CDI- Guilds- Guild Halls

#1 - Sept. 29, 2014, 5:13 p.m.

Welcome fellow collaborators to the next phase of the Guild CDI topics.

Phase 2 Topic Title: How would you like to see Guild Halls function if they were part of GW2?

Below are some suggested formatting tools that will make the CDI more accessible if followed.

Suggested Idea Format
Proposal Overview
<A short description of the proposal that is being put forward>

Goal of Proposal
<What problem are you trying to solve with your proposal>

Proposal Functionality
<How does your proposal work in regard in relation to the current design of GW2>

Associated Risks
<What risks or problems can you foresee with this proposal which you would like to have assistance on from other members of the CDI>
Please try to be as concise as feasible with your proposal.

Suggested Discussion Approach
No suggested format.
Suggested Post Word Count: 200

CDI Rules:
1: This initiative is all about discussion.

2: We will not be disclosing information pertaining to what is currently in development.
3: Anger and emotion will have less impact than intelligent discussion.

4: Together we will share and evolve design philosophies which will impact how we develop the game moving forward.

5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.

6: The teams primary focus is work toward the development of GW2 and therefore posting of discussion and commentary may not be as frequent as you like. Please do understand that the initiative is taken very seriously by us all and that we will be reading the discussions and joining in as often as it is possible to do so.

7: Off topic posts will be deleted.

Please note this is not a competition, either between yourselves or the developers in regard to one up man ship. The point of this Initiative is to work together to make the game better.

Note: We will disclose the ideas we do or don’t like as a group but we will not discuss schedules or timing around implementation.

P.S: I may wait a day before starting to post to allow the discussion to evolve naturally. I will try to do summaries (CDI members feel free to help out to if you like that kind of thing) and will be constantly keeping up to date with the discussion. Just because I don’t post all the time doesn’t mean I am not reading it.

Chris

#3 - Sept. 29, 2014, 5:18 p.m.

GOSU.9574:

I won’t go through all the details, I will let others who are more passionate on the subject do that. I would like to mention this though:

When designing guild halls, don’t just make a place guild members hang out. Make them GvG maps, as in GW1. Even if initially there is no GvG, at least think ahead for GvG when designing them.

We will have a CDI phase on GvG.

Chris

#18 - Sept. 29, 2014, 5:59 p.m.

Clerigo.9475:

Welcome back Chris. Glad to see you.

Was just discussing with friends at dinner table about how we were missing your presence in the forums. Just telling them you are back

All of them sending you and every1 at ANet their best regards Hope everything is doing alright.

We have been talking about this subject for some time now, and we have something in a raw form to present. Ill post it l8r on, after coffee and whisky is served

Aww thanks so much. It’s good to be back and thanks for all the well wishes.

Chris

#246 - Sept. 30, 2014, 8:22 p.m.

Donari.5237:

The way I’m looking at it, this CDI is for brainstorming. It may transpire that some of the ideas are too grandiose or infeasible but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be discussed. Even if an idea is too much to implement, it may spark creativity on a smaller scale or inspire a spin-off concept that turns out to be wonderful.

Generally the devs running the thread come back after the initial brainstorms have died down and ask for more focused discussion on certain points. We’re not far enough in yet for that phase, imo.

Absolutely correct Donari.

Hi All,

Just wanted to let you know I am up to date and that is one of the best CDIs to date in terms of superb proposals, brainstorming and problem solving.

Chris

#281 - Oct. 1, 2014, 11:46 a.m.

Palador.2170:

Mash Hog.5672:

“Maybe have a reward track to collect resources to contribute towards building the guild hall”.

This is an outstanding idea!

This gets my stamp of approval to.

The more customization and progression the better.

Chris

#317 - Oct. 1, 2014, 4:30 p.m.

Baltzenger.2467:

How I see this proposal after this discussion:

Guild Halls

What are they?
They can be either a building on a floating island, an airship, a building on an separate instance, or a building on a main map instance (building plots idea).

How are they?
The wish of many, as stated in posts, is that guild halls should be customizable. We don’t know the extent of possibility for customization, but it ranges from being able to “upgrade” your guild hall through various methods, to completly build it “block by block”.

What is certain, is that we want this to be a new form of progress for guilds, that should be attainable by various methods, and very diverse, just as how diverse guilds can be (from small to big guilds, from pve focused to pvp focused guilds).

Who should be able to acquire one of those?

The opinions vary a lot in this matter, some, I believe, thinking about small guilds, want Guild Halls to be tax free, with no maintenance cost, or without a cost on merits. Others want this to be a long term, organized effort to achieve, with things like having to gather resources from different places and gamemodes (like the idea of using pvp reward tracks to gather resources), should have a maintenance cost and be a way to show others the power, organization and dedication of a guild. Guild Halls could also be prestige things.
I personally believe that the range, and the idea of progression for Guild Halls could embrace all that was stated before, ranging from “easy-to-obtain”, “small” guild halls, to hard to get, more advanced and costly ones.

What else should Guild Halls add to the game?

What is more commonly stated, is that Guild Halls should add convenience apart from the idea of a meeting place, adding things like a guild bank access, armorers, repair, etc. Some doubt that GH should have crafting stations, because we want to avoid the risk of depopulating major cities, so some services should remain exclusive to those places.

There is also the idea of adding more complex systems, like arenas for duels, mini games, new guild activities related to Guild Halls. And that the addition to this systems, should be optional, taking into account that guilds are different, and have different needs.

This is awesome Balt and therefore I am bumping your summary.

Chris

#377 - Oct. 2, 2014, 11:59 a.m.

Hi All,

Just to let you know that I am up to date and that I will probably dive into the discussion at the weekend.

A few folks have asked how long we will stay in the proposal and discussion phase. The answer is as long as there are new ideas and discussion pretty much.

After that we will pick our top 3, and then discuss those before I do the summary. I have never been a fan of rushing any CDI so please take your time and enjoy the design work and discussion.

Chris

#379 - Oct. 2, 2014, noon

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

Hi Tor,

This is beyond scope but thanks for asking. This said players should absolutely be able to customize their Guilds Hall.

Chris

#381 - Oct. 2, 2014, 12:12 p.m.

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

Hi Tor,

This is beyond scope but thanks for asking. This said players should absolutely be able to customize their Guilds Hall.

Chris

And that is then considered a editor? Having a grid where you can place ‘blocks’ in (blocks being models to whatever degree or detail) maybe with some logic as to how these ‘blocks’ would fit together. Is that also then considered an ‘editor’.

No not in the way I am thinking of it.

Chris

#391 - Oct. 2, 2014, 12:59 p.m.

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

Hi Tor,

This is beyond scope but thanks for asking. This said players should absolutely be able to customize their Guilds Hall.

Chris

And that is then considered a editor? Having a grid where you can place ‘blocks’ in (blocks being models to whatever degree or detail) maybe with some logic as to how these ‘blocks’ would fit together. Is that also then considered an ‘editor’.

No not in the way I am thinking of it.

Chris

Ok that is great to hear. Thnx.

No problem Devata. Thanks for asking.

Chris

#392 - Oct. 2, 2014, 1:02 p.m.

Prophet.6257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

Hi Tor,

This is beyond scope but thanks for asking. This said players should absolutely be able to customize their Guilds Hall.

Chris

That’s a shame. It would have made a nice way for Anet to get assets out of the community.

On a similar note, do we know the amount of detail that is going to be customizable for Guild Halls? Stuff like prop positioning and texture packs. I think it could help narrow discussion and spark a few ideas.

We are just brainstorming here so nothing is a given. I was just giving Dev my personal opinion.

Chris

#395 - Oct. 2, 2014, 1:12 p.m.

Torsailr.8456:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

Hi Tor,

This is beyond scope but thanks for asking. This said players should absolutely be able to customize their Guilds Hall.

Chris

And that is then considered a editor? Having a grid where you can place ‘blocks’ in (blocks being models to whatever degree or detail) maybe with some logic as to how these ‘blocks’ would fit together. Is that also then considered an ‘editor’.

No not in the way I am thinking of it.

Chris

Ohh, tell us more! Please!

Really though, that you’re considering something gives me hope.

I am going to dive into the discussion this weekend for sure.

I don’t want to ‘pollute’ folks ideas with mine just yet. And i also want to continue to see everyone elses ideas as they will impact mine.

Chris

#452 - Oct. 3, 2014, 1:15 a.m.

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Chris,
I have a bit of a tangential question.

How feasible would it be for Anet to develop an editor for players to develop their own guild hall layouts? Is it beyond the scope of things you want to consider?

What you expect to be able to edit?

#453 - Oct. 3, 2014, 1:24 a.m.

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?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

#489 - Oct. 3, 2014, 8:49 a.m.

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?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

Going to quote myself for some clarity here. I have some answers to these questions that I will try to get down here but see if you can be specific. I’ll try to give examples and I hope you understand that this is probably even more blue sky than what you are thinking but I want to set the bounds of how crazy a system COULD be, not what is technically feasible.

Benefit of instanced: Your guild could control permissions on the map.
Benefit of open world: Your guild could control and improve something in the world that benefits more than just its members.
Benefit of instanced that we could get in an open world system: Guild Halls are air ships that attach to places in the world improving that area for a while, but move around and have many attachment points. Access to the ship itself is controlled, but you still are in the open world.
Benefit of open world that we could get in an instanced system: Guild Halls are still halls but have functionality that lets guild create temporary content that attach to open world maps.

The point of this question is to first generate wild ideas before discussing details of those designs and figuring out what problems/edge cases those details create that must be solved.

Jon

#492 - Oct. 3, 2014, 9:23 a.m.

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.[/quote]

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

• On a given version of a map there are X people.
• How many players from one guild would you expect to be in a map before that guild NEEDS to do guild activities? I would say that number is between 2 and X. Let’s say for sake of argument that it is a party so 5 people.
• This means you would NEED less than X/5 places where a guild can be interacting with the world in any given map.

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?

Jon

#495 - Oct. 3, 2014, 9:30 a.m.

wwwes.1398:

Aeolus.3615:

JonPeters.5630:

The point of this question is to first generate wild ideas before discussing details of those designs and figuring out what problems/edge cases those details create that must be solved.

