Guild Wars 2

I’m GM of medium native guild and we have policy of paying half of the transfer fee if player wants to transfer to our home server in order to participate in WvW.

Now that HoT is comming we are having more recruits than usually (which is awesome) but I’m wondering are servers a thing in a future and is there point in transferring between servers?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/World-Population-Changes-Are-Coming

Samuel Loretan.8601:

Fellow Warriors of the Mists,

World population is visible on the labels on the World Selection and Transfer screen. It determines whether you can transfer to a world and, if you can, how much the transfer will cost. These measures historically have been set based on aggregate population levels around all game modes. But because World versus World is the only game mode to which worlds apply these days, we have developed a better model that exclusively uses WvW data to determine population levels and transfer costs.

We will be rolling out the new model soon and some shifts in the population levels should be expected. We’ll continue to monitor the situation, and we’ll make all adjustments we deem necessary to improve the WvW experience. As always, your feedback is very welcome.

See you in the Mists,
— Samuel

Seems that Servers are going to stick.

This question isn’t relevant only to guilds or individuals considering transfers but when you take in to account what the matchups are in general. We get almost daily posts about imbalance of matchups that effect WvW at the moment and concerns how the new map is going to effect WvW.

I personally play in T1 in EU at SFR and in few weeks (7?) we have been ranking #1 for a year. This is due to massive player base that gives us 24/7 coverage and this effects WvW experience in general in massive way: every night we have queues of 30+ to all maps. This causes massive overflow of decent WvW players to EotM, that we can notice as a 6-8 all green (or whatever color SFR is) EotM overflows.

It would be ignorant from ANet not to do anything about this as they must acknowledge the problem and be aware that HoT will be bringing back massive amount of players. It’s not beneficial for anyone that players will sit in queues and guilds are having hard time playing together now and even more once HoT releases.

So I’m wondering are servers a thing in a future?

I doubt Anet is going to answer this question. A while back a dev said that they will not be merging WvW servers or switching to an alliance system or anything of the sort. He said that Anet recognizes that server pride matters for people so they won’t be getting rid of any servers.

Now granted that was over a year ago I think so its possible population drops have changed that. But with the coming xpac I doubt they’re going to change anything now because they hope to have more people coming into the game.

So in my opinion the answer would be that yes, servers will be a thing in the future.

If you are fighting queues why help pay for transfers? Or did I read that wrong?

I don’t think worlds are going away any time soon for the reasons Johje mentions above but ANET really ought have a plan for the future of WvW beyond the new HoT map and you are not the only sitting on the fence wondering what that might be. I would hope they would share those plans with us sooner rather than later so we can all make more informed decisions.

I can see HoT’s release being a real quagmire for WvW without something being done as a bunch of players come back to the game to check things out and a bunch more venture in WvW to try out the map. Tier 1 worlds are going to be bursting at the seams and low tiers might give new players or returnee’s a bad taste in their mouth for lack of action or organization.

I am a lone player on a Tier 1 world who has remained loyal since BWE1 for “Realm Pride” but now really wants to move to find a new guild and home where casual playtime can still have meaning. I don’t want to be trapped in a T1 queue once HoT drops but I have been patiently waiting to hear what ANET has up their sleeve. I could easily buy the gems to transfer anytime but it is more a matter of principal for me. If I am going to transfer it will only be once and it is not something I take lightly cuz I am old school like that.

Johje Holan.4607:

I doubt Anet is going to answer this question.

I doubt it too, but I will still try to get answer from them as the current system is not working as it should. I know that it will ruin WvW experience from many returning players and cause them to leave the game again.

Johje Holan.4607:

A while back a dev said that they will not be merging WvW servers or switching to an alliance system or anything of the sort. He said that Anet recognizes that server pride matters for people so they won’t be getting rid of any servers.

Now granted that was over a year ago I think so its possible population drops have changed that. But with the coming xpac I doubt they’re going to change anything now because they hope to have more people coming into the game.

Yeah, server pride is factor in all this, but as far as I know HC WvW guilds transfer to servers where they find best fights and many servers have lost their original identity. Way I see it: ANet has to acknowledge that the current system after all the transfers and population disparity is not going to work once HoT comes as they originally intended.

Liston.9708:

If you are fighting queues why help pay for transfers? Or did I read that wrong?

Well, “fighting queues” and playing with friends is something that can be hard simultaneously.

