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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.
Guild Halls
Ludullu
Member, Alpha Two
We now know that GHs "may" exist in each barony of a node. And that they're similar to freeholds. I assume they use the bidding system as well (cause I didn't see anything saying otherwise).
Here's my suggestion for GHs in hopes of limiting guilds' ability to outbid everyone for their freeholds. Write whether you agree or disagree with any of the following points:
To me this seems like the best way to funnel all the guilds' money into GHs instead of freeholds. If GHs can't accommodate the things I've mentioned, guilds will just go for freeholds instead and we'll be back to the issue we had before.
Having apartments there will also help non-guild people to find housing in nodes (unless we have 50k apts in the game).
Taking all the money from guilds by the end of the process will help prevent other baronies from being overrun with guild-based freehold buyouts. Obviously it won't completely resolve the issue, but will at least lessen it.
I'm very interested in hearing from both the casual players and the GLs of the forum. From casuals: would that amount of power for guilds be ok with you? From GLs: would this setup make you try going for a GH or would it instead just reassure you that getting several FHs is better?
Here's my suggestion for GHs in hopes of limiting guilds' ability to outbid everyone for their freeholds. Write whether you agree or disagree with any of the following points:
- the starting bid should be fairly small
- GHs should be able to have all processing, crafting and business buildings available in the game at the same time
- GHs should have their own apartments with up to 300 rooms (depending on the upgrade tier)
- GHs should have huge lands for farming
- the bidding system for them should be completely open (we see who and how much have bid)
- the money from all bids go towards the node's treasury and do not return to the guilds (even if they lost the bid)
- the bidding process for the entire Barony ends with GH's bid (so all freeholds will have been sold by that time)
- the last bid's time is random for all the participants within the last hour of the whole process (i.e. guild A can bid at 19:20, g B at 19:35 and g C at 19:55, while the bidding stops at 20:00)
To me this seems like the best way to funnel all the guilds' money into GHs instead of freeholds. If GHs can't accommodate the things I've mentioned, guilds will just go for freeholds instead and we'll be back to the issue we had before.
Having apartments there will also help non-guild people to find housing in nodes (unless we have 50k apts in the game).
Taking all the money from guilds by the end of the process will help prevent other baronies from being overrun with guild-based freehold buyouts. Obviously it won't completely resolve the issue, but will at least lessen it.
I'm very interested in hearing from both the casual players and the GLs of the forum. From casuals: would that amount of power for guilds be ok with you? From GLs: would this setup make you try going for a GH or would it instead just reassure you that getting several FHs is better?
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Comments
I wanted to give it to the node as the main "show" of support from the guild. I'd be fine with a sink as well, considering that Intrepid would probably just account for it when calculating node prices.
I am not sure if having apartments in GHs is a good thing. I think I'd rather have housing tied to nodes still, but I can't give you a specific reason other than a gut feeling right now.
I think GHs would tie well into a system with multiple tiers of freeholds actually.
I think it should be more than just guild funds to acquire a GH. Guild-quests for the node, other resources the guild has to transport by caravans, etc. But gold should be a factor for sure.
Defensive structures for the GH (and for the family-sized freeholds too) should be a thing.
In guild wars, it should be possible to attack each others GHs, but I am not sure if it should be to a point of total destruction. At least not for the smaller guilds who stand no chance against some mega-guild. But looting for resources seems ok. Actual destruction should be tied to the node still I think, like with freeholds.
I agree with the goal of giving the guilds something to work for and fight over, so the freeholds don't just default to become something the bigger guilds monopolize per default, like is definitely going to happen with the current system.
- KoS list in the main hall
- Trophy room for raid / dungeon / siege / VIP's assassinated trophies
I'd say a small percentage of the bid goes to the node, maybe 10 or 20. If a guild doesn't get one they should still be able to have the means to then bid outside of the city.
A 10 or 20 percent commitment would ensure they were serious. Otherwise everyone would bid on everthing all at the same time.
This is just "freeholds are a luxury not a right" but for fucking guilds now
And yet he said that they want to add stuff that will let "wider audience of playstyles" buy a freehold. So this is just YET ANOTHER contradicting direction of design.
I really hope Bill can point these out, as the "fresh eyes" of the company. We have way too damn many of these now.
Maybe yes maybe no. Keep in mind the quote that not all guild halls will be purchasable. I am positive the freeholds around them still will be. But we will have to see how spread apart guild halls become first.
I was going to disagree with you based on an interpretation of this which fit what Steven was 'saying' but then I realized that there was a giant hole in that reasoning which made you entirely correct and now I'm sad.
The wording in the article made me think that not all parcels will belong to Baronies, potentially increasing that number.
