"Forges"

A Forge is a group of artists consisting of at least a 2d artist, a modeller and a texturer, that is supported by NCsoft to make some new content such as new weapons and armour and perhaps even new monsters. This will allow Guild Wars' look to be updated more often than would be possible with just NCsoft alone.

Moreover, a Forge can be "hired" with in-game currency to design unique armor and weapons for exclusive use by a specific guild. The Forge designs and models the equipment and sends it to the guild, and the guild then submits it to NCsoft, who then adds a Crafter to the Guild's Hall capable of making the Guild Specific equipment. To avoid level 5's suddenly wearing high-grade armour, there will be conditions to fullfill before being able to order one.

Think of it this way: the actual Knights Templar would have armour that look like the ones worn by their historical namesakes, and the...say, "Hammers of Light" would wield very shiny Hammers.

UPDATE: well, NCsoft made this statement about custom emblems:

In order to maintain absolute security for every element of the game, we are not able to accept externally designed submissions for inclusion into Guild Wars. However, we have already hosted one official Guild Emblem Contest, and we plan to hold such contests on a regular basis. The emblems that are created in such a competition become available for general use, rather than the use of any single guild. We encourage guilds to consider taking part in such contests if they wish to see their emblem as a possible choice in Guild Wars

basically, this now limits my idea to making content available to EVERYONE. which isn't too bad, really.

as for the external content bit...well, i guess it's gonna take some convincing, or some damn good security measures.

at the very least, 2d artists could still submit designs in a contest.

Petition thread:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...288#post186288

Interesting.

But very costly.

u could also use that same stuff tio customize the hall itself slightly

i don't see how that could be costly in any way, since all the boys at Ncsoft would have to do is write up a bit of code to integrate the new items into drops and crafters. We'd save them time and effort to do the modelling, and their art team can focus on something else.

win/win, methinks.

It's not a bad idea, it really isn't, but I think a lot of suggestions are not looking past the immediate "improvement" and not seeing the "world view" of the game and how it will be fundamentally impacted by its additions in terms of how much manpower it will take to affect these changes and how many customers will experience unreasonable game degradation due to added "flair" in the game.

I think this is a good idea (mainly because I'm a fledgling 3D modeler still in highschool that's willing to work for free just to see my stuff in-game ). But it could work eventually, but first ANet should work on more immediate issues before putting this in, since all it really does is add more custimization of stuff).

It seems that updating armor models is a low priority right now for ArenaNet. May be new armor models will be included in the big patch this summer? The patch that will add the Sorrow's Furnace.

i don't mean to have this thing implemted immediately, of course, but i would like to present this idea to ANet with more backing than just...me.

I think this should be left to add in the expansion. Not in an update.

Well its functionality and content so it could go either way. The comments from ANet are that funconality will be free no matter how many chapters you buy, but content will cost.

So being able to thru this add new content woudl go around the way they are currently seeming to lean. not saying they might not like this idea and use it someway but it seem a little in contridiction to thier previously stated views on content and functionality

To all those who are saying it should be update or should be exopansion or arguing that point please re-read this post and get back on track. We are not here to set Anets prioritys, thats what managers do and although we are all filled with brilliant ideas of what they should do, prioritizing isnt one of them.

The poster is simply looking for backup so he can present this idea in the future to Anet. Of all the responses ... I have seen one 'fledgling 3D modeler still in highschool' that has answered he would help. I would back up your idea ... although the little pice of code is alot larger than you realize, taking the modelling, texturizing, etc off lightens the load and helps build this game to becaome as successful as possible.

Um Stumpy, I don't believe any of us were actually disagreeing with the poster. We were giving our support since noone said "This is a horrible idea and should be trashed!". But I haven't seen on any other posts anyone saying oh yeah that could be done using a complex html code like [ljdafl;af/:][dkjfna]Bob[/ljdafl;af/:][/dkjfna].

They could just get fans to act as the "Forge."

There are plenty of fans who have the skills to do so and are willing to do it with the only recognition as their payment.

it's not the "forge", but forges. there's be differnt groups of artists who would focus on a particular class of equipment. Any group i would put together would probably focus more on heavy Warrior equipment, while others would exclusively work on weapons for all, and others would favor working on Monk garbs. Heck, a Forge could a Tatoo parlour, too.

the problem with this, is giving the client side of GW too much customization to it. and if you don't know the problems to that...it's best you never learn...to keep yourself safe from the dark side of the internet O_o

this is where Ncsoft/Anet comes in. Modders can't integrate models into a MMOG on their own, and so the Game's programmers will have to add the new models themselves. This mean that they'll also act as a filter for all the juvenile crap.

Ah...yes that makes some sense :P

petition is available here:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...288#post186288

Adraeus mentionned in the petition thread that NCsoft wouldn't be able to hold on to it's stakeholders due to the fact that fan-made content would probably be terrible. And this is something i forgot to emphasize: maintaining art quality.

So this is my solution: A fledgling forge must first prove its ability to produce quality art by submitting a Masterpiece: detailed 2d art of the design, and then the fully tectured 3d model itself. If the folks at NCsoft like what they see, they give that forge its approval and support for making new content. If it undeniably sucks, or if there are too many active forges already, they simply say no.

Yeah...horrible art...another thing that slipped my mind. It'd almost be as bad as someone adding a voice command like "Moo" in a FPS...

But, anyways, wouldn't it have to go by NCSoft anyways to be in the actual game? I just mainly say that because it requires a server-side addition so that everyone can see the skins, and not just the people who have it installed on their machines. This way, a sort of sensorship could be upheld as well. You know what kind of skins they'd make for the female models if given too much power....