Guild Wars 2

theguildless.1386:

About beacons:

Based off two existing features (finishers and influence participation rules), guilds could unlock finisher-like animations to be displayed at specific times during active play. These could appear…

In dungeons / fractals

• At a specific location at the end of a successful path/fractal
• Upon killing any champion and/or legendary type mob

In open world PvE

• Upon killing any champion and/or legendary type mob
• Upon completion of meta events

In WvW

• At captured sentries, camps and fortifications in some way (either a lingering effect or perhaps whenever the sentry or lord enters combat)
• As a lingering effect upon a dolyak’s death until it spawns again
  
  In sPvP
• Upon tournament win (I have no idea where it’d be displayed though)

In WvW and sPvP, this could take a different form like giving key NPCs a unique-looking model.

Triggering the animation

These animation would be displayed in a way inspired by the current influence rules; a set number of players would be required to trigger them. This has a major flaw in non-instanced areas, however. Perhaps the animation of the guild with the most member present upon event completion could be the one chosen.

Acquisition

Guilds could start out with a basic animation similar to the Guild Finisher and could upgrade its visuals or acquire new ones through different means, such as:

• Guild Reward Tracks covering all game modes, their progress being tied to completing content with multiple guild members (the same as the trigger rule above) and/or tied to completion of guild activities.
• Upgraded Guild Hall tiers, i.e. unlocking existing and future architecture/politics/etc. milestones

This rough idea requires a lot more thought. The one thing I want to underline here is to have players be active in the game in order to show off their guild’s progression. Doing a dungeon and realizing “Whoa! I’m actually running with a super sPvP guild tonight!” or being in WvW and hearing “Guild XYZ is at it again — we keep losing our yaks and camps!” (though this already happens) would be quite neat I believe.

edit: Please do not mind my username. I do have guild content’s interests at heart!

The finisher already exists (while bugged and you have to buy it with gems :S). However how is any of this guild-hall related? That is what I am missing here. When we talk about beacons and guild-halls I see it as how do you involve or make your guild-hall visible even if it’s not in the open world.

DarkWasp.7291:

Surbrus.6942:

Perhaps even give upgrades to allow for “free” hair style kit usage within this designated area as well. You would actually have to spend the charges/hair style kit to keep the look outside this designated area.

I would be ALL for this, yet I wouldn’t mind seeing discount advantages added too. And this is coming from a player who has an account-bound perma hairstyle kit already.

I’ve always thought that changing cosmetics should always be affordable in MMOs. So if some sort of individual guild member earned currency were added, sort of a return on the Influence we’ve been earning for our guild, that would be neat.

That self-earned currency (possibly with a guild upgradable earning rate) would allow members to spend as an alternative to things like transmutation charges and hair styles.

That’s just my added brainstorming. Not to be seen as a condition or criticism to your idea.

True, this game needs a barber.

VodCom.6924:

Devata.6589:

About Progression, of all what I have seen I still think collecting / unlocking blue-prints in the world (no influence, no gold) and build, customize and add functions your guild-hall with the help of them still seems like the most interesting and engaging way of progression.

It would also solve the big guild / small guild issue because you could easily lock stuff you think any guild should have access to behind content easy doable for smaller guilds. (like a dungeon path)

When you are talking about progression, it is about the visuals of the GH, the functionnalities or both ?
Because it can become easy to lock stuff behind challenges that are possible only for large guilds (eg. hosting tequatl), which brings back the inital problem.

I am talking about all. The way I see it the most basic stuff you really want every guild to have you can lock behind a little influence (so you starter guild-hall with a guild-bank and so on). But after that the rest you lock in the game.

And yes it’s possible to lock stuff behind things smaller guilds can’t do. But then make sure you don’t do that with stuff you want all guilds to have access to. Unlocking a huge tower in the form of Tequatl (as an example) can easy be locked behind a guild having to start Teq and then he needs to be defeated. A small guild might then never be able to get that tower but that should not be a big problem.

Lock a portal to LA after completing all dungeons paths of Arah with only guild-members. Even small guilds can do that. (Just examples here)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conski Deshan.2057:

@Chris,

Could we take a look at the other end of the spectrum with guildhalls at some point. I know everyone wants to make sure small guilds get in on the fun and I think we have that in order.
I would like to know how guilds are going to stand out, you have 100 guilds with 100 guild halls how do you stand out? What rare/difficult content stuff could you have? what sort of unlocks would this give? What would you do to ensure there are “prestige” rewards for guildhalls in each area of the game? How would you ensure they remain rare and don’t become a fixture in every guild hall?

If people have a problem with skill being the lockout for the high end stuff how would they gate it instead? Bare in mind that anything that doesn’t act as a Y/N* barrier would eventually be overcome/gained by a large amount of guilds.

*(Pass/fail , you either succeed completely and get the reward or you fail and get nothing, tokens , or partial gain would lead to oversaturation)

Yep let’s focus on this for a while and discuss progression of a Guild Hall.

Chris

Note this also includes Beacon mechanics.

Chris

P.S: I am in content reviews all day so it will be hard for me to catch up until tomorrow morning.

I’m not 100% sure how to see beacon’s. But the whole air-ship idea, instanced or not. If you where to see fly over one of those guild-hall air-ships (animated, not that the guild really did fly over) would that be a type of beacon you talk about?

Yep a Beacon mechanic is a way to show of your guild and its progress.

Chris

Ah ok. in that case, if the guild-halls would be a sort of air-ships what I just said might be an option, else I think Retro’s idea https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/first#post4454383 is also a nice option. When having instanced guild-halls in mind.

Personally I think the guild-hall should be what represent the guild. (when talking about guild-halls).

About Progression, of all what I have seen I still think collecting / unlocking blue-prints in the world (no influence, no gold) and build, customize and add functions your guild-hall with the help of them still seems like the most interesting and engaging way of progression.

It would also solve the big guild / small guild issue because you could easily lock stuff you think any guild should have access to behind content easy doable for smaller guilds. (like a dungeon path)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conski Deshan.2057:

@Chris,

Could we take a look at the other end of the spectrum with guildhalls at some point. I know everyone wants to make sure small guilds get in on the fun and I think we have that in order.
I would like to know how guilds are going to stand out, you have 100 guilds with 100 guild halls how do you stand out? What rare/difficult content stuff could you have? what sort of unlocks would this give? What would you do to ensure there are “prestige” rewards for guildhalls in each area of the game? How would you ensure they remain rare and don’t become a fixture in every guild hall?

If people have a problem with skill being the lockout for the high end stuff how would they gate it instead? Bare in mind that anything that doesn’t act as a Y/N* barrier would eventually be overcome/gained by a large amount of guilds.

*(Pass/fail , you either succeed completely and get the reward or you fail and get nothing, tokens , or partial gain would lead to oversaturation)

Yep let’s focus on this for a while and discuss progression of a Guild Hall.

Chris

Note this also includes Beacon mechanics.

Chris

P.S: I am in content reviews all day so it will be hard for me to catch up until tomorrow morning.

I’m not 100% sure how to see beacon’s. But the whole air-ship idea, instanced or not. If you where to see fly over one of those guild-hall air-ships (animated, not that the guild really did fly over) would that be a type of beacon you talk about?

Iason Evan.3806:

So you are concerned with larger guilds feeling “punished” but the current game totally punishes small guilds. Example: There are quite a few large guilds with over 2 million influence and more right now. They could run a week’s worth of Karka Queen and not even notice their Influence drop. Small guilds can’t even run it once a month. I am not saying it should take longer for a large guild to earn this stuff. I am saying that large and small guilds should earn upgrades at the same pace.

I think people have it so ingrained in their minds from previous games that guild stuff has to be a grind that they lose sight of the fact that the leveling curve in this game is flat so why can’t the guild curve be the same? 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.

I agree that the current system is bad but “I am saying that large and small guilds should earn upgrades at the same pace.” is very unfair. If you have 500 people working towards something it makes sense that they get stuff much faster then if you have 5 people. As long as every guild can get the basic elements they need it’s fine.

Making the stuff better or more beautiful or unlock all gadgets is then something a bigger guild can easier do and there is nothing wrong with that.

CureForLiving.5360:

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.

