A guild hall would be a great way to allow guildmates to gather in-game, as a raid staging area, hangout spot, rp hub, and place to host guild events like tournaments (pvp, pet battles, trials of style, etc) and parties, both private and guild-hosted public events.
And connected to them would be an instanced park area for further socializing and rp. And surrounding that, an entire neighbourhood of houses for guild members. The biggest concern with housing is the garrison-effect of sharding players off into single-player worlds, but if your house was in a neighborhood surrounded by people you know, that becomes much less of an issue.
And if that guild hall was located in a major city, then players would have easy access to all major city amenities and chat channels while still letting players interact consistently with their in-game friends. Give us a place to hang out together!
I don’t think you can completely eliminate the need for singular housing. Some people play this game solo, but I think giving players a place to call home without giving them a neighborhood they want to spend time in is a disservice to the ethos of fostering strong communities within the game.
There will always need to be solo housing options because not everyone plays in a guild. If you leave your guild your house would be accessible from wherever solo housing is. Each house will be a separate instanced environment regardless. Where it connects to the world doesn’t affect the contents of your house.
I have no interest in being attached to my guild. Also, what happens if I leave a guild, or change guilds? What happens to my house?
Now, if they want to let us buy an EXTRA house in our Guild’s neighborhood, that’s fine, bug I think for guild housing, they need an “instanced” room upstairs in the guild tavern where everyone could have their own room (same room basically) to decorate.
Housing is always going to be individually instanced content. You would access it from somewhere else. Leaving or joining a guild would have no effect on the content of your house, only on where your front door appears in the game world, just like moving the entrance to a dungeon wouldn’t change the contents of the dungeon.
And each character could have an entrance to their house in the guild they’re in. We’re not getting a new suburb in SW with a million separate houses in it. Your access point does not alter or affect the contents of you house. These aren’t real physical objects.
ALMOST all my toons are in my own guilds. So this would be a great way for me to have several of my own communities in conjunction with the guilds I associate with.
The reason is what happened when they gave guilds ranks and perks. Unscrupulous people would create a guild, get lots of people to join, level it up to cap, and then dump everyone out of it and sell it for gold.
If they attach anything like a house to a guild, that would be worked on at the time and expense of guild members, it would recreate that risk of being ripped off. They have said in the past they would not do guild housing and I think they would not, to avoid the many complaints and problems that would arise.
The war band sets the tone for one house per account which is fine.
Personally I think a guild hall works if it was in a public space with decor specific to the guild’s achievements.
Thinking along the lines of Archaeology where anyone can go into the Dalaran but they only see collected artifacts associated with them.
The houses would need to layer within guild halls. Not the communal space, but only the front doors. But if you want a social feel to housing, as in a way to have your home close to your friends and a place to meet up with communities, guild halls would be, imo, the best pathway to that
