Guild Wars 2

The title asks it all.

Do guilds transfer to new home servers when the GL transfers?

If anyne knows and could tell me that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

For the long explanation version:

Guilds are cross-server. However when it comes to “Influence” and “Upgrades”, these are server-based. Also, Influence earned by members goes to the “version” or “instance” of the guild where that member’s account has chosen as “Home server”.

Examples:

1. Shael is on Isle of Janthir while you Sol is on Sea of Sorrows. Both of us are members of the guild “Guild Wars RuleZ [GW4ever]”
2. When I earn influence, my influence goes to the version/instance of [GW4ever] in MY Home server which is IoJ
3. When you earn influence, your influence goes to the version/instance of [GW4ever] in YOUR Home server which is SoS
4. When [GW4ever] in IoJ buys a Guild Bank, only members with Home server of IoJ can use that Guild Bank. Members like you who are in SoS will have to buy your own Guild Bank.

To summarize:

• Guilds doesn’t have a “Home server” setting/flag
• Influence earned by members goes to instance/version of the guild of the “Home server OF the member”
• Upgrades bought by an instance/version of the guild stays in that server where it was bought – other members in other “Home servers” will not benefit from it
• Yes, guilds are cross-server – meaning, you can have members from as many servers as you want
• Guild chat is cross-server
• Guild roster is cross-server – so one guild can only have a maximum of 500 members regardless of instance/version of the guild.

So, if your GL transfers server, he will see an instance/version of the guild with 0 Influence and 0 upgrades. (Provided there are no other members in the server he transferred to that was playing there longer than him/her.)

I hope that’s clear. ^_

GL transfer? I’m confused.

No.

To make the long explanation short: Guilds doesn’t have a “home server” flag/setting.

Shael.4703:

For the long explanation version:

Guilds are cross-server. However when it comes to “Influence” and “Upgrades”, these are server-based. Also, Influence earned by members goes to the “version” or “instance” of the guild where that member’s account has chosen as “Home server”.

Examples:

1. Shael is on Isle of Janthir while you Sol is on Sea of Sorrows. Both of us are members of the guild “Guild Wars RuleZ [GW4ever]”
2. When I earn influence, my influence goes to the version/instance of [GW4ever] in MY Home server which is IoJ
3. When you earn influence, your influence goes to the version/instance of [GW4ever] in YOUR Home server which is SoS
4. When [GW4ever] in IoJ buys a Guild Bank, only members with Home server of IoJ can use that Guild Bank. Members like you who are in SoS will have to buy your own Guild Bank.

To summarize:

• Guilds doesn’t have a “Home server” setting/flag
• Influence earned by members goes to instance/version of the guild of the “Home server OF the member”
• Upgrades bought by an instance/version of the guild stays in that server where it was bought – other members in other “Home servers” will not benefit from it
• Yes, guilds are cross-server – meaning, you can have members from as many servers as you want
• Guild chat is cross-server
• Guild roster is cross-server – so one guild can only have a maximum of 500 members regardless of instance/version of the guild.

So, if your GL transfers server, he will see an instance/version of the guild with 0 Influence and 0 upgrades. (Provided there are no other members in the server he transferred to that was playing there longer than him/her.)

I hope that’s clear. ^_

That answers every thing perfectly and thank you very much for explaining it. I want to try out another server for WvW for a couple of days and wanted to know what would happen to my guild and this clears it up.

Thanks again mate, really apprecaited!

Sol.3296:

That answers every thing perfectly and thank you very much for explaining it. I want to try out another server for WvW for a couple of days and wanted to know what would happen to my guild and this clears it up.

Thanks again mate, really apprecaited!

No problem, glad to be of help ^_

Oh, btw, I forgot to mention. ANet said “guild social features” are cross-server. So far what I can confirm as “guild social features” are guild chat and guild roster (which includes the ‘increase maximum member’ upgrade). They might add some more “guild social features” or maybe there are already others but still remain to be seen.

Hmm, since you’re going to test it, I hope you don’t mind, check if you still retain the guild emblem upgrade and guild armorsmith contract (and similar)? Personally, those are sort-of “guild social features” because it doesn’t give anything to the guild at all. But the conflict is that, those upgrades can only be bought with influence – which is server-bound.

^_ (Yep the system is confusing)

Shael.4703:

Hmm, since you’re going to test it, I hope you don’t mind, check if you still retain the guild emblem upgrade and guild armorsmith contract (and similar)? Personally, those are sort-of “guild social features” because it doesn’t give anything to the guild at all. But the conflict is that, those upgrades can only be bought with influence – which is server-bound.

^_ (Yep the system is confusing)

Lol I was initerested in the guild emblem upgrade itself so that is the first thing I’ll test. I actually have no other upgrades so I can’t test the armoursmith one sorry.

While confusing at least the functionality is there to maintain the core of the guild no matter what server you go to =)

For Shael:
Members on other worlds do not have access to any of the upgrades: no emblemer, no access to the armorer, shared storage, or weapons.

I haven’t been able to test the following:

• After building storage on a second world, is it +50 more slots? Or is access to the same 50 from the first world? (The first possibility seems ok to me; the latter is unfair: if you spend twice as much influence, shouldn’t you get twice as much storage).
• if you buy the emblem from the Armorer on World A, does it still display on other worlds (I can’t afford to drop that much coin on looks yet).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

For Shael:
Members on other worlds do not have access to any of the upgrades: no emblemer, no access to the armorer, shared storage, or weapons.

ANet said that only “guild social features” are cross-server, the rest are not. So the only question is if the emblem and related upgrades do fall under the “guild social features” category. Since you have tested it (and huge thanks for that), it’s now clear that the guild emblem and upgrades that has to do with it, are not considered “guild social features” – which is odd.