We have massive (600+) player base from our gaming community and we will know that many of them will be returning to game once HoT launches. SFR was our original server and we have been getting recruits later from other servers. As many of the new players are interested in playing with us transferring them to SFR is only option atm.

And when it comes to “fighting queues” I wouldn’t say that it is my goal. Sure, queues are a problem, but queues are symptom not the problem. As I said earlier:

Julenal.3907:

It would be ignorant from ANet not to do anything about this as they must acknowledge the problem and be aware that HoT will be bringing back massive amount of players. It’s not beneficial for anyone that players will sit in queues and guilds are having hard time playing together now and even more once HoT releases.

If ANet is working with something I would really love to know, like many others:

PariahX.6970:

ANET really ought have a plan for the future of WvW beyond the new HoT map and you are not the only sitting on the fence wondering what that might be. I would hope they would share those plans with us sooner rather than later so we can all make more informed decisions.

I can see HoT’s release being a real quagmire for WvW without something being done as a bunch of players come back to the game to check things out and a bunch more venture in WvW to try out the map. Tier 1 worlds are going to be bursting at the seams and low tiers might give new players or returnee’s a bad taste in their mouth for lack of action or organization.

I completely agree with PariahX. WvW has been lacking the attention it needs since it’s easily game mode that requires least attention from developers when comparing to amount of players it is able to keep in the game. But WvW has not ever had it’s ability to shine with culling, queue problems and random DC’s at launch, lack of EotM at first season and this PPT&PvD&K-Train nonsense continuum.

PariahX.6970:

I am a lone player on a Tier 1 world who has remained loyal since BWE1 for “Realm Pride” but now really wants to move to find a new guild and home where casual playtime can still have meaning. I don’t want to be trapped in a T1 queue once HoT drops but I have been patiently waiting to hear what ANET has up their sleeve. I could easily buy the gems to transfer anytime but it is more a matter of principal for me. If I am going to transfer it will only be once and it is not something I take lightly cuz I am old school like that.

+1 (conspiracy theories thou…)

PariahX.6970:

I could easily buy the gems to transfer anytime but it is more a matter of principal for me.

What I wouldn’t want to think is that ANet is staying in this system because this system is making them more money than others they have come up. Whatever the cause is there are people that find this system really unfair:

AmberUK.5380:

Can someone from Anet explain to me why I should have to pay IRL money or in game gold to move servers because the WvW server I am on is so quiet it is imbalanced with the other servers it plays against.
…

Why is the onus on the WvW players and not on the mode to be fixed? And how does all this moving help the people who are left behind? How does it help the casual players? How does it help the new players? Why is there this pushing to farm farm farm?

I really cannot say anything about lower tier population, but it seems that T1 and T2 have enough population for WvW and other maps are empty. I find it next to impossible that this imbalance will sort itself out.

What I found funny is that during this Golem Rush week EotM matches are not “all green” maps as other servers have fighting change because of the golems.

Maybe that was the plan!

Or the fact you can k-train with fast flips in normal bls…….

Julenal.3907:

What I wouldn’t want to think is that ANet is staying in this system because this system is making them more money than others they have come up. Whatever the cause is there are people that find this system really unfair:

I think they are staying with this system because it is easy and for some reason WvW takes more resources and investment than it pays off. I find that hard to believe but I really don’t understand enough of what all goes on behind the scenes to make things work. They are a business first and if changes would make them significantly more money or not hurt the bottom line I am pretty sure they would be all over it, otherwise it is always safer to stick with the status quo. So it is not so much about greed but lack of desire to take a risk.

PariahX.6970:

Julenal.3907:

What I wouldn’t want to think is that ANet is staying in this system because this system is making them more money than others they have come up. Whatever the cause is there are people that find this system really unfair:

I think they are staying with this system because it is easy and for some reason WvW takes more resources and investment than it pays off. I find that hard to believe but I really don’t understand enough of what all goes on behind the scenes to make things work. They are a business first and if changes would make them significantly more money or not hurt the bottom line I am pretty sure they would be all over it, otherwise it is always safer to stick with the status quo. So it is not so much about greed but lack of desire to take a risk.

This might be true, but we don’t know any statistics about WvW population versus PvE population or how much working hours are spent between gametypes. Still, with little attention there is multiple full WvW maps, EotM K-trains daily. Well, we are left guessing…