages).

daft inquisitor.1605:

I think the true issue is that people are downsizing what they think of when they think “airship”.

In a game that has airships its pretty clear that when talking about airships they’d use the in-game airships as a frame of reference. Perhaps ‘airships’ isn’t the right word to use for the very fact that it causes confusion. Flying Fortress / Tower / Fort is my suggestion.

Raap.9065:

snip

I suggested something similar to that many pages ago, didn’t get too much traction since everyone was still focused on exclusive-or-ing the conversation.

NeedMoreDinosaur.4250:

This is treading closer to the territory of GvG which is a future CDI. Lets try steering this conversation back towards the desired topics.

Given that the one kinda leads to or requires the other I don’t think we can so cleanly separate them.

Louveepine.7630:

omninull.4036:

Louveepine.7630:

I want to changeable weather. And armor skins sold in each map, for immersion.
With dark nights or rainy. Fog. Or snowstorms! Orages!

Elements that can make us use torches or lanterns, During deep dark nights.

They just arbitrarily locked Personal story quests because people were too confused.
There’s no way in hell A-net is going to add elements that actually require people to do more than follow a line to the next point. Arena net would probably expect a breakdown of guildwars 2 society if, god forbid, you can actually interact with the environment.

I do not understand, what do you mean?

It’s not suppose to make sense, he / shes just injecting unrelated grievances (I’m guessing grievances regarding the NPE).

Daroon.1736:

It’s is a prime example of an ‘hey I’ve got this great idea’ concept, that was implemented, never thought through and has been dropped.

There have been a few others that also fully or partially fit this criteria:

One off events
Underwater combat
Super Adventure Box
Activities

To name a few.

Those I’d rather categorise as: things player (or devs) didn’t really care too much for so they didn’t get any more love or attention. Personality was never really properly implemented (as apposed to underwater combat, SAB and activities).

JonPeters.5630:

My box is guild upgrades. I want us to brainstorm how we could revamp the upgrade system given the introduction of a feature such as guild halls.

Which is a difficult topic. You see currently all guild hall upgrades either give access to gameplay (guild missions) or give upgrades to gameplay (guild magic boost). The current system exists completely separate from the idea of a guild hall. As such the current upgrade system cannot really be revamped to include guild halls. Rather creating additional upgrade paths for guild halls would make more sense.
Guild halls would have two very broad categories, aesthetics (that is, furniture decoration etc.) and services (merchant, grafting stations, way points, etc.). Although aesthetics could be expanded and upgraded in several ways (such a collecting blueprints, completing world events etc.)

Devata.6589:

All I am getting frustrated over is seeing the same ‘problems’ being put up while possible solution have been giving for them pages ago.

The structure of the thread (a linear progression of posts) isn’t idea for topic discussion. Something like a tree-structure would allow for separate threads or topic based discussion. However we have what we have.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

The more customization you have with open world guild halls, the more opportunities for guilds to absolutely destroy the beautiful and immersive world that ANet has created.

I guess that’s a very real concern :P
Well I guess if we have open world guild halls they could each have a set theme, and allow for set upgrades or decorations to be added, which collectively is consistent with the surrounding zones theme.

Drewan.5681:

I personally loathe the idea of airhsips or a ‘sky map’

I would love if I could have a nice sturdy norn lodge in the mountains.

To each their own, if it’s instanced then we could have both (assuming with have an ‘outside’ included within the instance space i.e. the instance space isn’t just the a room).

Nighthawk.6453:

About Open world vs. Instanced GH: what if we sort of combine both? Guild claims some structure in the open world, unused by events, PS and NPCs and it becomes entry point for instanced Guild Hall. Non-guild players can see some basic decorations, like tag and icon, and props tied to upgrades.
Players of the guild that owns the building can enter it’s instanced version. Instanced version is “bigger on the inside” and has interior tied to location,

This sounds familiar (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/4470346)…

Blaeys.3102:

As the leader of a 300+ person active guild, I would also be against the idea of heavily themed guild halls (airships, caves, etc) because it could easily feel out of place in a diverse guild (an asura wouldnt want to be in a tree, for instance).

Yeah, but other would very much like having themed guild halls. You could simply just choose the neutral theme then.

Tryxtr.6295:

Way too many ideas in here to comment on all of them, but here’s my thoughts on a few.

I know right!

JonPeters.5630:

To be fair I prefer open world design, but think its very hard to overcome many decisions that have already been made in the game.

True, true, true. Some functionality simply can’t be stapled on. Still, as a dev with a deeper insight into this matter, you couldn’t perhaps list some of these decisions? At least we can either discussion them or see how any why they would make open world guild halls difficult.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Put simply I am removing the proposal of open world Guild Halls specifically from our brain storm.

