Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
U.S. East
On the other hand, I do really like when mmo's emphasize joining guilds for progression and guild halls should reward people for forming those connections. Especially as opposed to random group finders - I hate that these end up watering down raid content to the average random group difficulty and creating bosses that are more one-shot loot bags than long term. Its more personally rewarding imo to raid content that is inherently difficult that you have to spend some time to overcome and succeed at, and be able to form actual dialogue and connections to your teammates.
It's complicated but I say it makes the guild more alive and functional and also gives more motivation for starter to mid level members to work hard for that item they want.
2 It would not be bad to be able to name the ranks in the guild yourself and set up their permissions for actions in the gi yourself
3 Roll of Guild buffs
First of all, i see the benefits of teleporting across the continent and back, but I'm not a fan of it.
The guild hall feature isn't implemented yet, but I assume the hall will be in a node and the teleport will be from node or hearthstone(like WoW) to the guild hall.
How i see it, this are the things players will do with this feature:
- When your node/guild gets attached all your member can wait until the last second to teleport back, no need for traveling back.
- They will use it as a secure way to trad goods.
- The Guildhall becomes the players main hub.
- after the teleport step out of the guild hall and your are at your main node. It's a node teleport now!
- In Case of unwanted PvP in the area they will port to the Guildhall instead of searching a group to defeat the attackers. Easy way out!
- basically utilize the teleport in every way possible to gain an advantage
Why i think player will do this? Because i would do it xD
I would prefer no teleportation.
I like to travel around. It's creates a feeling of a great untamed world. Traveling always leeds to exploration. Exploration leeds to awesome moments ingame.
Without teleportation Guilds have to cooperate with other Guilds to defend objectives if not enough members are in town.
Imagine you are with a bunch of Guild members several rl days on exploration in some dungeon on the other side of the world und you come back to your guild... Back Home... finally.
But that's my opinion on this topic. The Devs will get it perfect, I'm sure!
Oh and for the RP guys. How about a magic something... Stone, ring, spell, that creates a mirror image of yourself in the guild hall ( like StarWars hologram). You can walk around the gild hall read boards, see maps, attend meetings, but no traiding, no guild bank.
With said portal, the guild hall will become the nexus of important activities involving travel/pvp/etc. For more than just afk crafters and guild meetings.
I believe every established "Guild" should have access to instanced housing by default of certain achievements, the size of which is determined by member count, their activity, and direct Guild contributions that are automated and not at the whim of even the Guildleader (for example, in-game currency and resources donated are not accessible to the Guildleader, but are applied directly to the improvement of said Guildhall). Furthermore, these contribution metrics should be tallied and visible to establish certain rankings and permanence. This would eliminate the possibility and incentive of the would-be shadier Guildleaders making them unable to "kick" members who contributed to certain benchmarks of development. Should a guild find themselves in disagreement, the 'founders' of that guild must agree to an in-game resource reimbursement should that guild decide to disband...
The designing and customization of XIV housing is also somewhat limited, with even the best home designers resorting to "glitching" items in order to be more creative using methods inaccessible to the greater playerbase; such things as adding 'makeshift stories' or levels to their home, pseudo-lofts and balconies through glitches with furnishings and UI manipulation shouldn't really be the quentissential example of a 'good' housing system. If you make a standard house "two stories tall" scaled to the player, the option to add a second level / loft internally without increasing the size of that estate should be an available feature by default.
Personally owned plots should absolutely be limited to premium and ongoing subscriptions! The acquisition of plots in XIV is also something I would hope Ashes steers away from - that being: random demolition timers followed by random "ready to buy" timers, with spam-click competition most often won by bots and third party automation such as device/peripheral macros or auto-click softwares... What I would like to see in place of this is that for players who decide they want to acquire a plot or home, they would:
What I would like to see is a system that combines the housing of ArcheAge with Final Fantasy XIV - that is public housing in the open world, built and upgraded using personal and friend-gathered materials. Personal plots should ALL start as a base wood log cabin or cottage, with their ability to grow in size and quality (from small to medium to large, from wood to stone, etc) depending on the contributions of those who share that estate -- invested materials and furnishings available for reclamation upon demolition due to inactivity. Avoidant of ArcheAge's open world PvP mechanics would be eliminating ability of opposing players to destroy this open-world housing, with the only exception being Seige gameplay understandably also destroying those players housing as their territory is destroyed / looted if the city were to be taken over. But this should be the byproduct of a city and its territory being seiged rather than individual housing being destoryable itself.