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…

The air-ship idea was more in the line of the Wizard Tower and Zephyr Sanctum. So it would take away most of the negatives. You could build pretty much what you want and it could still be very big. No issues with pots, the ship would simply despawn when the last guild-member logged out and spawn back again when the first logged in again.

Events in those air-maps like fighting where more like a nice extra.

Iason Evan.3806:

BilboBaggins.5620:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning All,

Due to recent events I must confess that I am only properly knowledgeable up to roughly page 12 but I want to jump in and start discussing things with you. I hope that is ok.

I want to emphasize that my questions, thoughts, and brain storming are theoretical and should not be taken as a given. With that said I want to start at the foundation.

Ok lets assume that in the world of the CDI Guild Halls have a lot of horizontal progression such as the ability to create buildings, upgrade them and customize the whole experience. What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

An idea I wanted to throw into the mix would be could small guilds have a shared Guild Hall with an Alliance?

Chris

I honestly believe that if you don’t want to make it impossible for small guilds to expand, all quality of life components should be fairly easy to get for all guild sizes. Like with the game itself, big coffers and long time spent grinding should be rewarded with cosmetic items.

Large guilds should be able to build large expanses with statuaries and other grand decorations, but the functions of a guild hall should be found in any size guild.

I couldn’t agree more. Merchants, the BLTC, repair vendors etc. should all be fairly easy to get. Making your Hall look “Legendary” should be the grind.

Lets talk about that being the hard work. Not ‘grind’ because it should take take and work but it should not be a boring currency grind like we have already so many of.

munkiman.3068:

ardasica.4531:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Re: “What happens to the alliance guild hall…”

The answer is simple: Alliances as an entity do not get guild halls but rather an instanced place to call home which does not receive upgrades (perhaps aside from cosmetic revisions) and thus nothing is lost if the alliance dissolves for whatever reason.

This doesn’t allow small guilds to work with others in regard to progression of the guild hall though.

Chris

Not necessarily true. I co-run a small guild and while we haven’t attempted guild missions or anything, we do pretty good for ourselves. We had a small guild in GW1 and were still able to kit out our hall with everything.

Small guilds are not incapable of doing things in the game to build out a guild hall if the requirements are set forth that way. If the guild has to raise a set fee to purchase the hall and then pay out for other additions, they could do so. They may not get it done as quickly as the larger guilds but it could be done.

I’m on the fence about alliance halls. While I think they have potential benefits, I am leery of how the politics would work if the alliance hall was customizable. I think it is necessary for it to be instanced but have limited custom features in it. Most of the custom options, be it NPCs or decorations should be with the guild halls.

Why do you think that it would be a hurdle for small guilds to work together. If multiple guilds want to take on a guild mission for a single guild, the alliance hall is a place to meet. It is a lot easier than trying to do it on a PvE map or central city.

I think we can all agree small guilds need some help, but let me introduce them to a way to “support” the small guilds via alliances (not my idea but i love it) Guild sponsors (i wish this forum had a better search function). I known at least in some (maybe many cases) transferring excess influence and merits to smaller guilds would be a really nice feature of alliances. Balance on Arenas side however might be a problem.

I suggested donating influence to smaller guilds in the QoL thread but more as a convenience to help out friendly guilds.

The problem with guild-halls is that a guild then would need to have a befriended guild who would want to help them out.

Besides you should really wonder if the guild-hall and all the upgrades should be based on influenced. Pressing a button and waiting for a new upgrade. Much more boring it can not get while so much more is possible. The pro’s of most other options (like collecting the blue-prints in the world) are also that small guilds can do it and it give guilds also more to do in the world.

Influence is the least creative and inspirational way of doing this.

I just remembered that there was in fact a summarize made before:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/7#post4459255
and I think there was even a small follow up on this one a few pages later, not 100% sure about that.

Khisanth.2948:

Arewn.2368:

Airship halls above zones strikes me as useless. From the ground, the ships would be indistinguishable from the airships floating above Orr. That is to say there would be no difference whether it was an actual player’s ship or some random NPC that floats by. From the ships, the ground would be indistinguishable from a backdrop that matches the zone it’s supposed to be over. All this does is limited the “type” of guild hall you can make to being variations of Airships, instead of Castles/Airships/Lodges/etc that you could otherwise have available. Edit: just saw your post on this matter, your suggestion makes the whole “it’s above the zone” idea even more pointless, it would be completely and utterly indistinguishable from the ground. It might as well just be a sky instance with a backdrop that looks like “insert zone here”.

Thanks for writing all thatt. Saves me from having to write them!

As for the airships they also have an inherent space issue. The biggest airship we see in the game is the pact ship we fight on at the end of Arah story mode and even that one is relatively small. I would expect the guild hall space to be at least as large as the citadel in the WvW borderland maps.

If people really need a way to show off their guild halls it could be added as a segment to the Points of Interest show. “Guild Halls Showcase” or whatever.

While the idea of zeppelins was also thrown around the air-ship idea was more in realm of Zephyr Sanctum http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr_Sanctum and the Wizard’s Tower http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower was is both much bigger and the Citadel would likely fit in there.

JonPeters.5630:

I’m definitely pushing to have us work on some detailed brainstorming of the guild upgrade system. Here is a very short summary of discussion thus far:

Maybe we don’t need real upgrades as in tiers. Sure unlock a few basics like a guild-back, repair-guy, guild-vendor.

But let us build (and so in that manner) build the rest of the guild-hall the what we like to see it. If the basic center is delivered thats enough.. There be no need to upgrade that.

Put blue-prints in the game (and so forget about influence) that we can use to build the rest of the guild-hall the way we like it. Then that is a way of ‘upgrading’ your guild-hall.

Just upgrading your guild-hall with multiple tiers (like WvW keeps) is not very creative or inspirational. It would then be clicking a few buttons in your guild-window waiting a few weeks and oow look there is our fully upgraded guild-hall. It can and should be so much more.

VodCom.6924:

Devata.6589:

About the connecting guild-halls. Have a look at this suggestion from Retro on page 1.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/first#post4454383

Is anybody managing a new thread to summarize this CDI-topic ?

If not, do you mind if I start one ? I’m starting to get lost.

Uhhm.. not sure why you are asking me. But I think everybody would appreciate it if there could be a good summarize of this CDI. And no there is none at this moment.

Edit: I just remembered we did have a summarize before: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/7#post4459255

Baltzenger.2467:

Devata.6589:

Baltzenger.2467:

While doing some research, I found something interesting that is happening on TERA korea.

http://vimeo.com/103889876

I think some of the things shown in that video resemble many of our ideas, specially what we discussed about Airships. Food for Thought.

Hmm I wonder if the person who came up with that idea had it from TERA. Nonetheless, it even more so underlines what I was saying to munkiman. Whatever Anet comes with needs to be able to compete with all these competitors.

Imho that means that if you down one element (liken open world) then you have to up another (like building but that can also be something else).

A basic guild-hall with some tier upgrading system and maybe some basic customization will not be able to compete with those competitors, it would be the lesser system.

But thats my personal view on things.

Well, to be fair, what is shown in the video is still on development, and will be released on korea only, so I don’t think so, also, Airships are kind of a thing in GW2. Not that I care if someone saw something on another game and suggested it here, in my opinion, you have to look everywhere, and take the best from it.

Haha that was not meant as a negative. I was just wondering because it’s so closed to that initial suggestion. You are right, you have to look everywhere.

About the connecting guild-halls. Have a look at this suggestion from Retro on page 1.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/first#post4454383

Baltzenger.2467:

While doing some research, I found something interesting that is happening on TERA korea.

http://vimeo.com/103889876

I think some of the things shown in that video resemble many of our ideas, specially what we discussed about Airships. Food for Thought.

Hmm I wonder if the person who came up with that idea had it from TERA. Nonetheless, it even more so underlines what I was saying to munkiman. Whatever Anet comes with needs to be able to compete with all these competitors.

Imho that means that if you down one element (liken open world) then you have to up another (like building but that can also be something else).

A basic guild-hall with some tier upgrading system and maybe some basic customization will not be able to compete with those competitors, it would be the lesser system.

But thats my personal view on things.

munkiman.3068:

Devata.6589:

Just wondering. How open world guild-halls are of the table. Is building your own guild-hall as well? So are we basically back to the most basic idea of an instance with an guild-hall that you can upgrade with different tiers (much like in WvW) and maybe decorate a little?