Oh! Sorry I’m only seeing this now… a bit sad about it but ok.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

FYI I would not put a hard gate on number of guildees required for Guild Hall creation.

If it’s instanced of course not since there would be little downside to giving eveyone a guild hall whether they use it or not. Open World guild halls however would be problematic if guilds have one but don’t use it (i.e. you’d end up with ghost towns or need to implement some sort of upkeep system).

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Personally I think I’d prefer instanced Guild Halls over open world ones anyway, since I wouldn’t necessarily want people wandering into my hall uninvited.

One could do open world with access restrictions. Even if it’s just an if-statement disguised as a front door.

[quote=4469962;LanfearShadowflame.3189:
The common theme with open world is the ability to go anywhere as you please.[/quote]

This is getting a bit dictionary-ish (although precision of language is important in communication), but my perception of open world is simply a shared world, not a restriction less world.

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

A Guild Airship would be cool…but not as a Guild Hall…maybe make it an option…I know many would like to be “Sky Pirates”…I dunno…I’m on the fence on this one…

Me too, I think some of the suggestions regarding airships could make for an interesting form of gameplay but as a guild hall… well maybe it could be a type of theme (i.e. wizard tower).

Edgar Doiron.2804:

Unless we can do airship battles, I don’t want any Guild Airships

This. Airship have more gameplay-type value than Guild Hall value. Unless we’re talking about something like Wizard Tower.

Iason Evan.3806:

1.) Is it OK for it to take more time for smaller guilds to get upgrades than for larger guilds only because of size? If so, why?

Because any sort of artificial restriction would have to be, well fairly intense, in order to allow a 5 man guild to progress at the same pace as a 300 man guild. In fact the restrictions would have to be so restricting that most likely players in large guilds would feel as if they’re being punished for being in a larger guild.

Donari.5237:

One thing concerns me with your proposed fixes so far: you’ve a couple of times mentioned losing the plot and having to find another one.

Donari.5237:

There will be terrain preferences, views, convenient travel access, zone preferences, and so on.

My idea of primarily having instanced guild halls but having limited/fixed number of open world guilds that could be competed over (either pve or gvg) essentially takes the negatives of an open world guild hall and makes useful. No guild won’t have a guild hall, but those that wish to have an specific open world guild hall will be able to compete for them, some would be more desirable of course and these would have more competition while others would be less desirable but easier to get. Granted this is more of a GvG suggestion but does allow for both instancing and open world

Donari.5237:

Do you have a solution that lets a plot be permanent once acquired, doesn’t make guild hall areas into cookie cutter subdivisions in isolated areas, and makes every site equally “cool” to guilds placing a hall?

You can’t and doing so would be silly. Permanent open world guild halls lead to ghost town as inevitably players come and go. Having limited number of fixed location guild halls also allows for unique designs. As for cool… well that’s subjective and technically refers to a state of detachment or apathy (i.e. keeping it cool, saying cool under pressure etc.), but that last point is me being pedantic again :P

Devata.6589:

Air-ship battles, or events in the airmaps where you fight against dragons and so on.

Again I’d rather say we introduce airships and airmaps as a type of gameplay, rather than attempting to combine it with guilds halls (which might in practice limit what could be done with airship-combat). Although the effort to do something like this… would be intense…

Palador.2170:

If you want one of these open map spaces, you have to fight for it in GvG.

Like my suggestion many many pages ago… which didn’t get the loving I would have liked but then again… pride and ego and all that

Khisanth.2948:

Guild hall sellers.

You get a guild hall I get a guild hall, when we get together we get another alliance guild hall with functionality specifically aimed toward an alliance (thus guild specific functions aren’t shared via the common guild alliance hall. I can build up my guild hall without having to worry about the divorce because we’re not in community of property, thus I get to keep my own stuff and not share them.

I did realized while rereading this thread that I never actually considered open world guild halls to be completely non-instanced, that is to say that you can move from the outside to anywhere inside without loading screens. My perception was always that the outside would be visible to everyone on the map, and customisable by the guild but to go inside would be to entered an instance (and most likely like the tardis it would be bigger on the inside). I think it’s very possible to have an guild hall located in the open world, with areas that exist in the open world but which also have instanced parts for things such a guild rituals.

JonPeters.5630:

Actually it hasn’t been talked about at all. I’ve seen a lot of basic suggestions, but what I am suggesting is that we flesh something out here in this thread.
Jon

Sorry that my suggestions were all that awe-inspiring :P

JonPeters.5630:

Ok. I think as a good exercise, try and be more specific. If you give specific examples in each category it is a lot easier to extrapolate than if you try and generally describe the categories.