Jon

some fast brainstorming:

Guild leader option to buy a fraction of mist crystal to make a guild floating island, being the MIST a infinite world,:
Guild Research Tree – being asura, dregdge kodan human etc, and those tech’s would affect the guild , on PVE and WvW events guild’s could deploy some of their tech on the field.

Brainstorm on your brainstorm, what if your guild can even befriend dredge/kodans/skritt and get them to accompany the guild on bounties and missions.

Lots of cool potential in both these responses.

What kind of tech would you want to deploy? In PvE? In WvW?

What unique benefits for bounties and missions could different NPCs give you that you could NOT get from just having another player?

#496 - Oct. 3, 2014, 9:43 a.m.

On the editing topic I’ve seen a few things listed.

• NPCs
• fixed placement
• grid placement
• free form placement
• upgrading placed things

Assuming everything has a cost:
Some questions with sample answers:
Q: what kind of thing would you be ok with static placement?
A: a giant stone carving of Colin.
Q: What kind of things do you think work fine with grid placement?
A: A theatre where my guild can roleplay how angry we are with the guild hall system in game.
Q: What stuff would you want to have free placement?
A: Statue of Chris Whiteside

Jon

#510 - Oct. 3, 2014, 11:11 a.m.

Hoaxintelligence.4628:

Hi Chris

I just have a small question.
Is there a possibility that we will see guild capes if guild halls is going to get introduced ingame?

From my point of view i think that Guild Halls personifies pride in your guild and that means any chance you get to where your colors is an opportunity for expression. So in my opinion it would be cool to have items that advertise your guild and status.

Chris

#511 - Oct. 3, 2014, 11:18 a.m.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

JonPeters.5630:

Benefit of instanced that we could get in an open world system: Guild Halls are air ships that attach to places in the world improving that area for a while, but move around and have many attachment points. Access to the ship itself is controlled, but you still are in the open world.
Benefit of open world that we could get in an instanced system: Guild Halls are still halls but have functionality that lets guild create temporary content that attach to open world maps.

:o Jon quoted my idea. Sweet. (Yes, I understand how unrealistic it is, but I still think it would be super awesome.)

Which of these do you think is unrealistic and why?

#610 - Oct. 4, 2014, 8:53 a.m.

Iason Evan.3806:

Baltzenger.2467:

In my opinion, content should be designed for everyone, not just those who “you think will be potentially interested on it”, at least speaking of MMOs.

When you do that, later, you suffer from splitting your playerbase, specially when the game ages and you need to shift populations toward certain game types. Maybe Holly Homemakers should be taken into consideration when making the core of the system, but the guy that only plays fractals, will actually never try anything else, because the content will be designed to be “not for him”.

I probably didn’t explain myself well enough. If you design Guild Halls in the context we are talking about(free form object placement/design options etc.) for the person that is gonna want to spend 90% of their time in the Guild Hall then it will be for everyone because it will have more options than the person who doesn’t really care(Fractals guy) will ever use. If you design it for Fractals guy only, then the person that really cares about design gets left out.

This is precisely why the things we build take time. Someone earlier suggested to just list things that were seemingly easy so that maybe this could be a reality. I would suggest that the more innovative and compelling your ideas are the more likely they are to drive development because that is what we pride ourselves on.

#611 - Oct. 4, 2014, 8:54 a.m.

MajorValtiel.6310:

Would also be nice if, within the Guild Halls, players could buy private chambers for themselves. No need to add a physical space for them in the guild hall either, a door titled Private Chambers would lead players to their own Private Chamber Instance. They could also invite maybe a miax 8-10 players to their own PC instances.

What would you want to be able to do in there?

Or perhaps what happens in private chambers stays in private chambers?

#636 - Oct. 4, 2014, 2:06 p.m.

daft inquisitor.1605:

Torsailr.8456:

Simon.3106:

Hmm.. CDI for GUILD HALLS…. when is the expected release date? How long does Anet usually take for this?

At least 6 months out. If they come anywhere close to implementing some of the larger ideas here then more likely 12-18 months. But that is my personal estimate. I have no inside knowledge of Anet’s development schedule or manpower.

That’s even assuming they implement guild halls at all.

As stated many, many times before, absolutely nothing in the CDI’s should be taken as a promise of any feature to come. These are simply here for us to talk with the developers over ideas we have for the game, nothing more.

So, don’t expect guild halls just because we’re having the discussion. Of course, it will be a nice surprise when/if they show up, but just having the discussion does not automatically mean they will be implemented.

As stated many, many times before, absolutely nothing in the CDI’s should be taken as a promise of any feature to come. These are simply here for us to talk with the developers over ideas we have for the game, nothing more.

Correct Inquisitor

Chris

#638 - Oct. 4, 2014, 2:09 p.m.

Rambodacious.7495:

JonPeters.5630:

Iason Evan.3806:

Baltzenger.2467:

In my opinion, content should be designed for everyone, not just those who “you think will be potentially interested on it”, at least speaking of MMOs.

When you do that, later, you suffer from splitting your playerbase, specially when the game ages and you need to shift populations toward certain game types. Maybe Holly Homemakers should be taken into consideration when making the core of the system, but the guy that only plays fractals, will actually never try anything else, because the content will be designed to be “not for him”.

I probably didn’t explain myself well enough. If you design Guild Halls in the context we are talking about(free form object placement/design options etc.) for the person that is gonna want to spend 90% of their time in the Guild Hall then it will be for everyone because it will have more options than the person who doesn’t really care(Fractals guy) will ever use. If you design it for Fractals guy only, then the person that really cares about design gets left out.

This is precisely why the things we build take time. Someone earlier suggested to just list things that were seemingly easy so that maybe this could be a reality. I would suggest that the more innovative and compelling your ideas are the more likely they are to drive development because that is what we pride ourselves on.

Mr. Peters, I have to categorically disagree with you here. Guild Halls cannot be a bandaid for you guys. They simply can’t. You’re bleeding players and we both know it (NA and EU). If you burn massive amounts of development time on things that will be interesting for a couple of weeks and neglect the vast majority of other areas of your game, you will continue to bleed players. You’ll get the initial spike of everyone coming back to check things out, they’ll be excited for 2-3 weeks, and then the forum posts start and players start to leave again. I speak as though this is fact because by looking at the past, we can accurately predict the future. No more bandaid patches.

I’m suggesting that Guild Halls are a glue that not only ties game modes together, but would also have ways to occupy a player’s time unique to Guild Halls. Abandon spending any time on trying to make players see them from the game world, or having some scavenger hunt for GH unlocks that requires loot tables coded in and other nonsense. Unnecessary man hours, just keep it simple.

They’re airships (seems to be the consensus). They’re customizable (also unanimous). Beyond this, it gets rocky.

You know what, if I’m going to tell you to stray from this idea, I’ll give you things that will not only get players to come back to your game, but keep them as well. Just remember this when you’re looking at my resume for the designer position you have listed.

Here is a way to revamp all dungeons, make them replayable with endless variety, challenging enough to break the “zerker meta” yet not bring the “trinity” into the game AND do it all with minimal development hours:

Each type of mob in each dungeon is given 4 abilities. Whenever a group enters the dungeon and the instance is spawned, each of the mob types is randomly assigned 2 of the 4 abilities. Further, there are walls that prevent players from skipping past many sections. For the players to continue, they must kill the mobs present.

Now, the mobs have say, knock-downs and AOE bleeds. Maybe instead, it’s poison and boon corruption. Always something new. Sometimes, 5 zerks work. Sometimes they don’t.

To prevent frustration from the added time now needed to complete a dungeon, these much more difficult mobs now drop a silver each. There you go, it’s rewarding, challenging and infinitely replayable because it’s always something different to prepare for. These are what dev time needs to be spent on, not a massive scavenger hunt for GH unlocks that is a temporary time-sink designed to mask the problems that the game suffers from.

(P.S. To prevent players from killing mobs near the dungeon over and over and not killing a boss to allow themselves to farm high cash dropping mobs over and over, make mobs deeper in the dungeon, near the end drop 3-4 silver per mob (with great loot tables) and the ones by the door drop 25 coppers etc.)

Hi Rambo,

Not sure how you took Jon’s comments as a band aid. I think he pretty clearly stated that he believes that anyone taking on a task like this must exceed expectations.

Unless I missed something.

Chris

#639 - Oct. 4, 2014, 2:19 p.m.

Hi Collaborators,

Once again congrats on what is probably the most professional, and collaborative CDI to date. It is an absolute pleasure to read and the discussion and team approach to problem solving is frankly on par with many design team’s best working practices that I have experienced in the past.

I am up to page 11 and have skimmed through the rest. There is clearly still a lot of discussion to be had and frankly when a CDI is this good there is no point rushing things.

I am going out with my family today and will be joining the discussion tomorrow.

Meanwhile here are some articles about the fine work you are doing:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/10/03/guild-wars-2-requests-input-on-guild-halls/

http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/guild-wars-2-may-finally-get-guild-halls

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend and I am looking forward to chatting with you all tomorrow.

Chris

#666 - Oct. 4, 2014, 10:17 p.m.

Rambodacious.7495:

Each type of mob in each dungeon is given 4 abilities. Whenever a group enters the dungeon and the instance is spawned, each of the mob types is randomly assigned 2 of the 4 abilities. Further, there are walls that prevent players from skipping past many sections. For the players to continue, they must kill the mobs present.

Now, the mobs have say, knock-downs and AOE bleeds. Maybe instead, it’s poison and boon corruption. Always something new. Sometimes, 5 zerks work. Sometimes they don’t.

I don’t want to derail the entire thread, but this is a collaborative environment. Let me ask you some of the questions I would ask one of our designers if they proposed such a thing.