Or is building your guild-halls still on the table.

I still envision Arena giving us the assets and “some” customize ability, similar to halls in the original and combined with something similar to HoM. I just don’t see a sandbox with an editor and all that stuff working very well.

Sure I expect some customize ability but is ‘some’ enough. We are in 2014 and whatever GW2 will come will needs to be able to compete with what their competitors have to offer or else they might have a 2 year old MMO that is getting surpassed by there competitors (of what some are even older). Maybe there engine can not handle it but that would be a problem.

Just wondering. How open world guild-halls are of the table. Is building your own guild-hall as well? So are we basically back to the most basic idea of an instance with an guild-hall that you can upgrade with different tiers (much like in WvW) and maybe decorate a little?

Or is building your guild-halls still on the table.

VodCom.6924:

On the topic of guild visibility in the open world.

How about recruiting boards ?

The recruiting board could be located close to the guild bank NPCs in the cities. Allows players to see which guild are recruiting and what are their level of requirement. Add a filter function that include “proportion of people from your server”; “size”; “sPvP, WvW, PvE, PvX centered guild” etc…

This “upgrade” should be purchasable under the category of “politics” for a small cost in influence.

I did suggest that in the QoL topic.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Logistics-and-QOL/page/14#post4413660

Just not sure if ot really fits in the guild-hall discussion.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tryxtr.6295:

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

Instanced versus Open World
Instanced makes perfect sense because it will take way less effort to implement, avoids a lot of the player cap issues and completely avoids the problem of the open world becoming cluttered. Open world guild halls could be amazing in certain scenarios, but realistically I think it would be too much work to implement them.
note: I will admit that walking through Lornar’s Pass, for example, and seeing this huge towering structure built into the mountains would be a very impressive sight

Alliance Guild Halls
I think that having an actual hall for guild alliances would be a mistake, for all the same reasons as everybody else has already mentioned. It would make for a messy divorce. However, I think that building a “bridge” between guild halls that would allow guilds that have an alliance to visit each others Halls, or a large area that specifically exists so the 2 guilds can mingle, would be an excellent compromise and would present no issues whatsoever. If the alliance ever fell apart the “bridge” or auditorium-style room would simply disappear.

Minimum Size of guilds
People are suggesting that a 1 or 2 person guild should have access to a guild hall as well, but my question is “why would they need a guild hall?” They won’t have anybody to talk to, it wouldn’t increase a sense of community, they can’t really GvG (1v1 I guess, but they can do that in PvP or WvW), and the other “stuff” (ie crafting stations, etc) can be found in the open world.

Suggestion to Devs
I think it would be extremely helpful if the devs could constrain our brainstorming a little bit by making a decision on a few key areas, such as instanced -vs- open world and minimum size. That would help streamline the conversation a little. I would also suggest starting an entirely new thread once a couple concrete decisions are made.

Lots of amazing ideas so far and there’s a lot of potential here.

I was just thinking about this and then i read your post. This might not be a popular driving function (and I apologize Devata this is nothing personal and I really appreciate your input in the CDI’s) but I would like us (for the sake of focusing the discussion) to move away from Open World Guild Hall discussion.

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

I do however want us to continue to talk about some of the benefits open world brings. For example how could we still keep some of the cool Guild ‘Beacon’ mechanics etc (And by Beacon I mean ways for the guild to express their personality and progression)

Chris

Ok fair enough.

Keysha.2815:

What about a zone just for guild halls? Then it can have the open world feel, but not be all over the map. I just think guild halls all over would be intrusive. Especially for those who don’t do much with them. Experience says that if you open the world to building, people will drop buildings right where they start. Or in the most intrusive places possible.

And I do not like the idea of airships. I’d rather have buildings, where we can have a large room to see everyone at once.

The air-ship idea was more in the way of a floating piece of (transparent) ground where you can then guild whatever you like. That include large rooms. To get an idea what people where talking about see Zephyr Sanctum http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr_Sanctum and Wizard’s Tower http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower .

Arewn.2368:

Snip for space.
~

Airship halls above zones strikes me as useless. From the ground, the ships would be indistinguishable from the airships floating above Orr. That is to say there would be no difference whether it was an actual player’s ship or some random NPC that floats by. From the ships, the ground would be indistinguishable from a backdrop that matches the zone it’s supposed to be over. All this does is limited the “type” of guild hall you can make to being variations of Airships, instead of Castles/Airships/Lodges/etc that you could otherwise have available. Edit: just saw your post on this matter, your suggestion makes the whole “it’s above the zone” idea even more pointless, it would be completely and utterly indistinguishable from the ground. It might as well just be a sky instance with a backdrop that looks like “insert zone here”.

I would think in the center there is always the emblem and what you build around it forms the shape of your guild-hall meaning they would be distinguishable of course not as good as if you where in the sky-map itself. But that’s a trade-off for how intrusive they are. The better you see them from the ground the more intrusive they are.

Something like GvG would indeed be harder, events not. Dragons fly in the air so you might be able to attack them from your air-ship. Also living story wise you could use them as they even fit into the current story going on where a air-ship the Zephyr Sanctum has crashed.

In fact I think it would lent itself more to interact with the living story patches and dynamic events then instanced guild-halls would. How would you see that in a closed instanced environment? And lets say you would put big events in that instance is that what you want? Then people are playing the game each in their own instance.

And the GvG well if you let people build it them-self no indeed then that would not work. Still for the sky-map / open world it would be unrelated. Lets say you don’t let people build guild-halls them-self you can have air-ships then can dock and both form half of the GvG playground.

But seeing them in the sky was only an option to give it a nice extra touch (a nice gimmick), feel it being more part of the world. Not much more then that. The docking into a map somebody suggested was more mend to be a way to really interact with those maps.

Blaeys.3102:

While there is some novelty to the idea of open world guild halls, I think – from a practical perspective – that the limits it would place on potential design, flexibility (particularly the ability to link with other guilds for GvG) and expansion potential make instanced halls the logical choice.

Not so much a problem for the air-ships who you could be able to link to each other.
But when you let people build there own guild-halls you would indeed have a problem with GvG, you could not do it like in GW1. So that would require the GvG area to be separated from the guild-halls while if you would not let people build it them-self you could use a system like in GW1.

The airship idea btw was more a floating plot where you could build your own thing. So it would not be a themed guild hall at all. You design your own theme. The well designed standard model you talk about is also build in a theme (or selection of themes) and there you have no impact on it except for maybe choosing one of the themes.

- Guild Mission Control Room (with possible missions INSIDE the guild hall)
How about a control-room where you can also see things visualized like what is active but maybe also a guild calendar?

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

Arewn.2368:

Devata.6589:

And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-:

But why?

That is a much more important question. It’s Anet who talks about a living and breeding world. Open world guild-halls (and housing) that people can build them-self will be able to do that. Even more so then dynamic events and the living world.

An instance makes is less interesting and more put away, in addition it’s out of the game in a way, or better said it’s out of the game-world.

I very strongly urge you to actually go try Archeage, which has open world housing as a primary feature.
tldr; it can be an absolute nightmare, and in practice the only real benefit is “oh look, I can see some random guy’s house/some random guy can see my house”, and “haha I ganked you on your farm” (in Archeage’s case, it’s an open world pvp game).
Unless Anet can guarantee a plot per player, it’s going to cause some pretty ugly situations and some very jaded players. And they’d likely have to do so without introducing vast expanses of open space, or cluttering the normal maps’ skies with airships that people have to render, if they want it to look any kind of reasonable.
When you’ve spent a week looking for a plot, any plot, to build on to no avail, or when your beautiful house gets neighbors that block out your nice view or build something that aesthetically looks like trash to you and clashes with your house, you get a lot less enthusiastic about the “open world” part of housing.

Instanced housing/guild halls that can have some sort of interaction with outside forces (gvg being a popular one, but it could include other things like the ability to make the hall open to the public and having events within) would, I feel, be far more conductive to community interaction while circumventing the real estate issues entirely.

I’ll say it again for anyone on the side of “open world housing”. Go try Archeage and see what Open World Housing is actually like in practice. I’m not saying it’s entirely bad, but a reality check on what it actually entails in practice is always a good thing.

