Guild Wars 2

For years now a number of players have told us that server pride is dead. I don’t know the background of these players but suspect they don’t feel any loyalty to the server they are currently on, and this may not be the server they first started WvW on.

Those of us who play for server pride knew they were wrong, and sometimes told people so. Server pride can be a good source of motivation for players that are loyal to their server. Whether you transferred to somewhere you really like or whether you’ve always been there doesn’t matter – you’re fighting for your home server and that’s what provides the motivation to defend a borderlands or rampage through an enemy.

Server linking changed things quite a lot. Some servers no longer see their name in WvW – everything they do is credited to the “host” server. Other servers gained an influx of players who had different ideas and expectations about how things should be done. We all made the best of the new situation.
I do wonder, now we have some months of experience with the linking system,

• How has this affected the motivation of players on either server?
• How has this affected the server populations?
• Has server pride finally died or is it still keeping communities together?

I ask these questions because I’m interested, and because the motivation to play is a key part of keeping WvW alive. If server pride has actually died, perhaps as a result of linking, then why do we play?

Servers have always been just a name, if one is proud of that name that’s a whole different story, using this pride as the main motivation to be competitive is just kind of an excuse, because in the end it’s similar to wanting your team to win.

The server I’ve been playing for was both host and guest server, the community is pretty much the same, the link changes and we meet new people but from our server it’s pretty much the same old names.

I see our server and enemy servers working hard to get ppt if there is a chance to catch up, I hear people refer to their server as “we” a lot (“we just took their hills” – even if the person speaking wasn’t there), I see people bragging about the server k/d and I hear a lot of cursewords and trashtalk in the same sentence as opponent server names.
But if this is purely to show their pride in their servername or for their guilds, commanders and friends, I don’t know.
I personally want some servers to win because of the people I know on them and the servername has become a synonyme to call all those people and similarly I want some servers not to win because of bad experiences I had with players from that servers.

My opinion to the linkings:
+ WvW maps are more populated, this leads to bigger/epic fights, better commander coverage and more action
+ People from small servers that joined when the wvw on their server was already empty now get to know the gamemode as it was intended
+ You get to know new “active” people, on less popular server it are always the same commanders, scouts, trolls and it is good to get to know new people, guilds, commanders
- very small servers linked to big servers may lose their identity/community; so linking similarly big servers is a better way to ensure both servers noticing their contribution to the matchup
- matchmaking becomes more of a problem because blowout matches happen more often if a server isn’t in their tier

I am far more active since the linkings happened, as I enjoy higher activity in wvw, I enjoy zergfights, running with guildsgroups and organized commanders. I am tier 3/4 NA (host-server).

Server pride wasn’t dead when linking got introduced. Rather server pride was killed by server linking.

The new system allows players to easily bandwagon to the next server via a cheap link. This causes the population to be volatile, destroying existing communities in the process.

This shows why linking will most likely be death cause #1 of WvW as we know it.

Anet probably knows this also and does nothing to stop this from happening because they will most likely roll out a megaserver type WvW system some time in the future.

For them it is better to kill any remaining server pride this way instead of having to deal with the revolt that would have occurred otherwise.

Players could always transfer servers “easily” (IF they had no pride for their server) and it was far less expensive back then when gems were cheaper. Population has always been volatile (again this were people with already low serverpride), I remember servers getting stacked, left etc pre-linking all the time. Most WvW players have transfered pre-linking several times already. I am sure in this forum you will find a lot of evidence for this.

Makes me laugh when i think that players actually change server because they can’t l2p.

Rink.6108:

Players could always transfer servers “easily” (IF they had no pride for their server) and it was far less expensive back then when gems were cheaper. Population has always been volatile (again this were people with already low serverpride), I remember servers getting stacked, left etc pre-linking all the time. Most WvW players have transfered pre-linking several times already. I am sure in this forum you will find a lot of evidence for this.

The big difference is that previously servers weren’t used as a gateway for getting to top tier serers and thus were not abused the way they are now.