1) What makes a creature interesting and challenging? Is it their skills, and would a combination of two random skills be balanced, rewarding, challenging?
1a) How do you make sure that all 6 combinations of skills are similarly balanced, create a variety of tactics, work together, get used in a way that makes their synergy work. Don’t create problems of triviality or difficulty when combined with a different creatures randomly chosen combination of skills?
2) One thing that makes difficult content satisfying is mastery. How does this system allow players to develop a sense of mastery?
2a) How do we develop a clear visual language for 4 skills and how they combine into 6 patterns for creatures using the already limited set of creature animations and effects?
3) Many of the dungeons already have walls, and requirements for completion that players have found workarounds in the system to get past. How does your system actually solve those problems?
4) You suggest some aspects of skill ideas, namely the outcome but you do not discuss what the player experience is in getting to that outcome. How do you propose to build those creature skills in a way that allows players to use a variety of tools to gain mastery over them? How do they force the players to use strategies that enforce what we think are the important pillars of GW2 combat. For reference a small sample of those include:

• Synergy in using your own skills
• Making tactical positioning decisions mid combat.
• Finding interesting ways to deliver your tools to creatures who have counter measures to those tools.
• Being able to understand clearly what a creature is doing and make adjustments to that.
• Finding versatile ways to use the same skills to solve different encounters

Jon

#669 - Oct. 4, 2014, 10:31 p.m.

Something I haven’t seen much discussion on that I thought would be interesting. Not saying you have to go this way but.

What current aspects of guilds would you change to integrate them more with guild halls? If you would change something, how would you change it to work more with a physical Guild Hall?

Jon

#670 - Oct. 4, 2014, 10:31 p.m.

Asukai.4507:

Guild Halls and Housing would be good in the game maybe getting some crafting going with it

Do you mean some form of Guild Crafting? How would you expect that to work?

#672 - Oct. 4, 2014, 10:48 p.m.

Palador.2170:

JonPeters.5630:

Something I haven’t seen much discussion on that I thought would be interesting. Not saying you have to go this way but.

What current aspects of guilds would you change to integrate them more with guild halls? If you would change something, how would you change it to work more with a physical Guild Hall?

Jon

NOTHING!

Again, I repeat, other things should not become locked behind guild halls. Not everyone will want to mess with them. Making a guild work differently in expectation of a guild hall is just asking for problems.

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

#676 - Oct. 4, 2014, 11:03 p.m.

Ohoni.6057:

What current aspects of guilds would you change to integrate them more with guild halls? If you would change something, how would you change it to work more with a physical Guild Hall?

Jon

I think guild halls should only add, not take away. I think that they might become a more convenient place to access guild features like guild bank and guild NPCs, but the existing ones should all remain in place for guilds without a hall.

Do you mean some form of Guild Crafting? How would you expect that to work?

I think it would be fine if Guild Halls could unlock permanent crafting stations so that members could have access to them without leaving the hall, but I am VERY opposed to any ideas that would involve making guilded crafters better at crafting than non-guilded ones, such as having unique recipes that can only be unlocked through the guild system, or bonuses to crafting speed or something. A member of the biggest guild in the game, standing in front of his guild hall Weaponsmithing station, should not be in any way better off than an unguilded player standing in front of one of the ones in LA.

One way to change something is to add to it. Also for example the method for something could change it strictly for the better. i.e. when we made WvW progression account bound and spent on character instead of character bound.

One version of Guild Crafting is some way for your guild to craft stuff, as a Guild, not people crafting in your guild hall but some sort of guild factory. Could influence or merits or other aspects of guilds be improved by integrating with this “factory?”

I see this kind of response a lot and for this and future CDIs, I want to quote a wise person I work with, who will remain anonymous. When you are commenting on someones suggestion, start by thinking of the coolest possible version of it that they “must” be thinking of in their head, not the crappy “first implementation that pops into my head” version of it.

This is one of the best golden lessons about both game design and collaboration.

Jon

#677 - Oct. 4, 2014, 11:08 p.m.

Palador.2170:

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

If you think of an improvement to something like Guild Missions, fine. Go for it. I’m sure a lot of guilds will thank you for it.

But, if you need to have a Guild Hall to get that improvement, then there’s a problem. Make it work with guild halls? Fine. But it needs to have a non-guild hall way to work for the other guilds. Otherwise that improvement IS locked behind a guild hall.

Let’s take an example: Guild vs Guild. A lot of people seem to want this to involve Guild Halls. Fine, but it also needs to work for those that don’t have a Guild Hall. Maybe, if one’s required for you to defend, then a guild without one is given a generic hall to defend for the duration of the match. That way, even guilds without a hall are not locked out of GvG.

Do you see what I’m saying? Any changes or improvements need to stand on their own, and then they can be integrated into Guild Halls.

Actually I’m not sure I see what you are saying. By inherently adding Guild Halls to a game that becomes a core piece of guilds where it not only makes the system more integrated and potentially more interesting through how these pieces of systems interact, but also is likely to make things more clear by physically representing what is happening to players.

• What makes you think Guild Halls are difficult to acquire?
• Try to brainstorm ways in which Guild Hall acquisition could be fun.
• Think about some rewards a physical Guild Hall might give you that couldn’t be done without it and how the ability to give those rewards could create a version of an improvement to a system that previously was considered impossible and is now instead very simple, clear, and compelling?

#680 - Oct. 4, 2014, 11:22 p.m.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

JonPeters.5630:

• What makes you think Guild Halls are difficult to acquire?
• Try to brainstorm ways in which Guild Hall acquisition could be fun.
• Think about some rewards a physical Guild Hall might give you that couldn’t be done without it and how the ability to give those rewards could create a version of an improvement to a system that previously was considered impossible and is now instead very simple, clear, and compelling?

Responding to #1 – I think the assumption is going to be “guild halls are limited by cost or number” until otherwise stated to be not the case.

I’ll respond to the other two as I think on it a little more tonight.

I think the only good assumption here is that we are talking about to bring up the positives and negatives of a system. What are the benefits to guild halls having a large cost? What are the drawbacks? I’m saying this because I think it has both and am wondering what your take is.

#682 - Oct. 4, 2014, 11:28 p.m.

Ok all. I’m done for the night. Got a busy day tomorrow so see you back on Monday likely.

#734 - Oct. 5, 2014, 8:34 a.m.

munkiman.3068:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

JonPeters.5630:

I think the only good assumption here is that we are talking about to bring up the positives and negatives of a system. What are the benefits to guild halls having a large cost? What are the drawbacks? I’m saying this because I think it has both and am wondering what your take is.

My take is no matter what you do, the forums will be on fire afterwards about how the decision is obviously wrong and ANet is “once again out of touch with what players want”.

There isn’t a way to do any of this which is going to get a 100% approval rating, no matter what you read here in the forums. I’ve inferred such to Chris several times before we started down these CDIs.

And so, I’m trying to think around that particular blocking thought – because it’s become an increasingly stressful problem on trying to come up with anything useful.

What i’ve seen with these CDI’s in general, is the basic fact that we as players don’t really know what our constraints are, so we make all these elaborate proposals and brainstorm around them. Which works amazingly well when you know what is technically feasible. So we get a lot of great ideas floating around, and people say “wow” that’s great, but then we get either a shell of the idea or something radically different.

It’s definitely a bonus to “think outside the box”, yet if you don’t know how big the box is, it’s very difficult to think outside of it. I know it’s their goal to build off the elaborate discussions we have in these, it just seems to typically lead to additions or changes that end up being more frustrating than fun. Add to that the rule of what’s discussed here is just for the sake of it, really doesn’t give anyone a clear design goal.

I got the concept behind all this, but they really need to be more open and focused with us than just have us run with wild ideas. I mean we are going to get those anyway, even when we have a tighter constraints. That’s just how discussion among a large group tend to go.

this is a great point. I have not explicitly said what the box is on purpose but I’m happy next week to take an idea and really ask all the hard questions to try to boil it down more so that you can all see how this works more clearly on our end. One thing is the constraints we have are rarely what you all imagine they might be so I think it will be good to break down an actual problem that way.

Jon

#737 - Oct. 5, 2014, 8:38 a.m.

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

#750 - Oct. 5, 2014, 1:17 p.m.

Hi All,

I was going to jump in today but this morning I took our Golden Retriever to the vets and he had to be put down.

We are all very upset and i need to spend time with my family. Hopefully this will be the end o the issues we are facing and I will be able to give you my full attention.

Sorry,

Chris

#751 - Oct. 5, 2014, 1:22 p.m.

I will be in the discussion tomorrow.

Chris

#762 - Oct. 5, 2014, 3:42 p.m.

Thanks for your kind words all. And sorry to hear about your losses to.

Chris

#797 - Oct. 6, 2014, 10:28 a.m.

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

#799 - Oct. 6, 2014, 10:41 a.m.

Donari.5237:

On scaling of costs:

How do we keep it fair given that guilds change size? As Conski asks, would this system encourage people to make a small guild, create a huge hall, then invite in all the other members waiting?

I don’t want to limit small guilds, but with scaling it might be vital to have a hall size limit based on membership, so when you get more people in, you can build more space but at the increased costs. (And then we worry about inactive members bloating costs just as afkers scale up events). Contrariwise, guilds that downscale should not have their large space demolished. Remember my adamant stance against decay, here!

I think one solution to the scaling problems is to create different aspects that work on different scales. For example some aspects can be time gated and therefore don’t favor any size guild. Some can be based on straight up farming which favor larger guilds, and some could be driven by activity and favor guilds with active members. Think of it like the 3 branches of government, and the aspects within that. The senate favors states, the house favors population (or gerrymandering at least ), etc…

#803 - Oct. 6, 2014, 11:01 a.m.

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.

#815 - Oct. 6, 2014, 11:45 a.m.

Conski Deshan.2057:

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. 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

I find the current upgrade system quite stagnant and boring, you get your influence passively, click a button then wait a week.
(no offense intended to the creator of the system)
Maybe have the initial guild hall unlock under architecture say level 2/3 but past that an active system is needed.

On Categories for upgrades ,I’d see it breaking down something like this: (I may have what you meant by this wrong?)
Structures:
-Towers -halls -corridors -entry halls -Misc rooms
Defenses: (could be just graphical)
-Trebs -Cannons -Hot oil -Misc
Interior:
-Seating -Tables/cabinets -Rugs/banners/flags -Wallpapers/wall -statues/monuments -Misc
Exterior (wouldn’t actually limit it to placement outside as I’d like water features in the command room)
-Fountains -Trees -plants -training grounds -Livestock -Misc
NPCS
-Functional -Decorative -Alts
Glory or Rare category (this section would have limited placement (i.e once per guild hall or 10 per guild hall) basically the more prestige and high end stuff.
Limited Section for limited items i.e reward from once off events or competitions like a new Christmas tree each year.

