The Guild Hall Feedback Thread

[Gilmartin]

Will there be the ability to place sales crates and veteren's display cases in the guild hall? 

We have a strong crafting contigent in our guild who would love to set up a serious crafting retail area in our guild hall, to selling our crafted goods to the masses. 

Without the ability for guildmates to place salesman crates / veteran display cases, it's going to be very hard to set up a shop.

Something for consideration?  or can we do this already?

[Prrasha]

Our guild was formed on November 10th, 2004. We're currently at level 57.20, having gained level 57 on August 8th. I'm the only person who has been active the whole time, but we've had 5 of our founders online in the past week. We currently have 34 accounts (made up of 32 real-life people; w/three two-boxers, and one mother/daughter pair sharing an account.)Our real-life ages range from (as far as I know) 18 to 70.12 people have logged in during the past week (4 with Tier 8 main characters, 5 with T7 mains, and 3 with T6 mains).4 others have logged in within the last month (1 T8, 2 T6, 1 T2).4 others have logged in within the last 2 months (1 T7, 2 T6, 1 T5).None of us have huge amounts of gaming time; there's no college students or independently-wealthy folks... we've all got jobs and/or families and/or kids... Maybe three of us average 2 hours a day or more. The rest play less than that. But, since 20 of the 32 of us have been online in the past 2 months, it's not that they're entirely inactive. So, despite being an established and moderately-active guild, we've got only a handful of T7 and T8 people to support the whole place. If we buy the T2 guild hall available to us, it costs us 250pp, plus 250gp and 100,000 status per week. This was reduced from double that, because it was felt the previous price was too high. At the time that decision was made, the community didn't really have a good look at amenity pricing yet (Clockwork Gamer's calculator, et. al., showed up later.) At level 57, we could have 17 amenities... a whole 2 more than a tier 1 guild hall would allow us. If we buy the 17 cheapest-to-upkeep amenities possible, we spend an additional 109.1 pp and 22,750,000 status up front. Our weekly upkeep goes up by 218gp and 166,250 status, to a total of 468gp and 266,250 status. And this is for a list of amenities that is, quite honestly, lame... no banker, broker, tradeskill depot, fuel vendor, portal druid... just the "useless" NPCs (guards, bartender, guild cloak designer) and a few mariner's bells and other travel devices. Our top ten guild status contributors (which comprise 5 real-life people) have given 3.77 million status, so they've gathered (over the course of four years) 37 million personal status. This means, if nobody spent any status anywhere else (and we do have tradeskill tables and mounts and titles and house decor and all the other things a semi-roleplaying guild buys), that 4 years of effort could buy our amenities and pay for them for just over 1 year. So... a guild of 20+ active, but not wedded-to-the-game, people, who buy the best guild hall available to them, but then fill it with the worst possible set of Amenities, really can't afford their guild hall without seriously eating into the fun of the game. AND THIS IS STILL JUST A GAME.Conclusion: Pricing the lower-tier guild halls, and, more importantly, their Amenities, based on 8 or 10 active-every-day T8 people isn't realistic, at least in our guild's case. Doing level 79 tradeskill writs (without having to harvest any raws, based on the times quoted earlier), and farming a hundred or so mobs in Skyfire for chest drops to sell for the 4-5 pp every week, is going to be a huge drag starting, oh, next February or so. Please consider reducing the upkeep costs of the Amenities, even if it means boosting the initial price for them. The "Mission System" was supposed to be a big change to reduce the need for the repetitive, monotonous, grind-until-the-rare-loot-drops playstyle. Moving that grind to the maintain-the-guild-hall-every-week playstyle will not help anyone's enjoyment of the game. At least the loot grind had that "yipee!" moment at the end when all your effort paid off... the guildhall maintenance grind just plods on forever... and ever... and ever...

[Pusska]