A couple of years ago, Anet introduced the Megaserver. This helped to kill “server pride” , such as it was anyway.

Also, the year long (was it longer ?) destruction of Lions Arch didn’t help things either.

I remember in the very early days of the game going into Lion’s Arch and trying to recruit people to come into WvW and help. This is no longer really possible.

I believe that anyone who, prior to now, found motivation or esprit de corps in belonging to a server will still do so. If, that is, they are on the primary server in a link. Secondary servers are less likely to generate such feelings. Not only do they take s back seat with regard to name recognition, bu also because at re-link they may no longer be where their contributions put them.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I believe that anyone who, prior to now, found motivation or esprit de corps in belonging to a server will still do so. If, that is, they are on the primary server in a link. Secondary servers are less likely to generate such feelings. Not only do they take s back seat with regard to name recognition, bu also because at re-link they may no longer be where their contributions put them.

This.

Linking has divorced me from feeling as if my contribution matters and so my motivation to attempt to contribute is lessened.

IMO the server linkings should be reserved for those in T3 and T4. T1 and T2 usually don’t need these.

There is but one server who will give you what you want. I speak of the masters of siege, their engineers are the finest at placement and execution.

I speak of the land of Yaks Bend.

Pains me to say, but they may be the last true community left in game.

Other than that, anet made sure to dig the dagger deep. 2 inches is required btw to hit a major organ. At least that’s the Italian way. Moving on…..the megaservers were the start to killing communities, then we mvoed onto linking.

I suggest you move to YB if you are looking for support, having a feeling of contribution, and a more welcoming feel.

I for one will spend my days on SOR, in which I absolutely don’t know anyone.

I’d say in Tarnished Coast, the community spirit is still going strong. We have an identity, we’re known for our big RP community, and the general friendliness of everyone.
But more than that, we also recognize the identity of those we fight, mainly Yak’s Bend and their legendary use of Siege Equipment, and Blackgate and their raw power and dirty tactics sometimes.
I transferred from Vizunah Square, it’s a French server on the EU side, where we absolutely dominated everyone in WvW, but as time went by, the server degraded, and I left for Tarnished Coast because I actually live in NA (my ping rate thanks me for that), but I did my fair bit of research before and I learned that I was probably the friendliest NA server in WvW, and i enjoy some casual RP.
Tarnished Coast has been my home for 3 years now

Server pride used to be a thing.

Anet killed the game.

Megaserver was a ploy to make people think the game was still active, but what it really showed was thousands of players stopped playing.

Who killed Scarlet’s marionette first? Who completed that triple worn thing etc etc.
Doesnt matter anymore as megaservers mean there’s no PvE server pride any more either.

RodOfDeath.5247:

There is but one server who will give you what you want. I speak of the masters of siege, their engineers are the finest at placement and execution.

I speak of the land of Yaks Bend.

Pains me to say, but they may be the last true community left in game.

Other than that, anet made sure to dig the dagger deep. 2 inches is required btw to hit a major organ. At least that’s the Italian way. Moving on…..the megaservers were the start to killing communities, then we mvoed onto linking.

I suggest you move to YB if you are looking for support, having a feeling of contribution, and a more welcoming feel.

I for one will spend my days on SOR, in which I absolutely don’t know anyone.

You mean the server that treats anybody who did not start there as crap? The server that treats anybody who left there and came back like crap? That ain’t a community.

You don’t need to be loyal to a server, what is just a name by now, to be loyal/enjoy the community from it. That’s why many people transfer in groups: what they really enjoy is each other’s company, and not a subjective virtual space that is the server. I transfered many times, I’ve met many people and many guilds. My loyalty is only to my guild and friends (that also transfer everywhere), but I learned to appreciate people and communities from many servers by transfering many times.

RyuDragnier.9476:

RodOfDeath.5247:

There is but one server who will give you what you want. I speak of the masters of siege, their engineers are the finest at placement and execution.

I speak of the land of Yaks Bend.

Pains me to say, but they may be the last true community left in game.