I think advantages can include things like free quick travel, access to crafting stations, guild / personal bank, mystic forge etc. More specific examples however are difficult because as I’ve noted so far a lot of users have been in suggestion mode and with the conversations occurring in a hypothetical anything goes space. It’s an interesting problem, in a world where anything is possible deciding what to do is impossible i.e. limitations and constraints inform our choice as they limit our possible actions allowing us to compare these actions and pick the best ones… Well if that all seems incoherent sorry, it’s kinda late around here.

timmyf.1490:

This is sort of difficult because I don’t know what functionality will be coming to Guild Halls, but I’ll try to give a few examples.

Yeah pretty much. We assume that guild halls will be more than a static instance, that it would have some measurable benefit beyond it’s own existence. But there have been so many suggestions… Perhaps the CDI should have been more rigid, perhaps the conversation should have been structured in a logical way in which basic concepts are discussed and agreed upon and used as a basis for further conversation.

timmyf.1490:

I would be shocked if ArenaNet would allow the beautiful landscapes they’ve created to be destroyed by open-world guild halls.

I’m not against open world guild halls as long as they are location fixed and limited. A situation in which any guild can place any guild hall in any map is as you’ve noted not a good choice.

JonPeters.5630:

This is a great break down, but I was speaking more about categorizing guild upgrades. Let me give an example to help get things started:

• WvW
• PvP
• Guild Missions
• Dungeons

A guild hall is… well I want to say tangible but it’s a video game we’re talking about… but lacking a better word… Well I guild hall is tangible, what you’re referring to (wvw, pvp etc.) are gameplay. A pvp upgrade influences game mechanics (more pvp experience or something) while a guild hall is functional and aesthetic. It’s possible to create a visual indication of a upgrade in the guild hall (pvp xp upgrade is represented by a banner or something) but inherently there is a clear separation between a guild hall and gameplay mechanics / types. That is to say not all gameplay upgrades necessarily relate to the concept of a guild hall.

JonPeters.5630:

What is a “reasonable” maximum # of members in the guild hall to you? 150? 200? 400?

Why is there a need for a cap at all? Is there any technical limitations?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

It is important to try to not think of me as a dev in the discussion.

That’s a tall order :P

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lets assume for brainstorming reasons we have 1 large map.

I like this approach, a everything goes conversation is so difficult. Giving us hypothetical constraints can only server to focus thoughts. After all it’s hard to solve problems (i.e. design) when the problem is obscure.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

That sounds as complicated as a divorce :P

How about each guild has their own guild hall and then in addition they have the shared guild hall. Guilds for the most parts function separately, they purchase their own upgrade, blue-prints etc which can then be shared in the alliance hall. For example one guild unlocks waypoints to all the capitals, and can then open this feature up in their own guild hall and in the alliance guild hall or for example one guild unlocks a gold plated statue of Rytlock and can then place it in both their own and alliance guild hall. What I’m saying is the marriage isn’t in ‘community of property’.

Ohoni.6057:

Be fair, you answer first, why would you want one beyond wanting one?

Well it was specifically aimed towards zenleto.6179 who described having a small guild filled with relatively inactive members, who stated that he wouldn’t agree with any barrier to entry such as a size limit or requirements toward activity. Given the inactive nature of his guild I couldn’t really imagine what benefit he’s guild would have in owning a guild hall, given the characteristics of the guild there wouldn’t be much need for logistics (for things such as guild missions), possibly RP (but he didn’t give any indication of this), simple access to crafting station and guild bank wouldn’t be that beneficial since you could just jump into WvW and achieve the same. In fact the question was more or less me trying to understand what a 4 member guild (which I image don’t even do guild missions) would need with a guild hall?
Although from his response its seems more that the disagreement about minimum requirements is based on the possibility that guild halls could have some as yet unknown benefit which he might miss out of.

But to answer you’re question, I see the possibility of guild halls being a mechanism for delivery additional gameplay and content.

Devata.6589:

You see I am all for also giving access to small guilds and letting them make just as much use of the guild-hall as big guilds. The only element I disagree with is that it would have to be an even playing-field. Bigger guilds have more and can do more. There is nothing wrong with that, it’s even how it should be imho.

At the very least attempting to put a small and large guild on equal footing would inherently lead to larger guilds having to be penalized in some way for being larger. Even if a completely fair mechanic could be created, larger guilds would still possibly perceive this as being unfair.

Ohoni.6057:

I think the key would just be to make it so that the unlocking mechanism maxes out at a certain point, such that 5 players can unlock it in a certain amount of time, 10 players can unlock it slightly faster, but 20, 30, 40 can’t unlock it any faster than 10 can.

Time-gating. It would be an effective solution, although probably not perceived that way by the players.