Guild lvl 67 here and working overtime to try and hit 70 before guild hall is released. We are a small guild but have some dedicated members within our ranks. We aren't lvl 80 (yet) but we are a small guild with a reasonable guild lvl so I thought we probably fit the info you were after.A rough breakdown of our guild status contributed (rough as I have tried to include alts). Member 01 - 6,212, 683 (yeah ok, he's a freak)Member 02 - 1,392,159Member 03 - 1,160,732Member 04 - 1,596,873Member 05 - 332,966Member 06 - 351,646Member 07 - 330,819Member 08 - 230,482Member 09 - 587,161Member 10 - 188,256Member 11 - 274,580 And anyone else is below 100,000 and either not a major contributer (some due to circumstance) or new. We have about 10 active players - by active I mean that log on every week. The plat cost for our guild hall will be coming from the guild founders almost in full, and status from within the guild.___Now for some of my feedback ...As already mentioned, I think everything is pretty well in hand. However I would also like to add my vote to having some sort of 'tax' system. Completely optional for the guild to use AND completely optional for the individual to participate in (A simple ON/OFF in preferences). This will take a lot of the hassle and think work out of weekly payments, nobody HAS to contribute, but those that want to would prefer a simple way to do so. Since this would be a voluntary tax system though, I would ask that we still have some record of who is and who isn't paying their tax. I applaud the people who thought of this idea! Fabulous!I would also like to see an option for more of the ammenities to have their own cost to use like the mender. This would be a great way for the guild members who use the item, to help pay for it's upkeep. And of course the guild gets to set the amount, if a guild wishes it to be a 'free-to-use' ammenity, they can just set this to 0 cost or not set an amt at all.I also add my vote to the people who have mentioned a portal and a revamp of the 'guild writs'. I really think this is essential unless you are going to completely remove them from the game. There are a multitude of problems to do with the ones in game at the moment, and they are definitely out of date and in need of a good, hard look! In case you overlook it, we also need someone in the hall to give the writs out, so writ giver and portal to the writ loc needs to be combined. This could be another ammenity to add to the list and I would really love to see it.With the /claimed items being unable to be placed in guild halls ... NOooooooooooooooooooooo!Does this include LoN items? I have promised to share about my paintings and a fellow guildie has also promised to share his :-/ Please reconsider this, as long as we KNOW that we are handing these items over to the guild I think that is fine and most of us will do this willingly.PLUS a lot of us have our burynai's in an alts house because the large houses can take so long to load, this will mean that we have no access to our burynai unless we head back into the city, which will be even more of a pain because everything we want will be in the guild hall in front of us LOL. Isn't it enough punishment that we will have to find the wandering little so-and-so all the time? Please please pleaaaaase ... I can make cake!

[Hellswrath]

Prrasha wrote:

The "Mission System" was supposed to be a big change to reduce the need for the repetitive, monotonous, grind-until-the-rare-loot-drops playstyle. Moving that grind to the maintain-the-guild-hall-every-week playstyle will not help anyone's enjoyment of the game.

QFEI have been very quiet in both this and the last thread while trying to get a realistic handle on this prices without my eyes bulging out of my head.Truth be told, I can understand the purchase price of the T3 hall being at 1K plat.  Yes, it is a huge amount.  However, this is an impressive addition to everyone in the guild's enjoyment of the game.  Having a well designed hall and amenities will bring guilds closer and reduce some of the sense of being scattered around the world.  It will be great for the morale of every guild.The purchase prices may be steep for the amenities, but I can understand the sense of achievement it will bring as players outfit their guild halls.  This game is about progression, and while I was definitely expecting high prices, I was not expecting to have every guild member drained completely of their personal status.  I was expecting, as were many others, moderate pricing along the line of guild cloaks at the time they were introduced.  So the sticker shock had to wear off before I could think rationally about it.Unfortunately, requiring an upkeep of 15+pp and nearly 600K status a week for a moderately equipped guild hall is over the top, IMHO.  If the purchase price of the hall and amenities were half of what they are, I could understand it.  Moderate cost to build but hard to maintain would be the theme.  I wouldn't like it, but at least I could understand it.However, the very theme that was described at Fan Faire was that the idea was to work to achieve and NOT work to maintain.  The upkeep pricing doesn't follow this at all.  Yes, it can be done.  However, it will be a huge drag on guild morale and completely negate the beneficial effects of having the guild hall in the first place.  Few people like to grind.  That is exactly what this will be.If the expansion had a level cap raise in it, and the corresponding mudflation that went along with it, then I could understand these prices, since it would become much easier to make money and status in a few months.  However, that is not the case.  Thus it will not be fun to make upkeep on this for some time to come.  If the purchase prices were halved, then it wouldn't drain all our guildies dry.  Thus, they would have a resevoir to draw from in order to help pay for the hall until a level cap raise in a year and some.  But this is going to break a large number of people at a time when the game economy is slowing down a bit and it is getting harder to make the amount of money you could pull in before.As for my guild, we have more than a couple members in the top 50 richest on the server.  We will be able to afford a guild hall.  But they won't be on that list anymore. hehe.  We are a bit lucky because of how generous our guildies are.  While it will put many of us in the poor house, we will manage.  It won't be fully outfitted at first or anything, but we'll have some basics.  We have about 30-40 players of varying activity levels (and a slew more of rarely active friends).  We busted rear to get to 80.  However, the majority of us do not bring in large amounts of plat, as that is not their playstyle.  *There's my contribution to the info accumulation *I just think this level of upkeep will kill a lot of the fun of guild halls.  The game isn't supposed to be a grind or work.  We can get that in RL.  Just try to remember what was on that Goals slide for guild halls at Fan Faire and not stray from the idea of "the fun is working toward a goal, not working to maintain the achievement."

[Lady Shai]

Mr. Dawkins wrote:

Can the guild hall have a sales crate and if so can the profit go straight to the guild bank? Many guilds do sell the masters they loot if no one in guild needs it.

Yes.

This!!!

I think that this would be marvelous thing for all the guild Halls to be able to utilize. You could even hook it up to the permissions window in ranks thru the Guild Management Window...so leaders or certain ranks can put things on for sale to benefit the guild (ie masters or lore items from donations or looted)...and have it go straight to a designated guild bank OR have  a slider where you can designate a certain percentage of each sale goes straight to the escrow.

It certainly would make things a lot easier imho!!