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

This would tie the upgrades more to game mode than to the current arbitrary categories.

#817 - Oct. 6, 2014, 12:03 p.m.

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?

#825 - Oct. 6, 2014, 12:27 p.m.

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

#830 - Oct. 6, 2014, 12:44 p.m.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

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

Even the smallest guilds could own and upgrade their halls in GW1 if they were willing to work towards it. I feel that it should be the same here. It may take more time, but there is no reason a husband and wife guild (for example) should be excluded just because they don’t have ‘x’ number of people. Guilds are not about numbers, they are about companionship and cooperative play, and sometimes 2 is enough for some people.

Thanks Lanfear. To be clear I am definitely not suggesting exclusion.

Your answer makes absolute sense.

Not once we have discussed this question we ill move onto the next.

Chris

#834 - Oct. 6, 2014, 12:51 p.m.

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?

Hi,

GvG will be discussed after we discuss raiding.

Thanks,

Chris

#835 - Oct. 6, 2014, 12:55 p.m.

munkiman.3068:

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

Hi Chris,

I’m kind of at a loss with this, it seems like we are all sort of going off in different directions? Are alliances a thing?

Anywho, some stuff is sort of floating around the virtual yard so far:

Increasing horizontal progression when is comes to halls
1. Visual upgrades (wall of achievements, representing upgrades)
2. Re-Categorizing current upgrades to reflect more with halls
3. Adding specialized structures (workshops, kitchens, personal spaces, etc. )

Guild hall limitations
1. Member caps
2. Ability to customize the structure (more sandboxy)

Open world halls versus instanced

Costs
1. Up-front fee
2. Maintenance costs (more in line with open world)
3. Equal footing costs for small and large guilds

I’m not looking to drive the conversation, but there is a lot floating around.

Hi Munki,

We are just brain storming and thus throwing the idea of Alliances up. it was the top voted QOL proposal by the CDI group and something that I think would be really good for many aspects of the game.

It is important to try to not think of me as a dev in the discussion. I am just helping you guys to design and problem solving and you guys are helping me with your design ideas and community persona.

Chris

#842 - Oct. 6, 2014, 1:12 p.m.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

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 think there’s no real minimum behind guild halls, unless you hide it behind merits, which is a bit harder to come by in a small-ish guild.

I worked on getting my guild upgrades done, the guild was created at pre-launch of the game, and my active players ranged from 3-4 to around 20 at peak time during those past 2 years+

We recently finish upgrading everything this summer. Yes, it took a while, and what we did in-between, we played guild missions with an allied guild, while we would get enough influence to upgrade everything we needed.

I think being a smaller guild, working towards these objectives that seems so far away, brings us closer together, working towards a common objective. Now we run our own missions every week, and when we’re recruiting we can say we have everything unlocked.

So nothing is really unreachable, if you don’t mind putting the time in it.

Ok great.

Chris

#843 - Oct. 6, 2014, 1:14 p.m.

I will wait a bit longer for other thoughts before asking my next question.

Chris

#846 - Oct. 6, 2014, 1:21 p.m.

Devata.6589:

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.

Lets assume for brainstorming reasons we have 1 large map.

Chris

#847 - Oct. 6, 2014, 1:21 p.m.

munkiman.3068:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Munki,

We are just brain storming and thus throwing the idea of Alliances up. it was the top voted QOL proposal by the CDI group and something that I think would be really good for many aspects of the game.

It is important to try to not think of me as a dev in the discussion. I am just helping you guys to design and problem solving and you guys are helping me with your design ideas and community persona.

Chris

Fair enough, although i think of you and Jon as the ones that drive these conversations, more in the sense that we at least have a tighter structure so we can all sort specific ideas out. I mentioned some of this in a previous post.

I agree Alliances should be a thing, for sure. I also think you should be able to visit each guild in an alliance hall and guest to that guild for things like GvG and missions. A couple features that should come along with the Alliance idea. But, then again, we still need to work out the issue with a map cap even moreso then.

Yeah we are happy to drive and thanks for letting us do so. What i mean is just because we all talk about something it doesn’t mean it is a ‘thing’.

Chris

#856 - Oct. 6, 2014, 1:30 p.m.

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

#857 - Oct. 6, 2014, 1:31 p.m.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

munkiman.3068:

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

This would tie the upgrades more to game mode than to the current arbitrary categories.

So. This is about changing the categories to be more inline with game modes and it looks like you’re adding a few as dungeons and PvP only oriented categories don’t exist currently. Since politics and economy work globally across game modes (in general), where would they fall in this new category structure?

I’m at the point of trying to see what this has to do with the halls themselves though. Or are we just speaking about what parts of these new categories would be displayed in a hall? I like the idea of having an extra Asura Contractor show up and start building stuff in a workshop (which could currently sit in the architecture area “Build a physical workshop in your guild hall”). They could be crafting things like banners banquets and the like. While it’s a fun idea, it really doesn’t add much functionality to the upgrade system, but it does integrate the idea of halls more closely to the process.

Yep i’m trying to grasp what Jon wants here.

Does he just want us to redistribute the current upgrades under new names? or what?

If Guild Halls become the upgrade system it is an opportunity to look at the upgrade distribution and make it more meaningful and more sensible. This is an opportunity for you to do that. I just gave an example so that you could make your own suggestions within that understanding.

#858 - Oct. 6, 2014, 1:31 p.m.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Serophous.9085:

Edgar Doiron.2804:

Serophous.9085:

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? Does it go away if the alliance fails and a new one has to be started all over? If anything, that could be a completely new and different CDI if (or after ) guild halls are implemented.

That sounds as complicated as a divorce :P

and chances are, it would be!

All the more reason to keep things separate imo. Fewer peeved people in the long run.

Note we have come up with two valid options that can also be part of the design.

1: Small Guilds aren’t Excluded.
2: Alliances can create a shared Guild Hall.

Chris

#860 - Oct. 6, 2014, 1:32 p.m.

Note Jon and I are asking separate questions about different areas of the feature. Hopefully this isn’t to confusing. Feel free to engage both of us in tandem.

Chris

#861 - Oct. 6, 2014, 1:33 p.m.

Khisanth.2948:

Serophous.9085:

As for minimum size, I would say 25 members must be in the guild to start. That seems like an easily achievable number, especially with people able to join up to 4 guilds at a time.

What would be the benefit of this arbitrary limit? How does it improve the content?

Being able to join up to 4 guilds at a time is irrelevant. Having to grab extra filler members just so you can build a guild hall would be silly. If someone leaves the guild and you are now at 24 members does the guild hall go poof? If not what was the point of the limit? If yes … expect a lot of complaints from all over the place.

FYI I would not put a hard gate on number of guildees required for Guild Hall creation. That is my personal opinion.

Chris

#893 - Oct. 6, 2014, 3:07 p.m.

DiogoSilva.7089:

JonPeters.5630:

Conski Deshan.2057:

I find the current upgrade system quite stagnant and boring, you get your influence passively, click a button then wait a week.
(no offense intended to the creator of the system)
Maybe have the initial guild hall unlock under architecture say level 2/3 but past that an active system is needed.

On Categories for upgrades ,I’d see it breaking down something like this: (I may have what you meant by this wrong?)
Structures:
-Towers -halls -corridors -entry halls -Misc rooms
Defenses: (could be just graphical)
-Trebs -Cannons -Hot oil -Misc
Interior:
-Seating -Tables/cabinets -Rugs/banners/flags -Wallpapers/wall -statues/monuments -Misc
Exterior (wouldn’t actually limit it to placement outside as I’d like water features in the command room)
-Fountains -Trees -plants -training grounds -Livestock -Misc
NPCS
-Functional -Decorative -Alts
Glory or Rare category (this section would have limited placement (i.e once per guild hall or 10 per guild hall) basically the more prestige and high end stuff.
Limited Section for limited items i.e reward from once off events or competitions like a new Christmas tree each year.

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

This would tie the upgrades more to game mode than to the current arbitrary categories.

Before making a breakdown, I would like to think a little about Conski Deshan’s point regarding how “passive” influence is. I mean, I pretty much forget that it even exists, most of the time.

So, I am thinking, assuming the simplest case scenario: no customisable halls (excluding a visual representation of the guild upgrades), what could be a good reason to add guild-driven dynamic events/ quests/ hunts all around the world, if there’s no furniture to hunt down? Well, to make influence more actively obtainable!

Anyways, back to the breakdown, I think your example is effective and simple to understand. But I propose the following:

• Architecture (the guild halls itself)
  Unlocks guild halls, determines their size/ scope, unlocks general merchants and functionalities (bank, etc) within the guild halls, in addition to the current effects;
• Guild Identity / Representation (marketing the guild or having a presence)
  Unlocks and/ or expands upon guild armors, emblems, advertising boards, flag buffs, etc;
• Competition
  WvW buffs, GvG privileges, access to and maintainment of a guild-bound custom arena (as an alternative to the current means), ability to set up tournaments, unlocking access to pvp training area (with dummies) in the guild hall, etc. Also includes unlocking the respective merchants.
• World Presence (player-driven or player-created events)
  Guild missions, guild-related hunts or dynamic events for privilege/ furniture/ whatever, ability to organized guild events in towns, ability to set up duels, etc. Maybe the flag buffs can be here. Maybe this category can be fused with Guild Identity;
• General PvE Experience/ Organization
  For dungeons, fractals, raids, open world events and buffs.

Good categories. I agree influence is not a good system and we should think about how we would change how you obtain upgrades once we have talked through the specifics of what kind of upgrades a new system has and how it incorporates the existing upgrades.

#895 - Oct. 6, 2014, 3:10 p.m.

munkiman.3068:

Devata.6589:

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.