Other than that, anet made sure to dig the dagger deep. 2 inches is required btw to hit a major organ. At least that’s the Italian way. Moving on…..the megaservers were the start to killing communities, then we mvoed onto linking.

I suggest you move to YB if you are looking for support, having a feeling of contribution, and a more welcoming feel.

I for one will spend my days on SOR, in which I absolutely don’t know anyone.

You mean the server that treats anybody who did not start there as crap? The server that treats anybody who left there and came back like crap? That ain’t a community.

Well, even if that was an accurate description, which it isn’t, it kind of would be a community. An insular one, sure, but a coherent and sustained one.

In fact, although many of the people I see on in WvW on YB every day are indeed the same people I’ve seen there for three or four years, some since the first tentative weeks after launch when no-one had a clue what to do and no-one even owned a Commander tag, there are also plenty of people who are new and plenty who’ve left to try other servers and returned to the welcome of a prodigal child.

On the other hand, there are a few who left in a blaze of recrimination and insults only to come skulking back when they found the grass on the other side wasn’t the verdant swathe they’d been led to believe. They might not have such a comfortable homecoming.

Either way, for good or ill, YB does have consistency. That said, I also have an account on Ehmry Bay, now a free -floating linked server, and I feel that has a distinct, coherent and unique identity too. Server pride, like pride in just about anything, is largely what you make it. If you believe in it you’ll find it. And it’s definitely something worth believing in if you’re going to find yourself spending countless hours of your time taking and defending imaginary buildings in an imaginary world. Otherwise, really, what the heck are you doing there?

As I’ve posted in other threads, “guest” servers have little sense of community anymore…we’re just wandering gypsies, the fickle winds and shifting sands taking us where they may. Permanent server merges might help with that feeling of not belonging to a community outside of one’s own guild. From what I’m seeing in WvW, if Anet were to stop linkings and not merge servers, the server I’m on now would be but a shell of its former self.

Guest server’s sense of community depends on totally on the guest server’s community itself. If the guest server from the beginning does not has much commanders or commanders do not uses community ts3 or recognize the use of the community ts3, the community doesn’t have much existence to begin with.

RyuDragnier.9476:

You mean the server that treats anybody who did not start there as crap? The server that treats anybody who left there and came back like crap? That ain’t a community.

I still talk to many people I knew back on YB quite often even though we’ve moved off, and they’re always trying to get me to come back. Probably won’t happen but it doesn’t stop them from trying.

One week FSP is to weak to fight us (but still tries, with good honour). Then next week our server link is terminated, and at same time, fsp gets it, but IT DOESNT stop there. FSP gets another server link.

End result? The first winning server is completely loosing hard, and all guilds on it decide to bandwagon to a ‘low population link server’ for more fights, like Vabbi etc, for cheap transfers. Result, the still full server, with much worse results, has next to no motivation, even I have barely joined a few times.

So yes Anet is killing not only server price but motivation to play wvw. Giving fsp one link was ok, giving fsp TWO links, is the worlds biggest balance mistake ever and the devs should have overruled that computer or wathever based decision.

Well, I don’t know how it is for the top tiers, but I have to say that the lower you get in the rankings, the harder the server linking did hit existing server communities. Smaller servers with already weakened communities (say, Vabbi, but I can imagine something similar on FOW, FR or UW) risked being swarmed by bandswagon players, and/or loose their best players to higher tiers. Several friends of mine who were pillars of Vabbi’s WvW community decide after a linking ended to simply transfer to their former host server in order to remain there and enjoy the activity. These transfers already happened before linkings of course, but I feel like they increased. And when you don’t have at least several tightly-knit raiding or scouting guilds, well, your server identity and community vanishes, or only survives in a few old players doing their thing in BLs. Thus, it really is functionnaly extinct.

Then again, Lower tiers had population issues from the very start. It’s not surprising that server identity started unraveling where it was the weakest, i.e. on servers with the weakest player base. Add to this the fact that T8 and T9 matchups were often bogged down for months, and some servers lost over and over and over, and you get a bad situation indeed.