This would further the implementation of additional mechanics already in the works:
1. Retain limited availability of housing determined by the size (and security) of the city which owns the surrounding residential land.
2. Establish persistent housing competition among the playerbase for allied AND enemy territories, further incentivizing both cooperative defense as well as PvP assualts for Seige gameplay - as opposed to a perpetual stalemated "peace" among the playerbase.
This would allow for an endless pursuit of better housing opportunities and motive for seige of nearby cities even in allied areas. Once two settlements grow to a certain size, it would then be up to those two (or more) settlement communities to determine whether its neighbor(s) should be allowed to grow.
Alternatively, having smaller personal domiciles in "friendly" or neutral territories which are immune to takeover or demolition, similar to apartments XIV provides as the base functionality for all who wish to have a consistent 'rental' property. In this regard I would perhaps combine the XIV concepts of the "Inn" with "Apartments" - making the Inn customizable save for a few mandatory / non-removable furnishings which offer a taste of what personal housing may offer. Things located here would be a place to re-watch Cutscenes, peruse your in-game collectibles, manage your personal storage, etc. where in-game friends may also visit. Similar to XIV this example should be made accessible from the instanced "Inn" of ANY / every allied settlement/city of a certain size simultaneously without owning personal land - effectively having multiple places to access said storage and collectibles while still being 'limited' as the Inns in XIV City-States.
I can keep throwing around ideas but ultimately I'd rather have an ArcheAge system than a FFXIV system, albeit with Guildhalls in particular not being exclusively "First Come, First Serve." Should ANY guild have ~20/50/100 'very active' players (or whatever your chosen benchmarks), those players should 100% have the ability to work towards achievements that earn their Guild a Guildhall to bask in their collective efforts even if their original territories were successfully seiged. Having an entire Guild of tight-knit players disband because such accomplishments were diminished by a Seige which revokes access to that Guildhall would be discouraging to say the least.
To remedy this while not trivializing Guildhalls, the achievements in question should be substantially difficult offering a proportional reward system. Recruiting mass numbers should not be the sole focus or criteria for advancement, but a combination of efforts from that guild's activity. Material contributions to the Guildhall, successful seige OR material donation towards neighboring / allied Guildhalls, in-game progression achievements, etc.
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TL;DR - What I would admire and respect the most of Ashes of Creation Guildhalls is to see them serve as direct reflections of its most valuable contributors and irremovable "Founders" of their Guild/Guildhall through natural progression and prestige that serves as a permanent hub for Guild members - with the exception of Founder disbandment or Guild dissolvement - subject to a resource redistribution system implemented for those founders.
A simplified example of this might look something like:
20% Guildhall wealth & resources being forfeit, 80% divided respectively among its contributors:
Owner = 20-30%, Founders = 10-20%, Lesser Contributors = 10-15%, New / Lesser members = 1-2%. This just reinforces cooperation and makes joining a 'guild' worthwhile no matter what your level, while disbanding to join a different guild forfeits your would-be stake in the former guild.
Edited for typos and clarity.
I believe this SHOULD implemented, however only as a somewhat limited feature. Should the accesssibility of Guildhalls be permanent (instanced, without subject to seige) teleportation to and from the Guildhall should also be implemented to and from limited locations.
These locations by default might start as "From your current location to the Guildhall, and back to your origin point." Nothing fancy. The more your Guild expands and accomplishes, the more options would become available and customizable in the form of open-world waypoints and allowances, which lend to Guild adventure organization and planning:
This style and function of teleportation would allow Guildmates to travel to their Guildhall and back at any point no matter what they were doing last - but enable convenient travel as groups to predetermined points of interest without trivializing the adventure and exploration of open-world travel. With limited playtime for some, it's a bit of a pain to spend substantial portions of your dedicated gaming time traveling to places you've already been, as is gate-keeping players from the ability to multitask. This system aims to remedy both!
Ideally a Guild would agree upon their available waypoint destinations - the start or entrance for a particularly challenging group quest or dungeon, for example - while only being able to make use of this from the Guildhall itself as a preformed group. Perhaps a Lore or Guild-driven element relevantly explains this as a special device or recruited NPC whose special-purpose displacement magicks are available for limited use, upgradable through Guild missions as reputation grows. For independent activites players can then return to & from the Guildhall to their point of origin as they please.
