Thoughts on guild halls in Azeroth
by Mike Schramm 
Feb 14th 2007 at 2:26PM
There's not much new to say about this (Blizzard is still stonewalling on any plans for development), but players are still very interested in getting some form of player housing in the game, and one interesting form of that would be the idea of guild halls, an instance or a place ingame for a guild to make their own.Drysc gives a standard response on this one: it's a good idea, but there are no plans to implement it or anything like it in the game. But he does encourage discussion on it, and players have some interesting ideas. First and foremost would be a way to recognize the guild's accomplishments ingame-- trophies or heads of defeated bosses on the walls or in the building.
Another purpose of such a place might be a few items of convenience, including a physical guild bank, and maybe even special vendors or profession workspaces. Drysc does say that if Blizzard did create something like this, and if it was guild halls, they wouldn't want to include anything that would take players away from the main game-- if they did put NPCs in the guild halls, it wouldn't likely be anything like trainers or auctioneers that kept players away from the main cities.
Other interesting ideas include guild buyable portals to cities or even instances, an area for PvP-- either within the guild or between guilds, and even a raid signup system or scrimmage area of some kind. All interesting ideas-- what have you got? This is complete and total speculation, but it could be that Drysc is fishing for feedback because Blizzard is poking around at this idea to see if it's viable. If they included a guild hall area in the game, what, within reason of course, would you want to see there?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Guilds, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Seper Feb 14th 2007 2:39PM
I think they should do it like Guild Wars has theres set up. Do a form of "Guild Honor" where everytime a member takes down a boss (in any lvl dungeon) you get guild honor based on that lvl of boss. It would encourage guild raiding a bit more. Then once you build up enough you spend it on npcs like class trainers, vendors, auction house/ bank, or other decorative items. This might also be a good way to implement some new recipes, formulas special items etc. that only guilds with certain qualifications can get and only if they buy a special "guild vendor".
I would luv a sparring ground,a huge table that people can sit around for guild meetings, and do special player only things ex:
As a guild we buy a big castle as our guild hall. Then I get tons of honor by pvping (or some other system) that allows me after ive got enough honor to buy a room in the castle that only I can customize. Then I can pay the guild "rent" and buy items to decorate it a bit.
I have alot more ideas but those are some cool ones.
multikast Feb 14th 2007 3:02PM
Personally, being from a small guild, all i would really like is a guild bank of sorts. a guild hall would be nice, but a common bank where members could add/take stuff based on permission settings of guild ranks is all i really need at this point.
what i would really like also, is group dueling, to practice for arenas and whatnot. that would be awesome.
Twedalana Feb 15th 2007 12:00AM
I played DAOC and we had guild houses. Inside our guild house we had of course a guild bank, portals to main cities and a few npc's. I would love to see this in WOW.
Beldoro Feb 14th 2007 9:53PM
I think this was mentioned before, but how about getting some guild points (g-points?) somehow, maybe bosses or special guild quests, that let you buy enchants for the guild tabard? At the moment the tabard is purely decoration, but adding some stat bonus or other ability should be simple enough and wouldn't screw with the game dynamics too much.
Apart from that - did anyone ever play Fable on the X-Box? When you downed a boss in that you got a trophy you could hang on the walls - was a real neat idea and would surely work well in WoW. Guild Halls have a real potential to add a lot to the game, would be a shame for them to miss it.
Roguerhunter Feb 14th 2007 3:29PM
OK heres my thoughts I never Played Guild wars etc... but heres some interesting thoughts if anyone likes to post my ideas up higher.
*1st off a Guild head quaters should be like a home in the city you can buy a spot in any city. Just like Hall of Champions a small mini instance there should be so many of them in certain parts of towns.
When you purchase one home or spot it should be around 10K or more to start this...
*There should be an auctioneer inside for Guild only. People place what ever they like in the Guild AH. This could very be well used as the Guild Bank. The GM could set the guild controls whos got access to applying restrictions in the Guild Bank. Example people donate and Officers or Gm can set it to a buyout only thus allowing the Guild bank make funds for the entire guild because the GM alone has a huge responsibility to running the guild and building up some for of fundraisers. Also its like having a Guild Auctioneer in the Headquaters will cose money placeing extras for the Guilds home would not come free.. Perhaps some PVP tokens that could be used to donate to the GM to turn in to a HQ vendor to aguire nice accessories for the Guilds HQ.
*Also as far as distinguishing Guild History yes trophys, Pitcures that represent Instances, Dragons and pictures with a command structure would be nice. In order to obtain this a full must have an option to change the setting to Guild run and for every boss or main boss taken down it unlocks a HQ vendo to sell you that items for display.
* I believe there should be another personal closet banl at the HQ just like the regular ingame bank but free and the ingame bank as we know it shall start to charge 5G a month or of you dont pay up it will start taking items worth that in G for payment. You can pay for 6-1yr advance and get an ingame mail when payment is due.