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

#897 - Oct. 6, 2014, 3:14 p.m.

munkiman.3068:

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.

I’m waiting on Jon to come back with “a box” list so we can really brainstorm further on potentially good ideas. I’m also waiting on Chris for question 2

I think the idea of open world guild halls is sound, for another game, like Archage

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.

#902 - Oct. 6, 2014, 3:26 p.m.

FYI I am AFK currently.

#903 - Oct. 6, 2014, 3:27 p.m.

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 way I see it is that you have access to any guild you are repping.

Chris

#922 - Oct. 6, 2014, 5:45 p.m.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

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.

1.) Something that comes to my mind would be a system where you have a specific number of free slots and you have to choose which things you’d put into them – just like the skill-system (3 utility slots but many choices to put into those). This would make guilds relatively unique vs. others.

The bigger the guild – the more variety is available for them via more slots. Small guilds may have only 2 slots (e.g. they specialize on dungeons and sPvP) but it’s not too hard for them to reach the higher tiers in these categories, since their chosen slot-options are designed for small groups.

2.) What if each player could choose 1-2 occupations in the guild hall? He would gain personal reputation and would unlock stuff only specialists on that area could get. This way the huge guild-group would be split into multiple sub-groups which work together for their sub-goals. (e.g. the dungeon-specialists would unlock dungeon portals for their guild, but only on higher level tiers in their sub-paths. Players who play a lot of GvG could unlock new GvG-maps for their guild. They also unlock personal prestige rewards (like costumes) but also stuff for everyone in the guild. etc.)

Not everyone can unlock everything, which would make smaller groups within the guild more meaningful. You would have to specialize, which would be important so that more people are involved in the upgrade-process instead of only a few hardcore players who unlock everything and make the others feel redundant.

(something like TF2’s classes – the more you play with one, the more you can customize your character and the more you can help your team in a variety of ways).

This could go even further: The dungeon team could also have multiple sub-categories, where players can and should specialize. Players who play very supporty (revive a lot, heal a lot) could unlock exotic gear with support-stats for everyone to purchase, while they unlock personal things as well (skins which show off the support-role).

The TLDR here would be: give every player something to specialize in so that this player would feel special in a guild while he unlocks stuff for himself (prestige-items) as well as for the whole group (useful items).

I like this, but would want to make sure we don’t deny access to core features. Someone suggested guild hall upgrade trees as guild hall structures. I think you could make an argument for structure types. Ones that contain core features vs more unique specialized structures that guilds must choose some number of to build.

#925 - Oct. 6, 2014, 6:05 p.m.

FYI i will be reading the discussion tonight and jumping back int tomorrow!

Chris

#991 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:17 a.m.

Donari.5237:

I think Lanfear’s question is what happens if the guild you are repping swaps alliances and no longer is in the alliance that made the hall — how do you handle man-hour investment in an alliance hall if for reasons fair or foul you need to go separate ways?

That is an interesting issue. Alliances in this context are pretty complex because of this one point.

Chris

#992 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:22 a.m.

Gulesave.5073:

With all this talk of how to build and manage the halls, and where to put them, and who can see them and go in them, I’m not seeing any mention of what you would want to do once you’re in there.

The desired functions of the hall and its constituent upgrades should be considered from as early a point as possible, to inform the design from the legs up.

Preferably, I think, it should be a place to do things we can’t do anywhere else. Otherwise why build it? Unless you really just want your guild hall to be nothing but an elaborate meeting hall with a few crafting tables…

Hi Gulesave,

There has been a ton of discussion and brainstorming on Guild Hall Content in the thread. Maybe once Jon gets some time he an summarize some of it.

Chris

#993 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:24 a.m.

Donari.5237:

For those suggesting “defend the guild hall events,” what happens if the guild fails the event? What rewards come from succeeding and how are those balanced against other game play modes? How is it kept from being a mob-wave farm fest while still feeling rewarding to use? What makes it special to guilds as opposed to just finding events in the world to do? Would the guild have the choice to just never trigger such a thing?

I’m not dissing the idea, as it certainly could be fun to have an option for action and adventure surrounding the hall, just wondering about these factors.

My assumption is from reading the related threads that you would lose some of your progression in the guild hall and would have to build it back up.

Chris

#995 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:26 a.m.

Devata.6589:

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.

Hi Dev,

For all the reasons and more stated by many in the thread about the pros and cons of open world vs instance. Also it is very acheivable to have a living and breathing world within an instanced map (I do however understand your point).

Chris

#996 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:29 a.m.

munkiman.3068:

Tryxtr.6295:

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

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 agree, however i do wonder if it’s just that further internal discussion would need to take place before they could narrow things down. I like that they are putting in little guided points to discuss, but not totally locking us into a key concept. Both Jon and Chris have stated they prefer instances (vs open world design) as well, but it’s good that they are willing to listen to reasons behind the idea and various suggestions to fix the issues, instead of just entirely dismissing it. Still at some point someone has to call it, just for the sake of progress or not beating a dead “mount”

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.

#997 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:35 a.m.

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:

• Someone suggested that the upgrades be tied to buildings which I think has some very clear potential.
• People have suggested a few ways to break those upgrades down but none too specific.
• We need to discuss how the building system would incorporate old upgrades but also provide new ones.
• What kind of new upgrades would be possible because of the system turning into buildings?
• What changes to influence and guild progression should happen to make it more intuitive if we went with buildings?
• How do we build customization into this upgrade system where there currently is none? Someone suggested this and there were some talk of separating clear core functionality from the unique customized features, but that is sort of where we stopped.

I’d love to see people just blue sky take a crack and fleshing out some of these ideas and then I would be happy to summarize which ones I think gel well together and try to combine them into a more cohesive design that we could then begin discussing the pros and cons of.

Jon

#998 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:38 a.m.

Baltzenger.2467:

I don’t think it does any good to start repeating suggestions to not have them “buried” in the thread, because by doing so, the thread is getting very messy and hard to read. I do not know if the purpose of this is that “we” get to a consensus, because how will we? It’s better to just post your suggestions/ideas (once!), answer to the questions proposed, and move on.
I’m sure the team will read the whole thread and not just the last pages, also, if something needs to be further discussed, we will be asked to expand on that, like we have been doing to this point.

I mean, it shouldn’t be that an idea gets more attention because it is posted more times on the same thread…

Exactly. If someone posts then it is read, considered and added to knowledge base of many of the CDI collaborators. That post then informs discussion and problem solving, thus there is no need to repost. If there hasn’t been a direct answer or question by anyone it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been useful to the conversation. As we continue to move forward with the discussion we will drill down further and things will be more focused. This particular CDI has been excellent and we are definitely not out of the discussion phase so hang tight and lets carry on having a great discussion.

For those that are interested I did a talk at VFS Game Design Expo a few years ago that goes through the different roles of a game designer during development. Watching the pertinent parts (Mainly the Concept and Dev section) maybe useful if you all if you have the time to watch it. Please note these are my personal experiences and opinions and the talk is not designed to be put forward as fact or the opinion of Arena.

Chris

#999 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:43 a.m.

Rambodacious.7495:

Adventuring – Specializing in this category provides:

Responding to Chris Whiteside

I love the idea of the alliances you posted, but I think each guild should have to build/improve their own structures. If you represent a given guild within the alliance then you can take advantage of their buffs. This would allow guilds of varying specializations from above to band together and give all of their players access to all aspects of the game without having to grind out their own upgrades. Also, with this change, small guilds could then benefit with little to worry about.

Allowing a special channel for Alliance Chat would be great too.

Honestly, smaller guilds could just ally with the larger ones and get all the bells and whistles. Bigger guilds would want it, because it’s a few more people repping the guild here and there throwing coppers into the Guild Vaults per above. Everyone wins.

As far as how to go about actually unlocking the tiers/upgrades etc from above? I’ll get to that tomorrow.

Hi Rambo,

I totally agree with:

Allowing a special channel for Alliance Chat would be great too.

As a player I hope GW2 gets more custom chat channels full stop.

I love the idea of the alliances you posted, but I think each guild should have to build/improve their own structures.

This is an interesting an complex idea. The idea of guilds in this scenario of having building specialties is just awesome. i going to have think about this some more.

It would be totally cool to have guild outside of your alliance that you could reward or pay to come into your guild area and guild from a set of custom creations. Note i am brain storming here, this is a very complex but cool idea.

Chris

#1001 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:45 a.m.

DragonWhimsy.6489:

On the matter of Guild Alliance Halls, I have nothing against those necessarily, but they are absolutely not a replacement for small guilds having their own guild hall.

From a RP’ers perspective though, that could be a really awesome way to have a fully RP’ed town or other shared experience. I think the RP community would really enjoy that.

I don’t disagree. The discussion around alliances and small guild access to Guild Halls are not mutually exclusive.

Chris

#1002 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:46 a.m.

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, i.e. asura lab or sylvari leaf house for building in Maguuman, human tavern or house for building in Kryta, etc.
Pros:

• GH has Open World noticeable representation.
• GH are spread around the world.

Cons:

• Limited amount of buildings in each area (can be solved by adding more houses, or zone part specifically for houses) .
• Guild members can’t see the exterior without leaving GH.

This is a really good idea.

Chris

#1003 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:53 a.m.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Donari.5237:

I think Lanfear’s question is what happens if the guild you are repping swaps alliances and no longer is in the alliance that made the hall — how do you handle man-hour investment in an alliance hall if for reasons fair or foul you need to go separate ways?

Yes, this is precisely what I was asking. I know in GW1, my guild was in several different alliances over the multitude of years that I played. Sometimes alliances just don’t work out for a variety of reasons and guilds go their separate ways.

What happens in such a case, when the guilds split, to all the effort that was put into these ‘shared’ halls. The man hours, the funds, etc. When they join another alliance that has it’s own shared hall already, do they now have their hall, the old shared hall, and then the shared hall for the new alliance as well? This could get cumbersome. Do they lose the old shared hall instead and thus all the effort put into it? That could really tick some people off. Or do shared halls simply no longer exist if the alliance does not exist? Could this not be a double edged sword – ie, as much deterant as incentive to build such an item?

