Guild Wars 2

Announcement from Gunnar’s Hold community.

Several days ago, Gunnar’s Hold community was approached by the [Xaoc] alliance with a request to move to Gunnar’s Hold EU.

Gunnar’s Hold community consists of 80+ guilds and 1200+ server users, who all work to create a friendly, organized and fun gaming experience in Guild Wars 2. See: www.gunnars-hold.eu

The process of having [Xaoc] moving here is very appreciated by us. During some hours of constructive talking in our voice communication, we have had a chance to ensure Gunnar’s Hold core gaming values will remain the highest and most important. Thanks to [Xaoc] for the friendly way to approach us, and for answering the questions we have had to you.

For future gaming, Gunnar’s Hold community will heartfully continue to work hard for:
- Ensuring a friendly and open tone in game with room for new players and experienced players
- Have WvW as a fun experience with great battles, rather than aiming for a certain tier
- We do not tolerate exploits of any kind, and all guilds are expected to take immediate action on such behavior
- Respect to every opponent we will face, in wish of respect for all guilds and alliances on our server.

The last three weeks of consequtive wins (after losing many) have shown Gunnar’s Hold can work closely together. We will not aim for a top tier, but always focus on enjoying WvW as much as possible.

We hope that [Xaoc] will enjoy and settle well on the server.

If your guild is looking for a transfer to Gunnar’s Hold, please take the time to come and have a chat on our mumble voice communication.

Thanks for taking your time to read this.

Best regards from Gunnar’s Hold,
- Insky

What happened to their Vabbi project?

RoS happened

Ahh so you guys got our Russian Xaoc >-<
I was soo hoping that we will be able to be together agin, Guess it was a dream that will never come true. I Blame the stupid misunderstanding that leads us to a sad split like this!
I Wish we all can forget the pass weeks and just return to how we use to be TOGETHER.
I believe that bout side has learn the lesson from this stupid split.
We should have stayed together as one, but…. oh well i can only cry in my heart for the lost of Xaoc.
Even though I will not be moving with Xaoc, they’ll always stay in my heart.
I wish Xaoc all good.

Jucha -X-member of the former – The Chaos International [Xaoc]

Welcome Xoac, It’s great to have you with us. Here’s to a happy and long-standing partnership!

Magus.6543:

Several days ago, Gunnar’s Hold community was approached by the [Xaoc] alliance with a request to move to Gunnar’s Hold EU.

During some hours of constructive talking in our voice communication, we have had a chance to ensure Gunnar’s Hold core gaming values will remain the highest and most important. Thanks to [Xaoc] for the friendly way to approach us, and for answering the questions we have had to you.

- Insky

Seems like this was handled way better then just jumping into the lowest tier and then posting screenshots of +600 scores on the forum, good on you guys for improving!
I hope you’ll have fun and maybe we can tier up before gunnars leave that tier so we can fight again, need more russian blood on my daggers >:)

So only 2 guilds have been coming in… right…
Very surprised to see GH, community driven as they are, to be happy with this.
Dissapointing.

In regards to this, Xaoc only moved over today – up until now the 2 guild statement has been perfectly accurate.

However, it would be great if we could keep the entirity of the numbers whine to a single thread, wouldn’t it.

Regarding the second comment – all I will say is it depends on why you think this goes against ‘community driven’.

Because most of GH was totally against them moving to Vabbi and were actively posting on the Vabbi topic how disgusted they were, but when they move to GH all of a sudden the imbalance isn’t as important anymore and they are welcomed.
Talk about being 2 faced…

Yeah they’ve further spoilt an already imbalanced matchup. GH now really does outnumber everyone 3-1, even RoF. I hope you guys bundle up a few quick tiers so you can get those ‘fair fights’. Just hope all these glory hunters you keep bringing in don’t drop you too hard when the fights get fair again (cos my god that is a lot of glory hunters now)

fab.3298:

Welcome Xoac, It’s great to have you with us. Here’s to a happy and long-standing partnership!

like with vabbi? XD

There were very mixed reactions and a lot of deliberation, however the details of the decision are not really of concern outside of the GH community so I won’t say anything else on the subject.