Ohoni.6057:

Speaking of, it would be kind of nice if smaller guilds weren’t forced to choose function over form, that is, if there are options to customize appearance, and options to make the hall more useful, they should not be draining from the same limited resource pools, where if a small guild has a harder time filling theirs, they may take weeks or months between functional upgrades, and if changing the drapes comes from the same pool then it means either taking forever to bring the hall up to full function, or just completely ignoring decoration.

I would prefer some mechanics in place to allow you to pursue both at once without slowing either down, such as limiting how much you can put into each at a time to a level where you should have points left over each week, or having them use completely different resource pools that a guild raises simultaneously.

So essentially aesthetic upgrades and functional upgrades would use different resources. I guess aesthetics could then be a bit more grindly (hunting blue prints, specific material etc.) while functional upgrades could probably run off of influence or merit.

Dashwood.3215:

Just do it like in GW 1. Was simple, effective, and it just worked. And yeah, bring back GvG the same way too.

Eh, I guess. Although I like sky’s-the-limit mindset we currently have going.

Conski Deshan.2057:

You guys don’t seem to be considering methods that don’t use resources, if you have unlock mechanisms as opposed to gather x resources it solves your problem of scalability while also preventing it being a horrific gold grind.

I think blue-prints have been mentioned a couple of times. I guess the idea is that by doing a certain activity or series of activities a blue-print can be unlocked and then placed in the guild hall (whether this would take the shape of Wildstars personal housing where you can place whatever you’ve unlocked, or if there would be a resource or space limit).

Usually when people discuss politics in GW2 I can’t help but think they’re asking for Game of Thrones. Although ignoring this perspective one of the primarily things I feel lacking is conflict between the major races, although this was purposefully set up this way (probably because Anet didn’t feel like having a 2 or more faction system which would not have worked will with the dynamic event system). The issue of course here is how do we as players get to perceive this political intrigue? For example if the Charr and Humans start making political moves against each other, will humans be thrown out of Black Citadel, will Charr no longer be able to go into Divinity’s Reach? If not we’re moving into ludo-narrative dissonance territory.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I had thought as much, but didn’t want to put words in others’ mouths.

Thanks
But yeah I purposely phased it that way because it sounded better… (to me at least) but yeah Tobias Trueflight.8350 and draxynnic.3719 covered it. I was simply trying to indicating that popularity isn’t inherently a product of the quality of a thing (a general comment).

OP is arguing that because Dark Souls is popular it must be good, and by extension this goodness is reflected in part in the quality of the narrative. I’m simply saying that this isn’t necessarily the case, as it was primarily marketed as being ‘hardcore’ (thus placing emphasis on the mechanics) and that the popularity might be attributable to other things beyond the quality of the game.

Thanatos.2691:

80% of the dungeon community i am part of have left GW2 for AA. 20% of those who left have sold or given away their accounts with no intention of ever returning. 100% of those who left have left mainly for the reasons stated by the OP. 100% of my dungeon community pays for gems. I have no intention of giving away my account which I’ve put dedication into but with the current development trends, I too am planning on leaving the game soon.

My friends list and guilds have also lost the majority of names to other games for various reasons but from those that I’ve talked to seriously about this the game becoming stagnant is the main force that drives them away. Living Story isn’t working. I realize the in-game communities I am part of do not represent the game population as a whole, however I believe the trend I see regarding players leaving is mainly a result of the issues the OP has stated.

These are my opinions on the matter based on estimated percentages and inter-player communication regarding the issue of leaving GW2.

I would imagine by dungeon community you’re referring to those that do dungeons? I won’t say that you’re wrong (in fact I think you’re right), but OP seems to have been talking about the delivery of narrative through the Living Story (ideally following a minimal but contextually heavy narrative style of Dark Souls). Unless you’re saying that Living Story isn’t working because it’s not adding more dungeons. I guess that’s a valid argument to make (since I can definitely see how dungeoneers can be somewhat unhappy with the limit number of additions made to GW2 in this regards), although it does feel like a different discussion than this one. But I guess it’s an interesting segway (or segue but I like using segway) into the topic of what sort of content LS should be delivering (i.e. narrative / instance / new maps or more dungeons).

I guess the problem here is that the current players base is too diverse. Maybe this is because of the lack of a clear end-game? For example WoW has Raids, it’s end-game is the gear-treadmill. Oh sure it has PvP and some PvE but those are (or have always been) secondary to the Raids. In the case of GW2 there seems to be some effort to try and appeal to as many players type as possible.

Boneheart.3561:

Kinda hoping the PC gets a mate, someone planted this seed in my mind and it won’t die. Like a competitive norn or a playful sylvari. Or an argumentative asura.

It would be a nice piece of fluff content, but I think it might take a lot of dev time to properly do it (since it would be more than simply a mechanical addition to the game).

