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Speculation
9/17/09 4:56 PM -
Guild Housing - Planets or Ships? 
by Zenkei
, posted September 17th, 2009 at 4:56 PM
I am sure we all know what guild housing is and how it operates in other games, such as LotRO or Guild Wars, but let's explore this aspect in the Star Wars setting. There are two ways in which I could see guild housing being implemented, if it is at all. Either it could be designed as a literal house or building on an already designed planet, such as Korriban or Coruscant, or it could be put on a separate, just for guild halls planet. But not only that, perhaps it would much more convenient to allow guild housing upon ships, instead of planet(s).
 

If guild housing is decided upon and allowed to proceed on planets, it would make sense to set up a different sector of the city just for these halls (a.k.a. instancing). A person would simply walk or perhaps teleport to the part of the city that allows instancing into their hall and then zone in as if it were a dungeon. The reason why is that if guild halls were allowed to take up residence in various buildings throughout the city, it could cause confusion for those whom are leveling and end up causing far more lag issues. Once these guild halls are set up, they could have the option of buying, fighting, bribing for control of certain parts of the city. If one guild controlled one part of a city, perhaps they would get the added benefit of a reduction in the cost of items or repairs. But let's go one step further. If such a system is set up, it would only make sense for one guild to want to compete for control of an area over another guild. So, Guild vs. Guild PvP could develop. It would have to be an opt-in system, not in any way required, unless you wish to compete for sectors of the city. The rewards could be obvious control of a sector, but perhaps taking money or items from the losing guild.

But enough of GvG PvP, what would be the purpose of a guild hall? It would allow for a members of the guild to socialize in an RPG element first and foremost, but it could serve as a place to get ready to board the guild's transport ship to go off to the next raid. But it could also serve as a place to repair, buy items from the auction house, PvP, etc. The list goes on and on.

Besides a planet, the other option for a guild hall is a ship. This option is more personally exciting for me and I think that it is more to the Star Wars theme than a planet. So, instead of buying sectors of a city, perhaps the guild can compete for sectors of space, each with different materials or added bonuses of for possessing it. But not only that, perhaps the guild starts off with a smaller ship and is allowed to upgrade their ship to the size of a Star Destroyer or something of the like. They could compete in battles with one or more guilds for control of not only their sectors of space, but maybe even their own ships.

Just the thought of such a system is exciting for me, so what about all of you? What are your thoughts of guild housing and how it should be done, if at all?
 
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13 Comments
Comment by snafu made on September 19th, 2009 at 12:15pm
I think guild housing can exist in TOR without having to develop competitions between guilds (whether it be fighting over physical regions or money). I definitely agree that Guild Houses should be instanced, and the idea of having a them on a ship enables the concept to be realistic within the universe (as opposed to hundreds of people in different guilds walking in and out of the same door of a building).

Also, I hate to be a grammar nazi, but you should avoid starting sentences with "But" whenever possible. Your article would read a little better if you just outright deleted the word in both instances where you started a sentence with it.
 
Comment by Spongy made on September 19th, 2009 at 2:53am
I do NOT like the idea of Guild vs Guild or controlling city areas the such.
I would HATE for TOR to even mildly resemble EVE's system.

I say keep it very close to SWG's system. People could place houses guild halls in out of the way areas. Build their OWN cities. Which, when they got large enough, could even have their own shuttle stop.

SWG also had ships that people could decorate store things in, which acted as a SECOND house. (or third, fourth, etc.. depending on how many others the person had).

The main city areas w/ NPC granted missions should stay strictly static. No player building or housing.

No instancing, i like housing to be a physical part of the game. It really makes the world feel way more alive real.
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on September 19th, 2009 at 5:00am
But the problem with housing all over the place is that there's no room for content. Even today, SWG still has problems putting content down. It always ends up being on No Build worlds like Yavin and Dathomir instead of hub worlds like Tatooine and Corellia.
 
Comment by Spongy made on September 19th, 2009 at 1:53pm
Well they could just make the planets larger than they were in SWG.

They could also improve on SWG by mapping out residential zones.
So that they will still have room to add other content as well.

I just really would hate to see a system like City of Heroes where it's just one generic portal that you use to get to your 'base'.
,
Where the world always looks the same, going from buildings.
,
and where nobody ever sees or can stop by and check out (in curiosity, or because you left something for them there, etc..) your house/shop while you're offline.