Krosan.2890:

Because most of GH was totally against them moving to Vabbi and were actively posting on the Vabbi topic how disgusted they were, but when they move to GH all of a sudden the imbalance isn’t as important anymore and they are welcomed.
Talk about being 2 faced…

A small amount of people don’t represent Gunnar’s hold and the whole community only an idiot would think that. We are moving up in tiers, we will need numbers and we welcomed Xaoc.. so be mad for all i care.

Afaik, Xaoc hasn’t ‘fully’ joined yet. I personally have seen about seven Xaoc players so far.

I know i kinda overreacted to their swap onto Vabbi – it really seemed as they went there just to seek easy ‘glory’ of low tiers, and it really seemed it would upset some kind of balance. Turned out they didn’t manage to wreak any havoc as it had seemed as they’re not the ‘old Xaoc’ anymore. The case with GH isn’t also any kind of ‘flooding’ or ‘surprise transfer’ with any ambitions of ‘becoming the new WvW server’ or ‘blocking the transfers for PvE guilds’ (hello, new folks on RoS).
Quite the opposite – folks from Xaoc approached GH in a mature, well-mannered conversations over our mumble, were very understanding and open; tbh it was a pleasant thing, but still quite a big surprise to everyone. Their new attitude really bodes well for future cooperation, but only time will tell us everything.

They did go there to seek glory, the only reason you are saying they weren’t now is because they joined GH. It’s painfully obvious…
And the only reason they are joining you is because they failed since they actually had opposition instead of free rolling like you will do this week.
Anyway its pretty funny to see all the GH guys who were totally against imbalancing tiers to now be strong fans of it since you got the transfers this time. Also funny to already see you retracting your earlier statements towards Xaoc.

Ventus.9483:

Yeah they’ve further spoilt an already imbalanced matchup. GH now really does outnumber everyone 3-1, even RoF. I hope you guys bundle up a few quick tiers so you can get those ‘fair fights’. Just hope all these glory hunters you keep bringing in don’t drop you too hard when the fights get fair again (cos my god that is a lot of glory hunters now)

Oh what a shame. Sorry that we vastly outnumber you i am, however this is our server and we will do what it takes to make it better. I will not explain the reasons but would say that you would do the same in our position.

Krosan.2890:

They did go there to seek glory, the only reason you are saying they weren’t now is because they joined GH. It’s painfully obvious…
And the only reason they are joining you is because they failed since they actually had opposition instead of free rolling like you will do this week.
Anyway its pretty funny to see all the GH guys who were totally against imbalancing tiers to now be strong fans of it since you got the transfers this time. Also funny to already see you retracting your earlier statements towards Xaoc.

Not against imbalanced servers but sick of playing them. Which was one of the reasons we dropped in tiers , I had a problem before with Xaoc and i have not fully retracted anything but given them a chance after meeting with them. Nice to see you are still acting like a fool

I hope the GH community doesn’t get affected by this as in my opinion RoF and GH have a very good community. Also I hope there wont be any cheating that might ruin the good reputation Gunners currently have.

Congrats Gunners, and better luck RoF.

Toxikthrash.2704:

Krosan.2890:

They did go there to seek glory, the only reason you are saying they weren’t now is because they joined GH. It’s painfully obvious…
And the only reason they are joining you is because they failed since they actually had opposition instead of free rolling like you will do this week.
Anyway its pretty funny to see all the GH guys who were totally against imbalancing tiers to now be strong fans of it since you got the transfers this time. Also funny to already see you retracting your earlier statements towards Xaoc.

Not against imbalanced servers but sick of playing them. Which was one of the reasons we dropped in tiers , I had a problem before with Xaoc and i have not fully retracted anything but given them a chance after meeting with them. Nice to see you are still acting like a fool

Yea because GH would totally not be acting the same way if they were in our shoes. O wait, you already were and you did act the same way. I guess we are all fools.
And I’m pretty sure you haven’t had a unbalanced matchup in about a month, which GH always claimed was your goal but it looks like winning 3 times got to your heads a bit.