Well hopefully Halloween will start early and give me some stuff to do. While I’m hoping, hopefull the other episodes will be a bit more meaty given the amount of time they’ve had to work on them.

Will always +1 for more armor / content.

Examples of these black holes in lore perhaps?

I purchased 1000 of them the other day… my clicking finger still hasn’t fully recovered…

JonPeters.5630:

I don’t remember saying locked.

On the one hand we don’t want a simplistic guild hall experience (that is something like the home instance), on the other hand players don’t want game modes locked behind guild halls.
Although… well is that reasonable? For example Guild Missions have the requirement that you need to be in a guild. If there is no content that requires Guild Halls or is in someway tied to the Guild Hall then won’t that inherently limit the value of Guild Halls? I think the discussion shouldn’t be around not locking content into Guild Halls but rather on how to lower the barrier to entry, to allow small guild to enjoy some/most of the content that large guilds would have access to. We shouldn’t limit what can be done with Guild Halls but rather look at what we can do with them and how we can give the majority of player access to it.

JonPeters.5630:

Could influence or merits or other aspects of guilds be improved by integrating with this “factory?”

Guild members can possibly contribute to Guild Crafting by having a Guild Bank with Guild Supplies, which can then be used to craft guild items (such as decorations or consumables etc.). Merit and influence could be used as a means of unlocking recipes (as well as the possibility of having recipes being a rare drop).

JonPeters.5630:

• Try to brainstorm ways in which Guild Hall acquisition could be fun.

Guild Halls should be divided into classes or qualities. Basic Guild Halls should be free (low barrier to entry) but higher quality guild halls (more space, more benefits etc.) should be more difficult to acquire and have some sort of upkeep (beyond tax, because tax is a boring gold sink).
I still like my idea (because that’s how ego works :P ) of having primarily instance guild halls (for all, with various themes and qualities) and then a handful of open world guild halls which can be acquired through PvE or PvP / GvG. Although I guess you could also acquire instanced Guild Halls through PvE (for example fight a giant Mist monster and unlock a mist themed instance or fight a Aetherblade captain and unlock a flying rust-bucket theme etc.).
I think acquisition should be a smaller aspect than the building / improvement and upgrading of guild halls. That is, getting it should be fun but not too complicated or time consuming, what should take up the majority of player time is improving the Guild Hall.

JonPeters.5630:

• Think about some rewards a physical Guild Hall might give you that couldn’t be done without it

Guild Members can get a small permanent boon in the areas there Guild Hall is located.
Well I think there’s some lore potential here. For example LA is being rebuilt and to support the Lion’s Guard the Captain Council allows a guild to set up shop. The Guild would be responsible for helping rebuild and protect LA (if they fail it becomes destroyed again).
A zone in which a Guild Hall is located can be faced by a number of threats. Say a zone in Ascalon can have Foefire ghosts, Flame Legion, Separatists, and Mordem. A guild can decide to focus on one of those threats, potentially closing off some events chains but opening others (for example the Separatists decide to capitalize on the decreased Flame Legion presence).
Guild in the open world can decide to set up a little market in their Guild Halls, that is to say you set up some crafting stations, some banners etc. and ask a small entry fee (a few copper) for non-guild members to access your Guild Market and use your services.

JonPeters.5630:

What are the benefits to guild halls having a large cost? What are the drawbacks?

Costs provides goals and insensitive. If there is a cost, players have a reason to login and things to do. The drawback is the potential the exclude small guilds which might not have enough players or active players to pay for the upkeep / cost of a guild hall. This is where the discussion comes in of accessibility, what is reasonable for a small guild to be able to achieve versus a guild that’s 10 times bigger.

zenleto.6179:

My guild is me who plays every day, my mate who plays 3-4 times a week, another who plays for a short while every few weeks (and absolutely loves the game), and a fourth who reps for us for about half an hour every six months.

For the sake of interest why would you want a guild hall beyond just wanting it?

A romance element could be a nice idea, although to properly do it would require a lot of work (primarily in terms of content unless you want it to be as deep as say Fables romance… which isn’t very deep).

Other posters nailed it, complexity. Specifically it’s a matter of negative emergent properties (what the opposite of synergy?). With so many different mechanics potentially interacting with each other one can possibly break the other.

Fernling.1729:

To this day I still think WoW has gotten the balance closest to being right. Its not as great as it once was, but it still can’t be beat in what it does. I also think eve online is right next to WoW.

Well WoW must have massively improved since I left, I seem to remember all the bugs in Cata. WoWs big advantage is that most of the content in Raids so that’s relatively simple-ish. Don’t know about Eve though, like literally all I know is that it’s complicated, has space ships and a horrible player base.