[Lady Shai]

In talking with a few people today...we started talking about old EQ. One thing that popped up was the "vitality" pool...your buffs wouldn't decay while you were in it... and you would regain vitality at a faster rate. (If I am rememberering correctly what they said...I left EQ1 just before the Halls came out there)

We were thinking how nice it would be to really have our Hall be a central point for our guildies...and what could be done to make it even more exciting and viable.

A few people brought up the idea of the "message boards" like from Old EQ1 where people would leave notes on the wall asking for help with a quest or saying hi to a friend etc. Another thing was having card tables that we could put into a game room of sorts, and maybe be able to actually play a card game with a friend in the game room. A billiards table was brought up and so on... would add a bit of environment to certain rooms I think .

Another was to have a music room..,with a wide variety of instruments that could actually be played like the music boxes given out at Frostfell.

And yet another was to allow each guildmember's account the ability to place 1 salescrate or selling item in a room that was designed for sales, if they wished. This way anything that was in these particular crates that was sold would have the profits sent directly to the escrow.

Along those lines, I would like to see each guild have the ability to sell from the broker. They could go by tier even.... have 1 crate per tier...so at T3 you could have 3 sales crate only for selling for the guild. All proceeds could be directed to go to the bank in a certain tab, or have a portion go to escrow as well. (I know i posted something similar above in a prior post...but I had too much to say after I hit submit )

For the most part, the people in my guild seem to be happy with the way things are set up atm regarding the Halls. Again the only main concern is not the intial purchase price of the amenities, but rather with the amount of status for upkeep. The basic consensus seems to be to up the plat if needed...but please see if the status can be adjusted downward a small amount. It just seems that it is a tad schewed in where it should be atm.

We would however dearly love to be able to bring paintings and design tapestries with our guild heraldry on it. We know that it isnt a major thing...but it would mean a lot to the crafters in our guild to be able to make something amazing and meaningful to our guild and the Hall we will be in. Again, these would not be able to be sold....but would be a part of the guild Hall until destroyed by the Leader or a trustee. We would like to be able to make the style of paintings such as were given as pre-order gifts, and have each class of crafter be able to make something special for the guild. Tables, jeweled plateware, paintings, curtains and tapestries....all sorts of lovely things. They could even be quested for the recipe!!

Thank you for looking at the feedback and commenting on what is and is not possible. It is truly appreciated and I for one love the back and forth communication that has been in these threads regarding the Halls. I know many people lost faith that the devs pay attn to us, and you all have restored the hope that was waning

[ShadowMunkie]

Okay people hate guild taxing systems. How about a much simpler solution.We all know 10% personal status is turned into straight exp for the guild. How about turning a % of that per rank in the guilds. Let the leaders adjust it. For every 1exp you get .5 sp.So someone completes a writ for 7000, 700 in exp goes to the guild normally. With this system if that person was a recruit to the guild and the leaders of said guild put 100% goes to escrow then 350sp would goto the escrow and 0exp to the guild.This isn't a said tax, its more along the lines of earning status at a reduced rate rather than leveling the guild. For much larger guilds that can raid it would be beneficial as well.24 people earning 15,000 status for 7 kills. (sp[Status points], m[mobs], p[people])15,000sp x 7m = 105,000sp x 24p = 2,520,000sp / 10% = 252,000sp / 2 = 126,000spSo a raiding guild would earn 126,000 sp for 1 raid with 7mobs. Thats not even one third of what they need for their upkeep status wise. This is the amount of upkeep per week needed for the guild ameneties my guild leaders are looking into buying.Weekly Hall Upkeep: 10p, 0g and 200000 statusWeekly Amenity Upkeep: 7p, 8g and 430,750 statusSo even with this proposal not even a raid guild could come up with the status from 1 raid. It would take 5-6 raids just to pull in enough status per week.

[Vadja]

My concern about upkeep costs is not with the prices as such but with changing circumstances; a guild that can afford the upkeep for amenities currently might not be able to in a year's time. Will they effectively be locked out of their hall or is it possible to sell back amenities to lower the upkeep?

I'm also wondering if the hall upkeep could be waived altogether. The amenities could become locked on non-payment, and the initial purchase price increased even, but access to the hall itself should be permanent.

[lils]

Well I see a lot of smaller guilds getting upset about the upkeep price ... but let me tell you ... this will break big guilds too.

We are one of the big guilds, but we are not a raid guild, we are a social guild with lots of different members, different levels, and different play styles. A lot of us have families and jobs and we worked very hard to be the first level 80 guild on our server. I always thought it was really neat that a non raid guild could achieve something and reach goals too and I know our members are proud that we hit the highest level first. Still it is disheartening to see that we will most likely not be able to afford the big guild hall or the features that are obtainable, because of the upkeep prices.

Someone said this before ... (I guess various people did) but this whole upkeep thing is going to be pure grind. Something we hoped to not have to in EQ2 and something that will be put in the game big time now. In my opinion this is a very bad change for every casual player. I see my guild lost a LOT of the original excitement we had when we worked for our levels with the goal to have a good guild hall one day, and even more of the excitement we had when we knew the guild halls were finally coming.