Krosan.2890:

Toxikthrash.2704:

Krosan.2890:

They did go there to seek glory, the only reason you are saying they weren’t now is because they joined GH. It’s painfully obvious…
And the only reason they are joining you is because they failed since they actually had opposition instead of free rolling like you will do this week.
Anyway its pretty funny to see all the GH guys who were totally against imbalancing tiers to now be strong fans of it since you got the transfers this time. Also funny to already see you retracting your earlier statements towards Xaoc.

Not against imbalanced servers but sick of playing them. Which was one of the reasons we dropped in tiers , I had a problem before with Xaoc and i have not fully retracted anything but given them a chance after meeting with them. Nice to see you are still acting like a fool

Yea because GH would totally not be acting the same way if they were in our shoes. O wait, you already were and you did act the same way. I guess we are all fools.

You are clearly upset and slightly mad you are loosing but keep it on the GH v RoF v WSR thread.

Welcome Xaoc and it will be interesting to play with yee!

itsmee.7536:

I hope the GH community doesn’t get affected by this as in my opinion RoF and GH have a very good community. Also I hope there wont be any cheating that might ruin the good reputation Gunners currently have.

Congrats Gunners, and better luck RoF.

I’m so sorry for GH, but the chances of Xaoc not cheating are very slim, as anyone who has played against them will be able to tell you. I saw a few examples myself last week. Shame on you!

Any sightings of cheaters on GH will be screened/frapsed, if only possible, and sent over to ANet, by own GH players. Xaoc folks are very well aware of that and even approve of it.
Granted, you may get cheaters everywhere, just random ‘no name’ players deciding to test their luck some day, but we really do want to keep our own ranks clean and will keep a careful eye not only on our enemies, but also our allies – not limited to any of the newcomers.

So thats what you are considering fair play? Getting a high-tier guild to help you against us. REALLY fairplay 8(

Cheats are still something Gunnar’s won’t abide, tolerate or protect. The rumours of cheating was one of our key questions to XaoC and they, like any other Gunnar’s guild, hold the same stance that if anyone is seen to be cheating, action will instantly be taken. They have assured us that we can rely on them to uphold our zero-tolerance policy to cheats.

In broader scope, having stuck to Gunnar’s since launch and witnessed XoaC in the Blacktide building days and that thread, I was very sceptical about them and that they didn’t have the same morals and interests that Gunnar’s does. After chatting to them at length I was pleasantly surprised at the answers to all the questions we fired at them; it seems a very different guild from then, it is far smaller and holds the “fun over tier placement” line that we on Gunnar’s do.
I won’t go into everything as Insky’s post sets out Gunnar’s standards pretty well and I am reassured that XaoC will fit in well with that and our well-founded WvW Community. It’s what it’s all about anyway, a community.

Nakara.7108:

So thats what you are considering fair play? Getting a high-tier guild to help you against us. REALLY fairplay 8(

Don’t take this personally We don’t make our decisions on how much it’ll screw over Ring of Fire, we make our decisions based on what will make our community stronger, lasting and more enjoyable. Things will balance, and all will be rainbows and unicorns again.

Nakara.7108:

So thats what you are considering fair play? Getting a high-tier guild to help you against us. REALLY fairplay 8(

Someone else can take this..

drkn.3429:

Afaik, Xaoc hasn’t ‘fully’ joined yet. I personally have seen about seven Xaoc players so far.

I know i kinda overreacted to their swap onto Vabbi – it really seemed as they went there just to seek easy ‘glory’ of low tiers, and it really seemed it would upset some kind of balance. Turned out they didn’t manage to wreak any havoc as it had seemed as they’re not the ‘old Xaoc’ anymore. The case with GH isn’t also any kind of ‘flooding’ or ‘surprise transfer’ with any ambitions of ‘becoming the new WvW server’ or ‘blocking the transfers for PvE guilds’ (hello, new folks on RoS).
Quite the opposite – folks from Xaoc approached GH in a mature, well-mannered conversations over our mumble, were very understanding and open; tbh it was a pleasant thing, but still quite a big surprise to everyone. Their new attitude really bodes well for future cooperation, but only time will tell us everything.

