Suggestion: Most Beautiful Guild Hall contest

[Bridget Morrigan.1752]

I know that with the recent layoffs, the likelihood of ANet adding anything new along these lines in the near future is low, but I wanted to throw this out there as a suggestion for future development: developer-run contests (perhaps once a year) for the best decorated guild halls. I expect that this would be something that many players would enjoy participating in, could potentially increase revenue, be an economic sink for certain materials and gold, give added purpose to belonging to a guild, and motivate development of new assets and functionalities for the guild hall.

 

**Suggestions for implementation:**

* Different leagues for guilds of different sizes, i.e. one for guilds from 1-20 members, another for 21-50, then 51-100, and 100+

* Perhaps different leagues also for guilds of different levels (1-15, 16-30, 31-50, 50+, or some such)

* Some kind of registration period and cost to participate, and then time to produce the guild hall to submit in some fashion

* Themes? Different categories?

* Allow both player-choice and developer-choice awards and a way for players to participate in judging

* Monuments for the winners and other guild-oriented prizes, titles, etc.

 

**Potential problems and challenges:**

* How would people submit their completed guild halls for judging? Would there have to be some kind of decorating freeze or use of a different platform such as YouTube in order to participate?

* Some would see it as "buy to win" since decorating a guild hall is extremely expensive and will tend to reward people who buy gems to convert to gold

* Could have heavy impact on the economy that I couldn't begin to anticipate

* There would need to be a way to prevent/disqualify guilds from cheating the system (for example, by having half the players leave the guild before the contest starts in order to drop a tier, and then return to actually decorate it)

* There would need to be a way to not discourage guilds from growing naturally over the same period

 

The main reason I would like to see this is because I've been decorating a personal guild hall recently, and I'd really like to use certain assets that I know are in the game, but they're not available as decorations or guild upgrades . I know that developing recipes and all that can be time-consuming, so I thought one way to justify it from a business perspective would be to create a way in which the company might be able to make some money off of it through gem store sales.

 

**Existing assets I'd like to see added to the decorator:** (forgive me if some of these things already exist, I'm far from having memorized the list of decorations)

* Weather regulator: add a choice of rainstorm, snowstorm, brandstorm, firestorm, miasma, and clear conditions (doesn't itself exist, but the weather conditions do)

* Various trees that are found throughout Tyria, especially cherry, evergreen (both snow-covered and not), and a slender version of Ascalonian trees

* Beds of grass, bushes, other vegetation

* Sylvari, norn, asura and charr-styled items of all kinds (why are the decorations so limited to human-themed?)

* Those fish fountain things in Lion's Arch

* Ambient creatures

* Icebrood crystals and icy spots

* Wolf, raven, snow leopard, and bear ice monuments

* Jormag tooth

* Heart of the Priory

* Those crystals that are all over Glint's domain

* Abaddon statue to dance with

 

I know others will have different wishes than mine, ofc. Feedback is welcome!

 

(Edited to clarify this is not intended as a player-run endeavor, but as an ArenaNet-run endeavor, in order to stimulate sales and development.)

[Xstein.2187]

If you do this than I would definitely differentiate by guild size or contribution size. I think our guild hall is pretty darn cool. However, we would comfertably be in the 1-15 people range. Realistically, only about 5 people contributed most of the resources. So, with that said, its cool for the limited amount of resources. However, on the other hand, I know some other guilds are pretty big but don't have a lot of active people or not very many people that contribute to the guild hall in the first place. Therefore, I would make it based on an honor system. Basically, you would rank the guild halls but wouldn't give out ranked prizes. You are basically only competing for bragging rights. If you say that only half your guild contributed resources, fine, we will believe you since you really don't have anything to gain from it by lying. I assume most people will try to be honest. However, you could give out very small prizes just as incentives to join the competition in the first place. Incentive should be placed on creativity with the resources available rather than the overall number and quality of decorations present. However, of course, there is always more room for creativity with more decorations. I wouldn't do a 'theme' competition as it would likely only hinder both available creativity and the number of guilds that will be willing to participate. This should be something that is more like a fun way of showing unique, creative ideas to the community, not a cut throat competition. Regardless, I would be both interested in showing the guild hall as well as seeing the guild hall ideas of others. I currently think guild halls are an underrated feature in this game and could have so much more potential in the future if more development time and resources by the devs were put into them.

Care to PM me if you decide to go through with it?

 

 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I think the OP was suggesting ArenaNet hold the competition. At least, that's what I took from the post.

[FrizzFreston.5290]

If this is comunity run then you can pretty much decide how its run.

 

If this is like an official ranking system, made by ArenaNet, then i cant see it being all that interesting.

 

Considering the huge imbalance in actual decorators per guild, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, making it near impossible to pick an actual winner, it might be better to highlight a few guildhalls every month as guild(s) of the month. Basically like GW1 did at a certain time.

 

 

[Bridget Morrigan.1752]

It would be for ANet to hold the competition, although a "player's choice" category would certainly be welcome. I didn't suggest a ranking system, just a finite competition with an entry and a set of winners, from time to time.

 

As far as what's interesting...I think competition, recognition, and rewards generally will cover that for most people. YMMV, ofc. And cliches about beauty never prevented human beings from holding, participating, and judging best design in nearly everything we've ever created. I doubt we need to solve the perennial issue of the subjectivity of human taste for this anymore than ANet did for their weapon design competition (for example).

[Samnang.1879]

most guild halls ive been to r uglee imo. the space is just wayy too big, and the decorations r just put randomly like u'll see a random long snake of SAB pieces... and im just like... i hope these ppl r not interior designers in real life...

[FrizzFreston.5290]

> @"Bridget Morrigan.1752" said:

> It would be for ANet to hold the competition, although a "player's choice" category would certainly be welcome. I didn't suggest a ranking system, just a finite competition with an entry and a set of winners, from time to time.

>

> As far as what's interesting...I think competition, recognition, and rewards generally will cover that for most people. YMMV, ofc. And cliches about beauty never prevented human beings from holding, participating, and judging best design in nearly everything we've ever created. I doubt we need to solve the perennial issue of the subjectivity of human taste for this anymore than ANet did for their weapon design competition (for example).

 

It would be a problem for any kind of league/ranking system, which I thought was meant.