Completely agree. Open World Guild Halls are yuck

They can be yuck, they don’t have to be yuck I would think.

But a better question, how do you know instance would not be yuck?

Anyway I was asked to go check it myself. I did see it before but if somebody ask you then you should do that (again) I guess.

So I just did go again have a look how open world self building guild-halls would look like. (Not AA)
And some screenshots:
http://oi58.tinypic.com/15owfva.jpg
http://i59.tinypic.com/2gumpmu.jpg
http://i60.tinypic.com/wryzv6.jpg
http://i61.tinypic.com/2n1z05c.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/2cnw0hi.jpg
http://i59.tinypic.com/2bs4dv.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/dnbo0n.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/w7oeqb.jpg
http://i58.tinypic.com/3304pat.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/1zxno6x.jpg
http://i58.tinypic.com/2v7zzp5.jpg

That was the first building I came across and was even build in a guild-hall way.
So maybe we have a different definition of yuck. However I would think if you have an open world guild-halls that people can build them-self and do that in a smart way there will be yuck buildings and they will be great building but they should not bother you and they will make the world feel more alive. Also finally we get the impact on the world Anet has been talking about for over 2 years.

Arewn.2368:

Devata.6589:

And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-:

But why?

That is a much more important question. It’s Anet who talks about a living and breeding world. Open world guild-halls (and housing) that people can build them-self will be able to do that. Even more so then dynamic events and the living world.

An instance makes is less interesting and more put away, in addition it’s out of the game in a way, or better said it’s out of the game-world.

I very strongly urge you to actually go try Archeage, which has open world housing as a primary feature.
tldr; it can be an absolute nightmare, and in practice the only real benefit is “oh look, I can see some random guy’s house/some random guy can see my house”, and “haha I ganked you on your farm” (in Archeage’s case, it’s an open world pvp game).
Unless Anet can guarantee a plot per player, it’s going to cause some pretty ugly situations and some very jaded players. And they’d likely have to do so without introducing vast expanses of open space, or cluttering the normal maps’ skies with airships that people have to render, if they want it to look any kind of reasonable.
When you’ve spent a week looking for a plot, any plot, to build on to no avail, or when your beautiful house gets neighbors that block out your nice view or build something that aesthetically looks like trash to you and clashes with your house, you get a lot less enthusiastic about the “open world” part of housing.

Instanced housing/guild halls that can have some sort of interaction with outside forces (gvg being a popular one, but it could include other things like the ability to make the hall open to the public and having events within) would, I feel, be far more conductive to community interaction while circumventing the real estate issues entirely.

I’ll say it again for anyone on the side of “open world housing”. Go try Archeage and see what Open World Housing is actually like in practice. I’m not saying it’s entirely bad, but a reality check on what it actually entails in practice is always a good thing.

I did and I did check out Landmark as well. And sure is had some hurdles to overcome but it also has some big pro’s. Seeing homes / buildings pop up, seeing people building them, getting resources there, seeing that complete build process does make the world feel much more alive and it also gives those people much more of a goal to work towards.

However you are correct that is at the same time has possible negative effects and looking at those I do think the sky-map approach would solve most of them in a pretty easy way.

But even if you would not go for something like sky-maps, the negatives like a guy builds something next to you that you do not like is also exactly what makes it feel that bid more alive. Then you can move to another plot and so the world keeps changing.

Also in AA people can just build from a selected few models, they can not really build the homes them-self. They can do that a little more with the guild-castles but it’s still very limited. I think Anet could take that a step further really letting you build your guild-hall yourself where there are models for walls and so on that you can place together to build your own guild-hall.

Not as far as Landmark btw what is almost like a 3D design game.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

“Well the sky-map idea was similar to the mist but it would be more ‘open word’ because you are there together with all the other guild halls and see them all.”

I personally am not sure I would want to see them honestly. It sounds immersion breaking and I even tend to avoid Lion’s Arch and use Divinity’s Reach instead so as to avoid player types I would rather not encounter. Why would I want to see those types near the community I enjoy being with?

I understand that in certain games that’s an awesome idea. Sandbox games that are about that kind of thing. But GW2 isn’t a sandbox.

However, there’s certainly room for compromise. In SWTOR’s new housing a person can choose to make their stronghold public or not public. Which would seem to make everyone happy.

I have a feeling you think it would mean those ships would be flying over pretty close. The idea however was that the sky-map would be a separate instance but send some information to the maps so if you where in the map you could see the guild-hall airships very very high in the sky, not something you ‘encounter’ like it bing in your face.

This should not be very intrusive to the maps itself. And I don’t know if it would be immersion breaking because the lore already has the story with the Zephyr Sanctum.

While there have been some talk about the ability for an airship to also dock in those maps. That would of course do what you would not want.

Or maybe I do not understand how you mean it would be something you would try to not encounter.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

Devata.6589:

Well thanks for understanding what I was talking about.

And yes many of the things you now mentioned are indeed in favor of instances. I only wonder why you think deeper customization would only be possible in an instance?

And I completely agree that different guilds should be ale to build different themed guild-halls. Lets say unlocks work with blue-prints that unlock as drops or something like that. I would for example expect those more war like skins / items to drop or be rewarded in WvW or PvP while the more asura ones would be rewarded in asura area. In that way any guild can build what he wants.

They can even mix things.

The WoW way does also not seem ideal to me.. I mean you could get a better system then just unlocking tiers and being able to decide where to build place a what building.

“How much fluff should it have versus how much game play function?” I think placing the fluff as drops / unlocks in the world means a guild-hall can give guilds more game-play in the game.

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. Unless guild halls are a separate thing out in the Mists, where you’d basically be “instanced” off anyway.

Customization should trump open world if there is a conflict, this isn’t an open world sandbox anyway. And seeing the guild hall of “Uber looter Dudz” doesn’t make it feel like a Living World to me.

I am 100% behind having different themes however, and getting “blueprints” and decorations for those themes in areas of the world it makes sense thematically to get them. And I’m all for a reason for a guild to go out into the world together.

However, if it works anything like the very grindy Collections system, I’d be against that. Not that there couldn’t be some hard-to-get grindy rewards, but that’s pretty much all the Collections system was, which has made it a great disappointment so far. I hope nothing in the guild halls unlock system works like: “Buy all these items you don’t want off the TP to get one item you do want.”

Well the sky-map idea was similar to the mist but it would be more ‘open word’ because you are there together with all the other guild halls and see them all.

About the way of collecting them. No I agree most stuff should unlock in pretty clear ways that does not feel like a grind. Just boss x rewards this, path 1 of dungeon x rewards that all paths rewards something else.

That said, some RNG drops would not be bad imho and they would likely drop while you ware working towards one of those specific ones.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Then move the conversation forward.

Right we’ve had lots of talk about all the inclusive stuff and low end play. New question:
What stuff is there going to be at the high end?
What items/structures/skins do you see for advanced play and top guilds?
How should we determine what play is the skilled play and therefore worthy of extra rewards?
How do you show that your guild and guild hall is the best darn guild there is?
And the problem that I have difficulty answering: How do you gate the PvP and WvW unlocks as currently there’s no way to distinguish the good from the bad?

What would you unlock? Well it depends. You you building your guild-hall yourself or have a predefined guild-hall and only put stuff in it?

And unlocking it basically in ways that make sense. I think I gave an example of portals. Something like have a claim on a WvW keep to unlock the portal to that WvW map.

Unlocking a wall for your guild-hall in WvW style might be a possible drop in WvW or you unlock it for destroying x walls or repairing x walls. Stuff like that.

And how to show it. Well that again depends on if it’s build yourself. If so there might not be the one best unlock but there is the guild who designed / build the best looking one and that could just as well be a small guild.

CureForLiving.5360:

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.

I agree. One problem I however came with is that if you let people build there own guild-halls. What is inside? And how do you force an inside if you even want to force that. I mean, you could build a small forest as guild-hall if you could build the guild-hall yourself. A forest however does not have a door you walk into. However it sure would have it’s benefits if the outside would be open world but the inside would be an instance.

However especially if you have some pre build rooms (like a ritual room like you talk about here) that would be a good solution.

