Player Housing Project - Zodiac Village [EU]

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

It is one of the more controversial topics among the community. There are re-occurring discussions in the General Discussion board, but except for the request towards ANet and the backlash from people who want precious resources spent elsewhere, those never lead to any progress at all. On the other hand, I do believe we already have a tool for that in the game - Guild Halls. I know both the pro's and con's about this path, like the intense pay-wall and the countless of limitations with guildhall-decoration itself. But I think I have figured out a method that could actually work out. I would have done it earlier, but as you will see below, this 'idea' consumes a lot of resources. 

The Basics
Lost Precipice guidhall has four house-buildings in the northern upper area. In addition there is a waterfall-palace in the north-eastern part of the map. I create a guild, claim the guildhall and offer the five locations for people who want to try out housing.

The Difficulties
While creating a guild is rather easy, claiming a guildhall is rather expensive and not that easy to begin with - especially when you are alone. Decoration is directly connected with scribing. But in order to scribe, you need a scribe-station = Workshop. This means you have to setup basic infrastructure in the guildhall: Tavern => Mine => Capacity 1 => Workshop. Another big problem comes with the mobility as the four houses and the palace are in remote areas. Upon unlocking the further-exploration upgrade, there is a new waypoint at the houses, but that requires guild-level 40. Even if you manage to solve all of those problems, your villagers start with 0 decorations. And if they want to make decorations, they need to level a scribe - preferably up to 400. That still does not include any decorations at all. 

The Solutions
- Guildhall claimed and upgraded to Workshop and Decoration Merchant (Tier 1).
- The mobility issue was solved with two pairs of Djinn Portals, which connect the lobby with the houses and the palace.
- Every party that owns an estate will have a Decoration Starter Kit at their disposal. Crafting own decorations is still possible, but not mandatory. In addition, you can also request special crafts.

The Limitations
- There is basically no real privacy. It works with trust. We do not have doors or any methods to lock people out of the houses.
- NO Lattice, Well, Mossy Pillar, Wagon and the decorations related to those. And there will not be any monuments to put text on. It would require too many resources to unlock those. 
- 5 parties only. I do not care how many people 'live' in the houses, but the waterfall-palace should be owned at least by a group of 3. 
- The instance-capacity conundrum. Guildhalls cannot be used for mass-gatherings, due to a design flaw. The first instance is designed for a total of 5 players. When a 6th enters, a new instance will pop up with 10 slots. When the 11th enters, a new instance will pop up with 15 slots. ... etc. 
- You need to sacrifice a guild-slot.'

The Schedule
PHASE I - COMPLETE: Creating the guild, claiming the guildhall.
PHASE II - COMPLETE: Upgrading the guildhall towards Workshop (Tier 1) and Decorations Merchant (Tier 1).
PHASE III - COMPLETE: Establishing a portal-connection from the lobby to the four houses and the palace.
PHASE IV - COMPLETE:  Decoration Starter Kit
PHASE V - IN PROGRESS: Gathering Villagers

Further Steps
- While the village slowly fills, I'm thinking about expanding the village. I found two locations which would fit quite well. 

Looking forward to any kind of thoughts, ideas, suggestions and complaints. The project is still in the build-up process, so there is room for modifications.

Thanks for reading ^^

[UPDATE] It is March 2022 now. The demand for housing is unfortunately rather low. I was not able to fill all 5 slots by now. Two of the three I managed to fill are guild-members who were interested in that project. Only one was actually decorating their home, the other two parties have not done anything noticable. Running any kinds of surveys is completely out of the question.

I think the restrictions scare many people off, as well as the fact that it is FOR FREE. Sacrificing a guild-slot is also kind of meh.

[UPDATE] Another villager left. 3/5 estates are vacant. One of them is the waterfall-palace. As long as I cannot even fill the existing slots, expansion does not make much sense. 

Edited May 10, 2022 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870
UPDATE

[Marvellous.4620]

Sounds like a nice Roleplay project, have fun with it.

I still hope arena net will implement it in the future properly, just imagine how much they could make via gemstore with it alone 😄

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Decoration Starter Kit (in progress)

The lists below show what every single estate/party can use from the beginning. As we are starting with five estates in total, you can multiply those by five to get the total amount for each decoration. There exists a scribing-station in the guildhall and you are free to use it to craft your own decorations. But you do not have to start from scratch. 

