Guild Halls and how we use them.

I'm bringing up this discussion with the hope that it may receive consideration for future hall layouts. (This may be a little long concerning different functions of guild halls).

Like many in GW2 I've experienced the many facets of being a member in different halls where we've held meetings, decorated, and enjoyed the guild boost and harvesting nodes. What I've found with the newest hall introduction is I had to put out different colored flags to mark the path to the harvesting nodes and guild boost vendor to help new members navigate the hall better. We also created a more direct path to the harvesting nodes and scribe crafting area to improve the utility/function of the hall. We didn't mind doing this. Decorating is always fun but it did make me take pause to consider how and why we use the guild halls.

Halls are a group statement and achievement of ones organization. But sadly there is a bit of a disconnect between ones guild emblem and how it can be displayed with pride within the hall. The banners provided with the hall are a nice option, but they are fixed, while there are craftable banners and flags that are able to be placed but are limited in color choices and do not have the guild emblem. An example of this is if your guild colors are white and purple the only way you can display your colors would be with balloons because there are no purple flags or banners.Some emblems also have matching statues while others do not. An example of this is the Griffin and lion. There is a griffin and Lion emblem and there are also statues and fountains with them that can be crafted and displayed in the hall. If your guild emblem is a boar, Unicorn with wings, Sword and rose, your out of luck because there are no craftable displays that can be made to troop your colors or emblem.I am aware that coding and making 3D mesh takes time and money, but there are already many fine objects within GW2 that could be wonderfully repurposed.

Function: The big halls are wonderful and a great deal of creativity went into crafting them. They are fun to explore and decorate, but for everyday use many just like to port into the hall and grab the nodes/boost then leave to go enjoy other aspects of the game. Boost in a tavern makes perfect sense but if the tavern and nodes could be closer to the entering wp it would provide a more useful function and ease of navigating for newer people.

Use: From "my experience" what I have found to be the most common use of the guild hall is a need for a place for large group meetings, Office space for the Guild leaders and officers (I'm always asked to create one with decorations and utilize a space that really wasn't intended for it. However there is no way that I can provide them a place where their conversations will remain private. They have to do that with choice of chat tabs.The new Vabbi hall does provide a wonderful war room, but not every guild is as crazy about wvw or pvp like mine are and maybe they would like to have the option to change the decorations to suit their group play more, which brings me to the final thing I'd like to talk about.

Creative license: Those that like to have a nice decorated hall are often faced with the challenge of working around static objects placed by the developer.For a naked hall this is great and fills an otherwise empty space, but in the case of those that do like to decorate I've found that static objects have completely killed the use of some spaces that really would have been nice to have available for use and decoration for the guild members.

This post is in no way meant to be disrespectful or harshly critical. I'm a great fan of the creative team of GW2 and these are just small observations that I have made over time and I'm just putting it out here to start a conversation on how groups use their halls and how could we improve their utility and use. :)

I agree that the "canned" decorations, as nice as they look, should be removable if wanted. The other two halls were nicely empty and gave us the opportunity to decorate every corner as we wished. Windswept Haven is a little more of a challenge for a couple of reasons; the predecorations that can't be touched, and the distance away of the things most useful like the tavern. In Lost Precipice the Tavern was right next to the nodes and scribe crafting station, the war room and other items were a little further down but also grouped usefully. In Windswept Haven everything is very spread out.. I love the place and we've decked it out superbly... but as Kamara noted... It isn't apparent where things are and they're so spread out that it's a little cumbersome.

We can't change the layout obviously and at this point wouldn't want to... but it would be very cool if we could have some way of removing, moving, changing, the canned decor that comes with the hall.

... and one big vote for Guild Banner Flags instead of the canned flags that really mean nothing to the Guild :)

Still overall a great job ANet... Just a little wishlist ;)

All I want out of a guild hall is a direct route from the entry to the nodes and services. A quick route to anything else useful (like a door into the next map) is a plus.

The mine is the worst in Windswept Haven... At least in the other halls you had a wp to get to it quickly once you were there. Even had decor in Lost Precipice... but in the new hall I'm not wasting time with decorations in there.. it's way too far out of the way to even go to, to look around. imo it should be closer and the Market and Tavern should be switched around since the Tavern is visited more than the Market, by far from what I can see... Having them all in one large structure (mall like) would be even better.

See I find WIndswept one of the easier to decorate. The Auric one was by far and away the worst - it was ridiculously big, but also the golden aura completely overshadowed much of the decorations. The things my previous guild did in WIndswept were imaginative and fun and really stood out a lot more

Sorry I meant no decorations in the mine. The rest of the hall is totally decked out! :)

Let's say I wanted to make my own private guild, how much gold would it take to deck it out with all the amenities?