I also loved the idea of player run stores. I thought that was really cool people had favorite stops.

Maybe they could have commercial zoning in addition to residential zone. One thing i wish was different in SWG was that. Stores were so spread out because they could be placed anywhere. If they were to be placed in a commercial zone it would be like a giant player created shopping center/mall.
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on September 19th, 2009 at 10:10pm
If you make the worlds bigger, people will just spread out further. Specified commercial residential zones just end up restricting your goal of a more open world.

As I've mentioned before, LotRO's system is best. You have instanced neighborhoods of a dozen houses(and a couple guild halls), with the instances selectable from a list at the neighborhood entrance. Each neighborhood has a street name, and all the houses/guild halls inside have a street address. Each house even has a yard to put decorations in, loots from your adventures and such.

You get the housing and neighborhoods, but without clogging up the entire world with player houses.
 
Comment by Katina made on September 18th, 2009 at 11:26am
I think there should be the possibility for a personal, private area for each player on land, perhaps instanced, and then ships: a private ship if you're rich or a group ship with group storage for guilds or maybe a massive ship with fighters for guild pvp. It would be great if you could go exploring with them, and those without are resigned to using a sort of regular interplanetary bus, though in that case a basic, small ship shouldn't be too expensive.
 
Comment by Jaswar made on September 18th, 2009 at 3:18am
That would be awesum to meet your guildies on your "GuildStation" where you can stage your raids from. you all meet there gear up ...head on down to Docking bay 27 ....get on board your Transport...and BOOM away you all go ....to your evening's Raid.....
 
Comment by Ivedefected made on September 18th, 2009 at 2:27am
I think SW:TOR, based on what they've shown so far, will have a system similar in concept to what EQ2 has done (and LOTRO from what i understand).

Basicly, you take a section of a given hub city, lets say Coruscant, and you add a section of the city that could work like Apartments. Players could purchase individual "Homes" of various floorplans to do with what they please. Several sections could be dedicated to this, all individually instanced, and it would give that ...lived in universe feel that Star Wars is so known for.

Guild Halls on the other hand would (could) be handled via a planetary transport system (allowing them to also instance this similar to EQ2, whose guild halls were set on an Island off the coast of each of the Major Cites) giving a lot more room to customize without cluttering up gamespace.

I think they will go the instanced route mainly due to the fact that everything they have shown so far is so painstakingly crafted that having an open housing system , ala SWG, wouldnt seem to have a place in the worlds they are creating.
 
Comment by Chasted made on September 18th, 2009 at 1:30am
If there was going to be any sort of guild housing I would want it to be in Space Ships. To have a Guild HQ of any decent size you would have Korriban filled with huts all over it's desert landscape in order to accommodate the hundreds of guilds that will be created (Kinda like Galaxies after awhile). Or well, that is how I would imagine it.

Although the benefits... I think if it was going to be in a Space ship we would have to see what Bioware plans to implement for space (Space Flight, space travel, who knows?).
 
Comment by RogueJedi86 made on September 17th, 2009 at 8:50pm
The problem with spaceships is that if they don't move, they don't feel like a spaceship, and if they do move, it'd be hard to find them at any given time.
 
Comment by Sztanyi made on September 17th, 2009 at 7:15pm
I've always thought of player housing in TOR as the space version. I can't add much that you haven't said, but the way I imagined it, is that you continually upgrade your ship, and when you feel your guild is strong enough you choose a sector to take over (until then you just fly around wherever you're allowed to).

I also think that it would be cool to have guild vs guild PvP, but not just 2 ships going up next to eachother, but full with transport ships, organized boarding parties, big explosions, etc. I think if Bioware doesn't rush and takes their time to design this and implement it properly, it could be one of the coooolest things in the entire game.
 
Comment by Zenkei made on September 18th, 2009 at 1:27am
I completely agree with your sentiment. If Bioware carefully thinks this out, it could create a whole new experience for all of us.
 
Comment by Zandi made on September 17th, 2009 at 5:17pm
I would like to see a space station of sorts for a guild. If ships were involved in the game, a space station would work as both a RP and social base and a war base in times of Guild Vs Guild PvP as you said. This would be my ideal setup as it would allow guild ships to dock and work smoothly for guildies trading with one another.