Guild Wars 2 news » Countdown to Launch: Guild Halls

Hi Tyrians!

We explained previously how we’re aiming to improve the overall game experience for guilds in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™. We want to empower guilds and give them the tools they need to structure their community around common goals and challenges.

Guild Halls were designed to be part of this new structure as a means to bring players together around a place they can call their own. First you’ll take territory from the enemy and guard it, then repair it together with your guild by gathering resources and earning favor to unlock upgrades and buildings. Then you can begin decorating it to make it a place everyone will be proud to call home.

With the same goal in mind, we decided to change the way players will experience guild missions in the future. Read more about guild changes in this blog post.

Link Hughes says, “I remember sitting in the office, watching the expansion announcement stream from PAX South. When Guild Halls were announced and the audience screamed for what felt like eight solid seconds, I got really excited, and a little bit nervous. No pressure, right? Then when the event was over, I got a text message from my old guild leader saying, ‘I went into the announcement skeptical, and came out hyperventilating!’ Then I was just grinning.”

Dara Potocska remembers working on the guild arena. “There was a bug that let the turrets in the arena kill each other,” she says. “I made a test map in which the arena was filled with nothing but turrets, and they were constantly attacking each other. They destroyed each other in a death match. There were no survivors.”

Seth Chadwick recalls what it felt like to complete an area: “It was really, really cool to go through the office when it was fully populated. It was this warehouse where I’ve been testing things for many months, but it feels like a place now and it’s awesome.”

McKenna Berdrow has a story about testing. “One time we were testing a large group in the Gilded Hollow expedition. When we killed the boss, all of its projectiles exploded into another mass of projectiles. Framerate ground to a halt and lots of people died. It was like an epic bullet hell shooter.”

Darren Mason says, “I knew I liked the arena the first time I saw a fear turret make someone run off the edge. That was hilarious.”

Find more details about the upcoming changes for guilds in our four Guild Week segments!

• Guild Week, Part One: Guild Initiative Headquarters, guild expeditions, guild missions, and the updated Guild panel.
• Guild Week, Part Two: Guild Hall – The Lost Precipice
• Guild Week, Part Three: Guild Halls and Decorations
• Guild Week, Part Four: Player Q&A