Posts with tag housing

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook.

A few weeks ago, a Twitter user named Quentin Charton asked Ghostcrawler whether WoW could eventually have guild housing. Ghostcrawler's reply was "We worry that guild housing is only content for the guild leaders."

If implemented properly, I think guild halls could be a home run for WoW. Here are five reasons why.

1. Guild leaders and officers deserve in-game rewards.

Ghostcrawler doesn't want to create content just for guild leaders. My question is, why not? Leading a guild is not easy. It requires making sacrifices, both in-game and in the real world, since it takes time and energy. Don't guild leaders and their officers deserve a few small in-game perks?

I agree that the entire guild hall experience shouldn't be for officers only. However, a guild hall could have a special place in it for officers. You could call it something simple like, say, off the top of my head . . . the "Officers' Quarters." This location would have a few small bonuses for them, like a flask vending machine you can use once a day (like Blingtron). Such a perk would be a welcome thank you to the players who make all the best group content in WoW happen.

Buffed.de has captured the elusive Ghostcrawler in his native habitat: answering questions about class balance. This creature has only been caught in blurry pictures and fleeting glances before, so it's awesome to get a nice, good look at Greg Street, the man who singlehandedly nerfed Paladins to the ground, baby (we kid, we kid).

He talks about what it was like coming from working on Age of Empires III for Ensemble Studios, and Blizzard's theory of "concentrated coolness" -- they want there to be cool everywhere you look in the game. He says dispel and spell pushback mechanics are still due for updates, and of course he talks about talent changes (this is Ghostcrawler, what did you expect): Destruction Warlocks and Ret Pallys get mentioned, and he says there's a whiteboard in his office with a list of things he wants to fix. Affliction Warlocks, you're next. Beware of ending up on Ghostcrawler's nerfboard!

We're kidding again. GC also talks about the long-awaited dual-spec feature, and says that they're thinking of building in costs like the Mage table, where everyone will have to click on something to change a spec, or there may be a consumable charge. He specifically mentions a "trash" build versus a "boss" build, so we'll have to see how that works out -- it would be a little weird to have to get a full raid together to change over to your PvP spec. And lastly, he talks about the forums -- their goal there is to have people talk to each other, not yell at each other. And good luck with that. Very nice interview.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

If the wildlife in Nagrand didn't reproduce faster than rabbits injected with Viagra, one could accuse the genocidal Hemet Nesingwary, or even the Consortium (with their endless need for ivory tusks), of funding poaching on a massive scale. And of course, we would be the perpetrators, guilty of the annihilation of entire generations of species. But fortunately, those elekks, clefthooves, and talbuks never seem to become endangered. This week's e-mail is about a different kind of poaching, but one that is no less nefarious.

Hey. I have been reading your blog for awhile now and I am an officer in a small casual guild (66 accounts) that one day hopes to have some endgame on farm. The problem we seem to have is people just leaving with a stealth guild quit. When asked they normally say they left for a friends guild or something along the lines of "just wasn't working out." About a week later I see them in Shattrath with a guild tag of another guild that I know just poached them from us. I understand that it's their $15 a month but is there anything that we as a guild can do to keep them? We seem to lose one once a week.

Ever since I first explored Stormwind and saw that huge instance portal behind bars in the Canal District, I've been waiting for the day that housing would be added to WoW. Oddly enough, I'm not the only one wishing we had a place to call our own.

Anthony on Idle Chatter says that player housing has worked well in LotRO and SWG, and wants to see it implemented into WoW. He brings up the instanced housing districts as an idea, an idea that makes a huge amount of sense, considering the instance portals are already set up. He proposes that there are two solutions to the housing issue, guild housing and player housing. In this scenario each would be an alternative spot to hearth to, and in the case of the guild housing, one would be able to read the Trade Channel within your dwelling.

As much as I love the idea of creating my own house for my characters, the one thing I noticed about the housing in EQII for instance that I did not like was the solitude. I much prefer the supergroup base concept from City of Heroes, where more than one person can enjoy it. In my mind, I would love to see guild housing with real world locations, so that much like Anarchy Online, the PvP element comes in and you can siege an opposing faction's guild lair. Wouldn't it add an additional element of risk to know that when you flag for PvP your guild hall is flagged as well? There is a lot that can be done beyond the traditional "this is where I keep my stuff, and those trophies no one will ever see" sort of housing concept. What good is a trophy if you can't show it off to passersby?