Guild Hall Preview from Fan Faire up at EQ2TC!

slippery wrote:

Generally speaking, a single group of Qeynosians with Jarsath hammers is able to pull in more status than an entire hardcore raidforce of 24 can within the same amount of time. Don't even get me started on the amount of status a dedicated crafter can pull in working rush orders.
Even then, let's look at the reality here, not merely our perceived realities. With an island fortress, the base status upkeep for an entire year is only 10.4 million status. Getting our guild to level 70 (the level required for such a guild hall) netted just me well over 5 million personal status. To get to level 80, I pulled in another 4 million - and that's just me!!!
If I go out and solo a single run of Jarsath writs from the Dreg's Landing docks, I pull in 52,000 personal status, in roughly 30 minutes (if I take my time and don't push it). If I group with just 3 guildmates, we can clear through those same writs in half the time to net ourselves a combined total of 208,000 status. If I decide to put together a dedicated full group for the purpose of writ running, we can pull down at 5-6 full runs per hour, for a combined total of 1.87 million personal status for the six of us. Even if we only managed 3-4 runs per hour, we're still pulling in around a million personal status per hour.
To put that in perspective, I can take 5 guildmates and earn enough status to completely cover the status costs of a Tier 3 guildhall for 5 weeks with less than an hour's playtime. In the process, I get to group with guildmates and will probably have a pretty good time doing so.
Even then, it was mentioned multiple times that the upcoming mission system for The Shadow Odyssey will potentially include status as part of the rewards for running dungeons, and/or that new writs could possibly be created that would use the mission system to gain status (as opposed to just going out and grinding badgers).

AlStealHeart wrote:

Well, when I'm out just normally playing, I also stop & harvest most nodes, & also pick up every ? I see. That stuff alone -- rare shinies & harvests -- probably makes up the bulk of my income.
Burning guild writs on my 80 Swashy makes me quite a bit of money, between shinies, harvests, chest drops, & vendor trash. I don't know how much, & it's obviously not consistent (being drop dependent) but it's more than enough to keep my own expenses paid & allow me to contribute occasionally to the guild bank.
However, it's not difficult to make money even as a lower level player. IMO the best way is to harvest-farm; there are places in Antonica (like near the Keep of the Ardent Needle) that seem to be excellent for rare harvests & shinies. But now we get to the controversial part that people don't want to hear, which is probably why so many people claim they don't know how to make money.
See, it takes effort. Some people see that as "grind", some people claim it's "work", but what it really comes down to is "effort", which in an MMO context equals "time spent." This is because so much of MMO "reward" is based around a random number generator, which means that the more time you spend interacting with the game world, the more often the RNG will be nice to you & give you nice things.
IOW, "success" in an MMO usually means spending lots of time banging your head on the RNG. To some people, that's just a "timesink", while to other people, it's the whole point of the game. It's a hard, cold-blooded fact to acknowledge, but it's true, & as a result, people need to figure out to which of those basic groups they belong.

The biggest problem with the cost of guild housing is that SOE is clearly using it as a plat sink to get large amounts of plat out of the economy. I understand the desire to do that.
The thing is, Guild houses should be about a guilds status and not it's bank account. A small guild shouldn't be denied the status symbol of any of the guild houses. After speaking to my guild members, they all really want the large guild house. Of course at 1000pp, and 100 to 200pp more for amenities means it's simply not going to happen. Having such a high price is going to do nothing but alienate smaller guilds that have put at least as much effort into leveling their guilds as any raiding guild. Raiding guilds already get the benefit of access to gear far, far, far better than anything smaller guilds can attain. Better guild houses shouldn't be added to that list.
That's why I feel the costs should be 100, 300 and 500. That's still a lot of plat, but it's at least in the realm of possibility for guilds like mine. Make it cost more Status to buy if you must, as long as there is a way to pool personal status to make the initial purchase.
You could also consider adding a couple of other options, similar to how player housing works in Qeynos. Some houses offer more broker slots than others while using the same size house. You can do the same thing with the amount of amenities.
Example:

• Guild level 10: 5 Room house with 5 amenities 50p
• Guild Level 30: 5 Room house with 10 amenties 100p
• Guild level 50: 10 Room hall with 15 amentities 300p
• Guild level 60: 10 Room hall with 20 amentities 400p
• Guild level 70: Castle with 25 amentities 500p
• Guild Level 80: Castle with 35 amentities 1000p

With things set like this, you would open guild halls of all types to all sorts of guilds. Small lower level guilds have an affordable, but limited guild house. Small but high level guilds have access to affordable alternatives and Large raiding guilds have an option for even more amenities.