TL;DR: No lasting player-base = no lasting server identity and pride.

SkyShroud.2865:

Guest server’s sense of community depends on totally on the guest server’s community itself. If the guest server from the beginning does not has much commanders or commanders do not uses community ts3 or recognize the use of the community ts3, the community doesn’t have much existence to begin with.

A number of commanders left our server as the result of server linkings, some even before that when our server was at its lowest level of activity. The community TS3 server we’ve always used in the past is now a ghost town, as we are generally following the commanders from host servers and using their TS3, if/when they invite us.

Sylvyn.4750:

SkyShroud.2865:

Guest server’s sense of community depends on totally on the guest server’s community itself. If the guest server from the beginning does not has much commanders or commanders do not uses community ts3 or recognize the use of the community ts3, the community doesn’t have much existence to begin with.

A number of commanders left our server as the result of server linkings, some even before that when our server was at its lowest level of activity. The community TS3 server we’ve always used in the past is now a ghost town, as we are generally following the commanders from host servers and using their TS3, if/when they invite us.

It can only means that your server community is weak to begin with. If you have persistent commanders and guilds then your community will exist but with weak willed commanders and guilds, it will simply perish over time.

SkyShroud.2865:

Sylvyn.4750:

SkyShroud.2865:

Guest server’s sense of community depends on totally on the guest server’s community itself. If the guest server from the beginning does not has much commanders or commanders do not uses community ts3 or recognize the use of the community ts3, the community doesn’t have much existence to begin with.

A number of commanders left our server as the result of server linkings, some even before that when our server was at its lowest level of activity. The community TS3 server we’ve always used in the past is now a ghost town, as we are generally following the commanders from host servers and using their TS3, if/when they invite us.

It can only means that your server community is weak to begin with. If you have persistent commanders and guilds then your community will exist but with weak willed commanders and guilds, it will simply perish over time.

Since we were as high as T6 on our own right before the linkings, I can’t imagine what the communities were like on the servers that were ranked below us, since they weren’t able to muster the forces to take on our kitten community. So, a good third of the servers with dying communities…candidates for merges methinks.

“Server Pride”… That thing that so many people who don’t care what server they’re on have always called non-existent. Well, it used to exist in a big way and probably on most servers by core groups in each server. For the ‘slave’ server that I belong to since the linking and relinking and relinking I’ve seen a very large number of the people I used to see in WvW simply stop playing in there except maybe to do some guild missions for the Hall and commendations etc.

I’m sure there are groups that still form but I almost never see them from my server. And frankly the server we are currently linked with has a very large number of people who have made it clear many times that we’re not needed. Many times I experience one of three things, 1. silence, 2. rude comments, 3. good to see you.. #3 rarely and only happens when people that know me are on.

This isn’t unique to me as I get many such comments from other people on my server about this sort of thing. I also know of at least 10 people myself that don’t even play gw2 anymore and a lot more who went from playing WvW many hours a day, down to a couple hours here and there for missions.

Server pride? I remember it well.

BP…a once noble adversary of GoM…those were the days, eh? Sadly, even if they dumped the linkings, our servers would be but a shadow of their former selves.

Waffle.3748:

RyuDragnier.9476:

You mean the server that treats anybody who did not start there as crap? The server that treats anybody who left there and came back like crap? That ain’t a community.

I still talk to many people I knew back on YB quite often even though we’ve moved off, and they’re always trying to get me to come back. Probably won’t happen but it doesn’t stop them from trying.

Well let’s be honest, very few YB will fight and that was my main complaint while I was on YB, always abandoned and nobody would stay and fight with me.

Your guild is well known for actually coming out to fight people. I’d want you on my server as well because it is such a rarity now, everyone runs these days too worried about dying or something.

Per OP: No.

Just look at the threads screaming over artificial glicko boosts to see people are very much still engaged with the identity of their server.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Please-Glicko-Adjust-Yak-s-Bend/page/2#post6330246

Sylvyn.4750:

BP…a once noble adversary of GoM…those were the days, eh? Sadly, even if they dumped the linkings, our servers would be but a shadow of their former selves.

thats cause server linking either caused people on GoM to transfer off to some other host server or quit the game.