Yeah this is a real problem. This could completely preclude Alliance functionality on our Guild Halls discussion. Can we have some ideas to beat this problem please and see if we can solve it?

Chris

#1005 - Oct. 7, 2014, 11:58 a.m.

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 agree and have been looking at Archeage to. It is always important to look at other games relevant games and feature in the same field when designing.

Chris

#1006 - Oct. 7, 2014, 12:01 p.m.

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

#1009 - Oct. 7, 2014, 12:11 p.m.

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.

Yep I think this is a must. Like Devata says it is super important to remain true to the pillars of the game and whilst having large maps doesn’t meet his/her goals it does align with the pillar.

Just want to note again this is a brain storm and not indicative of anything we may or may not be working.

These are my opinions mainly as a player but also as a developer and as always a CDI that the team is reading.

Chris

#1024 - Oct. 7, 2014, 1:07 p.m.

Arewn.2368:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

What’s your stance on player real-estate? ‘Guild Beacons’ (as you call it) would be a great inclusion, but if they are to be displayed in the open world in any way, you’ll inevitably run into the issue of ‘real-estate’ (limited space, and who gets the right to occupy that space).
Are you okay with limiting who can display their stuff, or are you looking towards a solution where everyone can show their ‘beacon’, even if to a lesser capacity?

I think it is something we should continue to discuss (-:

Chris

#1025 - Oct. 7, 2014, 1:08 p.m.

wwwes.1398:

This is neither here nor there, but just wanted to say how awesome this thread is. When it started, I was really of the mindset that guild halls were unnecessary and wouldn’t really add much to the game, but now I just think it sounds like there are some incredibly cool ideas being thrown around. I can’t wait to see what the finished concept is and then to see if anything ever is able to come from it in game.

The guys and girls are doing an awesome job. I thought it would take years to get to this level of quality of CDI and I was wrong.

Chris

#1026 - Oct. 7, 2014, 1:10 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Donari.5237:

I think Lanfear’s question is what happens if the guild you are repping swaps alliances and no longer is in the alliance that made the hall — how do you handle man-hour investment in an alliance hall if for reasons fair or foul you need to go separate ways?

Yes, this is precisely what I was asking. I know in GW1, my guild was in several different alliances over the multitude of years that I played. Sometimes alliances just don’t work out for a variety of reasons and guilds go their separate ways.

What happens in such a case, when the guilds split, to all the effort that was put into these ‘shared’ halls. The man hours, the funds, etc. When they join another alliance that has it’s own shared hall already, do they now have their hall, the old shared hall, and then the shared hall for the new alliance as well? This could get cumbersome. Do they lose the old shared hall instead and thus all the effort put into it? That could really tick some people off. Or do shared halls simply no longer exist if the alliance does not exist? Could this not be a double edged sword – ie, as much deterant as incentive to build such an item?

Yeah this is a real problem. This could completely preclude Alliance functionality on our Guild Halls discussion. Can we have some ideas to beat this problem please and see if we can solve it?

Chris

Le Bump

#1027 - Oct. 7, 2014, 1:12 p.m.

So of course carry on discussing progession with Jon and any other ideas, discussion points you might have.

But for those interested can we look at these two problems/opportunities:

1: Issues around Alliances and Guild Halls
2: Beacon mechanics in instanced environments

Chris

#1028 - Oct. 7, 2014, 1:14 p.m.

Arewn.2368:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

What’s your stance on player real-estate? ‘Guild Beacons’ (as you call it) would be a great inclusion, but if they are to be displayed in the open world in any way, you’ll inevitably run into the issue of ‘real-estate’ (limited space, and who gets the right to occupy that space).
Are you okay with limiting who can display their stuff, or are you looking towards a solution where everyone can show their ‘beacon’, even if to a lesser capacity?

I think it is important for Guilds to be able to show of their prowess in each of the core pillars of the game and Guild Halls would be a great place in terms of a nexus to reward guild members with ways to show of the pride they have for their guild.

Does this answer your question Arewn?

Chris

#1036 - Oct. 7, 2014, 1:33 p.m.

Jalefor.5362:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yeah this is a real problem. This could completely preclude Alliance functionality on our Guild Halls discussion. Can we have some ideas to beat this problem please and see if we can solve it?

Chris

I’m only now joining in the conversation, but I have a lot of ideas to contribute. I figured I’d start with this point, since Chris asked so nicely (and directly) for input. =]

Personally, I like something I read in here about each guild being able to bring in some feature for an alliance. I think the idea of developing an alliance-owned guild hall of their very own is just not going to work for all the very valid reasons mentioned (not the least of which is splitting of guilds within an alliance). That said, I think there’re some good options that could be implemented to make alliances viable.

There are a few major points that will bear discussion, so I’ll separate them out here and discuss each in more detail afterward in separate posts. They include:
I: Division of Features among Guilds
II: Small Guild Motivations
III: Large Guild Motivations

People can join the CDI whenever they want. The more the merrier.

Chris

#1038 - Oct. 7, 2014, 1:41 p.m.

Palador.2170:

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:

• Someone suggested that the upgrades be tied to buildings which I think has some very clear potential.
• People have suggested a few ways to break those upgrades down but none too specific.
• We need to discuss how the building system would incorporate old upgrades but also provide new ones.
• What kind of new upgrades would be possible because of the system turning into buildings?
• What changes to influence and guild progression should happen to make it more intuitive if we went with buildings?
• How do we build customization into this upgrade system where there currently is none? Someone suggested this and there were some talk of separating clear core functionality from the unique customized features, but that is sort of where we stopped.

I’d love to see people just blue sky take a crack and fleshing out some of these ideas and then I would be happy to summarize which ones I think gel well together and try to combine them into a more cohesive design that we could then begin discussing the pros and cons of.

Jon

Do you remember the Trait revamp from earlier this year? Because you’re rushing right towards that same mistake again, but for guilds.

The current upgrade system works. It may not be flashy, and it may need some minor adjustments in a few places, but it does the job and it does it well. Simple and straight forward is important, ESPECIALLY when there’s multiple people giving their time and energy to the guild to make things happen.

Other than a few minor links (guild banners, guild merchants, and such), the two systems should NEVER rely on each other. New upgrades to guilds that do not physically manifest as part of the guild hall should not be part of the guild hall system. Nobody should feel forced into making a guild hall to get a non-hall upgrade.

Now, with that said, I really don’t think you’ll agree with me. So, let’s go all the way with your idea for a moment. If you’re going to do it, there’s no point in half measures.

• A guild should start with a very basic guild hall from the moment of creation. This is the physical representation of your work, and should be there from the very beginning.

• Upgrades to the guild’s max size should upgrade the size of the hall. This will likely require upping the costs to increase the max size. I would also suggest that it require a minimum level in Politics upgrades.

• Asuran portals that target the locations of any guild missions. When one is started, the portal becomes active and can send you there. And before anyone yells “LORE!” at me to say they don’t work like that, there’s an underwater puzzle with a re-targetable asuran portal that needs no exit portals already in the game.

• Influence stays the same. Let’s face it, gold makes things happen. Look at all the ministers in Tyria. With their mansions, guards, and servants, they are practically guilds unto themselves. This is money and politics at work. (Plus: gem sales.)

• Space will be required to put any upgrades into the hall. If you have a small enough hall, you may not have space for all of your upgrades to be active at one time. Pick and choose to fill the open space, and put a cool down timer on changing it so that they don’t just swap them out as needed. Make it important, so there’s more need to upgrade to a bigger hall.

Hi Pala,

Jon is simply brainstorming. He is casting a wide net.

Nothing we ask, say or talk about should be considered as development.

Chris

#1042 - Oct. 7, 2014, 1:47 p.m.

Jalefor.5362:

”Community Income”
First off, the idea of a community or alliance income. I’m working from an imagined point where an alliance forms a “guild forum” instance of sorts. A ring of guild halls, customized as they may be, with some open shared space for effectively a small development of a sort of town. An Asuran gate to Lions arch in one corner, run by a small squad of Asura, a bustling market with a handful of basic npc vendors and a few crafting stations embedded in NPC shops in a cluster, a small amphitheater with displayed trophies and plaques of the allied guilds denoting their achievements.
This alliance community would be something that drew income to a region from a roleplay perspective. As such, there would be an expectation that the guilds that formed and protected a community received some portion of that influx as a tax. To give an oversimplified example of how this might work and why it would provide motivation to larger guilds as well:

-Each feature (redundant or not) brought into an alliance by a guild generates an amount of “taxable income.” Duplicates of a feature increase that amount more.

-Each guild’s overall contribution, relative to the other member guilds, determines their “split” of the income

-The income could be “influence”, or any of a variety of other currencies. A discussion for another post.

Example:
Guild A(lpha and omega): 200 active members. Develops half of every possible “alliance feature” for themselves, generating a total of 1000gp/week (gp is an arbitrary currency at this point). As they are not allied with anyone, they receive 1000gp.

Guild B(iggies anonymous): 50 active members. Develops a 25% of the possible “alliance features” for themselves, generating a total of 500gp/week. Also unallied.

It turns out, evert feature Guild B developed was also developed by Guild A. Why purpose would Guild A have in allying?

If they ally, the total available features remain unchanged. However, they now have two “tailor shops”. They don’t manifest separately, but the effect is that the tailor shop has “twice the employees”, and produces 2.5 times as much income for the region. Same for a few other twice-developed features. Guild A contributes more to the overall community, so they get more of the gains. (1000/1500, so 2/3 of the total goes to Guild A) The end result?

Unallied: Guild A: *1000*gp/wk, Guild B: *500*gp/wk

Allied: Total: 1750/wk, Guild A: *1167*gp/wk, Guild B: *583*gp/wk

Why does Guild A want currency? That’s the next discussion.

All the Alliance accrued points or cost ideas are a bit complicated though don’t we think? My main concern is inaccessibility leading to frustration.

If two alliances break apart my opinion is that each alliance should keep an instance of the original one and can carry on from there separately.

If a guild leaves an alliance the above solution is completely unworkable as it will lead to cloning and gaming of the systems we are brainstorming.