I mean, it’s an emblem! Why does the guild have to buy an emblem upgrade for every server they are on? 99% of the guilds out there will use the same emblem, it’s an “identity”, something to be proud about, so obviously it should fall under the “guild social features”. But alas, it isn’t.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I haven’t been able to test the following:

• After building storage on a second world, is it +50 more slots? Or is access to the same 50 from the first world? (The first possibility seems ok to me; the latter is unfair: if you spend twice as much influence, shouldn’t you get twice as much storage).
• if you buy the emblem from the Armorer on World A, does it still display on other worlds (I can’t afford to drop that much coin on looks yet).

• The first one: Since it is storage related, and ‘storage’ upgrade itself is server-bound, the subsequent upgrades are more likely server-bound too.
• The second item: A good question. Since it was bought already, what happens to the emblem on it if guilds have to buy and design an emblem on every server. That’s another thing to test.

- Anyway, it makes more sense to have the guild emblem cross-server too. The armourer can be left server-bound, each server should buy their own. But the emblem? The emblem is no different to the guild roster, which is cross-server – a guild can only have 500 members max currently – total all servers. Emblem is like that, it’s a social thing.

sigh

Honestly, it doesn’t make sense to me at all.

It’s anti small guild (quality over quantity).

• If a guild is 1,000 people, 500 on each world, no problem; they can afford to build everything twice.
• However, a small guild (20 on each world) is crippled three times: they have to pay twice as much for the same upgrade, they don’t get twice the benefit, and they earn influence more slowly.

It’s anti-cooperation: there’s a disincentive to guest to the second world, since it would decrease influence gain in the first.

It’s inflexible: if a guild wants to change worlds for whatever reason, they have to pay per-person gem costs and rebuild all the upgrades (Well, no gem costs today, but there will be soon enough.)

I understand the idea of a RL social organization having to build their clubhouse in each city they have members in, but this isn’t RL. This is a game that ANet claims is focused on building the community…and this mechanism creates disincentives to growing the community across worlds.

Well, people already raised those points numerous times but their stand stays.

But as for the “… guest to the second world, since it would decrease influence gain in the first…” I’m not sure about that yet. If I remember correctly, they did explain that when you guest in another world, your influence earned still goes to your account’s “home server”.

So even if you play in overflow servers most of the time, for whatever reason, the influence you earn still goes to your account’s “home server” – contrary to what is written in the GW2 wiki re: Influence.

Influence each account earns always goes to the account’s home server, not on where the character is at currently.

Unless things changed post-launch.

You’re right about how it works for overflow (I forgot about that), so you’re probably also right about how guesting will work, even though we don’t know for certain yet. But that’s still a disincentive to guesting, in terms of influence accrual. Either the home world loses out or the guest world loses, unless both worlds get the increased influence of multiple guildies cooperating.

ANet hasn’t really articulated why they think it’s important to divide influence in this way, so it’s hard to know whether posts like this are, erm, influencing their thinking on the topic. We do know they changed other things based on player feedback, so I’m hoping that they realize how much the current mechanic hurts smaller guilds.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You’re right about how it works for overflow (I forgot about that), so you’re probably also right about how guesting will work, even though we don’t know for certain yet. But that’s still a disincentive to guesting, in terms of influence accrual. Either the home world loses out or the guest world loses, unless both worlds get the increased influence of multiple guildies cooperating.

ANet hasn’t really articulated why they think it’s important to divide influence in this way, so it’s hard to know whether posts like this are, erm, influencing their thinking on the topic. We do know they changed other things based on player feedback, so I’m hoping that they realize how much the current mechanic hurts smaller guilds.

Yep, let’s hope for that.

Personally, the best way would have been to just restrict those upgrades that they think has to do with WvW. But the rest shouldn’t, like the emblem (and to an extent, armour license), which has nothing to do with WvW.

Unless they’re thinking that there are guilds who wants to have different emblems when for some lucky matching, both of their servers were matched up for the week.

Storage too. It’s not like we can not trade with each other cross-server so why restrict storage as well? The only thing I can think of in relation to that is storage is limited. One instance of the guild on another server might fill up the storage :p But that’s the problem of the guild leaders and officers lolz.

Well, let’s hope for a more social friendly guild system.

As stated prior: ArenaNet wants to keep all of the social parts of Guilds cross-server and all non social parts as server-specific.

The only reason I can see them not allowing all upgrades on all server instances of a Guild is for WvWvW.

That being said why not allow us to have two separate types of influence:
Social Influence (only from PvE/Personal Story/Online Checks, etc.)
Battle Influence (only from PvP/WvWvW)

Make social influence global and make battle influence server specific. That way all members of a guild can access the guild emblem, guild bank, guild bonuses and (if they are capable) placing banners and feasts for other players. Make all of the non-pvp upgrades available to be purchased only with Social Influence. That way the guild can get it’s name known on multiple servers without being destructive to WvWvW.

For any type of PvP: Make the WvWvW category (and anything else that would influence pvp) in their own set of upgrades and only allow them to be bought with Battle Influence.

Therefore you have three categories of “Global Upgrades” which are:
Economics
Architecture
Politics

And one category of “World (server) Upgrades” that is:
Art of War

One thing with WvWvW would be to limit (globally) the amount of forts claimable by any single guild to one fort – that is if this limitation isn’t implemented already. Then we can all have our cake and eat it too. Guilds can’t troll WvWvW and hang their banner everywhere (especially if they have members on all 3 competing worlds), and all members of a guild have access to everything that can help each other on a social level.

To combat the Guild Bank overflowing statement: The guild banks will be full whether you have 500 people on 2 to 10+ different servers with access to the same bank or if you have 500 people on one server that have access to the same bank. That’s when the guild leader’s limitations on bank access come into play.