Donari.5237:

In response to https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/18#post4470072

I understand your frustration. I think the point in a CDI where the same things keep being said is the point where it’s time to narrow down the discussion. But in this case I’m still seeing new commentary, thanks in part to Jon and Chris’ injected questions, and some new approaches to solutions. To me, we’re not yet moving backwards or wearing circular ruts; those who post things that truly have been hashed out can just be left alone to catch up while the new phase of dialogue proceeds.

I left out a repeat of my assumed instance benefits because I’ve stated it several times in this thread and others, and figured you already knew my stance since you have been reading and passionately participating. Since you ask, though:

Infinite space to accommodate all the guilds. Permanence so when you come back after six months away everything is exactly where you left it. Deeper customization. Less load on everyone’s clients to render (ok, that one I didn’t say before). More aesthetic settings (I’m thinking like LotRO’s neighborhoods, scaled up and more customizable, with only guild members able to control space in the neighborhood). The ability to have something that is more than one building – calling it a “hall” doesn’t mean it has to literally be one. More ability to expand.

I’m very keen on airships, and they seem best suited to doing what you want. I just find myself shying away from airships being the only choice. When I saw videos of WoW’s intended housing I found myself glad I wasn’t there any more – just because some people like the idea of building up a fortress and “customizing” it by adding more barracks and higher walls, doesn’t mean everyone finds that to their taste. Some of us want cozier settings, or non-military ones. Just as some guilds would rather have a stately manse or a spiraling set of pods up a tree or a large tavern with a lot of floors.

I guess the focus in all that depends on the functions intended for a guild hall. Is it a home or is it an office meeting space? How much fluff should it have versus how much game play function? Is it for bragging rights or for privacy? Preferred answers to those questions lie behind almost every post in this thread. Hopefully the final design philosophy will incorporate the various approaches and let each guild tilt their hall to the factors that matter most to them.

Well thanks for understanding what I was talking about.

And yes many of the things you now mentioned are indeed in favor of instances. I only wonder why you think deeper customization would only be possible in an instance?

And I completely agree that different guilds should be ale to build different themed guild-halls. Lets say unlocks work with blue-prints that unlock as drops or something like that. I would for example expect those more war like skins / items to drop or be rewarded in WvW or PvP while the more asura ones would be rewarded in asura area. In that way any guild can build what he wants.

They can even mix things.

The WoW way does also not seem ideal to me.. I mean you could get a better system then just unlocking tiers and being able to decide where to build place a what building.

“How much fluff should it have versus how much game play function?” I think placing the fluff as drops / unlocks in the world means a guild-hall can give guilds more game-play in the game.

JonPeters.5630:

munkiman.3068:

Devata.6589:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Devata.6589:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

~

~

~

The common theme with open world is the ability to go anywhere as you please. Thus the keyword “open.” It’s all one big instance without restrictions. To lock non guild members out makes it not ‘open world’ anymore, as the hall becomes its own instance. It’s own map. Similar to crossing from Queensdale to Kessex, for example. Open world guild halls (at least to me) would be much closer to how the lodges function in Hoelbrak.

I’m not sure on the airship proposal. I’m not keen on air ships to be honest. But, that’s just my perspective on it.

Open world means your guild hall is in the open world. That does not mean that there are no restrictions and it does also not mean everybody can get inside it. But everybody could walk or fly past in.

You know just like in real life your house is in the open world but you can’t build everywhere you like and the door prevents unwanted people from getting in.

Basically, my vote is a no. There is an expectation to guild halls IMO, that it’s a private place for Guilds to gather, especially on top of it issues with megaservers and population. As discussed already, what is the population cap of a guild hall? 150-200-400? Right now open world won’t hold much more than 150 people in most cases and we are talking about server plots on maps that are capable of holding something like 1000 players or more?

I’d also like to see Guild halls mapped out like they were in GW, where you had 2 sides (2 structures) that supported GvG, which isn’t possible in an open world scenario. I’m of the mind that you solve every issue discussed by just making them an instance, besides boring and showing off.

Devata,

I don’t want to call you out, but because you are such a strong proponent for open world, what kind of systems, tied to guild halls would you like to see to help gain some of the benefits that you feel make open world so compelling.

P.S. I agree that open world is super compelling, but also feel like in an already live game you can see both the resistance you are going to get from existing players and the difficulties you will have to overcome of decisions made in the past.

Jon

Oow I am a strong proponent for open but the frustration that is obviously visible here on my part is more that to me it feels like a thread does not move forward if you anybody ignores older suggestions. And don’t get me wrong. Forward does NOT have to mean open world.

But if a reaction is.. Instance because there is no space in the open world I do feel the need to point out there have been made multiple suggestion that would allow for open world without that problem. To go forward it would have to be, instance because of new reason or a reason that has no solution or solution x is not good because. Or at least that how I think about it.

And why I feel like open-world would be the reason. A short list.

- More immersive then walking into a portal and loading in.

- Building the guild-hall would give more pride and so more reason to go for it.

- It gives guilds much more a place in the world. An instance feels like.. well an instance. A separate thing.

- It makes the world more the feeling of a living world / you have an impact on the world. Exactly what Anet advertises the game with, that living breathing world players have an impact on. You seeing people building there own guild-halls, changing it. The world literally changes in a way that living story updates can’t. If you have open world guild-halls that people build them self that will change on a daily base and really done by the players. If it would be the air-ship you would see them flying over. That all makes it feel more alive.

Events spin in circles so don’t give that same effect of you impacting the world. The living story go’s on also without players participating. But if you 1 build your own guild-hall / homes / other things and 2 do that in the open world then you have a real impact on the world like the game advertises.

- Lastly it fits better with the hole idea of social play. The reason Anet for example did go for open-world-bosses in stead of putting them in an instance and really the hole game is based on that idea (see last Points of Interest: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/on-youtube-points-of-interest-episode-7/). They want players to interact with each other, not hide in instances. While some people might prefer that, it’s not what GW2 is about.

Instanced guild-hall seems to go in against everything GW2 tries to be. A living breeding social world where people interact with each other and have a real impact on the world.

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Devata.6589:

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Devata.6589:

Did you read the thread and know what the air-ship suggestions where about?
Basically the idea whas you could build your own airships and for idea’s of what would be possible see the Wizard’s Tower http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower and the Zephyr Sanctum http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr_Sanctum

In short, yes, I have read the thread…and many ideas that have been listed are fine and actually quite cool…but in perspective…may take a long time in development to get them into the game. Which is why I suggest start small, get the GHs in, get some quick wins with the community, and keep a group(obviously not their only thing) working on new additions to go into GHs say every 2-3 months(some go in automatically, some may need a Guild to “work” toward adding them to their GH). Each small addition could build on the background supporting system development to work up to the big adds that many are suggesting here and get them into the game.

I would expect them keeping adding new stuff to it. But you first do the bulk of work and then start adding stuff, not the other way around.

OK…apparently this is now Devata’s Thread, and I do not fit in with his expectations of contribution.

Chris and Jon, this was a good thread with many good point-counter-point ideas and discussions, but since 1 person has now decided to deride any suggestions, not only mine, that are not in line with what they think should be done, I will no longer add input to this thread.

Good Luck, and I hope more constructive things like this can take place.

Sure, I list up what people did say before because some people maybe don’t read back or missed it or simply ignore it and then I am the bad guy?

Also not sure where I said anybody was not allowed to think differently.

All I am getting frustrated over is seeing the same ‘problems’ being put up while possible solution have been giving for them pages ago. Think about it this way. I am not ignoring your suggestions but maybe you (and with you I do not mean you, you but just in general) are ignoring other people solutions. Not on purpose btw but still.

You like instances and thats fine, and then the question is why? And if you then say for example it go’s faster (what you did in the last post btw) thats a good reason, instance will likely go faster. Or if you say “Because guild halls need to be as big as maps” sure thats not possible in an open world way and there are a few more of these reasons in favor of instances. (That I btw collected in a post a few pages back). And there might be more.

But if you would say “there is no room” then I say, there have been multiple solution given for that pages ago. And no not mine solution. The air-ship / air-map idea was not mine! Now you could say.. I do not like that solution because…. That would also get the discussion going forward. But just coming with the a reason as “there is no room” is ignoring those suggestions made before.