The harsh design would be if a guild leaves or is kicked it is back to square on or the more complex solution would be total number of pertinent progression points are available to spend on a new Guild Hall that belongs to the guild or can be spent on a Guild Hall of an existing or new alliance.

Chris

#1072 - Oct. 7, 2014, 3:56 p.m.

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.

We can totally continue to chat about ideas around how a guild hall can be built/upgraded. Jon is discussing that right now with the CDI group.

Chris

#1099 - Oct. 7, 2014, 6:46 p.m.

Astralporing.1957:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

If two alliances break apart my opinion is that each alliance should keep an instance of the original one and can carry on from there separately.

If a guild leaves an alliance the above solution is completely unworkable as it will lead to cloning and gaming of the systems we are brainstorming.

The harsh design would be if a guild leaves or is kicked it is back to square on or the more complex solution would be total number of pertinent progression points are available to spend on a new Guild Hall that belongs to the guild or can be spent on a Guild Hall of an existing or new alliance.

Chris

I am not sure if Guild Alliances even need a separate progression system. I see them more as convenience, than another tier of upgrades over individual guild ones.

Examples:
Communication and community: Shared Alliance chat channel, shared alliance MOTD, shared meeting ground. Munkiman’s Alliance Hub idea would fit right there – the visuals of that hub could depend on how advanced the individual guilds of the Alliance are.

Guild Missions: When a guild mission is started by any member of the Alliance, every player belonging to the same alliance can participate and receive rewards as if they belonged to the guild that started the mission. Alternatively (in case there’s a fear that people would not want to run the mission for their own guild, if they have already received rewards from an allied one), maybe we could offer two types of rewards per mission (as always, capped per week). One main reward, for your own guild missions, and one (lesser) assist reward, for doing the mission for an allied guild.

Shared functionality: Belonging to a Guild Alliance might offer for every guild the advantages of guild upgrades belonging to other guilds in the alliance. The guilds would be free, of course, to pursue those upgrades on their own, just in case. And of course it doesn’t need to cover all possible upgrades – some might be sharable, while others would need to be researched individually.

It’s also possible for guilds to offer other advantages to each others. For example, one of the ideas i had was a version of “Asuran contractors”: Any guild in the alliance could “donate” to their alliance their currently unused production slots, which other guilds could use to hasten their own upgrades.

In such a system, Guild Alliance is a dynamically generated construct – if a guild joins, or leaves the alliance, the Alliance automatically gets adjusted. There’s no need to worry about dividing alliance investments to individual guilds, because there are only individual investments here.

I like your thoughts around Alliances in terms of there QOL functionality. This was something discussed heavily in phase 1 and Alliance functionality doesn’t have to include guilds.

To be clear Alliance were put forward as a suggestion focusing on allowing smaller guilds to help each other out and thus under that light there is progression and loss.

I am just trying to see if there is a solution to issues raised with Alliance progress functionality.

Chris

#1100 - Oct. 7, 2014, 6:48 p.m.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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, i.e. asura lab or sylvari leaf house for building in Maguuman, human tavern or house for building in Kryta, etc.
Pros:

• GH has Open World noticeable representation.
• GH are spread around the world.

Cons:

• Limited amount of buildings in each area (can be solved by adding more houses, or zone part specifically for houses) .
• Guild members can’t see the exterior without leaving GH.

This is a really good idea.

Chris

Didn’t I already suggest this up-thread when talking with Devata?

Edit: Seems I did . . .

Sorry if i missed it Tobias. Sometimes ideas shine through more after evolution of the discussion.

Chris

#1102 - Oct. 7, 2014, 6:50 p.m.

VodCom.6924:

Devata.6589:

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

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/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.

Go ahead VOD that would be awesome. Which reminds me i need to send out goodies to those who helped with logistics on the last phase.

Chris

#1103 - Oct. 7, 2014, 6:51 p.m.

Gulesave.5073:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Gulesave,

There has been a ton of discussion and brainstorming on Guild Hall Content in the thread. Maybe once Jon gets some time he an summarize some of it.

Chris

Chris,

Let me take this from a different angle: What are the things guilds like to do together, and how can the guild hall and its various spaces makes these things easier and more enjoyable?

For example, how can the hall serve as a superior launching pad for jumping en mass into PvE or WvW content? How can the space itself benefit PvP’ers in practicing and testing builds, or organizing and running tournaments? How can it be laid out to enable roleplaying? What incentive is there to visiting other guilds’ halls other than gawking? How are a guilds’ accomplishments demonstrated in the hall, and how can that be interacted with? How can guild members interact with each other in ways they can’t do elsewhere?

How might the spaces and objects and rules specific to the guild hall improve the overall experience of being in a guild?

Yep those are some good questions. Thoughts folks?

Chris

#1104 - Oct. 7, 2014, 6:52 p.m.

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

#1161 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:17 a.m.

munkiman.3068:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

VodCom.6924:

Devata.6589:

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

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/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.

Go ahead VOD that would be awesome. Which reminds me i need to send out goodies to those who helped with logistics on the last phase.

Chris

I wish i had time to sort every post in these CDIs. Some days i can do conglomerate posts, but most times I really wish i could just dig deeper into concepts.

All is well with the world, and i’m glad to participate! Thanks Chris, you (and i’m sure several others at Arena reading) is enough for us to continue this journey with everyone involved. I love the re-caps, those folks definitely deserve a medal, or something. A giant hug, i dunno? Can we all get group hug?

Thanks for hosting this stuff.

Thank you all for participating.

Chris

#1162 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:19 a.m.

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.

To be clear as discussed earlier not having alliances as part of Guild Halls in this discussion does not stop small guilds from being able to progress in this area. The idea for alliances came about in regard to potential faster progression.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about this so for the time being lets take alliances out of the Guild Hall discussion as we are just spinning our wheels.

Chris

#1163 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:22 a.m.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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, i.e. asura lab or sylvari leaf house for building in Maguuman, human tavern or house for building in Kryta, etc.
Pros:

• GH has Open World noticeable representation.
• GH are spread around the world.

Cons:

• Limited amount of buildings in each area (can be solved by adding more houses, or zone part specifically for houses) .
• Guild members can’t see the exterior without leaving GH.

This is a really good idea.

Chris

Didn’t I already suggest this up-thread when talking with Devata?

Edit: Seems I did . . .

Sorry if i missed it Tobias. Sometimes ideas shine through more after evolution of the discussion.

Chris

Also, I don’t care entirely about full credit. I’m sure someone else brought it up well before me. Bad ideas are like that

Nonsense it is a good idea. Sorry for not picking up on it earlier.

Chris

#1164 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:23 a.m.

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 foucs ont his for a while and discuss progression of a Guild Hall.

Chris

#1165 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:27 a.m.

VodCom.6924:

Hi fellow contributors,

I have started a summary thread for the Guild Hall CDI.

Feel free to check here if your suggestion has already be posted and catch up with other contributions

And try to stick to the proposed posting format suggested in the OP. It makes the summarizing job much much easier.

Thanks a lot VOD

#1166 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:28 a.m.

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.

#1168 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:32 a.m.

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

#1170 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:36 a.m.

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)

This is a cool idea. Anything that cycles players through fun content is a win.

Chris

#1173 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:46 a.m.

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.

Hi Vod,

How you progress in the upgrades of your guild halls, buildings, QOL features, merchants, activities, and whatever else you can think of (-:

In short the content and how you achieve it.

Sorry for not giving more details earlier. Busy Busy Busy.

I will do a better job of this in future.

Chris

P.S: I know there have been quite a few posts on this already. I just want to focus conversation around this at the moment.

#1175 - Oct. 8, 2014, 11:51 a.m.

Surbrus.6942:

GW2 “end game” is about fashion, playing around and giving yourself different looks. The old PvP lockers allowed for a lot of playing around with armour skins that you have unlocked, as well as getting better previews than the preview window. Unfortunately that functionality no longer exists.

A potentially neat idea would be to basically bring that functionality back for a sort of “Guild Hall fashion room” upgrade so to speak, where people are free to change their looks without eating up their transmutation charges. 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.

This would allow for a lot more use of skins that may otherwise not see as much use due to the trans charge restrictions, bringing back the functionality of the pre-wardrobe PvP lockers for testing out unlocked armour looks.

Superb QOL idea.

Chris

#1291 - Oct. 9, 2014, 1:53 p.m.

Hi All,

just to let you know I am super busy today and may not be able to get involved. I m reading though.

Chris

#1294 - Oct. 9, 2014, 2:16 p.m.

Many thanks VOD

CDI Summary below:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Guild-Hall-CDI-The-complete-summary-edition/first#post4476652

Chris

#1298 - Oct. 9, 2014, 3:39 p.m.

Gobble D Goop.4081:

there are several discussions going on, but from what i can tell, most people believe the guild hall and many of the basics should be easily accessible to guilds of all sizes. The dungeon/event/WvW stuff seems to be for the fancier furniture/pictures/tables/etc. world bosses normally aren’t too bad for getting things since you can just follow the zerg around for them. Same with WvW (unless your server is having a bad time).

at any rate, if A-Net implements what the consensus seems to be, then your guild should be fine.

‘most people believe the guild hall and many of the basics should be easily accessible to guilds of all sizes.’

Correct.

Chris

#1321 - Oct. 10, 2014, 10:29 a.m.

Thanks for all the posts in the last few days. I’m not ignoring you just too busy to post and discuss right now. Keep the ideas flowing.

Jon

#1325 - Oct. 10, 2014, 11:08 a.m.

FYI folks i am in content reviews all morning. If i don’t get involved today I will be on this weekend.

Chris

#1327 - Oct. 10, 2014, 11:15 a.m.

Baltzenger.2467:

@Chris:
I just finished watching your presentation on The Modern Role of a Game Designer, it is a very good presentation, and even if this is going to be a little bit offtopic, I think it can be helpful to make a reflection on it, considering how good this CDI has been going.

I’ve worked as an independent designer for about 5 years (since I was about 17), I’m always eager to learn about the industry, and specially about the logistics of development and design, so I find your presentation very illustrative, and I can relate many points made there to personal experience, (more specifically, personal mistakes), so thanks for sharing.

