I came across something that may be interesting in this article.
The specific bit that stood out to me is this:
Ion: We need to be more willing than we have been in the last couple of years and expansions to make permanent additions to the game.
My first thought was…guild halls? I’ve been thinking about guild halls quite a bit over the last several days, trying to answer the questions "What would a well done guild hall look like?" "How would it last across expansions?" "What would a good balance between function and going out into the world look like?"
I think the most basic answer that I’ve come to is that a guild hall should be modular in its design. When a new expansion (or even a new patch) comes out, the guild can work towards unlocking the new modules. Once earned, they can choose to keep the old modules, or use the new ones. This could be semi-permanent, with both a cost and a cooldown (or build time) to encourage players to make their choices carefully. Some modules could be purely functional, while others are cosmetic.
Modular Function:
Take a garden, for example. End goal is obviously to get herbs. Rather than building it like the garrison garden, what if instead we had, say, three raised beds. Each bed can grow 10 plants. The guild (everyone), working together, unlocks first one bed, then the second, then the third. The herbalists in the guild work to unlock access to growing herbs from a specific expansion (tier 3 herbing required). Once that herb is unlocked, each bed can be assigned to grow herbs from that expansion. The guild herbalists would then need to go pick herbs in that expansion and bring back seeds. The seeds could then be planted in the raised bed, and if they are tended by a druid, the yield is increased. Herbalism is required to harvest. Some plants could need replanting daily, and others could produce for several days before needing to be replanted.
I really like the idea of having professions and classes work together for a small increase. It’s a nice way to capitalize on class fantasy, while at the same time making more players feel useful. The tricky thing is to balance it so that the increase is not so great that it becomes mandatory.
A fishing pond could work in a very similar way. Fisherpersons go out into the world fishing, and occasionally catch a small fish. They can bring that fish back to the guild hall to stock the pond. If you don’t regularly stock your guild pond, it will run out of fish. But when you do stock it, you could, say, fish up only the fish you use the most while standing in one location.
Mining gets a little weird, at least in my mind. But the only real idea that I’ve come up with for it is to have warlocks summon infernals (probably in a quarry area because no one wants to set the guild hall on fire). This could be a little mini-event kind of like garrison invasions, where it’s easier if done in a small group. Miners can then harvest the infernals to obtain stoney bits. Alchemists can then transmute the infernal stone into useful ores.
If it’s a small guild, and doesn’t have a particular class or profession, maybe there could be a way to hire an NPC to perform the necessary function without the increased yield.
Modular Cosmetics:
I really like the idea of the guild hall being located in the void, outside of time and space. Surrounded by blackness, it could have a default feel of being in the eye of a storm. Safe here, but nothingness all around. A blank slate for the guild to do whatever they want.
I envision an indoor space similar to Waycrest Manor in that it is enclosed, with small hallways leading to larger rooms. Vertical space with multiple floors, rather than purely a horizontal space to increase the size without making it feel empty. An enclosed courtyard for outdoor space. Entrance and exit via portal.
I don’t really want a vast open space because of how that played out in GW2. The guild halls there feel vast, empty, and lonely. The guild hall needs to have a central space for socializing, rp, or whatever. The design of the hall should send players to complete various tasks in little corners, but ultimately everything should lead people together into a central place.
As far as modular cosmetics, I don’t really want to build the hall out of tiles. I’d prefer pre-set designs that can be overlayed with various themes that the guild unlocks. Themes such as Horde and Alliance could be available super quickly, with longer times to earn racial themes, or raid tier themes.
I envision purchasing little alcoves where we can put suits of armor made by our blacksmiths commemorating things like AOTC, and slots on the walls where we can hang banners made by our very own tailors commemorating other guild achievements. Display cases to show off our old school legendary weapon collections. These things need to be purchasable though, because there’s nothing quite so depressing as an empty spot where your bling is supposed to be. (See garrison monuments.)
It would also be really cool if the guild could earn various sky boxes for the hall, to be installed by enchanters. There are so many gorgeous sky boxes already in this game, that I’m completely ok with just earning those. We could pair a beach hall theme with a Tanaris sky. Or a haunted hall theme with the Darkshore sky.
Movable furniture: Like with the actual guild hall, I’d prefer pre-set furniture themes, with the added ability to purchase extras – like if we need more chairs for perfectly innocent reasons. I’d also like to be able to have a “Decor mode” to be able to position the furniture where I want it. And yes, I fully expect that someone will go afk in the guild hall and come back to find themselves in the center of a sea of chairs with no way to escape except hearthing. It will be great.
Basic Perks:
Feast hall: The guild (everyone) can work together to build the feast hall. Once constructed, chefs can stock the feast hall. The advantage to eating at the feast hall is that your well fed buff persists through death, however, it only lasts 40 minutes. Players farming meat could occasionally find some high-quality meat cuts that extend the duration of this buff to last through raid night at a somewhat high mat cost. (The drop rate for this high-quality meat could be higher for skinners.) I also really want a Hogwarts-esque ceiling for the feast hall, where we can see our chosen sky box.
Waygate: The guild (everyone) can work together to build the waygate. Players can individually earn the ability to use the waygate (such as, complete a dungeon 10 times). Once that dungeon’s waygate is unlocked, the player is able to teleport to the other gate a short distance away from that dungeon’s meeting stone. The core idea here is to reduce travel time while not removing players from the world. This would basically cut out the flight path, but leave a small run and meeting stone crowds intact.
The feast hall and waygate would only have the ability to help with one expansion’s content to help prevent clutter and excess. The guild would have to install the feast table/waygate for their chosen expansion in the same modular fashion.
Balance:
I think the real key to pulling this off is to make it so that any guild, even a one man guild, yields most of the benefits of having a guild hall, assuming that someone is working on it regularly. A guild with 900 players will have roughly the same benefits as a guild with 5 players. One way to accomplish that is to have a diminishing returns system on unlocks. The first player who works towards a daily unlock may get, say, 5% completion. The second player gets 3%, and the third 1%. After that, completion percent drops dramatically.
I think one of the other major keys is to balance guild unlocks vs individual unlocks. People shouldn’t be able to just join a big guild that already has everything unlocked and instantly be able to get access to all guild hall perks. Having some things, like the waygate, have an individual component provides a way for people who missed the original build phase to still work towards something and reap some benefits after reaching a goal.
…That got way longer than I expected. I think I need to stop for now lol