Teleportation otherwise in the open world should just be a flat-out NO - at least in the beginning! (About the first couple years.) While effectively implementing "Fast Travel" through a teleportation system may be considered a "Quality of Life" improvement for many MMORPGs, I personally feel that unlimited teleportation not only leaves entire zones feeling desolate but ultimately trivializes the artistry that went into painstakingly creating the world along with the sense of exploration and immersion. Systems of limited teleportation as described here is flexible enough for guilds to accomplish their objectives without excesive waiting for other players to travel, while retaining that sense of world and lore-building integrity. After all, there are always mounts~!
Perhaps to appease the overwhelming copy+paste desires to implement a "Fast-Travel" system in this open world would be to install transportation waypoints at very limited / key locations for modest but not trivial fees... settlements which reach a prerequisite development benchmark, and major story-related quest destinations in the form of faster-than-mounts but NOT instantaneous pseudo-cinematic ground-travel. To keep the theme of lore or world-building, let us not negate the use of personal mounts entirely because transport cabbies are faster - rather they are special breeds of purpose-built steeds trained to keep to unobstructed mainroads between frequent destinations, whereas personal mounts (while slightly slower) are more freerange and able to follow the whims of its owner off-road!
This is all a matter of personal taste. I'll always find it kind of silly that I can instantly and endlessly warp to pretty much any location in every other game at ZERO effective cost or detriment. Some features I LOVED in prior games (namely FFXI) were that specific player archetypes were sought for waypoint travel - Black Mage to warp to your favorite "home point" and White Mage to teleport to the acquired lore/world-specific "waypoints" ...and moreover from FFXIV 1.0 the Aetheryte teleportation system which limited each player to ~14 teleports per 24 hours but shareable with an entire party!
Why? One main reason. This very strongly and effectively encouraged and seemed to prioritize cooperation and amicable gameplay by relying (some) on other players. If your chosen class and playstyle is not one who specializes in such world-travel abilities, or if you've exhausted your personal allowance of convenience, you still had options!
Edited for typos and clarity.
I’d like to one day be able to build a nice inn/public house-style guild hall atop a mountain or a small oasis-town off in the desert.
The way I see it you walk up to the gate and a Guild NPC hands out quests and activities to non guildie or guildies. You walk in and see the guild Board with either quests or information about the guild member info and unlockable things. A Guild Herald or Butler who gives quests or sells you things. A game/tavern room and a forum room. Treasury and that's about all. For the biggest guilds or the most active these guild halls will stand out and be a fun place for RP in the metropolis. For those smaller guilds The treasury would be at the bank and they wouldn't have a forum room or game room or quest NPC. Just RP perks and nothing you couldn't live without.
Definately have storage for members and perhaps a guild shop where the guild can put up auction items for the guild's coffers. Also an internal guild exchange.
Also limited crafting stations that are more allined with guild events like stations that help make siege items.
Places for trophies, especially like heads of mob bosses (perhaps shrunken).
Guild initiated quests/work orders.
Formerly T-Elf
This is awesome and add to that Log Horizon stuff i've said earlier. In the anime a guild could own places by money or by defeatin a boss, for example, imagine a dragon takin over a castle (or like in Hobbit's Erebor) and u kill it and claim that place.
Restriction settings, so that role "A" or less, cannot enter rooms that have a restriction assigned for role "A".
A guild community chest, to place items for new guild members to freely take.
A guild bounty board would be awesome.
I know this could be difficult to balance, but I think it would be amazing to have a "guild" enchantment once reaching a certain guild level. Something that is unique to members of that guild. Maybe difficult to reach the point where it is accessible then make it difficult to create.
- Trophy/Showcase of achievements it could be as simple as a sign post out the front style.
- Crafting components inside? I don't know how viable that would be, but for the RPG element it would be awesome to be able to be the creative in the guild hall.
Things that have been mentioned just to bump up again.
- Notice boards
- Guild banks and deposits
- Vendor
- Tavern
- Custom guards
- Music
NO TELEPORTING
An area at the front for people to leave messages and for the guild to advertise services etc.
Placing weapons, armor, shield etc on walls.
Places trophies that droped from bosses.
Expanding.
Recruiting NPCs and maybe make some bosses "pets" as a guild taming effort.
0dbea148-8cb8-4711-ba90-eb0864e93b5f
It would be neat, however, to have "guild trophies" visible. These trophies could be actual trophies earned from certain in game or community events (special sieges, art showcases, etc) but also the heads or prominent pieces of raid bosses or certain artifacts completed by guild members. Seeing the head of a giant dragon slain by the whole guild would be awesome, and a great way to immortalize a memory.