Nah Braham’s still not over his last girlfriend who left him for some trader or another.

I think it was removed (well it wasn’t technically removed, just hidden in the UI) because to utilize it would be complicated, given how many different personality types you can have http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personality (10 technically, a combination of the 3 primary personality types Charisma, Ferocity and Dignity).
But yes I’d personally love if ANet gave us some more comprehensive dialog trees.

Countess Aire.9410:

They should make these events instanced for the living story. Farming in this game is Bullkitten anyways. If they want to farm let them run fractals.

I’m not sure if they should… (make it instanced I mean, I definitely think they need to fix it). It feels to me that having non-instanced content we can potentially get more bang for our buck (i.e. instancing is more time consuming to produce).

Minigrump.4961:

If it honestly bothers you that much do not do the event; Simple. Nothing is forcing you to do it. People choose to do with their time what they want, even if it is mind numbingly boring. It is not even the best champ farm in the game, just the easiest.

Not a particularly valid argument, given that the progress is being hampered. Now if it was an event like Blinx where there was no negative consequence to failing other than failing then maybe I could sort of see where you’re coming form. But you can’t progress in the LS episode without completing the event, the event is being failed by farmers. One of my alts has the same problem, in fact every single person who wants to complete their LS episode is most likely (unless they’re lucky enough to end up on a megaserver without farmers) being negatively impacted by this.

The statues in Orr are linked to temples, the temples have capture events. When temples haven’t been captured the statues give a debuff.

Prophet.6257:

Upkeep

I somewhat agree with the idea of upkeep in that it provides content and things to do (assuming the upkeep is something more than tax, things like events). But at the same time small guilds might not be able to have sufficient representation or numbers. So I think there needs to be some desperation between small guild halls with no upkeep and larger guild halls with upkeep. Probably large guild halls can have more advantage, be it more npcs, more zone-impact, more customisability etc.

Prophet.6257:

Housing:

I’m all for housing, but again I think housing should be it’s own conversation, although I guess mechanically there can be a lot of cross over particularly in terms of customisation…

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I don’t like the editor-suggestions, the focus of the game should still be mainly on the gameplay imho, not some creation-sim.

Well that’s a interesting conversation to have (and it’s been had several time, commonly in terms of the type of content ANet should focus on).

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Take a look at a informative preview from WoW’s garrisons (A beta player had the chance to record it in its multiple stages) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5s3E4Gs9_o

Now imagine this in GW2, each race would have it’s own “garrison” – it’s own unique flair. Whole guilds could work on upgrading their guild hall in multiple stages like in WoW’s garrisons.

I think that’s more or less what ANet should aim for. Creating a static instance with some nice art pieces scattered about that you can teleport into by clicking a button is the bare minimum, and would frankly just be another home instance (which if not for the resource nodes I wouldn’t ever visit). It being a guild hall the appeal would be to get players working together, create new shared goals etc.

AlienMenace.7516:

So I think it might be possible and reasonable to see your idea come to life, without the problem of there needing to be one separate house for each and every person in your guild (could you imagine what a full-capacity guild would look like if it needed that many actual houses in the Guild Hall? lol).

Again I have to say no! XD
Well my objection to this idea is that it’s an attempt to sneak in home instances, something which I am all for but by sneaking it in we are very likely going to end up with something that could have been far more. What I’m saying is, lets rather focus on getting the best Guild Halls and the best Player Housing and not something in between.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

When in your personal instance in a guild hall, your Alts will run around as NPCs.

I love the idea of being able to run into my alts!

Guild Halls as airship is fine just as long as they aren’t all airships… sorry but I just don’t see myself falling in love with a floating rust bucket. Unless by airship you mean air-fortress. How about we get that whoever made the Wizards Tower to franchise a bit? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower

JonPeters.5630:

You say war over space so let’s talk about that a bit.

Well this war over land would could either thus be PvP (or more accurately GvG) or PvE.

PvE could be fairly straight forward, a plot of land is open (either it was not yet claimed or by some other mechanism is no longer owned by any other guild) and by spending or amount of Merit or Influence is able to take part in a sort of guild mission, the successful completion of wish grants the guild the area for a period of time and routinely similar PvE events need to be undertaken to ensure ownership of the Guild Hall (losing the Guild Hall by not completing one of these events is probably unfair given that not all guilds can be constantly active, but possibly damage to a part of the Guild Hall which over time could lead to the land becoming unclaimed again). Destruction to the Guild Hall can be repaired given a series of repair events or resource gathering.