I think I should come back on your mumble, cause your double face and your constant trolling are mysthic.

Nakara.7108:

So thats what you are considering fair play? Getting a high-tier guild to help you against us. REALLY fairplay 8(

We’re looking at rising a tier and we need to adjust. If we went there with our numbers (pre Xaoc) we would have been outnumbered during most of the day. We aren’t trying to screw over ROF, we’re simply trying to get ourselves into as good a position as possible for when free transfers end and we rise a tier.

I understand how bad it feels to lose 2 weeks in a row and obviously i would rather we faced opponents in a fair contest. Unfortunately, this week will be unfair for both you and WSR, but you need to understand that we didn’t plan this to screw you over. It’s not personal.

The way to get to higher tiers is getting better not getting better players to join you.

Nakara.7108:

The way to get to higher tiers is getting better not getting better players to join you.

Not on gunnars.. but lol.

XAOC are not better players then the GH guilds. Infact GH often slaughtered xaoc raids of 30+ people with just 5 defenders. I was once present when 4 people killed 40+ of them when they attacked a semi upgraded Hills in some of our early battles prior to BT being the FOTM server.

GH needed numbers. It plummeted down the ranks due to lack of them. Equal number fights they probably won 75% of the battles, especially in open field. And in keep defense they are very strong. The community was also very good.

Unfotunately I left the server after it no longer fit my guilds playstyle as we didnt want to always be on the defense and that was the case due to only being able to get people in the GH home boarder … but in all my time of playing I have not met a server that got better players, or more organisation. I can tell you one thing now, if my guild ever is left with low numbers that we cant enjoy the game then I would probably head back there (assuming Xaoc do not ruin the community)

We were going to rise without Xaoc, but without them it would have been extremely difficult for us once we got there. I really wish you guys would stop the sniping, i understand that you’re frustrated, but at this point it just seems petty. Your implying that we didn’t beat you fairly these past two weeks and that’s simply not the case.

The bitterness from RoF is sad, and disappointing. All that your achieving is putting a negative spin on what has actually been 4 good weeks of fights between us

fab.3298:

We were going to rise without Xaoc, but without them it would have been extremely difficult for us once we got there. I really wish you guys would stop the sniping, i understand that you’re frustrated, but at this point it just seems petty. Your implying that we didn’t beat you fairly these past two weeks and that’s simply not the case.

Oh I don’t imply it – I say it open: you don’t win fairly.

And you know why many of us are bitter? We were beaten for months by high-number servers till finally our tier settled on balanced fights – Now you’ve broken the balance again. Yeah great fun…

I believe not many in GH feel good for our current opponents, which we have already won against last couple of weeks. Intake of Xoac was certainly not to stomp on you even more, which is far too short sighted. Please keep discussion of that in our server vs server thread.

itsmee.7536:

I hope the GH community doesn’t get affected by this as in my opinion RoF and GH have a very good community.

Thanks for your concern. The community will continue our tone, events, and tight organisation. In the last couple of week the community has grown due to primarily internal server recruitment and better organisation, and we are currently stronger than ever.

We’ll then, there’s not much i can say to that. It’s just sour grapes on your part. You beat us the first week, we accepted it and moved on. I guess after week one you expected us to be a push over and we weren’t.

Sure, the balance is broken for this week. However, last week and the week before we beat you fairly.

Welcome aboard [Xaoc], looking forward to fighting with you.

Ray.2640:

Magus.6543:

Several days ago, Gunnar’s Hold community was approached by the [Xaoc] alliance with a request to move to Gunnar’s Hold EU.

During some hours of constructive talking in our voice communication, we have had a chance to ensure Gunnar’s Hold core gaming values will remain the highest and most important. Thanks to [Xaoc] for the friendly way to approach us, and for answering the questions we have had to you.

