A little over a year ago a nibblet minion master necro pveing with his casual pve guild accidentally hits the wvw tab and questions “what is wvw?”. He enters unaware of the dangers that await him. He is killed in a matter of seconds by a thieve. The thieve jumps on his body hitting /laugh multiple times and skips away. One day, our paths will cross again he says at the screen as his lifeless body is discovered upon a glorious blue dot. The charr warrior says “fear not friend, my guild and I are here”. They heal a broken necro body and pillage the map for hours. The necro grew stronger more knowledgeable about wvw. In fact, it’s all he does for the next 2 months and leaves his pve guild to be a loner. A guardian arrives ready to lead the great Kaineng server to Hills. The necros thirst for more blood brings joyous thoughts and ponders the awful things he is going to perform on the Yaks Bend opponents.
He is discovered by an elementalist who appears to be part of a thing called zerg busting style guild. What is a zerg he asks? The ele laughs whispering “we run 10-12 man groups and can kill up to 30 man groups at once, would you like to join our guild?”. Curious the necro accepts and partakes in his first wvw raid. A great leader named 47 welcomes him to raid and something called synergy builds. This guild turns a once pve nib necro into a condition bombing machine. Every evening 6-10 the necro raids. Weeks go by and the bodies pile up, the necro off raid hours hangs out with a guild called Chuck Norris is Back CNB lead by a charismatic leader named Sano. It appears that BMS and CNB form an unstoppable army together. However, the necro must rest after killing so many. He returns to his beloved wvw map 2 weeks later only to find his great Kaineng homeland empty and discovers his guild went to another land. The great 47 calls upon him again and the necro discovers a new set of enemies to destroy.
Something changes as the weeks go on, the community becomes toxic, enemies are now running in even larger groups, guilds disrespect each other, and the necro identifies something dark is forming in wvw. A tournament is announced called season 1 and suddenly the necro and his brothers can’t join forces on the same map, something called “pugs” is mentioned and his guild brother refers to them as AP women of the night. Tactical response is no longer respected, rezing the down is frowned upon, power and critical builds fill the map, condition is a lost art, map communication is replaced by insults to other players….what has happened the necro asks his guild…the guild chat and TS is silent.
A familiar feeling comes over him as a second wvw tournament is announced. He shows up Friday evening only to find an experience he’d like to forget. Toxic chat is in full force, tags unrecognizable, ungodly que times, lag, and wvw APs plague his screen.
I’m not sure for those reading this could relate but it appears wvw is no longer what it use to be. I’d say for awhile now it has continued to decline in quality. I seem to remember wvw being a fun crowd with guilds supporting each other. I can only speak as a nib back in the day and being molded into a wvw addict and seeing how great the community treated each other. All the major guilds would meet up Friday evening before reset at north camp, talk about strategy, who is marking what map and even the smaller roaming guilds were encouraged to help for the cause. Today the map is infected with achievement point lovers, unskilled pugs who refuse to learn, siege throwers, map chat is full of tryhards, pve commanders pop tag and don’t even understand what stacking refers to, and loot is the most important thing to them. They care not for their server but mats and exotic drops only. Spies now work their way into another servers TS chan relentlessly causing more frustration among the wvw crowd.
In reading the forum posts for months, the wvw crowd seems to have been ignored and abandoned. I’m sure this post will be removed just like the others who felt the need to describe their dissatisfaction with the state of wvw.
The other day I stood above a battle in SMC watching massive zergs collide and realized, this is the game. There’s no more skill involved.
Late in the evening, the pugs and AP hunters filled their bags to suck the wvw map dry. I stayed roaming aimlessly on the map passing the occasional coworker. And I found one last player to kill, my own achievement if you will…a thief. My skills were not that of the Kaineng days, I was more aware, predicting his moves easily partly due to the wvw forum advice you so graciously give. I melted the poor soul in seconds and spiked. I did not /laugh nor /dance but instead for some reason could only type /cry
Anet, I fear that you’ve let the TRUE wvw community down in so many ways. Your glorious plan of seasons, free transfers, and AP metas has taken away the respect of the true wvw players.