FOUNTAINS

Spoiler

2x Basic Fountain
1x Illuminated Fountain
1x Griffon Fountain
1x Lion Fountain

 

OBJECTS

Spoiler

1x Crystal Prism
2x Raven Statue
1x Charr Scrap Cannon
2x Corrupted Eagle Shrine
2x Corrupted Ox Shrine
2x Corrupted Wolverine Shrine
2x Owl Statue
1x Gramophone
1x Elonian Vase
2x Grandfather Clock
5x Basic Crate 
5x Basic Basket

 

PLANTS

Spoiler

1x Effervescent Pod
1x Grenth's Palm
5x Basic Shrub
5x Basic Tree
1x Potted Night Thistle
1x Potted Jungle Grass
1x Potted Croton
1x Potted Broad Paddlefrond
4x Pot of Chrysanthemums

 

FLOOR

Spoiler

3x Racetrack Straightaway
3x Racetrack Long Straightaway
5x Cardinal Sabir's Token
5x Recreation Room Floor Fragment
1x Super Lily Pad

 

FURNITURE

Spoiler

5x Elonian Wood Chair
4x Plush Sofa
4x Plush Armchair
5x Basic Chair

2x Ornate Bed
1x Library Shelf
1x Wide Library Shelf
4x Square Cabinet
4x Basic Bookshelf
5x Basic Planter

2x Elonian Wood Table
2x Fancy Table
2x Square Guild Bar
5x Basic Table
5x Fragment of Saul's Burden

 

FIRE & LIGHT

Spoiler

5x Basic Torch
5x Basic Candle
10x Red Lantern
10x Zephyr Lantern

1x Woodfire Grill
1x Fire Circle
1x Campfire

 

ARCHITECTURE

Spoiler

5x Basic Column
2x Ominous Fortress Wall
2x Lunar Arch
1x Red Festival Tent
2x Red Festival Umbrella

 

[EDIT] That should be enough for a start. I will keep adding more decorations to the kit.

Edited January 9, 2022 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

PHASE V - Gathering Villagers

In the first step, I have tried to recruit people in this thread. That did not work, obviously. But I wanted to give the curious ones (200 views+) a chance. 

The second step moves the recruitment part straight to the Looking for Guild subsection. The Zodiac Village is a guild-project after all and I am basically looking for members. So it does not violate the rules.

After talking to a few people, I figured out that the basic knowledge about how decorating works in GW2 is often missing. Guilds are quite restrictive when it comes to ranks and rights. The ones I have been in over the years only allowed a few special people to decorate. 

In order to give those an insight, who have never touched this feature before, I have created a small Decoration Guide over the last week.

The way to go for this week is the recruitment-thread in the LFG subforum. If the slots are still not full by the end of the week, I will reach out further. 

Note: I will not bump this thread any further, just update the posts until all slots have been filled with participants. You are still welcome to give feedback in the form of suggestions, ideas and complaints. 

Big Thanks for reading o/

Edited May 10, 2022 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870

[Kelly.7019]

I think it's an interesting idea however it's still just being apart of a guild. It's march 23rd and this is the first i'm hearing of any sort of community thing in 5 years. 😄 but i think that's probably due inpart to the fact i'm not much of a social media guy. I wish there was a discord or I wish i knew of a discord gw2 decoration channel for both EU and NA. I know ESO has a massive decoration community, but i'm surprised I haven't heard of one for gw2. I mean there are plenty of youtube people who decorate their guild halls and i'm sure they have their own communities, but i really haven't heard of a multiple guild/ gw2 decoration community discord. I'd make one myself but again- not much of a social media all star. 🙂

Edited March 23, 2022 by Kelly.7019

[Kelly.7019]

On 11/14/2021 at 5:01 AM, Marvellous.4620 said:

Sounds like a nice Roleplay project, have fun with it.

I still hope arena net will implement it in the future properly, just imagine how much they could make via gemstore with it alone 😄

Yea, that's kind of scary thinking how they went the wrong way with gardening. I could see for personal housing (if they change their minds about it) certain deluxe mansions estates for sale on the gemstore, but i'd also like to see large homes availaible for ingame gold. Personal housing could be an entirely new end game content. The concept is there with guild hall decoration. The next lil step would be to add decoration to your personal instances. decoration for the solo player shouldn't be expensive the for the vast majority of decs, only for rare decs or even special gemstore furnishings! There is potential here. If that works anet could grow it massively into more end game content where both people that want to decorate and others that just sell the decorations to make gold could be happy.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Kelly.7019