We have a very good momentum in this thread, the fact that even the press is interested on what’s going on here is very exciting. I think that even from my amateur point of view, I can say that the features and ideas we are discussing have enormous potential for the game, not just because of how interesting and compelling to the players is the idea of having a customizable personal space, but because of how transverse it is among different game modes. (Making this a potentially interesting topic for almost every player of the game)

It makes so much more sense, after watching your presentation, the processes that we are following.
I just wish at this point, out of curiosity, to know what do you guys think of the idea of Guild Halls, after reading what we have until know, your personal preferences, or what do you think fits or doesn’t into the current game. I don’t think that at this point the discussion can be “contaminated” at all. Well, at least, I would like to know, to further understand how our ideas are understood, or seen, from a more educated perspective.

And because, I think we should keep this momentum, not just for this CDI, but for the following ones. To me, and to some I think, it was a huge step to go from “suggest what you think would be accepted” to “suggest what you would like, no restrictions”, and something tells me that it isn’t the only huge step we’re gonna make during this process.

Hi Balt,

I will try to answer your main question today.

Chris

#1328 - Oct. 10, 2014, 11:18 a.m.

Baltzenger.2467:

krosis.7598:

Guys, you’re dragging down the thread.

I agree, please let’s keep it cool guys, we have been doing it so good.

Morning Folks,

I haven’t seen anyone dragging down the thread yet. I assume some posts were deleted?

I think passionate discourse is fine between collaborators as they find their footing. What isn’t effective is when folks have no other intent than to disrupt the discussion.This is without doubt the best CDI we have ever had.

And be assured that the dev team have been reading it with a lot of interest.

Chris

#1399 - Oct. 15, 2014, 11:58 a.m.

Iason Evan.3806:

This CDI has been amazing. I am ready for the next one though.

It has indeed been an amazing CDI. The team has reading through it diligently. I think we should move onto the top three priority items for everyone soon. Do we have any more discussion points or proposals before we move on folks?

Chris

P.S: Sorry I wasn’t on over the weekend, I just wasn’t able to get on.

#1400 - Oct. 15, 2014, 12:02 p.m.

I also want to point out that we shouldn’t be using language like ‘This is a terrible idea’. I think we have got to the point now where we can prove or disprove ideas on based on their merits and discussion. The reason we shouldn’t use language like this is because the more members we have and the more ideas we have the more problems we are likely to solve and the more opportunities we are likely to find.

Chris

#1403 - Oct. 15, 2014, 12:19 p.m.

Ok cool let’s start it of then Donari:

Note these are my personal top three priorities:

1: The ability for guild members to be able to show of their prowess and achievements through Guild Halls and their own avatar customization.
2: The ability for players to work together in a fun way to build something different and exciting.
3: The ability for smaller guilds to enjoy guild halls.

Chris

#1405 - Oct. 15, 2014, 12:23 p.m.

Iason Evan.3806:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Iason Evan.3806:

This CDI has been amazing. I am ready for the next one though.

It has indeed been an amazing CDI. The team has reading through it diligently. I think we should move onto the top three priority items for everyone soon. Do we have any more discussion points or proposals before we move on folks?

Chris

P.S: Sorry I wasn’t on over the weekend, I just wasn’t able to get on.

• 1.) Cosmetic only progression. Crafting involved in this process with scaling for guild sizes.

• 2.) Basic services(Merchant, Armor repair etc.)are of minimal cost.

• 3.) Guild Hall Customization to allow player agency for unique feeling guild space.

1 and 2 are also points I care about.

Chris

#1425 - Oct. 15, 2014, 5:24 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok cool let’s start it of then Donari:

Note these are my personal top three priorities:

1: The ability for guild members to be able to show of their prowess and achievements through Guild Halls and their own avatar customization.
2: The ability for players to work together in a fun way to build something different and exciting.
3: The ability for smaller guilds to enjoy guild halls.

Chris

Le Bump

Chris

#1448 - Oct. 16, 2014, 1:08 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok cool let’s start it of then Donari:

Note these are my personal top three priorities:

1: The ability for guild members to be able to show of their prowess and achievements through Guild Halls and their own avatar customization.
2: The ability for players to work together in a fun way to build something different and exciting.
3: The ability for smaller guilds to enjoy guild halls.

Chris

Le Bump

Chris

Bump.

We will wait a few more days for folks to post their top three priority’s. Could those who are doing summaries please post them (Orpheal and Vod)

Then on Monday I will put our proposal together and then on Tuesday we will begin Phase 3: Raiding!!

Chris

#1449 - Oct. 16, 2014, 1:12 p.m.

Simzani.4318:

It is a CDI on guild halls and there is one on gvg, it means that they don’t even had think about begining to discuss it at lunch. Previous CDI showed that what’s in the CDI stay in the CDI. I’m curious to see what they want us to discuss that we will never have.

Hi Sim,

Not sure what you mean, can you elaborate please?

Chris

#1457 - Oct. 16, 2014, 6:48 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok cool let’s start it of then Donari:

Note these are my personal top three priorities:

1: The ability for guild members to be able to show of their prowess and achievements through Guild Halls and their own avatar customization.
2: The ability for players to work together in a fun way to build something different and exciting.
3: The ability for smaller guilds to enjoy guild halls.

Chris

Le Bump

Chris

Bump.

We will wait a few more days for folks to post their top three priority’s. Could those who are doing summaries please post them (Orpheal and Vod)

Then on Monday I will put our proposal together and then on Tuesday we will begin Phase 3: Raiding!!

Chris

Bump

#1476 - Oct. 17, 2014, 11:15 a.m.

VodCom.6924:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok cool let’s start it of then Donari:

Note these are my personal top three priorities:

1: The ability for guild members to be able to show of their prowess and achievements through Guild Halls and their own avatar customization.
2: The ability for players to work together in a fun way to build something different and exciting.
3: The ability for smaller guilds to enjoy guild halls.

Chris

Le Bump

Chris

Bump.

We will wait a few more days for folks to post their top three priority’s. Could those who are doing summaries please post them (Orpheal and Vod)

Then on Monday I will put our proposal together and then on Tuesday we will begin Phase 3: Raiding!!

Chris

Bump

I’m on it.

Truth be told, I recently graduated and I’m looking for a job. A time consuming activity if you ask me.

I’ll finish the summary on saturday afternoon GMT+2.

Congrats Vod,

Chris

#1477 - Oct. 17, 2014, 11:17 a.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok cool let’s start it of then Donari:

Note these are my personal top three priorities:

1: The ability for guild members to be able to show of their prowess and achievements through Guild Halls and their own avatar customization.
2: The ability for players to work together in a fun way to build something different and exciting.
3: The ability for smaller guilds to enjoy guild halls.

Chris

Bump and including Vod’s summary.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Guild-Hall-CDI-The-condensed-thread-21-28/first#post4478377

Chris

#1478 - Oct. 17, 2014, 11:17 a.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok cool let’s start it of then Donari:

Note these are my personal top three priorities:

1: The ability for guild members to be able to show of their prowess and achievements through Guild Halls and their own avatar customization.
2: The ability for players to work together in a fun way to build something different and exciting.
3: The ability for smaller guilds to enjoy guild halls.

Chris

Le Bump

Chris

Bump.

We will wait a few more days for folks to post their top three priority’s. Could those who are doing summaries please post them (Orpheal and Vod)

Then on Monday I will put our proposal together and then on Tuesday we will begin Phase 3: Raiding!!

Chris

Bump

Info Bump

Chris

#1507 - Oct. 20, 2014, 12:17 p.m.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Chris……we lost Percy man…lordy mercy we lost Percy

)-: Things seem to have been an issue though.

Chris

#1508 - Oct. 20, 2014, 12:18 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok cool let’s start it of then Donari:

Note these are my personal top three priorities:

1: The ability for guild members to be able to show of their prowess and achievements through Guild Halls and their own avatar customization.
2: The ability for players to work together in a fun way to build something different and exciting.
3: The ability for smaller guilds to enjoy guild halls.

Chris

Le Bump

Chris

Bump.

We will wait a few more days for folks to post their top three priority’s. Could those who are doing summaries please post them (Orpheal and Vod)

Then on Monday I will put our proposal together and then on Wednesday we will begin Phase 3: Raiding!!

Chris

Bump

We have an event tomorrow so we will start Raids on Wednesday. Meanwhile final bump.

As many folks have said, thanks for an awesome CDI.

Chris

#1510 - Oct. 20, 2014, 2:14 p.m.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We have an event tomorrow so we will start Raids on Wednesday. Meanwhile final bump.

As many folks have said, thanks for an awesome CDI.

Chris

Question!

Will it be wrong/ off-topic to discuss how the battle system functions in large-scale content once we start discussing raids?

I ask this not only because it’s important for the quality of raiding, but also because GW2, as a whole, seems to be moving (or desires to move) into a larger-scale direction, with fans asking for (and devs showing interest on) raids and GvG (aka, large-scale organized pvp), on top of the already existing WvW and open-world boss events.

Yet, the combat system was clearly designed with small-scale pvp combat as a priority, with some stand-out clarity and design issues on anything bigger than 5-party content (and even so, some of those issues are already present on small scale content).

Perhaps, discussing one topic can directly affect the other, and vice-versa?

hi Diogo,

This is an absolute necessity to discuss in the CDI. I am looking forward to this particular subject the most.

Chris

#1520 - Oct. 22, 2014, 1:02 p.m.

Aeolus.3615:

last day?
Lets see what this CDI will result, they had alot of good brainstorming here.

Agreed.

Ok so I am rather busy today so I will get us moving onto Raiding tomorrow or Friday.

i do apologies but I have been quite busy, has anyone counted up our priority order? If not I will get it done.

Chris

#1527 - Oct. 24, 2014, 3:29 a.m.

Baltzenger.2467:

Thanks to you too Chris, as my first participation on a CDI, I quite enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to join the next one too.

The future looks promising

Thanks to all of you for a super productive discussion. Most collaborative CDI to date.

And sorry for not concluding this phase sooner. Time has not been scarce this week.

We will put the proposal together and move onto the next phase soon.

Chris