And yes I am now repeating all those things all the time but I did not make it my thread. I just prevent older suggestions from being ignored. Else the discussion will not go forward but backward.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

All good points and this one is very valid:

‘I think, for smaller guilds, the basic bonuses should be obtainable easily. Examples like a guild armorer merchant or something. But the bigger, longer, and higher stuff should stay the bigger and longer. Yes, big guilds will reach it faster than smaller guilds, but that’s the nature of the beast. Bigger guilds are going to get to the bigger and better stuff sooner.’

This is also a very acute point:

‘As for guild alliance halls. They could work, and would be neat. The only issue would be, what happens if the alliance breaks apart? who gets the hall?’

Initial thoughts are that members of the Alliance would each get an instance of the shared guild hall. And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-:

Chris

And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-:

But why?

That is a much more important question. It’s Anet who talks about a living and breeding world. Open world guild-halls (and housing) that people can build them-self will be able to do that. Even more so then dynamic events and the living world.

An instance makes is less interesting and more put away, in addition it’s out of the game in a way, or better said it’s out of the game-world.

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Devata.6589:

Did you read the thread and know what the air-ship suggestions where about?
Basically the idea whas you could build your own airships and for idea’s of what would be possible see the Wizard’s Tower http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower and the Zephyr Sanctum http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr_Sanctum

In short, yes, I have read the thread…and many ideas that have been listed are fine and actually quite cool…but in perspective…may take a long time in development to get them into the game. Which is why I suggest start small, get the GHs in, get some quick wins with the community, and keep a group(obviously not their only thing) working on new additions to go into GHs say every 2-3 months(some go in automatically, some may need a Guild to “work” toward adding them to their GH). Each small addition could build on the background supporting system development to work up to the big adds that many are suggesting here and get them into the game.

I would expect them keeping adding new stuff to it. But you first do the bulk of work and then start adding stuff, not the other way around.

Donari.5237:

Devata, it’s clear you want open world as strongly as I want instanced. However, I can see you’re trying to find ways to fix the many problems that go with open world. To me, there’s so many hurdles to overcome with that and so many benefits to instancing that instancing simply outweighs open world. But if you can devise an open world system with all the benefits of instancing, I shall bow before you.

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. This is a huge no-no to me. There is simply no way to make every open world plot exactly equal in desirability. There will be terrain preferences, views, convenient travel access, zone preferences, and so on. Guilds will take their location into part of their identity (especially role play guilds).

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?

Let me be honest with you.

I have been following the thread from the start so know what has been said. And now new people come in to join the conversation (what is all great) but then they obviously have not read the thread and basically start over at zero. Coming with the same problems that where talked about on page 1 and where multiple people (not just me!) came up with solutions.

I feel we should be moving forward. People suggesting instances is fine but not with reasons / problems that are being solved or has been talked about 10 pages back.

Now it almost seems as if I am the guy here who focusing on this one thing (like you say “you’re trying to find ways to fix the many problems that go with open world.”, no I didn’t, the thread did) but all I am doing here is repeating what has been said over the last 15 pages. What is kinda frustrating.

The conversation does not move forward if people don’t read the thread and then come with problems that have been solved or at least talked about. It seems to be moving backwards.

“But if you can devise an open world system with all the benefits of instancing, I shall bow before you.” What benefits btw? You have talked about difficulties for the open world version, not benefits other then a easy solution to overcome those difficulties.

“you’ve a couple of times mentioned losing the plot and having to find another one. This is a huge no-no to me.” For sky-maps you would not have that problem in the first place. For ground-maps yes it might happen but only if a map became empty (you see, one of the problems talked about where ghost-towns because of empty maps) or if your guild becomes active (thats also why maps can become empty).

Besides what has this to do with instance vs open world? With the instance you also have to settle for the few themes you got (what is likely less the the number of plots there are on a map). So that is then also a huge no-no to you because you might need to settle for a predefined instance theme / map you do not like?

“Do you have a solution that lets a plot be permanent once acquired” Normally (if the guild does not go inactive) it is permanent like I said, only for the very rare occasion a map gets to empty. And with the sky-map solution you would have a flying air-ship so not really a plot so there would never be the fear of loosing a plot.

You see the air-map this was getting popular because it solved nearly all problems.

“doesn’t make guild hall areas into cookie cutter subdivisions in isolated areas” Isolated area’s? Isen’t that how an instance guild-hall feels? Also Airmaps again would not have this problem and even with ground-maps designed for guild-hall it would not have to be like this depending on how you design the map and where you place the plots.

“and makes every site equally “cool” to guilds placing a hall?” Uhhm Airmaps?

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Edgar Doiron.2804:

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

Agreed…but that opens up a whole new can o’worms…lol

Air-ship battles, or events in the airmaps where you fight against dragons and so on. All stuff talked about in the thread.

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Open world guild halls (at least to me) would be much closer to how the lodges function in Hoelbrak.

EXACTLY!

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’m not sure on the airship proposal. I’m not keen on air ships to be honest. But, that’s just my perspective on it.

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…as long as it would fly over stuff and you could look out and see things you’re flying over…maybe “Far-Seerers” mounted along the railings…but that’s a ton of work…a mobile Vista Viewing kinda deal. I’m leaning more toward Ground-Based Guild Halls myself.

Did you read the thread and know what the air-ship suggestions where about?
Basically the idea whas you could build your own airships and for idea’s of what would be possible see the Wizard’s Tower http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower and the Zephyr Sanctum http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr_Sanctum

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Devata.6589:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

‘As for guild alliance halls. They could work, and would be neat. The only issue would be, what happens if the alliance breaks apart? who gets the hall?’

Initial thoughts are that members of the Alliance would each get an instance of the shared guild hall. And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-:

Chris

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. Would be like someone simply wandering into my home without knocking. But, that’s just my take on it.

Now, with each guild getting their own instanced of the previously built “shared” hall, if the guild entered into a new/different alliance would they then lose that, since this different alliance would potentially have their own shared hall? Could they potentially lose all the effort they put into the previously shared hall, or would that effort then translate into the new alliance? (which opens up a whole different selection of issues and potential exploits)

“I wouldn’t necessarily want people wandering into my hall uninvited.”
And why would that be possible in open-world guild-halls?

Especially with doors like in WvW where the guild can set a door only allow guild-members or allow everybody in, or other rules. Whatever they want.

Or guild-hall airships. Maybe you allow gong on to other airships but maybe not. (if the gap between two airships is to big)

That has been given as a solution in this thread.

The common theme with open world is the ability to go anywhere as you please. Thus the keyword “open.” It’s all one big instance without restrictions. To lock non guild members out makes it not ‘open world’ anymore, as the hall becomes its own instance. It’s own map. Similar to crossing from Queensdale to Kessex, for example. Open world guild halls (at least to me) would be much closer to how the lodges function in Hoelbrak.

I’m not sure on the airship proposal. I’m not keen on air ships to be honest. But, that’s just my perspective on it.

Open world means your guild hall is in the open world. That does not mean that there are no restrictions and it does also not mean everybody can get inside it. But everybody could walk or fly past in.

You know just like in real life your house is in the open world but you can’t build everywhere you like and the door prevents unwanted people from getting in.

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

As in other posts…I think the best way is to keep it simple.

No open world or WvW Guild halls…if you take a set of guild halls…lets say one from each racial region…place an Asura Gate that shows “Guild Hall”, maybe with some cool NPC convos around it, with some people working on it and someone at the control panels, etc that takes you into YOUR Guild Instanced Guild Hall, or to a Guild Hall you have an Active Invitiation to visit(You pick by speaking to the NPC at he control panel)…might solve the issue and keep us from having to deal with WvW map fill-ups, or changing the landscapes of areas. I mean, you could have a GH Gate in every City, or even ou tin Open World in some Outposts and such.

I’m on board with Instances for the GHs 100%, Chris!

Seems extremely boring to me, not to mention that again solutions for the problems you mention here have been given pages back already.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

‘As for guild alliance halls. They could work, and would be neat. The only issue would be, what happens if the alliance breaks apart? who gets the hall?’

Initial thoughts are that members of the Alliance would each get an instance of the shared guild hall. And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-:

Chris

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. Would be like someone simply wandering into my home without knocking. But, that’s just my take on it.