OP you won’t get a straight answer since not everyone who quit the game due to server linking will come back and check forums regularly.

Thank you all for your comments.

I originally wrote a wall of text for this reply but I think Jayne’s reply about “threads screaming over artificial glicko boosts” says it all. It clearly reinforces the fact that the host servers still have a community to make complaints like the one linked. I see very few threads about “guest” servers themselves that are not about their loss of identity or community.

So I think your answer to my question is both yes and no.
For “host” servers – yes, their name means something and so does server pride.
For “guest” servers… well, we don’t even have a name anymore…

WvW servers has become less than a name if you ask me. It’s not just a server anymore but a mix of servers. This cheap balance-fix soulution is really lame. We lose our core structure of our identity, the familiar alles, it ends up becoming a random mess of Edge of the Mist bullkitten almost.

On the flip side if links never happened, we probably would be here with people complaining how dead their servers are every day. Let’s not forget the major downward spiral wvw was on after the expansion released, it still is, but links were a minor stop gap from people leaving and may have brought back some players, like myself. It certainly has it’s problems, but it helped revive wvw for a moment.

If you don’t like links fine, but just think what the alternative could have been, your server absolutely dead during the last 6 months. That’s not to excuse anet, been about year since the expansion and things still aren’t looking that well for wvw’s future. Question is, are there even any long term solutions on the table right now.

Xenesis.6389:

On the flip side if links never happened, we probably would be here with people complaining how dead their servers are every day. Let’s not forget the major downward spiral wvw was on after the expansion released, it still is, but links were a minor stop gap from people leaving and may have brought back some players, like myself. It certainly has it’s problems, but it helped revive wvw for a moment.

If you don’t like links fine, but just think what the alternative could have been, your server absolutely dead during the last 6 months. That’s not to excuse anet, been about year since the expansion and things still aren’t looking that well for wvw’s future. Question is, are there even any long term solutions on the table right now.

Personally I think players that’s never transferred to any server since they started playing GW2 should be given a free one.

After that 1st Free Transfer…players should take it upon themselves to pay for their next transfer & any thereafter.

Other MMOs typically charge a monthly fee.

Players get what they want & ANet gets income.

Keep in mind…ANet doesn’t charge a monthly fee once you’ve paid for the game…so they need to generate income somehow.

It’s a Win & Win situation…imho.

Linking just provides a Free Transfer from Guest to Host Server…which undercuts ANet’s income in the long term, but generates a lot of income in the short term…temporarily…until the novelty wears off.

EDIT – Actually, players are going to push really hard for ANet to increase the frequency & variety of Match-Ups to maximize this “Free” Transfer through Linking.

WvW is the End Game content to GW2 from my point of view.

Game content helps you build a community of friends & family as you journey through it together.

What keeps you coming back to play WvW is your community of established old friends & family…not the game content…although that helps.

Creating the right End Game content & properly positioning it to earn income can make or break a company in their Long Term survival…and not just the game mode product that they’re selling.

ANet can definitely use other in/out game “products” to generate revenue off a massive fanatic player base that WvW would bring to the table…if they focused on growing & nurturing long term communities instead….imho

Yo you forgot mega servers and what a wonderful impact they made upon server pride!

Xenesis.6389:

On the flip side if links never happened, we probably would be here with people complaining how dead their servers are every day. Let’s not forget the major downward spiral wvw was on after the expansion released, it still is, but links were a minor stop gap from people leaving and may have brought back some players, like myself. It certainly has it’s problems, but it helped revive wvw for a moment.

If you don’t like links fine, but just think what the alternative could have been, your server absolutely dead during the last 6 months. That’s not to excuse anet, been about year since the expansion and things still aren’t looking that well for wvw’s future. Question is, are there even any long term solutions on the table right now.

a lot of people advocated for merging servers to create new identity instead of the joke of a system we have right now.