GvG would occur when a land has already been claimed by one guild but another is interested in getting it for themselves. Well possibly something along the lines of a GvG arena or some other GvG style competition. A competing guild can challenge athe owner guild and at a set time of the week a set number of guild members take part in the GvG competition. Obviously the idea of adhoc competitions among guilds for land probably isn’t the best idea, since a guild might rock up at 2 o’clock in the morning and have no opposition from the current owning guild. So maybe there could be a time limit in which a guild has to respond.
How this GvG style system would work if you have 10s of guilds (or hundreds!) competing over the same area I’m uncertain, possibly these GvG competitions would occur less often allowing for some form of tournament style competition in the same way that we have WvW tournaments where top ranked guild get to choice their guild halls.

Of course this system would still require some form of instance Guild Halls (so that everyone can have guild halls), so open world guild halls are simply there for bragging rights.

JonPeters.5630:

I agree there is still conflict here but the biggest piece is reduced by allowing any guild with 5 members on a map together to have a place of their own. This definitely is missing an element of persistence but retains a large element of the visibility while reducing a large portion of the conflict.

In this kind of system what sort of non persistent things would be compelling to you and your guild?

Well this system does have it’s own appeal (if I’m understanding you correctly i.e. it removes the need to compete over areas and also removed the idea that a guild has a guild hall in a zone but rather that guild hall exists in any area where sufficient number of guild members are gathered). Even if such a system is implemented I still think players would have some preference over where their guild hall is located (assuming we’re talking of a physical building and not a airship) if only because some players might likely the snowy landscape of the Shiverpeaks or the grassy valley’s of Kryta. But in this case the primary appealing aspects of a non-persistent guild hall would be easy access to NPCs, crafting, quick travel etc.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

• little nature surroundings but mostly techy stuff – little room for non-hall like areas like clearings.

My biggest concern, airships are ugly rust buckets!

Oldirtbeard.9834:

If you could tie it in to WvW some how, to build upon the Alliance/Guild server idea you’re coming up with all the better.

But not everyone likes bleeding one game type into another… it’s hard since you can go in so many directions with guild, guild halls and guild versus guild

MajorValtiel.6310:

Would also be nice if, within the Guild Halls, players could buy private chambers for themselves.

I’d rather we not sneak personal housing into Guild Halls, I’d rather have proper personal housing.

Ameepa.6793:

Fine as long as they do not add new armor and weapon tiers that require raiding to get.

I don’t want GW to turn into ancient style “raid or die” MMO.

My sentiments exactly, if they want to add raiding fine, heck even if they’re planning on adding instanced raiding… (well I’m less fine with that but as long as…) just no gear treadmill!

VodCom.6924:

azizul.8469:

raid content = pve raid content when it comes to ANET.

Noob-ish question : do you say “pve raid content” because there are games that feature pvp raid content ? (sounds weird)

As far as I know there are only pve raids.

Isn’t wvw pvp raid content? :P

Given that we know little about the origin of the Elder Dragons or even anything about them as a species (are they even a single species?) so we can’t say.

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.

Although the combat is more action orientated then most MMOs it’s not fully, so we can more or less say that reflexes and timing is one of the lesser measures for skill (with it being a MMO this is probably a good thing given that some of us don’t even live on the same content as the servers), there’s build and ability skill (that is the skill required to select the right setup for your character but then again you can just google that…). Things such as being able to complete a certain dungeon path or a certain event is I guess a measure of skill but it can also be done through pure rote learning.

Champ bags aren’t so much the problem so much as where and when you can get them. Champ bags as a reward are fine, champ bags as a reward for mindless zerg or farm content… well probably not so much.

Classically there are 4 Charr Legions, three of them aren’t particularly magically inclined (although I guess I can see the Ash Legion making use of a Mesmer or two). Can’t think of any NPCs though… maybe if someone spots one they can post it here, might gives some insight.

Cerbeius.7129:

By not telling us what happened to the PC, we can create our own story, our own ending of our PC.

Probably the safest way to go about it.

Well it’s only 4 pages so far, so while I still have a general grasp of what people are suggesting

Proposal Overview

The location of Guild Halls, primarily instanced with a few in the open world.

Goal of Proposal

Provide a means of allowing for reasonable inclusion of guild halls in the open world.

Proposal Functionality

Given the present map design there simple isn’t enough room to litter the country side with enough guild halls to provide a guild halls for each guild. Having guild zones is a possibility but it does (as others have noted) take up parts of the world that could be used for PvE (the world map only has so many spaces) and it does in effect hide guild halls away out of sight from normal play.
The proposal thus is to have most Guild Halls instances but to to have a limited number of open world Guild Halls spread across the world (different zones providing different visual themes and benefits etc.). Ownership of these Guild Halls would be decided by competition (thus some form of GvG) among a number of guilds that want to own a particular Guild Hall in the open world. Most likely these competition can be held over the weekend and the winning guild can then have ownership of that Guild Hall for the week (or whatever time period is more desirable).