*Its now become a game of responsibility "LIFE" and making an income. Also I think they need to regulate Guilds as far as recruiting contracts. When someone is recruited its for 3-6months before a new contract is issued out. Those do dont resign the contract when its up is not allowed to enter an instance or purchase anything till the contract is attended too 1st off. This would allow guilds to become closer and try to work as a Team. 10+man instances cannot bedone unless its a full guild run. 5man instances are ok. This allows peple to Team up and make wise decisions in choosing guilds and prevents guild hoppers to a min. GM can give guild controls to boots people or himself if somone needs to leave the guild or be booted but the member is not allowed to /quit guild for any reason unless a GM does it or 5 Guild members agree to remove a member if GM is not around. Something along them lines! I will post more later! =o)
Flit Feb 14th 2007 3:56PM
Make a single entrance (an instance entrance) that takes you to your guild hall. This guild hall comes with the following:
1) a multi teired guild bank, that depending on your rank, you can get certain things out of the bank (certain bags in the bank require certain privledges.)
2) A collection of statues of bosses you have defeated. (not every boss can effectively hang it's "head" on the wall). This includes miniature statues of mini bosses in each dungeon next to the main boss. Right clicking on the boss will tell you how many times your guild has slayed that boss.
3) When a certain number of guild members become exaulted with the corresponding battleground, an entrance to that battleground is available in the guild hall.
4) Arena entrance should always be accessable from the guild hall.
5) Certain requirements can be filled (high expectations) to earn portals to each of the major cities.
6) An innkeeper to attach your hearthstone to.
Adarkara Feb 14th 2007 4:55PM
I like the idea a guild being able to purchase a guild hall (maybe not for 10k G) at set price and then upgrading it with certain "perks" either through honor or gold (give us the option!). A guild bank would be AWESOME, although I don't think a personal auction house would be necessary. Why sell things to your guildies? We're all in this together.
I think a personal space for each toon would be a little ridiculous. But a place to gather for meetings would be very cool, especially if it were slightly customizable (ie interiors).
Bunkai Feb 14th 2007 5:01PM
Anyone else feel that reading RoguerHunter's post was painful? It completely lacked proper spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and reasonable ideas...IMO.
In order for Blizz to actually take the creation of a Guild-only area serious, it would be best to have some ideas that do not require major changes in the basic game structure such as new point systems, new AH methods, and changes to the existing Character Banks. Otherwise, there will be no chance at all that we might see this come to be in a patch rather than a far-off, second expansion.
Instanced area (doesn't require more than one zone-in location per city that way...would be able to use coding logic that already exists in the game for saved instances)
Guild Bank (permissions configurable by the Guild Master and the ability to assign permissions to other guild ranks...such as officers)
Possible score-card of some kind to display record of PvE/PvP Progression (although this stuff is easily done on a guild website with 'WoW Roster' just the same...no one but guild members will ever see it...it's just basically historical info)
Profession areas (a forge, anvil, cooking fire, etc.)
The ability to portal back to the guild area on a separate timer from your hearthstone, but still a 60min cooldown
The ability to change the Guild Tabard design at lesser no cost once a guild unit is purchased
Guild units can only be purchased by the Guild Charter holder
There's no need for a guild AH, or any reason for members to pay fees of any kind, and there will never be a good reason to have time-based contractual obligations built in to the game. Most guild's don't need a guild fund of any kind anyway, and if they do, donations are a much better way to build it up.
That's my $0.02, for what it's worth.
Happy Hunting!
Cort Feb 14th 2007 4:16PM
I don't care about the guild hall itself, I just want the physical Guild bank. It gets tiring sending stuff to the Guild Bank characters or the master tradespeople whenever it's appropriate... It'd be much easier just to store that stuff in one location and anyone be able to access it. Or, you could have set access levels too, which could prevent some new guildie from walking away with the bank.
Tiffandra Feb 14th 2007 4:32PM
I'm tired of this issue coming up all the time, it's one of those things that sounds fun but never works.
I'm okay with a guild bank, but how big would it be, and could it be broken down into categories for easy perusal?
Guild housing, however, is a waste of space and server resources. No matter what you do with it (decorations, function NPC's, portals)most people just end up going there once to see it, then never return. That was my experience in EQ2, DAOC, and SWG at least.
Maron Feb 14th 2007 4:52PM
One problem with having trophies or whatnot for guild boss kills. What if you've had a combination of guilds in for that kill? What if you have one or two players from a different guild that are in on the kill? Do they get the trophy as well? One player in another guilds kill does not mean that his guild should get credit for a boss kill, IMO.
sovietdancinbear Feb 14th 2007 6:48PM
I would love something like this, I think simply an innkeeper who sells a compliment of food and water, a blacksmith who can repair items, and a guild bank, if Blizzards wants to make us work for somethings why not make us "hire" a blacksmith or other NPCs. Maybe even a bartender or something. I think it would be simple enough to set up, for instance in Stormwind. But just put it in the major cities and I think it would be a great addition.