See, my RP guild uses the guild hall. Daily, and for more than just boosts, gathering, and crafting. For our guild, it's a home. A city. A base of operations. But even in the Lost Precipice (which is by far the best for our purposes), it's a bit difficult to accommodate every member. Why? Most of the buildings are caved in or ruined. The ones that aren't have rubble, are half usable for reasons like trees taking up half of an otherwise massive space, or share decoration space with other nearby buildings. Another issue is the PILES of sand. EVERYWHERE. And we can't remove it, which makes decorating an area to set up as a home almost impossible at worst, and absolutely infuriatingly difficult at best.

Then there's this problem: We lack PROPER decorations to build homes with. Beds, most prominently. There are exactly ZERO options for beds in guild decorations. Yes. ZERO. Most guilds resort to creating 'beds' with other decorations. (tables with pillows. Snow with pillows. Rugs with pillows.) We have no option for cots, four posters, hammocks, bunk beds. We have two choices for decent walls, and neither of them are great... and neither are easy to obtain. No doors. No curtains. Nothing to use as a sink. No desks. No mirrors. For cooking, we have the Woodfire Grill. We don't have options to place smaller things you would actually see in a home. We have one option for a sofa (a red one) and one option for a comfy chair (a red one). Even though Path of Fire gave us multiple decorations to use in guild halls, and they're great... we don't have the nice tents seen in and around Amnoon, or the bigger ones seen at various outposts. We don't have multiple choices for rugs. We don't have the super big comfy Elonian couches. We don't have the nice Elonian counters.

The idea of being able to fully customize a guild hall is great... but it seems to have... kind of fallen flat. Things are added that we don't want and can't remove, while things we do want aren't added to our selection of decorations. We just want to take the complete ruins that we claim at first, and build it back to it's full former glory, and make a home in the process.

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:Let's say I wanted to make my own private guild, how much gold would it take to deck it out with all the amenities?

I lost track after hundreds of gold and hours and hours of grinding. Make that weeks...

Better hundreds than thousands though.

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:Let's say I wanted to make my own private guild, how much gold would it take to deck it out with all the amenities?

Endless amounts.... but more importantly unless your you going to throw serious amounts of gems into it on your own it's going to take a heck of alot of time and effort. For small guilds the guild hall system is one of the worst I have ever come across, as beautiful as they look.

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:Better hundreds than thousands though.

If I'm being honest .... along with weeks of grinding I probably spent anywhere from 1000 to 2000 (probably more) gold on my hall between upgrades and decorations... as I said I lost track but it was far from cheap and easy... especially doing it with very little help.

@Sapphire Artemis.3062 said:See, my RP guild uses the guild hall. Daily, and for more than just boosts, gathering, and crafting. For our guild, it's a home. A city. A base of operations. But even in the Lost Precipice (which is by far the best for our purposes), it's a bit difficult to accommodate every member. Why? Most of the buildings are caved in or ruined. The ones that aren't have rubble, are half usable for reasons like trees taking up half of an otherwise massive space, or share decoration space with other nearby buildings. Another issue is the PILES of sand. EVERYWHERE. And we can't remove it, which makes decorating an area to set up as a home almost impossible at worst, and absolutely infuriatingly difficult at best.

Then there's this problem: We lack PROPER decorations to build homes with. Beds, most prominently. There are exactly ZERO options for beds in guild decorations. Yes. ZERO. Most guilds resort to creating 'beds' with other decorations. (tables with pillows. Snow with pillows. Rugs with pillows.) We have no option for cots, four posters, hammocks, bunk beds. We have two choices for decent walls, and neither of them are great... and neither are easy to obtain. No doors. No curtains. Nothing to use as a sink. No desks. No mirrors. For cooking, we have the Woodfire Grill. We don't have options to place smaller things you would actually see in a home. We have one option for a sofa (a red one) and one option for a comfy chair (a red one). Even though Path of Fire gave us multiple decorations to use in guild halls, and they're great... we don't have the nice tents seen in and around Amnoon, or the bigger ones seen at various outposts. We don't have multiple choices for rugs. We don't have the super big comfy Elonian couches. We don't have the nice Elonian counters.

The idea of being able to fully customize a guild hall is great... but it seems to have... kind of fallen flat. Things are added that we don't want and can't remove, while things we do want aren't added to our selection of decorations. We just want to take the complete ruins that we claim at first, and build it back to it's full former glory, and make a home in the process.

