During a presentation at E3 just moments ago, Guild Wars 2 Game Director Colin Johanson dished a lot of details on the Guild Hall feature coming in the game’s impending Heart of Thorns expansion.

Guild halls are a lot more than just a social feature – they’re a map that begins owned by the jungle dragon Mordremoth, and guilds will battle their way through to claim the map as their own. Once claimed, guilds will be able to personalize their keep by constructing buildings with special effects and placing aesthetic decorations around the map.

Within the guild halls, players will be able to form guild teams to compete in the game’s leaderboards. PvE focused guild members will also be able to open portals in the guild hall to enable quick travel to guild mission objectives.

Several of the buildings guilds will be able to construct within their halls were revealed in the interview, all presenting significant impacts on how players can and will be able to play the game:

Arena – a “combat sandbox” where decorations and traps can be placed to spice up the combat. This won’t just be limited to guildmates, either, as it’s confirmed that other guilds will be able to be invited for PvP brawls.

Workshop – a crafting building bringing with it an all new crafting profession, the Scribe, that builds items for guild members to use throughout the game’s different modes.

War Room – a must have for World vs World guilds, this building will enable special tools and abilities to aid in the large-scale siege PvP game mode. The example shown during the stream was the ability to summon an airship to bombard a keep as the guild laid siege.

The map shown in the E3 trailer looked absolutely massive, with a heavy emphasis on verticality reminscient of the design in the new maps coming in Heart of Thorns. The trailer shown during the presentation appeared to show a player using a glider within the guild hall, so it doesn’t look like that verticality is going to waste.

Pre-purchases of expansion are now live, and will guarantee access to all future betas. Excitingly, purchasing the expansion will also include the base game, making the game extremely accessible to players just now becoming interested in the title. Check out the various editions available at the official site.

Source: Live E3 Presentation