I would agree that the costs are a little prohibited for non raiding guilds. Not impossible but prohibited. Raids provide a great deal of plat from mob kills which non-raiders would have limited to no access too. As for the status upkeep it is relatively cheap. 200k PERSONAL status is about 14 writs a week plus what ever amenities you have. And if you aren't into writs there are now the named that provide status when killed. There are more then enough opportunites for a guild of any size to be able to get the status upkeep. The plat is the hard part especially with chest drops becoming few and far between.

Guild halls need to be something the guild as whole should work towards achieving and maintaining. The devs aren't hard headed about keeping the current pricing structure.

For those arguing that people should just sell things on the broker to make money, keep in mind that if more people try that, then supply will increase and prices drop, thus defeating the very purpose of that method of making money. In other words, making a big profit off broker sales depends upon there being a limited supply.

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

Yea I know... I'm not really speaking on my behalf I know how to make plat... but I wonder for all the folks so upset with pricing etc if they really actually know how to do anything quick that is productive.... thats kinda what I am getting at...

Kendricke wrote:

Let's be fair here. a large guild can also hit PR clear it in 40 minutes and everyone at the raid get 5+ plat and more than 120,000 in personal status. (That's 2.8 million status and 100 to 120 plat total) Pretty good for something that can be done 3x a week.
Small guilds can build status, no doubt, but big guilds get status and cash and they can also do what the smaller guilds can at a much faster rate since they have more members. A smaller guild has to put much more individual effort into leveling a guild to 80 than a large guild.

I personally, don't want anything handed to me nor do I think I have to have something just because the next person has it. I do however hope to see a different layout/skin with the T1 guild hall and maybe lower guild level to 20. But, I do feel in agreement with many others and I think it would be cool to have all guild halls on the isle and have them unlock stuff as the guild levels, etc.

AlStealHeart wrote:

I've posted links to two separate guides I've written on how to make coin multiple times in this discussion. I have no problem teaching people how to make coin. Other players have posted multiple times regarding where to farm or how tradeskilling can help. The information is in this thread to help anyone learn to make coin - it's not some closely held state secret.

Well here is my two cents....
I think you could do better by allowing guilds to purchase the amenity slots instead of making the cost so bad.
A level 20 guild could buy a tier one for 50 plat, level 40 buy a tier 2 for 200 plat, and tier 3 for 500 plat.
Tier one starts with 2 amenity slots - upkeep would be 50 gold and xx status
Tier two starts with 5 amenity slots - upkeep would be 2 plat and xx status
Tier three starts with 10 amenity slots - upkeep would be 5 plat and xx status
Then as you "buy" amenity slots you can add to the status required for upkeep. Also the actual amenities would cost coin and status.
I am sure there has to be a way for smaller guilds to get the higher end guild hall and some of the benefits but also give the raiders an incentive and reward for doing what they do.
I'm not a raider mind you but I do want that big guild hall.

Seems no matter what happens the community and ecosystem pot is going to get stirred a little

Seems to me still that you can explain what writs to do or mobs and how much status
that is great I know that already. Just having to spend so much time doing so.

Dasein wrote:

That's true, in theory, but it ignores a basic fact of the MMO economy: the only factor of production worth talking about is time spent. This is particularly true of rare harvests & shinies; you spend nothing more than time to hunt them down, & as a result, the potential return on them from the broker very much outweighs the factor of production. Note that the value of that only factor of production is entirely relative, & thus can't really be quantified anyway; it's impossible for you, for example, to place an objective value on someone else's time in order to say that their not making a "big profit."
IOW, the profit margin remains very large, relatively speaking. AFAIC, rare harvests & shinies are nothing more than free money lying around, waiting for me to pick it up while I do all the other things I do.

Rothgar wrote:

Bet you he is a transmuter who also made it big on sales of manquins.

SO question 1. since I must of missed it in all these pages....the guild leader make the purchase but then the hall ownership belongs to the guild it's self? Does this mean that the guild leader gets to retain his own personal place? Or does the hall become his personal place?
2. Numbers!! Is there anyway we can see more numbers? OR better yet ...you guys out there who are great programers, make up some sort of costing tool? Plug in the place you want, and add the extras to see Just what it will cost the guild upfront and montly. YES I know the numbers are not set in stone yet...but having something like this now would help everyone see the bigger picture
3. IF the ownership of the hall belongs to the guild, and the object to the differnt tiers is to give guilds something to work towards, why can't some of the purchase price be rolled into the next higher perchase, or give credit if a guild has to down scale.
4. Crafting tables, they can be bought now for use to anyone a person sets as friend on a place. I just don't understand why NEW ones must be bought for placement in a Guild Hall.
5. status reduction items, One of the goals most guilds have now while using the normal 5 room places for a guild hall was to collect or craft enough of these items up for the hall it's self to reduce the cost. I don't understand why these can not be used in the new Halls....since one of the goals I have read about was to Not make these places a pain to maintain.
The focus on all these new Guild hall items, is MONEY...the creation of in game money to buy and then keep them going. Yes things cost Money in game..but up till now we have not seen such steep price tags. Saving for the guild cloaks at each step was fun, and not something that would empty every guild members pockets.