- Insky

Seems like this was handled way better then just jumping into the lowest tier and then posting screenshots of +600 scores on the forum, good on you guys for improving

Thanks for noticing what is actually the most essential part of the original post : )

The meetings we held were very honest and friendly from both sides. Like we both want it.

- Insky

Nakara.7108:

Oh I don’t imply it – I say it open: you don’t win fairly.

Oh wow, what prompted this? First week we faced each other, RoF won the matchup. You guys made the notorious alliance with RoS, and stomped on GH. Then RoS dropped and was replaced by WSR. At that point we had just lost yet another matchup, didn’t have any transfers in yet, just the same old hardened bunch we had since forever. And we beat you. What about that win was not fair? Did we cheat? Did we spy? Did we vastly outnumber you? What?

Since then we have had this internal bandwagon effect, more PvE players dipping their toes in wuvwuv, and some transfers. Sure now the matchup is no longer fair, but the point is we did not need any of this to win fair and square two weeks ago. Most of it is out of our control anyway. Xaoc approached us in a very mature and friendly manner, what should we say? kitten off we want to be stuck fighting WSR and RoF for all eternity?

You’re gona have your hands full with

Magus.6543:

- We do not tolerate exploits of any kind, and all guilds are expected to take immediate action on such behavior

Goodluck

Welcome [Xaoc]. ’nuff said

Even as someone who was initially sceptical about the Xaoc move, I find some of the reactions here surprising. Is the idea that we should have said to Xaoc: “Sorry, you can’t join us because we have to keep this tier 8 matchup as balanced as possible. We don’t want to leave this tier, after all!” — and that by welcoming them we’ve somehow done something “unfair”? That seems ridiculous.

You can’t say it’s not unfair lol, being from RoS, I also found the transfers we received unfair towards FoW, but not towards vabbi :p

And yes some of the guys are quite “hypocritical” here too.

cbabd.8053:

Even as someone who was initially sceptical about the Xaoc move, I find some of the reactions here surprising. Is the idea that we should have said to Xaoc: “Sorry, you can’t join us because we have to keep this tier 8 matchup as balanced as possible. We don’t want to leave this tier, after all!” — and that by welcoming them we’ve somehow done something “unfair”? That seems ridiculous.

Tbh I do find it a little amusing that you welcomed Xaoc to your server. If I remember correctly the most outspoken and persistent posts on the vabbi alliance thread condemning their move there were made by Gunnars Hold posters. Hypocritical springs to mind. Nothing wrong with wanting to strengthen your server, just don’t look like hypocrites doing it. I guess we still have 8 more days of uncertainty before servers and players know where they stand. Good luck to GH on their endeavours

I had some great fights with GH the last weeks and i didnt mind losing against them as well because their victories were well earned. I didnt even mind losing the weekly matchups against them. You always had some great weekend coverage and we had some slight advantage during the week. For that fact, it was a great learning match-up because most of the time, you could look at the maps and choose, if you would like to defend somewhere or join an attacking force. Most of the time, battles where that close, that you could already make a difference with a group of 5. It was a great enviroment to bring new wvw players in there.
I also had great respect for GH, how they improved their wvw community until now.
I wouldnt have thought that GH would take a guild like that with open arms like you have done. I am aware that you cant prevent them from joining their server but the statement you released here made me lose alot of respect for you guys. You have done such a tremendous job getting better at wvw I wonder why you choose hte easy route now.
I hope you learn alot, waking up to 4 green maps for the rest of the week. Usually I would have wished you good luck when you eventually tiered up but now I hope you struggle.

Cheers, anyways…

Well this has now buggered up wvw for all of the lower tiers since the tier above GH was balanced pretty evenly.
RoF and WR will probably not do very well against Underworld when they drop since they were pretty balanced against the tier above.

The only way I can see this balancing out is if Blacktide drops past Underworld and down into the bottom tiers which basically swaps them with GH, otherwise this move will probably ruin wvw for a lot of people.