Thank you for that reply and I was hoping that RPers would add something to the conversation. I've also been an rper since the table top days and I know that they use the decorations heavily in a myriad of ways to boost their groups game play and identity within the realm of tyria. I love pvp and wvw but I find that rpers are also a strong supportive community that are an asset to any mmo. I agree with you on the limited personal space like tents and private rooms for offices, homes, bedrooms, ect. I also wanted to make a barracks but guess what? No bunk beds so yep I ran into that also along with the piles of sand and rubble filling up great spaces . Some rubble will be removed as the hall levels up, but not all of it sadly, so yep I couldn't agree more! :).

@"Balthazzarr.1349" said:

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:Better hundreds than thousands though.

LOL I know I spent well over 2k so U had to spend more than me. Balthazzarr likes a snappy looking hall 4sure :) and he has embraced decorating right up there with some of the best that I have seen :)

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:Let's say I wanted to make my own private guild, how much gold would it take to deck it out with all the amenities?

I agree 100%. It is a costly endeavor for a small group. It is doable but its not going to be cheap by any means. I wish Anet would take another look at this because allowing more access to halls and crafting decorations with a small selection of more affordable options to smaller groups could be a boost of revenue for them as well as enhancing the game play for smaller groups till they can save for the better ones. Even on the scribe vendor basic decorations are about 1/2 a gold or a little less for each piece (34-35-ish silver). That adds up fast for a table sitting of 6, or a hand full of trees and plants, candles. ect.

There is an item visible in decoration storage called a "gilded banner", with no known corresponding scribe recipe. I think it's possible that it was meant to be a banner with the guild emblem on it, not "gilded", but nobody knows how to make one.

I fully agree about some of the decorations they could/should add, and we can only wait and see if they decide to bring out more.

As for items that can't be removed, I would not recommend Windswept Haven to any decoration-focused guild. Far too much is pre-decorated; the original two guild halls have much more bare canvas to work with.

@"Deimos.4263" said:There is an item visible in decoration storage called a "gilded banner", with no known corresponding scribe recipe. I think it's possible that it was meant to be a banner with the guild emblem on it, not "gilded", but nobody knows how to make one.

I fully agree about some of the decorations they could/should add, and we can only wait and see if they decide to bring out more.

As for items that can't be removed, I would not recommend Windswept Haven to any decoration-focused guild. Far too much is pre-decorated; the original two guild halls have much more bare canvas to work with.

Ya know I never found that banner either. I thought it was for the gilded hall at the time (my guild had Lost Precipice when I was searching for it).

All in all I've found something in all three halls that I liked. The newest is more decorated with static objects and it does pose challenges to decorating around them but the new war room is so epic I have to give it a favorable bump for that very special feature. But yes the two older halls offer more of a blank canvas for the decorator. :)

@Kamara.4187 said:

@"Deimos.4263" said:There is an item visible in decoration storage called a "gilded banner", with no known corresponding scribe recipe. I think it's possible that it was meant to be a banner with the guild emblem on it, not "gilded", but nobody knows how to make one.

I fully agree about some of the decorations they could/should add, and we can only wait and see if they decide to bring out more.

As for items that can't be removed, I would not recommend Windswept Haven to any decoration-focused guild. Far too much is pre-decorated; the original two guild halls have much more bare canvas to work with.

The War Room... aka my office... filled with gifts from my most awesome guild mates and other goodies that make it a nice place to go and chill.

As for the pre-decorations I totally agree. There are TONS of decorations in our storage that we really can't use. All the big hills and ruins combined with the pre-decorated structures really do make it impossible to use a huge part of the , (hundreds and hundreds of gold and months worth of grinding), decorations. I really love Windswept Haven... But it really does bug me that the design makes it largely decor prohibitive compared to the other two halls. I had Lost Precipice maxed out at 2000 decorations placed... I'll bet I only have half of that in WH and no other place really to decorate more despite the fact that they are roughly the SAME size in area!

... I might have to continue my SAB platforms "in the sky" and make a village way up there...

The way my guild uses the guild hall is for easy bank and merchant access. Yes for nodes and boosts too I suppose. But more often for guild bank/merchant and bank through the scribing stations.

In fact I use that so much that I rarely use merchants anywhere else.

We also never moved from Gilded Hollow. Which is by far the best guild hall for decorations and the setup is very centralized.

I did make a bridge to the nodes in another guilds windswept guildhall. Personally I think that windswept is just that guildhall with alot of premade decorations.

Edit: Though I suppose I would love to turn off the ambience lightning in the center. I tend to ignore that mostly though.

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:The way my guild uses the guild hall is for easy bank and merchant access. Yes for nodes and boosts too I suppose. But more often for guild bank/merchant and bank through the scribing stations.

In fact I use that so much that I rarely use merchants anywhere else.