Most our members play this game for fun, as a change from their jobs, families etc., they don't want to log on and grind, because they already grinded their way through their days. This whole ... but it only takes x amount rush orders per person etc. calculation might be fine, but don't forget it means ... that amount of rush orders FOREVER! till you stop playing that game ... no week of vacation, no week of not being in the mood, no pause from it and if you fail to do your part, it means double the amount for someone else. Same with the ... oh it only takes a run through so and so raid instance ... well not every guild raids, so it takes a lot more than that. Not to mention having to equip characters is quite expensive in the first place already (just check master spells and high end gear to be able to raid those zones and you know what I mean)   I know my guild can achieve a goal and I know we could some day get together the initial price for the guild hall ... but pure grinding for upkeep is not achieving a goal, it's more like a second job. Even though we probably have the members who could grind I would not want to have to enforce anyone to have to do that and it would end up in the same people doing it over and over, till they are so burned out that they leave the game altogether.  Me too I remember the days when we had patrons, and I remember that as a really bad time, where a lot of drama was created for absolutely no reason, where guild leaders had to be accountants too and I feel right thrown back into that time.  It is bad for the moral and with the whole problems that will come due to accounting situation this will cause a lot of stress and drama for guilds in the future.. It makes me sad to see the excitement within my guildies and the positive attitude and fun that was there to get another goal we can get already reduced. I really hope and wish this whole upkeep thing can be rethought and me too I think there should be a way to reduce status point costs and have the cash amounts dramatically reduced or removed altogether.  After all this is a game we love to play and where we want to have fun, and turning this into a grind fest will take that away from us.

[Whilhelmina]

kela wrote:

Well if your only getting the T2 hall then you really don't need the Translocation Beacons, they are for porting with-in the Hall itself and even the new enlarged T2 hall should be small enough to render that item unnessisary, as for the rest of that stuff, I would pick and choose the most importaint first and then add more if you can then afford it.

I thought it was the item that allowed members to get the call to guild hall ? I may be mistaken.

 EDIT : double-checked and it is, indeed, the item that allows members to get the Call of Guild Hall skill.

[Oh]

Mordok@Crushbone wrote:

Okay people hate guild taxing systems. How about a much simpler solution.We all know 10% personal status is turned into straight exp for the guild. How about turning a % of that per rank in the guilds. Let the leaders adjust it. For every 1exp you get .5 sp.So someone completes a writ for 7000, 700 in exp goes to the guild normally. With this system if that person was a recruit to the guild and the leaders of said guild put 100% goes to escrow then 350sp would goto the escrow and 0exp to the guild.This isn't a said tax, its more along the lines of earning status at a reduced rate rather than leveling the guild. For much larger guilds that can raid it would be beneficial as well.24 people earning 15,000 status for 7 kills. (sp[Status points], m[mobs], p[people])15,000sp x 7m = 105,000sp x 24p = 2,520,000sp / 10% = 252,000sp / 2 = 126,000spSo a raiding guild would earn 126,000 sp for 1 raid with 7mobs. Thats not even one third of what they need for their upkeep status wise. This is the amount of upkeep per week needed for the guild ameneties my guild leaders are looking into buying.Weekly Hall Upkeep: 10p, 0g and 200000 statusWeekly Amenity Upkeep: 7p, 8g and 430,750 statusSo even with this proposal not even a raid guild could come up with the status from 1 raid. It would take 5-6 raids just to pull in enough status per week.

It's still a tax, in your example you were flawed. When a person does a writ the guild does get 10% that goes to wards the leveling of the guild but this status is never taken from the individual. In your example you are wanting to take it from the individual. Apparently a red named person (back on page 16-18 someplace in there) stated that the idea of a "tax" persay was discussed internally and they turned it down saying that they didn't want to implement such a system and leave that sort of stuff for the guild leaders (I'm sorry if it's really badly paraphrased). They also did state that come round 2 for guild halls they were going to make better logging I believe.

NOW What I would suggest is make an automated payment. That every Monday at 10Am I will drop 20k status into the guild's escro and I will throw 1 plat into the guilds escro. This way I have the ability to adjust it however and also turn it off if I so desire.

[Aarionn]

Hi all.I just want to add my thoughts about guild halls.First I am very excited about this! This is one of the best thing happened to eq2 in last few yearsI think that prices and status are OK. I mean it is expensive, but thaks got to that! It will put some purpose to game, because right now it is lost somewhere. Also, it will give a great sense of achievement for all guild members.In my oppinion, Guild Halls are something that guilds need to work on in next 1 year to achieve. It is not something that everyone should buy the first day they come alive! There is no reason for that, even if your guild is 3+ years old.Small guilds should buy t1 or t2 halls, and bigger ones t3, and that is how it should be IMHO. Otherwise, there is no point for t1 and t2 halls. Small guilds should not be able to buy a t3 halls, unless they are run by 24 playing hours fanatics What I would like to see is that contribution of every guild member is visible in some kind of board in guild halls. For example, I come to guild halls table and click on board and have option to donate status points or plat for current weekly fee. So we would be able to see how much everyone contributed and how much we still need.Also, for example, I dont like to do writs, but I can contribute plat. That would be great, because some guild members are low on plat but like writs, and someone like to earn money (like me ) and dont like writs.I am sure that GH will be great addons to game. Just dont think because you play the game, you should have the biggest GH with all special amenities (brokers, ....), because it is reserved only for biggest guilds with most dedicated players.Good luck to you all and have fun!Onuris