It basically pushes everyone down by 1 which means the 1st server on each matchup is a higher tier and has been for a while so will probably crush the others.

Last time we fought you guys were a proud group that wouldn’t move servers and didn’t ask others to move over. I know a lot of them will not have had a say in the matter but allowing a Russian Alliance on a British server seems like betraying your community for an easier win.

You guys are acting like Xaoc are some kind of monsters or the black sheep of a lovely family. These guys are normal people who just wants to play the game like all of us.
From what i remember back in October where we faced them, they were a preety organised guild, we didn’t have any flame wars at the forums and they were the main reason we lost to Blacktide back then.
All of you holy warriors of fair play, flaming people because they welcomed Xaoc. Really?
Is it so bad to welcome someone who joins your server?

Phoenix.3416:

Well this has now buggered up wvw for all of the lower tiers since the tier above GH was balanced pretty evenly.
RoF and WR will probably not do very well against Underworld when they drop since they were pretty balanced against the tier above.

The only way I can see this balancing out is if Blacktide drops past Underworld and down into the bottom tiers which basically swaps them with GH, otherwise this move will probably ruin wvw for a lot of people.

It basically pushes everyone down by 1 which means the 1st server on each matchup is a higher tier and has been for a while so will probably crush the others.

Last time we fought you guys were a proud group that wouldn’t move servers and didn’t ask others to move over. I know a lot of them will not have had a say in the matter but allowing a Russian Alliance on a British server seems like betraying your community for an easier win.

I would like to point out that next week it will be UW vs RoF vs RoS, tyvm

Thanks for the warm welcome to all Gunnar’s Hold players.

Just a few statements for the part of community who want to know more and some more food for the forum trolls.

1. The Vabbi part of the story – you could call it a success or a failure we do not care, we set the goals before transfer to Vabbi, we accompished most of them, sadly not all since the transfers are going to be paid.
(Personally i do realise that most people here never heard of marketing and virus advertisment).
a. The cheating part of the story – like said before (but people just dont want to read because they are doing kittens (© Anet) in eyes).

Xaoc is against any sort of cheating and any member of Xaoc caught on cheating with evidence will be permanently removed from the guild.

2. Gunnar’s part of the story – before doing the transfer to anywhere within EU server’s list we approached several servers which were identified. Because we dont want to join a server with WvW community without being accepted, and i want to be clear on that one if a server would be unhappy to see us we wont join it.

We are happy to become part of Gunnar’s Hold community which seem very friendly and helpfull, the level of cooperation is impressive so far, and we do hope you will enjoy playing with us as much as we do.

3. Questions / Drama / Hate i welcome you to whisper me ingame on Demannu.2805 with all your concerns and feedback and obviously trolling. If it makes you feel better.

Cheers and lets have fun, personally i propose ingame but as long as you are happy to have fun on the forums let it be so.

Champion of Khorne

Genotix.6804:

You guys are acting like Xaoc are some kind of monsters or the black sheep of a lovely family. These guys are normal people who just wants to play the game like all of us.
From what i remember back in October where we faced them, they were a preety organised guild, we didn’t have any flame wars at the forums and they were the main reason we lost to Blacktide back then.
All of you holy warriors of fair play, flaming people because they welcomed Xaoc. Really?
Is it so bad to welcome someone who joins your server?

It was Xaoc that dragged away half of GH’s wvw active numbers to Blacktide in the first place. Had they not dragged away the active portion of the [INT] alliance then the picture on GH would be very different now. GH only lost to Blacktide due to the nightime pvdooring.

I want to see GH rebuild as it’s a fantastic server, but the damage this guild did to GH is unforgivable, to see them joining the server makes me feel a bit sick inside…. BUT I understand needs must and hope it does help bring a bit more activity to WvW on Gh.

I do not think they dragged them against their own will:)
They made them an offer, they accepted it end of story.
As for GH do not worry about us mate. Last 3 weeks were awesome and the morale is high atm.