Baluki Feb 14th 2007 5:13PM
This would be difficult to implement. How do you do it without cluttering the landscape with buildings? The best option is probably to make one building inside a major city (or different ones for each of the capitals, so a guild can pick the one they like most) and have each guild have their own instanced hall inside that building, like dungeons are now, only persistent.
There should be different "crafting" rooms in a certain area of the guild hall, one for each crafting profession. There would be a "bulletin board" where guild members would be able to post requests, as well as another where crafters would be able to post what they can make. A crafter could go to the request board and accept an order (obviously a material-handling system would need to be in place), craft the item, and be done. The person who placed the order would then receive a mail message telling them that their item is done and ready to be picked up in the guild hall. This would allow enchantments to be done by the "enchanting table" (one time only of course), for example. This system would basically just be something for crafters to do in their "off time".
The guild arena idea is a pretty cool one too. You could set up tournaments among the members, and maybe the winner of the week would get a statue in the entrance hall (replaced each week).
A trophy room is also a great idea, though it would have to be pretty big. On an end-boss kill, there should be a lootable item (that drops once per guild) that you can take to your trophy hall to be displayed in a pre-defined location. The trophies would be stuff like Rag's hammer, Nefarian's head, one of C'thun's eyeballs, etc. (just thinking of what would be in my own guild hall). Maybe they would even bestow special temporary buffs on guild members, usable once a day.
But of course none of this matters if you can't show it off. So you should be able to enter any guild's hall, but be confined to "spectator" mode for any guild hall that isn't your own.
Oh, and portals! Guilds should be able to purchase up to 3 portals that they can set for any dungeon they'd like. Maybe they could be linked to meeting stones, although they would have to add meeting stones to the big raid dungeons too.
Rebekka Feb 15th 2007 2:09AM
Considering that I was very unceremoniously /gkicked after I hit Level 60 in November and went exploring other Realms until BC hit the streets, I think that the idea of a Guild Hall is probably the stupidest thing that I ever read.
Roguerhunter Feb 14th 2007 6:54PM
Sorry my post completely lacked proper spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure =p`.
Ok let me break it down into simple ideas and why.
*Guild Bank: Everyone agrees with this idea pretty much. How Blizzard decides to manage this one that’s up to them. Why I said incorporate it similar like Ah is because it people were to place items in Guild bank you like for it to sort out like AH does when you place an item in AH “Right” This makes it easy for Guildies to look for something specific in certain categories.
*Tabs that should be implemented in the Guild Bank: “Free”, to see what’s free to take out from the Guild Bank/”Donate” a means to donate money or Mats to the Guild. Reason for placing items for sale in Guild bank was because theirs always Guildies that are key players and request the Guild to help or purchase an item or Wpn. This allows the Guild bank to make cash for the benefit of the Guild. How it’s done by Blizzard I don’t care but somewhere along that lines.
I am always going to harp on this Guild contracts…
O yeah last thing perhaps Blizzard could add to the Guild Roster, time & date a new member joins the Guild to have accountability of who’s been in the longest.
Once again sorry for not proof reading my bad but I took the time to rewrite certain issues and I am always seeking out opinions and ideas on this subject.
Unrest Feb 14th 2007 6:34PM
Your comments: I can't really see private auction house and vendors taking off, a
guild bank would be cool, but something which makes elitist guilds
more elitist is not what blizzard would want. The fact that auction
houses are still in Azeroth capitol cities demonstrates
this.Something like a War room for raiding strategies and boss
encounters would be nice. Make it interactive with all players or
allow raid leaders to animate positioning of their players. At least
something better than tabbing out to look at a creative mspaint drawing.
Brad Feb 14th 2007 6:48PM
I used to play a game that had guild halls, but you had to pay extra for them. You could use them even if you weren't in a guild. But If you had enough people in the same guild who subscribed to the guild halls everyone would go into the same guild hall.
The guild halls had special vendors and trainers that gave a discount and extra storage areas.
The game I have been talking about is Kingdom of Drakkar if anyone has heard of it or played it.
Krianna Feb 15th 2007 12:01AM
Instanced entry, guild bank with permission by rank customized by guild leader (same as for invites, guild-wise), and I rather like the idea of a forge, etc. Probably easiest would be to walk in the instance, there's a hall with rooms on each side for the various things, table in the middle of the hall, cool, it's done.
garuktaag Feb 14th 2007 9:29PM
What if the guild hall could be built outside of cities ... they'd make lovely raid targets for opposing factions :-) Spending gold on hiring guards would be a good thing, game wise.
Some guilds might build their hall in lowbie areas, while some will build theirs in far off difficult to get to places, just to keep the guild-nubs in their place.
Definitely do make it possible to visit other halls of other guilds, or to put it another way: definitely allow members of other guilds, or non-guildies, to come visit and stand in awe at our achievements and trophies.
Cat Feb 14th 2007 11:40PM
three things is all thats would really be neccisary:
Guild Bank: Go try out www.kingdomofloathing.com to see how their's work, pretty neat system.
Trophies: Raid Bosses that have been downed.
Job necessicties: Anvils, mana loom, forges, etc.