This open world Guild Hall would have some customisability meaning that as players play through the zone they’ll come across these Guild Halls (which gives Guilds a bit of bragging rights), possibly even going inside and seeing some of the trophies the guild has amassed (obviously then the Guild could have a public and private area).
These Guild Halls can also be the focus of PvE guild events, for example a Guild Hall in Dredgecliffs could regularly come under attack by the Dredge and guild members would be required to defend it or suffer some penalty (destruction of the part of the Guild Hall) or if completely ignored enough times prematurely lose the Guild Halls all together.
Guilds could also possible affect the surrounding zone and it’s events to a certain extent, for example a Guild can decide to focus on a specific threat in the surrounding area and for a period of time a specific set of event quests would become available.

Associated Risks
Difficulty in implementation.
Likely only a small number of the larger guild would benefit from this system.
If the open world Guild Halls aren’t tied to a world (unlikely given the changes to Guilds that make them more multi-world-friendly) then we again run into the issue of limited space in the open world to place these guild halls.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Immensus.9732:

Anet should announce active player numbers

How do you define what constitutes an active player?

Well I guess they could just show a graph of online players over say the last six months.

warduke.1780:

Malediktus.9250:

Sadly mass reporting works. I have been victim of it, but the customer support removed the perm ban relatively fast after contacting them.

Would you mind elaborating on this?

I’d also like to hear Anet’s input. Is this true – do you ban players just because dozens/hundreds of other players report them?

I’m guessing ANet has an automated system, if you get mass reported the system will suspend you just in case you’re in fact doing something wrong.

RoxBuryNine.4210:

I thought there was a rule about not posting screen shots with player names visible. Has that changed? I see that Greefa is involved …. again. What a surprise.

Expect mod intervention soon. Although if no one flags the posts mods might overlook it. Also it’s the weekend.

DonQuack.9025:

didnt realise name and shame was allowed. must be a dungeon subforum only sorta deal

Jip not allowed. Name and Shame is a bit too easy to abuse…

cheshirefox.7026:

pretty sure most of the in game reports get sent directly to a virtual paper shredder

In the case of low volume reports I’m guessing they are reviewed by a mod (i.e. a slow and fallible human being) and not automated to any extent, given the massive amount of reports they probably get… well it wouldn’t surprise me if they prioritize reports by quantity. Then again maybe ANet has a small army of mods dedicated exclusively to reviewing reports.

Well it would be more convenient for the alt-aholics out there.

Kaldrys.1978:

Why does it matter so much how other players play the game? Every time one of these farms comes up most of the toxicity arises when people intentionally antagonize the farmers. Why are you there in the first place if you have no interest in farming? I’m not gonna buy LS as an excuse since “usual toxicity” implies regular attendance.

I don’t think one can so easily make excuses for bad behavior. If I want to complete a event chain in accordance with how it was designed and I’m being verbally abused to go on and say I shouldn’t even be there isn’t a solution and frankly very much a support of toxic behavior. Here’s a practical real world example, not matter how angry someone makes me I’m not aloud to hit them. In game we can see something similar, no matter how angry someone makes me, I’m not aloud to verbally abuse them.

Encadi.1672:

I agree with this remove champions from events

I think it indicates an underlying issue with difficulty scaling since frankly looking at the size of most of these zergs adding champs doesn’t add to the difficulty. Also it discourages solo or small group play but that’s another topic. Moving champ loot to the end of the event and tying it to event success is one solution, although I’d also prefer ANet look at adding more interesting mechanics that actually introduces some difficulty for the zerg and thus at least makes them somewhat earn the rewards.

Aenesthesia.1697:

I am not denying your right to finish the quest. As i said, the problem is that your gameplay collides with others’. You can try to move to another server, you can wait for anet to repair this mess, or you can troll all the people trying to make the event fail. You can even go and uninstall the game but i doubt you will, because you must be enjoying this game if you are still playing it, and a minor setback like people farming one event should not be enough if you haven’t quit yet (there have been worse things).

I think you’re misunderstanding the point of this thread… a clear issue (which you yourself admit to, that of players not being able to complete event) is pointed out and a possible solution is proposed too, a solution that attempts to keep both parties happy at that. Forgive me if I’m misunderstanding you but so far in this thread you’ve you’ve primarily just justified how one can entitle themselves the right to verbally abuse someone else, and not making a single meaningful contribution as to how the problem could be solved other than everyone whose being inconvenience to just ‘suck it up’ and let the farmers farm.

rathy.2075:

What have you done with the initial story.

Me? I haven’t done anything!
Although I guess you’re referring to ANet… but yeah story’s messed up. ANet knows, hopefully they’ll do something about it.