We also never moved from Gilded Hollow. Which is by far the best guild hall for decorations and the setup is very centralized.

I did make a bridge to the nodes in another guilds windswept guildhall. Personally I think that windswept is just that guildhall with alot of premade decorations.

Edit: Though I suppose I would love to turn off the ambience lightning in the center. I tend to ignore that mostly though.

Thank you for your input. My other half does the same thing as you by utilizing the scribe station for bank access. I wish we could have a personal bank npc close to the guild bank. It would certainly improve the utility use of the guild halls for members. By the way that was a great point, and thank you for bringing it to the conversation :).

I think they would get a lot more use if they had a testing golem, placable chests for player made jumping puzzles, and perhaps a summonable weekly or daily boss or something. But we’re lucky to get guild decorations and a mostly finished new guild hall with how little they seem to want to invest into guild content. I suppose wvw guild changes are the biggest change we will see for the remainder of the franchise.

With all the awkward invisible barriers in Windswept and weird terrain collision it kind of seems like they made a map, threw a few (pretty) usable buildings down and then tossed invisible barriers around the things they didn’t finish or scrapped. Seems like they might have either saved it for last, had significantly fewer people working on it than previous ones, or went through several iterations and couldn’t decide until they finally narrowed it down. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty and the artists do amazing work, but it’s a little disappointing in many ways. Also, no new music or weapons? Wish they would revise Windswept a bit even if it isn’t huge changes but I know I’d have better luck wishing for the lotto. Lol

@"Deimos.4263" said:There is an item visible in decoration storage called a "gilded banner", with no known corresponding scribe recipe. I think it's possible that it was meant to be a banner with the guild emblem on it, not "gilded", but nobody knows how to make one.

I fully agree about some of the decorations they could/should add, and we can only wait and see if they decide to bring out more.

As for items that can't be removed, I would not recommend Windswept Haven to any decoration-focused guild. Far too much is pre-decorated; the original two guild halls have much more bare canvas to work with.

Windswept has a lot of blank space to decorate, it’s just that none of the decorations currently outside of a two expensive wall decorations and pillars and columns for days there aren’t any architectural decorations or a wide variety of flora outside of potted plants that are also expensive and tedious.

@"cptaylor.2670" said:I think they would get a lot more use if they had a testing golem, placable chests for player made jumping puzzles, and perhaps a summonable weekly or daily boss or something. But we’re lucky to get guild decorations and a mostly finished new guild hall with how little they seem to want to invest into guild content. I suppose wvw guild changes are the biggest change we will see for the remainder of the franchise.

With all the awkward invisible barriers in Windswept and weird terrain collision it kind of seems like they made a map, threw a few (pretty) usable buildings down and then tossed invisible barriers around the things they didn’t finish or scrapped. Seems like they might have either saved it for last, had significantly fewer people working on it than previous ones, or went through several iterations and couldn’t decide until they finally narrowed it down. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty and the artists do amazing work, but it’s a little disappointing in many ways. Also, no new music or weapons? Wish they would revise Windswept a bit even if it isn’t huge changes but I know I’d have better luck wishing for the lotto. Lol

Ahh thank you for bringing up "Music" that is another great point I'd like to see anet expand upon, along with guild armor and weapons. In wvw I've proudly worn the guild chest piece which displays our emblem but some different tabard cuts Like the horsmans tabard or a side sweep tail like the norn styles would also be cool.

What I'd like to hear from everyone is what would make a guild hall more functional for your groups use. How could they be improved upon to make it a more essential part of your organization. If you could make changes what would they be and why? What do you all like most and least about the different halls? Every group is different with different needs and I'd love to hear everyone's opinion and ideas :).

I realize I didn't really address the original question. We use our guild hall for a lot.

I pretty much lived in it for a year, when I got really into scribing/decorating. It became contagious, and we now have 6 maximum level scribes and hold late-night scribe-a-thons where several members work together and come up with some crazy stuff. Group decorating.

We've held several parties there with games and races, music and dancing, and we've built so many fun projects I've forgotten them all. At one point we gave guild hall tours for new members and they took over an hour to complete.

We've now given everyone in the guild decoration rights, so not only can they be creative, they can have fountain wars and try to crush each other. Get stuck in a fountain, you're out.

We change halls every 6 months or so, so it's a lot of fun to start with a blank slate and see what we can create each time. We're really quite crazy with the decorating.

It's our rallying place for guild missions because the portal is just so fun, and we've held several guild meetings and officer meetings.

Of course there are nodes and tavern buffs and that super-handy anvil, but those are sort of an afterthought for our guild.

I only go to mine for the guild buff and sometimes nodes, it's just a load screen time sink =/