Now, with each guild getting their own instanced of the previously built “shared” hall, if the guild entered into a new/different alliance would they then lose that, since this different alliance would potentially have their own shared hall? Could they potentially lose all the effort they put into the previously shared hall, or would that effort then translate into the new alliance? (which opens up a whole different selection of issues and potential exploits)

“I wouldn’t necessarily want people wandering into my hall uninvited.”
And why would that be possible in open-world guild-halls?

Especially with doors like in WvW where the guild can set a door only allow guild-members or allow everybody in, or other rules. Whatever they want.

Or guild-hall airships. Maybe you allow gong on to other airships but maybe not. (if the gap between two airships is to big)

That has been given as a solution in this thread.

munkiman.3068:

Devata.6589:

For the trolling part, as long as your inside your guild-hall, even if you are in an open world, nobody could be trolling you. An option to block out map-chat inside your guild-plot was already suggested as a technical solution for that.

“The suggestion to randomly toss halls around from plot to plot is more of a “where’s my hall at today” issue. I’m not really focused on the tech hurdles. There are several problems, those were just a couple.”

Also this would not happen. With plots on ground maps it would only happed if a map becomes a ghost time or if a guild go’s inactive (and then you have to place it in the new map, it would not happen automatically).

For sky-maps they just spawn where they where before or at least close to that. (I would think in the case of sky-maps, airships would have hit detection to not fly into each other, so then they might need to spawn a little to the side if another ship is in the way) also then you would not have to look around because you would use something like a guild-hall stone to portal you there.

“I’m not really focused on the tech hurdles. "
I know your not however the things you talk about are not a reason why open world guild halls would be bad but technical difficulties to overcome when using open world guild-halls. Difficulties that would not be in the instance but not things that are unsolvable.

Yes I know what sandbox means. While it would not have to be in the current maps so would not have to influence the current maps.

While you’re solving technical issues open world halls would introduce, beyond “showing off” I see no big benefit to having maps full of guild halls. Maybe in that it keeps a section of the open world populated. Then you have the issue of how many players can be on a map at once, which is a pretty big issue and also ties into megaserver problems. I’m not sure introducing such technical hurdles with solutions makes me feel any better about the concept.

Well the showing off already go’s further. It involves pride and so more meaning to your guild and more willingness to work towards goals for your guild-hall.

Also it would give guilds much more a true place in this game. Now they exist but mainly in he form of a GUI. Placing them in an instance would keep that the same, placing them in the open world maybe interact with the open world would give them much more a place in GW2.

Then there is the living world I mentioned before. You want to make this world feel alive then open world guild-halls would be exactly what you want.

“Then you have the issue of how many players can be on a map at once” That is indeed a question while it should be solvable but to know the answer to that we need to know the code. You know maybe it’s not a problem. It would be strange even. You would expect it to be a problem if many people are close to each other, not if they are in the same map. Maybe max number of players in a map is just to prevent the change of many players getting close to each other?

“also ties into megaserver problems” also for that solutions have been giving, including the sky-maps. But we moved back into the technical difficulties here.

I would say, list the things you don’t want like the trolling and so on. Don’t say I want instance because you think thats the way to solve trolling.

Serophous.9085:

Guys, while the whole design aspect is sounding fun for a guild hall, I think we are forgetting one thing:

In GW1, the guild halls were relatively the same design for GvG. So while developing and building a guild to look how you want, how would this effect the GvG aspect, where there could be some annoyance in trying to find a guild lord to kill?

Yeah, GvG would then likely move to being a separate element. Maybe guilds could fight each other (like if the guild-halls are air-ships) but the way that worked in GW1 would indeed have to be different.

Maybe you can unlock the GvG playground to place in your guild-hall however. But that would likely create some size problems.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning All,

Due to recent events I must confess that I am only properly knowledgeable up to roughly page 12 but I want to jump in and start discussing things with you. I hope that is ok.

I want to emphasize that my questions, thoughts, and brain storming are theoretical and should not be taken as a given. With that said I want to start at the foundation.

Ok lets assume that in the world of the CDI Guild Halls have a lot of horizontal progression such as the ability to create buildings, upgrade them and customize the whole experience. What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

An idea I wanted to throw into the mix would be could small guilds have a shared Guild Hall with an Alliance?

Chris

Smallest size would also depend on if you would use something like air-ships (what could be much much bigger) or ground-maps.

However I would think that ground floor SM, and then the building, not the walls around it would be the good size to start with. The most important and unlocks should then also unlocked and would be easy for bigger and smaller guilds.

After that you can increase the side buy building stuff around it yourself. Placing things where you want it. Most of those unlocks / blue-prints should be available for smaller and bigger guilds. The difference here would be that smaller build might need to decide what unlock they want.

Again the portal example. Dungeons reward portals blue-prints, a small guild can decide to go for the LA portal while a larger guild has the manpower to take all all portals by doing all dungeons. But most stuff is available for all guilds.

JonPeters.5630:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

JonPeters.5630:

[…]

Saved for later when we get a dungeon or raid CDI: I like the direction in which this suggestion is going but I would suggest another implementation.

Back to Guild Halls
One question I would like to have answered:
Guilds can hold up to 500 players. Normal maps can hold up to 100 – 150 (?) players.
How do you want to ensure that players don’t feel separated from each other, can you raise the player-cap for Guild Halls?
Do you have any other idea how to get around this issue?

As Chris would put it: Le Bump.
I would like to know how you want to get around the player cap.

I’ll chime in a bit here. It is a good question. I think there would be some conflict here but that there would also be some technical wiggle room. I think we can safely assume that 500 players from a guild being logged in is not the common case. What is a “reasonable” maximum # of members in the guild hall to you? 150? 200? 400?

But if we have maps with multiple guild-halls?

So the question then is, why is the number of players limited. Or does it only have to be limited within an area around players? So as long as we prevent more then x players to come to close to each other it should be fine.

Usually you would think there should not really be a max to the number of players in a map but there would be a max to the numbers of players close to each other.

And I think 250 would be the max even for a HC 500 man guild. But I’m not in a HC 500 man guild so would not know.

I would think you guys have the numbers for that. For us it would be guessing.

munkiman.3068:

Devata.6589:

Well being in favor or against it is another question. I just showed one way the problem you talked about there could be solved.

In all honestly you seem to be against because of mainly technical difficulties (just as most people who are against that). However for nearly all (some you can’t without knowing the code.. nor do you know if it’s really a problem) technical difficulties solutions have been offered in this thread.

Like what you talk about here. “There is already enough trolling going around” so your technical difficulty here is to prevent the trolling, not the idea of open world guild-halls itself. (btw what type of trolling do you mean?) Also “the amount of real-estate you would need to add to the game” is a technical difficulty not really something against open world halls. And for that one also multiple suggestions have been giving. Like the sky-maps (that work with over-flows) and dynamical increasing / decreasing ground-maps and a few other solutions.

Trolling in the sense that larger guilds hold “rituals” in open world and are often “bothered” by the open world population (see RP guild requests as well). You prevent that by making GHs instanced.

The suggestion to randomly toss halls around from plot to plot is more of a “where’s my hall at today” issue. I’m not really focused on the tech hurdles. There are several problems, those were just a couple.

Devata.6589:

I think if the game was more designed around the sandbox, it would be a cool feature though.
Well that is one of the things.. To me GW2 always have seemed as if it wanted to be more sandbox but wasn’t. The whole idea with a living breading world and so on.

Dynamic events don’t do much for that and also the ‘living world patches’ don’t help that much for it. A little more sandbox however would do exactly that. People building there own houses or guild-halls. Stuff changes, it’s dynamic, it’s a living world.
So that alone would be a reason and a time to go a little more sandbox with this imho. Especially if Anet want to keep talking about a living world.

Yes that brings technical difficulties with it and many of those have an easy fix (instance) but the technical difficulties can be solved.

By sandbox, i mean being able to plop down a structure and modify it which influences the open world. The living story is designed and structured by Arena which makes it more like a themepark. Introducing sandbox type elements doesn’t seem all that enticing to me.

For the trolling part, as long as your inside your guild-hall, even if you are in an open world, nobody could be trolling you. An option to block out map-chat inside your guild-plot was already suggested as a technical solution for that.

“The suggestion to randomly toss halls around from plot to plot is more of a “where’s my hall at today” issue. I’m not really focused on the tech hurdles. There are several problems, those were just a couple.”