[ShadowMunkie]

Ohiv wrote:

Mordok@Crushbone wrote:

Okay people hate guild taxing systems. How about a much simpler solution.We all know 10% personal status is turned into straight exp for the guild. How about turning a % of that per rank in the guilds. Let the leaders adjust it. For every 1exp you get .5 sp.So someone completes a writ for 7000, 700 in exp goes to the guild normally. With this system if that person was a recruit to the guild and the leaders of said guild put 100% goes to escrow then 350sp would goto the escrow and 0exp to the guild.This isn't a said tax, its more along the lines of earning status at a reduced rate rather than leveling the guild. For much larger guilds that can raid it would be beneficial as well.24 people earning 15,000 status for 7 kills. (sp[Status points], m[mobs], p[people])15,000sp x 7m = 105,000sp x 24p = 2,520,000sp / 10% = 252,000sp / 2 = 126,000spSo a raiding guild would earn 126,000 sp for 1 raid with 7mobs. Thats not even one third of what they need for their upkeep status wise. This is the amount of upkeep per week needed for the guild ameneties my guild leaders are looking into buying.Weekly Hall Upkeep: 10p, 0g and 200000 statusWeekly Amenity Upkeep: 7p, 8g and 430,750 statusSo even with this proposal not even a raid guild could come up with the status from 1 raid. It would take 5-6 raids just to pull in enough status per week.

It's still a tax, in your example you were flawed. When a person does a writ the guild does get 10% that goes to wards the leveling of the guild but this status is never taken from the individual. In your example you are wanting to take it from the individual. Apparently a red named person (back on page 16-18 someplace in there) stated that the idea of a "tax" persay was discussed internally and they turned it down saying that they didn't want to implement such a system and leave that sort of stuff for the guild leaders (I'm sorry if it's really badly paraphrased). They also did state that come round 2 for guild halls they were going to make better logging I believe.

NOW What I would suggest is make an automated payment. That every Monday at 10Am I will drop 20k status into the guild's escro and I will throw 1 plat into the guilds escro. This way I have the ability to adjust it however and also turn it off if I so desire.

Ohiv,  Seriously don't try to put words in my mouth. I said no where in my solution it was taking from the individual. In my solution I was taking the exp away from the guild and putting it towards the status, not taking the individuals own status. Its not a tax whenever the individual himself/herself don't loose anything. This is just an alternative way to allow the guild leaders to choose how the guild works. A) They either level up.B) They put the exp that people earn for the guild to status for the guild hall.C) Put a % of earned exp toward the guild hall.And in my example, not even a raiding guild would be able to keep up the the status, by raiding alone.

[Kendricke]

Atani wrote:

I think it is more a psychological matter, but I would much rather prefer if you doubled/tripled/whatever the purchase cost of the amenities, but got rid of the upkeep.

So, if an amenity costs 10pp to buy and just 10g in weekly upkeep, you'd rather pay 30pp to never have to worry about upkeep, right?  You do realize that, mathematically speaking, you're asking to pay for the amenity and nearly four years worth of upkeep all up front just to save yourself some perceived weekly grind?

Why don't you and your guildmates just triple the cost of all amenities in your head and pay that amount up front, then sit back and enjoy your guildhall for the next three years or so without even worrying about upkeep? 

[Qandor]

We are a very small guild, only 9 accounts, all friends and family. The guild was only formed in September 07 although most of us have been in the game since launch in '04. We saw concept art released during last years fanfaire and decided to work towards the goal of having a guild hall. We are currently level 56. We will have no problem financing a T2 guild hall either in terms of status or coin. We have been working towards that goal for a year now. We have approximately 75 million personal status between us available for the guild hall and since status continues to accumulate regularly we are not concerned about status upkeep. Likewise coin is not a probem since we have done very well in earning coin ever since launch. As far as amenities go, we will obtain what we can afford and what we cannot afford, will give us something to work towards going forward.

It was only after 2 guilds imploded beneath us and the 3rd on the ropes (2 of them raiding guilds) did we finally decide to start our own guild. We have never been sorry that we did start our own although a few of our members miss raiding.

This goes to demonstrate that they have a herculean task trying to fit a pricing model on to these guild halls. There are guilds in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of wealth in terms of status and coin. Larger does not necessarily equate to better off and in fact larger guilds may have a more difficult time getting everyone to pull together for one goal. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

[feldon30]

ke`la wrote:

Well if your only getting the T2 hall then you really don't need the Translocation Beacons, they are for porting with-in the Hall itself and even the new enlarged T2 hall should be small enough to render that item unnessisary, as for the rest of that stuff, I would pick and choose the most importaint first and then add more if you can then afford it.

You're thinking of the transporter pads. Guild Translocation Beacon gives you "Call of the Guild Hall".

[Aarionn]

Qandor wrote:

 As far as amenities go, we will obtain what we can afford and what we cannot afford, will give us something to work towards going forward.