Maaaaybe they'll be as useful as I suggested and guilds will do exactly what I hoped them to do when writing this post, but with fewer GHs available, the money for each will climb higher so some of the relatively smaller guilds will probably not even try going for them.
Either way, we'll just have to see how it ends up playing in A2-B2. For now I'll just see it as yet another contradicting design direction.
Counterpoint: we do not know if that's the entire node
I don't mind the sink but I don't want a loophole to provide wealth to a node.
Although the risks of ownership might put them as less stable and desirable.
Doesn't sound like housing to me. And as for castles - those will just bring you a shitton of money, while a GH will be a sinkhole for that money.
And even if AoC's GHs have the things I mentioned, it would just remove some guilds from the FH buying competition, rather than removing them from the game.
Shhh-shh! Don't bring the flaws of the argument! The point is to shame guilds preferring to fight easy targets rather than the tough ones.
Now just gotta know what are the fuctionalities and resources provided by such guild halls that are expected to be "similar to Freeholds". I like the ideas you provided for the Guild Halls @NiKr other than:
"the money from all bids go towards the node's treasury and do not return to the guilds (even if they lost the bid)"
which i believe should have atleast a 50-75% failed bidding return to be reasonable.
Aren't we all sinners?
Though that's still in the context of GHs providing enough benefits for guilds to choose to bid on them instead of just splitting their money across several FHs.
Yes, the most important thing is for we to know what are the Guild Hall possibilities and functionalities.
Aren't we all sinners?
Sure, I can agree with this. Especially at the outset of people reaching max level, there should be a reward for getting there ahead of the pack that isn’t diminished by needing a huge amount of currency up front. Get those guild use in GHs easily so they don’t resort to taking up all the FHs.
“GHs should be able to have all processing, crafting and business buildings available in the game at the same time”
This is too much, I think. Every processing profession has four buildings, so that would be what? 24 buildings total or something not counting the living areas, crafting areas, and business areas. That would be massive. Then you’ve got farmland and livestock to think about. I think 24 slots total (4x the size of a freehold) for everything would be sufficient and still require sacrifices to be made. Businesses will each require their own permit, so maybe the cost goes up for each permit as you add more businesses per GH/FH?
“GHs should have their own apartments with up to 300 rooms (depending on the upgrade tier)”
This would have to be quite a large building, but could offer bonuses that would encourage guilds to use their limited space in this way. I think 300 is excessive though. 50-100 max.
“GHs should have huge lands for farming”
Again, I think 4x the freehold size is big enough. They can choose how they want to populate it.
“the bidding system for them should be completely open (we see who and how much have bid)”
I think this is okay for GHs where I would otherwise be against it for FHs.
“the money from all bids go towards the node's treasury and do not return to the guilds (even if they lost the bid)”
I think losing your entire bid is quite excessive. Perhaps there’s a disclaimer that a certain percentage, perhaps 25%, goes to the node if you lose the auction. I like that it gets funneled to the node though, it keeps node membership paramount above guild membership.
“the bidding process for the entire Barony ends with GH's bid (so all freeholds will have been sold by that time)”
This kind of goes against your goal of keeping guilds from funneling money into all the freeholds, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you rather get them into GHs first so they don’t have to buy up all the FHs?
“the last bid's time is random for all the participants within the last hour of the whole process (i.e. guild A can bid at 19:20, g B at 19:35 and g C at 19:55, while the bidding stops at 20:00)”
I don’t think it should be timed with a hard cutoff. I think the timer should force the minimum bid to go up with each passing unit of time. Every so many hours, minimum bid is raised by 10% or something. That way, eventually, without taking forever, someone will say it’s not worth it anymore.
As for the number of apartments, I went with 300 because that's the max number of members in a guild. And if only 2/3 of a guild can live in their GH, that means the other 200 would have to go take up space in nodes, which I'd prefer to avoid, in order to help solos with their basic housing.
I shoulda explained this better.
The bidding process would be happening from the very start of sales till after all the freeholds on the barony are sold.
The bids would be going up as long as guilds are willing to fight for the GH. In other words, potentially all the money from a guild would get funneled into trying to get a GH. Obviously some guilds would exit sooner, but the bigger ones would spend a ton of their money on the GH instead of just overpowering FH bids from soloers and small families.
This is also why I prefer the entire bid to get sunk. If guilds know that they'll recuperate most of their bid, they'll be more willing to bait other guilds into overbidding. And while that's an interesting approach to the market pvp, I'm not sure what kind of outcome it would have. @Azherae which approach would be the best for my goal here? Or do you agree that sinking all the bids is just too excessive and the idea would fail right at the start?
This would fit quite nicely with what I wrote above, so I could definitely see it as a way to push the bidding higher.