Also this would not happen. With plots on ground maps it would only happed if a map becomes a ghost time or if a guild go’s inactive (and then you have to place it in the new map, it would not happen automatically).

For sky-maps they just spawn where they where before or at least close to that. (I would think in the case of sky-maps, airships would have hit detection to not fly into each other, so then they might need to spawn a little to the side if another ship is in the way) also then you would not have to look around because you would use something like a guild-hall stone to portal you there.

“I’m not really focused on the tech hurdles. "
I know your not however the things you talk about are not a reason why open world guild halls would be bad but technical difficulties to overcome when using open world guild-halls. Difficulties that would not be in the instance but not things that are unsolvable.

Yes I know what sandbox means. While it would not have to be in the current maps so would not have to influence the current maps.

timmyf.1490:

I would be shocked if ArenaNet would allow the beautiful landscapes they’ve created to be destroyed by open-world guild halls. That would basically destroy my interest in ever completing open-world PvE content ever again. (Because the primary reason I do open-world content is to game casually while appreciating the aesthetics.) I’ll stick to instances/WvW if that happens, but please: no thanks.

? So you see open world guild-halls as guilds being able to place there guild-hall everywhere in the current maps where they want? I don’t think there has even been one suggestion like that in this thread. All suggestions that where made would not destroy the landscape as it is.

Iason Evan.3806:

timmyf.1490:

Jon-

As the leader of a smallish (5-15 active/day) guild, my primary concern would be gating off access to content or increased rewards. For example, it’s not a big deal if larger guilds have bigger, cooler guild halls. My members will be fine. But if guild halls bring extra/better buffs or rewards, that makes it harder to recruit and retain members.

I think the core functionality should be time-gated, higher-end cosmetics cost-gated and/or activity-gated.

This may be a part of how to do it. Larger guilds have to get larger halls which cost more materials. 100 people need 10X materials than a 10 person guild needs which means it’s a flat curve for guild hall building. IF 100 people have to get 100 items and 10 people have to get 10 items it’s exactly the same which is fair. I just want to reiterate here how much more of an advantage large guilds have with what they cn do with their guild right now in game. A small guild has way less access to a lot of the bonuses currently in the game because costs are so prohibitive with how much Influence you need. Please don’t let this happen with guild halls. I am with timmyf on the size thing.

True so you have to be careful what you make accessible in what way.. But thats all.

It’s what I said in my previous post. You want every guild to be able to have a portal to LA or to give some bonus to guild-members? Then do not lock that behind a raid-dungeon. But you might want to unlock a cool looking tower or maybe a stable with pets or something like that behind the raid dungeon.
If you feel it would be oke if smaller guilds would have no access to that.

(I use the raid dungeon here because that would be something thats obviously not doable by small guilds. But it’s just an example)

In the current game (no raid dungeons) however it would mean that nearly nothing would be unaccessible for smaller guilds (maybe stuff locked behind guild-missions?). They would just have to choose what they want because they can not have everything.

JonPeters.5630:

timmyf.1490:

Jon-

As the leader of a smallish (5-15 active/day) guild, my primary concern would be gating off access to content or increased rewards. For example, it’s not a big deal if larger guilds have bigger, cooler guild halls. My members will be fine. But if guild halls bring extra/better buffs or rewards, that makes it harder to recruit and retain members.

I think the core functionality should be time-gated, higher-end cosmetics cost-gated and/or activity-gated.

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 would try to prevent time and grind gates. Time is only a temporary thing. Also I wonder if it would work.

Smaller guilds might already have the influence they need. It’s not like they had much to upgrade for the last year. So it would only benefit a small group and that are guilds that are pretty new at the moment the guild-halls are introduced. They are the only group who might need that time to build up influence and so who would be put on the same level as the rest when a time-gate is in place.

At the same time it would be a problem for guilds that are new after all those guilds got there guild-hall. It will take them even longer.

And griding mats or currency seems like a bad idea because there is already enough grind in the game, also it does not give a good idea of rewarding.. Oow your guild brainlessly grinding gold / mats. Great.

Now if the basic guild-hall would unlock with the current upgrade system you would have a small influence grind and time-gate. Then all guilds have there basic hall.

And after that you could unlock blue-prints in the world. Everywhere. No category needed there. If blue-prints for portals to city’s are locked behind completing all paths of one dungeon (with your guild) the difference might be that a small guild settles for only the portal to LA while a bigger guild will go for unlocking the blue-prints for the portals of all city’s by doing all dungeons.

Guilds can then decide them-self what they find important and what not and smaller guilds will have to be a little more careful with that.

The only thing as developer you would then have to be careful of is that you should not put an blue-print unlock of an item you think every guild should be able to get (smaller and bigger ones) behind content a smaller guild would never be able to do.

Lets say as developer you want every guild to be able to unlock the blue-print for the portal to LA then don’t lock that blue-print behind a possible raid-dungeon you might implement. But you could put something else in that dungeon you feel is oke for only bigger guilds to be able to unlock.

JonPeters.5630:

Devata.6589:

JonPeters.5630:

Sarrs.4831:

JonPeters.5630:

I don’t remember saying locked. I said how would you change some of the current functionality to be more integrated with guild halls? I don’t think functionality has to go away to do this and I’d like to see what value you all might envision a guild hall could bring to things like Guild Missions, the current Guild upgrade system, etc.

Jon

Let’s go all the way.

Your guild instance map is seperated into four sections: Politics, economics, art of war and architecture. As you upgrade these things through the I-VI lines, the sections will get grander; for example, if you have level 0 politics, you have no building on that section, if you have level 1, you have a basic lodge, all the way up to a palace at level 6.

The other smaller upgrades have smaller effects on the plot. For example, if you build a guild workshop, you have an actual workshop on your architecture plot. If you have Outsource Asuran Contracting, an Asura hangs out in your Politics building and you can talk to him. If those upgrades are actually doing something then they’re doing something in the guild hall; for example if you’re building something at the workshop, the machinery is running and you have a few NPCs running about working, if you have the Asuran Contractor working, he’s fiddling about on one of those computer things they have. Every upgrade should have something along these lines actually happening in the guild hall to correlate with it.

Also a few upgrades could have added functionality, or new upgrades that come out of them. For example, you can upgrade your Guild Workshop to have crafting tables.

This is a great start and since I said I would try and break down a single thing lets do it with this topic during the week. I think your proposal is great but it really only 1 step of the way. I hope we can take this a lot further and look forward to doing that on Monday.

Jon

This is the most basic idea of guild-halls. Taking it a lot further is what happened during the last 15 pages I would think?

Now about locking out content. You will be always locking something out for people who don’t join guilds as this is a guild-feature. What is important that guild off all sizes are able to participate. And that is give them things to do in the game.. Things that might not all be new or guild-related.

The examples of dungeons rewarding portals to city’s for example. The content ‘dungeons’ is already availing for people. Whats new is the reward and the ability to use that in the guild-hall.

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. I’m choosing the upgrade system because someone actually started breaking it down. I think the first question(s) I have is:
Are the current upgrade categories the ones we would use or would we break it up differently? If not, how many categories would you think make sense? Specifically what would your categories be?

Jon

Maybe I did then understand you wrong?

Your question is:
Are the current upgrade categories the ones we would use or would we break it up differently?

Architecture would make the most sense name-wise but then not behind Guild-puzzle because one of the consensus seems to be that also small (new) guilds should have the ability to get a guild-hall.

Now in those upgrades I would expect only the basic things. Your startpoint for the guild-hall (a basic guild-hall) and the most basic unlocks (like guild-bank, repair guy and a vendor).

But after that I think (and that seems to be where it did go in the thread) is that the current guild upgrade system ends. Other unlocks are available in the world. As (auto guild unlock) blue-print drops or as a blue-print reward for doing a dungeon with the guild or a JP and so on (many examples in the thread).

So thats the part where imo we are much further in the thread. We moved beyond the current guild upgrade window.

Unlock stuff in the world would give guilds stuff to direly work for in the game, it would also allow smaller guilds to be able to work towards at least most of the blue-prints.

Same for the upgrades. The topic here basically talked about upgrading the guild-hall to different tiers while the tread moved on to building your own guild-hall.