This goes to demonstrate that they have a herculean task trying to fit a pricing model on to these guild halls. There are guilds in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of wealth in terms of status and coin. Larger does not necessarily equate to better off and in fact larger guilds may have a more difficult time getting everyone to pull together for one goal. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

Quandor, your commet is right on spot!!!

[Mikkahl]

Qandor wrote:

Mikkahl wrote:

Felishanna@Antonia Bayle wrote:

OOC.

Question: Will the Escrow account have any limit to how much is put into it upfront?

This is still an open question.  If they are "borrowing" the house mechanics for the guild hall, the house rent can only be paid up 4 weeks in advance.

Yes, the house rent can only be paid up to 4 weeks in advance but that has nothing to do with escrow. I could right now go to my daughters house (since I am a trustee) and deposit enough status and coin to cover her rent for 3 years if I wanted to. She would stil have to click the pay rent button every 4 weeks, at least, to actually pay the rent but all the costs would come out of escrow and not her pocket.

I am assuming guild halls will act similarly. Members can deposit as much as they like in escrow (years worth if they like) but someone is going to have to click that pay upkeep button at least every 4 weeks.

Ah, so I've never understood how house escrow was supposed to work, I guess!  I've tried it a few times over the past 3 years, and it didn't seem to be working for me.   I guess I thought it would auto-pay from escrow when the rent was due.

For guild halls, will only Trustees be able to pay in to escrow (so only officers)?  Or will everybody be able to? 

Edit, I just tested this with my own house, and Friends can pay in to escrow as well, but not Visitors.  So as long a most guild member are Trustees or Friends, then they can deposit.  And Trustees or Friends can pay into Escrow from inside the house - not just outside.  I remember this was a question somebody asked in these threads.  I guess the worry was that you didn't want to be standing outside the GH access trying to make a deposit, when opposite-alignment guards might be patrolling the area!

 You only have to be outside to hit Pay Upkeep (once every 4 weeks).  And only the owner or Trustee has the Pay Upkeep button enabled.  So some correctly-aligned officer will have to be on duty to pay the upkeep every 4 weeks.

[Mikkahl]

Tajhia@Permafrost wrote:

Can I just ask a question about the Tradeskills tables - you have said that we can place our existing tables in the Guildhall - will they then become property of the guild-hall and not the person who originally owned them?  If so, what happens if that person decideds to leave the guild or that they want their table back in their own home?Also, will other guild-members be able to use these tables or will they all need their own unique worktables?  I don't really want to end up with teh situation where every guild-member has to have their own tables in the guildhall to be able to craft - just imagine the clutter that would cause (our guild has maybe 25 people who craft, some of them on several different alts) and the confusion as each person tries to remember which workbench or forge was theirs

I've never seen a tradeskill table anywhere what was not usuable for anybody that has the right recipes and materials.  I can visit a stranger's house and use their tables.  And, I think the tables in the TS and city areas are the same.  So, you should only need one of each type table in your guild hall.

As for losing ownership of the table, I wouldn't like that, given the almost 500k status each one cost me!

[Fenris]

Ok, lets put a little perspective on the status thing. For those that have been playing from day 1 and are or were in a guild that started under the rules of guild status decay, think back to just what a pain it was and how much of a chore it became and how utterly bloody boring it became to go out and grind out status just to maintain what you had and try to earn more. If you look there are only so many adventure writs per level range and so many tradeskill writs per level range. Status earning quickly become a chore which became very tedious at best. A lot of guilds went by the wayside then because of it. And not everyone raids. At lvl 70 we don't raid. We have players that hop in pickup raids from time to time, but we as a whole don't raid due to people having a life besides EQ.

I'm not saying things shouldn't cost status for purchase, and like player housing for the nifty houses have status upkeep. That's fine. But please do include a way to help eliminate or at least greatly reduce that weekly status upkeep. Otherwise you'll see a lot of initial purchases, then as players status gets drained and they try to buy stuff for their characters like mounts etc, they are going to stop donating at some point just because it has become too much of a drain and too much of a "JOB" to help maintain the weekly upkeep. And then you'll probably see a lot of guilds drop the halls altogether just because they can't afford to maintain them without it becoming a job, boring, tedious, and probably dumped onto the laps of a few individuals that actually still give a rats tail about having the hall and keeping it available to its memebers. And this last part is what seems to be the biggest concern for a lot of folks.

[Valirmon]

Hellswrath@Blackburrow wrote:

*snip*

I just think this level of upkeep will kill a lot of the fun of guild halls.  The game isn't supposed to be a grind or work.  We can get that in RL.  Just try to remember what was on that Goals slide for guild halls at Fan Faire and not stray from the idea of "the fun is working toward a goal, not working to maintain the achievement."

Bingo.  I saw that bullet on the slide show, too, and thought how contrary the upkeep prices are to that intent.

[Geothe]

The upkeep is just fine.Guildhalls SHOULD require work to get.Guildhalls SHOULD require work to maintain.