I guess I really liked that one person's post about doing quests for things for the hall.
It just sounded like more fun for a guild to get together and do rather than focus on ways to create coin for the guild coffers.

Some folks that are unhappy with guild hall costs continue to perpetuate myths.
1. You don't have to be in a raiding guild to afford a T3 guild hall. Those posters that play this one string violin merely expose their anti-raiding prejudices. Their arguments have no credibility when they focus on this fallacy (sometimes in oversized colored print).
2. Status is an extremely easy thing to gain. My main has over 50 million personal status and I don't even TRY to get status. It just happens to come with other things I do in the game. Personal status doesn't have much use. Guild hall costs will barely dent accumulated status.
3. I've seen hundreds of posts on dozens of threads on how to earn plat in EQ-2. It's easy, but some people can't be bothered to research it. Yet they feel justified in complaining that players won't share their tips on plat-earning. I guess it's easier to complain than to actually do something.

Writs =plat & status, I did rush order writs for a bit less than an hour and got apprx. 20,000 guild status and a little over a plat. It took about an hour to harvest the raws

AlStealHeart wrote:

I honestly don't believe there is such a thing. Sure, you might get lucky & get a M1 spell from a trash mob that can be sold for scores or even hundreds of plat, but I have to emphasize the "lucky" part.
A much better method, especially in the context of this thread, is guild groups through dungeons & instances. This not only helps with cash flow, it also helps guildies get equipped. At higher individual player levels, I very highly recommend spending a bit of time each week, or even each day, burning guild writs for status; it helps the guild level, it gets you personal status, & it makes decent money. This is even better if you get a guild group together to do it; you can burn through writs astonishingly fast in a guild group, even more so now that you can get writs from Kelethin at the KP docks.
But in the end, truly successful MMO players are the ones who understand that spending TIME = making MONEY. Yes, it's grindy, but for the moment, that's the nature of the beast.

Oakthicket@Permafrost wrote:

You are claiming myths, but you definately do not speaking to the truth here.
1. A large casual guild that's level 80 may not have much more difficulty than a large raiding guild, but that is due to the number of members. It's not so much raiders vs non-raiders as much as a large level 80 guild vs a small level 80 guild.
2. Status isn't that hard to earn, for sure. But 50 million without trying is not the norm. But remember, when you clear PR you are getting 120K status alone. Most players probably only have a 2 to 10 million personal status. If you want to dispute a so called myth, don't replace it with something worse.
3, It's not an easy vs hard thing. My guild works very hard to earn it's level and plat. And I'm not asking for a hand out. I think it should be a lot of status to maintain this stuff. It's the extreme amount of plat. Small guilds like mine don't have the large bank accounts of raiding guilds that charge people 600p to get their mythicals. Masters aren't readily available to my guild so that we can sell them to make money. To most guilds, 500 plat is a lot of money and 1000p is just never going to happen.

Loolee wrote:

I don't listen to "Kendrike", either.
Now, as far as my own links, I have to wonder where you got the idea I won't tell anyone "how" to make coin:
From "The Root of All Annoyances, pt. II" at Clockwork Gamer:

I then go on to list several "different, specific ways to make coin".

AlStealHeart wrote:

Well you can go back to one of his first posts in this thread and see where he buys up items on the broker and resells them for huge profit.

Personally I find this distasteful and anti-community so I don't make money this way, I choose more honest and server heathly ways that don't invole artificially inflating the economy.

I am on the same server and I can tell you our economy is trashed.

fwiw I can afford the GH but I won't do it simply because it would break me and ruin the game for me, I have no intention of turning a fun game into a job that i have to constantly earn a living in just to have a GH. I have other things that need my (meager) plat more than rent/upkeep on a GH and amenities.

I have alts to feed!

Griffinhart wrote:

QFT!

You speak for many.

I have always maintained that being "casual" and leveling a guild is MUCH harder and MUCH more work than doing it with a raid guild, simply because of the way rewards are skewered towards those who raid and against those who enjoy a fuller gaming experience.