[Cambi]

Grossly, grossly overpriced.This has the stink of the failed City of Heroes base concept.You are basically telling small and medium sized guilds to just quit the game.Are you seriously trying to undo everything you did with Living Legacy and send everyone packing?You realize the super hard core types are playing the raid game in WoW, right?The charm and splendor of EQ2 is the variety in ways you can play. With this feature you are basically telling people to farm, farm, raid, raid raid if they want to have ANY kind of decent guild hall.The upfront costs are too high, but the maintenance costs are what have really stink on ice. At least with upfront costs, you can set a goal and work towards it. With the insane maintenance costs you are creating an absolute nightmare for guilds to try and make sure they "pay the bills."This is a great concept from a pure content point of view, but the costs are going to absolutely destroy and ruin this thing.

[ashen1973]

I've been doing a little more working out, to see just how realistic its going to be to buy and maintain a guild hall.

A lot of people seem to feel that its the weekly upkeep amounts that are to large for all but the biggest guilds.

My initial, knee-jerk, reaction was similar. I thought the prices where way to high.

But, after a little thought and some working out, i'm happy that my guild can afford the hall and amenities we want.

I posted some information on the guild a few pages back, i'll copy it here as it is relevant

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are currently level 69 (although only 25% short of 70 and theres a good chance we will hit that today or tomorrow)

We will reach our 3rd anniversay next month , are relatively small and very casual.

Currently we have about 15 active accounts in the guild.

Of these accounts about 75% have either a level 80 adventurer, level 80 tradeskiller or both.

Of characters active in the last 14 days, we have just over 9,000,000 contributed status.

Here comes a little guess work

Assuming that all the status was earned when 10% of personal status was contributed that makes 90,000,000  personal status.

After checking my own characters (and discussing this witha few other members), it seems i have spent about 40% of the status I have earned. So I will assume everyone else is about the same.

That leaves 54,000,000 status available, if everyone donates ALL of their status.

I did a little maths , using the awesome guild-hall cost calculator at clockwork gaming. (Thanks guys, thats a great asset!)

Aiming for the Tier 2 hall

With , what I believe, to be the basic amenities required to make the hall a worthwhile place to visit.

Fuel Merchant

Guild Market Broker

Druid Portal Hireling

Harvest Supply Depot

Tradeskill rush order agent

Farseas express mailbox

Guild hall world broker

Guild hall translocation beacon

This would amount to

Initial purchase  388pp, 10g   27,000,000 status

Weekly upkeep 5pp, 18g  243,750 status

So, if all of our players contibute half of their status we will be able to afford the tier2 hall with basic amenities.

(and thats hoping that everyone contributes and everyone hasnt spent all of there status)

I believe the initial payout is doable but could do with lowering a little.

As we have a few TS writ addicts (myself included to some extent) I dont see the weekly upkeep to be a problem.

 if my calculations are correct, then 17 Top level rush orders would pay the status cost plus 2pp towards the coin

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've now looked into just how much status our guild pulls in currently, with no extra effort from our normal gameplay

I looked at how long it has taken us to level from 65 to 70 (which we hit today!!!)

I worked out that it is taking just under 7million personal status to gain a guild level.

Using these numbers i worked out that we are averaging 3million personal status a week.

This more than covers what we need for the basic amenities and leaves a lot left over for people to spend on horses/houses etc.. and to save towards more amenities.

We have not decided yet and need to have a bit more discussion in guild, but its likely that we will be purchasing the T2 hall, with the basic amenities and then upgrading amenities from there, depending on our needs/affordability.

We wil also be trying to get the 1000pp required to upgrade to a tier 3 hall. Im actually looking forward to this, as it will be a great way for us all to pul ltogether and work towards something.

i think a lot of people are coming into this thinking 'we MUST have the T3 hall and we MUST have every amenity that is available.'

Take a step back and think about it for a while.

Do you need to go right out and buy the biggest hall?

Do you need every amenity?

probably not.

Its probably a good idea for guilds to work out their average status income (its easy to do, just note how long it has taken you to get the last few levels, work out how much Guild xp you get from a writ and go from there. maybe people can post how much status it takes to gain a level in their tier).

With those figures inhand, you can work out just how much status your guild can afford on a weekly basis, without putting any extra effort in. And then you can decide just what amenitied you can afford and just how much extra effort you are willing to put in to get the extra amenities.

And keep in mind. We have seen many new ways of earning status introduced lately. and a lot of old ways have had their rewards increased. I would also expect that there will be even more ways to earn status/coin in the coming expansion.

[Dreadzwench]

I now know why the devs wouldn't want to come in here and read a lot of the feedback. 

This thread was to discuss feedback of the guild halls and how they have already made some changes based on what we voiced as concerns.  It has almost completely degrated into a what is a real guild and what isn't a real guild thread, and anything else that allows everyone to have an [Removed for Content] contest

Rothgar actually politely asked people to keep this to feedback about the guild hall and the items related to that, but most people ignored it and any real discussion going on about the feedback is getting lost.

Why not take your debate about why someone who has been busting their collective butts for 4 years and is only a level 30 or 40 guild (small guild) about the benefits of being in a large guild and the joys a new player gets if they do that to another thread so the people who have valid concerns can talk in this one.  I want to see what devs have to say or any valid concerns.  I don't want to have to read through 8 pages of I am better than you childish bull _____. 

Thanks, to all the people for making this thread absolutely useless now.

[Bozidar]

Rothgar wrote:

Its clear some of you are worried about the upkeep costs of the guild halls.Many of the posts here mention that your small guild has been able to get to level 80, but you don't think you could afford the upkeep.  If you've somehow managed to get to guild level 80 in a small guild, you will probably have enough status already to keep the guild hall running for quite awhile even if you did nothing else.  On top of that, you're obviously used to working hard in order to obtain level 80 and the amount of status needed to pay upkeep will be a drop in the bucket compared to what you've already done.I'd like to see some hard examples of what you guys consider a difficult upkeep cost.  Show me the configuration you'd like to have and tell me if the problem is in plat or status and why it will be difficult to upkeep.Just curious, for those of you in small guilds that have reached level 80, how many personal status points do you currently have?

Rothgar - The problem is completely plat related.  As the guild leader of a lvl 73 guild slowing making it to 80, and as an 80 brig i've got over 1 million guild status points and the most in my guild.  Sadly, as it happens, plenty of people come and go during their time in game, so it's not like the same 20 folks who started the guild are still the same 20 people.  But that's besides the point, the status upkeep isn't really the problem.  I've got 4 master craftsman i can grind writs out on to get more personal status if that's what I need to do, if i have to do 10 writs a week on each of them, so be it.

But the plat... my god the plat costs.  If we had a raid that could go to all the t8 raid instances and quickly clear them twice a week, sure, maybe we'd have the plat to support this.  But as it is with questing, tradeskilling, and other non-raid activities, we've got our hands full just to get the rest of our toons to 80 and keep everyone having fun. 

I can't give you an example of what a realistic cost would be.  I dont have this in beta, can't go play with it to see what those things really do, and what they should cost.  But i do know that even at HALF the initially planned cost it's well beyond anything I could ever afford without moving BACK to Vox and breaking out the credit card (never gonna happen)

[CoLD MeTaL]

Sorry this should have said "So long and thanks for all the fish"

[TreeMos]

Any chance we'll be getting a more complete official list of amenity prices and descriptions? That calculator page is quite nice but some of them still lack prices and others don't have descriptions. So how will I know if I want them or not? Without all the details its hard to put together an accurate taly of how much it all really cost my guild and whether we'll be able to afford it as is. Or if I should add my voice to the list of those who are clammoring for some upkeep reductions.

[ashen1973]

Bozidar wrote:

Rothgar wrote:

Its clear some of you are worried about the upkeep costs of the guild halls.Many of the posts here mention that your small guild has been able to get to level 80, but you don't think you could afford the upkeep.  If you've somehow managed to get to guild level 80 in a small guild, you will probably have enough status already to keep the guild hall running for quite awhile even if you did nothing else.  On top of that, you're obviously used to working hard in order to obtain level 80 and the amount of status needed to pay upkeep will be a drop in the bucket compared to what you've already done.I'd like to see some hard examples of what you guys consider a difficult upkeep cost.  Show me the configuration you'd like to have and tell me if the problem is in plat or status and why it will be difficult to upkeep.Just curious, for those of you in small guilds that have reached level 80, how many personal status points do you currently have?

Rothgar - The problem is completely plat related.  As the guild leader of a lvl 73 guild slowing making it to 80, and as an 80 brig i've got over 1 million guild status points and the most in my guild.  Sadly, as it happens, plenty of people come and go during their time in game, so it's not like the same 20 folks who started the guild are still the same 20 people.  But that's besides the point, the status upkeep isn't really the problem.  I've got 4 master craftsman i can grind writs out on to get more personal status if that's what I need to do, if i have to do 10 writs a week on each of them, so be it.

But the plat... my god the plat costs.  If we had a raid that could go to all the t8 raid instances and quickly clear them twice a week, sure, maybe we'd have the plat to support this.  But as it is with questing, tradeskilling, and other non-raid activities, we've got our hands full just to get the rest of our toons to 80 and keep everyone having fun. 

I can't give you an example of what a realistic cost would be.  I dont have this in beta, can't go play with it to see what those things really do, and what they should cost.  But i do know that even at HALF the initially planned cost it's well beyond anything I could ever afford without moving BACK to Vox and breaking out the credit card (never gonna happen)

Is it the inital plat layout or the upkeep you think you will have a problem with?

If its the initial layout, then reduce the amount of amenities you buy at first and gradually add more as you can afford them.

As i have shown in my workings a couple of posts back, small guilds can afford these amenities, we just have to be choosy about the ones we have

[ashen1973]

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

What a waste of developer time since you put it so far out of reach of 'normal' players.

Is everyone 'owed' a guild hall?  No, absolutely not.

But these requirements were obviously put into place for 'raiders'.

Just put a banner on the opening screen, "if you don't want to make this your second job go play WoW"

I think purchasing amounts a 'little' high, and upkeep amounts (esp status) are insane.

again, as I posted a few posts back. Smaller guilds CAN afford guild halls.

Are we going to have the huge island with every amenity available, probably not

but we can have a functioning and worthwhile place to call our own