Guild Wars 2

I don’t think any of this will help, because the identity of linked worlds is with permanent switching guilds and multiple TS3 servers non existent.

To improve the identity ingame will not change the mentality of the people outside (on TS3 and transfer behaviour)

I’d go for option 2. it sounds simpler ( for players).

Especially with the name plate changes you just mentioned.

I like the idea of it no longer being “host” & “guest” but simply, members of a faction/alliance.

@ McKenna, It’s clear you’ve been reading these forums, and tried to really take on board the ideas discussed. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I appreciate your efforts to make wvw fun again

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

The team has been looking at ways to improve the server identity within the World Linking System. We have come up with several potential solutions, and we’d like your feedback on them.

Solution 1: Alliance Names Proposal

Every time worlds are linked, an alliance name would be generated for the linked worlds.
• Names would be generated from a pool of names that we create.
• Once a name is being used it would not be used again until the pool ran out of names.
• NA and EU would not share the same names.
• An alliance name would be preserved until every name in the pool of names was used. For example, the linked worlds of Crystal Desert and Eredon Terrace would always share the same alliance name until all names in the pool were used.
• The alliance name would be used instead of the host world’s name in almost all areas of the UI. Specifically, it will be used as the map name, the name that shows up when something is captured, and the name on the mist war panel. On the mist war panel, the + would continue to list all the worlds in the alliance.

Solution 2: Guild Focused Proposal

Instead of having an alliance name, worlds would be referred to by their color.
• The borderlands would now be called Red Desert Borderlands Green Alpine Borderlands, or Blue Alpine Borderlands.
• The color designation would replace the “host” world’s name in almost all areas except within announcements.
• When objectives were captured, the name of the guild that contributed most when capturing the objective would be displayed. For example, “Objective Captured! [Guild Name] has captured [objective name].”

Solution 3: Some Guest Names Proposal

In areas where there is more player involvement, such as capturing objectives, guest world names may appear.
• When objectives are captured it would now display the guest world’s name: “Objective Captured! [Guest World Name] has captured [objective name].”
• The map name would remain the host world’s name.
• We would not display guest world names to enemies because we believe that would make fighting enemies more confusing since it would be harder to tell which world you were fighting.

Questions:
1. Which proposal is your favorite?
2. What, if anything, would you change about any of the current proposals?
3. Is there another proposal you think is better?

Solution 1: given I love my server and never moved I would realy like to keep my server tag.

Solution 2: would be problematic for smaller guild groups that are focused on capturing stuff in enemy territory because it would be too easy for defender to figure out how strong that group is (those guilds are known). It would only lead to constantly swapping to alt guilds. Fighting guilds don’t care for that option at all.

Solution 3: doesn’t sound realy logic tbh

Other proposal: Why not bind the outgoing messages to the homworld of the client?
For example: a player from (linked) Desolation sees his server tag on capture messages while a player from Vabbi (linked with Deso) does see his (and all map names).

Another proposal: while you working on those messages….could you make them optional or at least the UI movable? They are always in the way and popping up in a moment you realy don’t need them.

The game is called Guild Wars. Option 2 is the best by far.

Merge all servers in 3 alliances, guild join alliances, create overflows weekly according to the population of the previous week.

Hello, unfortunately I’m one of the few people that doesn’t know what they feel about any of the things stated above. However, I’d like to give my suggestion even though its kind of ridiculous and requires a lot of work.

The suggestion:
Since WvWvW is a three-way match, how about developing a third themed world map for our beloved game mode. This would make it so each color has their own style/theme borderlands map.
I don’t know the specifics and complexity of making a map for WvWvW but if you can make it for PvE content and mention in some comment that a new map for every LS3 episode comes out is a target then surely map making for our side of the game should be possible.
In my opinion, this can help with this “identity” everyone is so opinionated about(including me). (i.e. Darkhaven will be defending our jungle borderland, Kaineng will be attacking desert borderlands, SBI will be on EBG, and Ferguson’s Crossing will be attacking the alpine borderlands)
It also helps with “team-wide”(/t) calls with regards to identifying which objective is being attacked.

Building upon this suggestion is this one!

“REAL” suggestion(sorry, english isn’t really my first language):

After the above suggestion is made by some unbelievable dedication, love and passion for our game mode. I ask that all servers be exploded. Yes, deleted. Then have a prompt for EVERY SINGLE PLAYER in guild wars 2 which of the 3 "factions/tribes/[insert any synonym]

For example: [Window is like that window when you finish personal story(big, kind of “in your face” window)]
“Hello Player! We have recently revamped our WvWvW system please take a few mins to choose between the three factions(lets just say factions for now) that you want to represent!”

Desert Sand[something] = Desert Borderlands
Alpine Snow[something] = Alpine Borderlands
New Borderlands Something[something] = New Borderlands

So, what you have now is 3 distinct faction/maps all fighting for their land and additionally ebg. Identity is strong.

Now in a perfect world where all population is balanced and no server hopping, I believe this would be great but that’s not reality and some form of population inbalance will/might happen.

To that, I propose to have a dynamic “bonus” system, that actively keeps count of active WvWvW players and weighs in on it based on the ratio. Kind of like the outnumbered buff.

Server with a high population gets everything as it is,
Server with the second highest population gets 1 and a half more to their maximum supply and siege does extra 10% damage(anything about siege, just an example)
Server with the lowest population gets twice the maximum supply on a character and siege does extra 25% damage, npcs on objectives deal more damage and the ability to use shrines as limited(player capped) wp’s are activated.

Please note: the conditions stated above this are all bullkitten, its just my example of incentivizing to join the lower one because of this “advantage” that they basically never get being on the more highly populated server.

But yeah! That’s my proposal I guess. Its my first ever post in this forum
I’m usually on reddit, Newbie028.

Thank you for your time,
Fate

Out of these, the third solution seems the best. Though it’s still not quite ideal. I really hate the idea of JQ losing its identity to some generic team name or color based name. Remember with megaservers, WvW is the main focus for server identity.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Since a lot of nameplate suggestions are coming up in this thread I figured I would let everyone know that the simple nameplate feature will be coming. Simple nameplates will be an option to replace either enemy or everyone’s names with a colored icon – red, green, or blue – and the only thing that will show besides the colored icon is the guild tag and commander tag. We want to reduce nameplate clutter in WvW and not add to it, which is why a nameplate suggestion was not one of the 3 proposed solutions. Also it should be noted that titles do not display in WvW (outside of a soon to be fixed bug where they display to squad members.) So displaying your world name through the title system would not be a good solution either.

Absolutely awesome!!! Tyvm!

Option 1 I dont like at all, I think it would further destroy world identity to just assign sides yet another name each time they are paired with someone new.

Option 2 I do like the sound of as it pushes guilds more into the spotlight but I also think this would not be good for preserving world identities at all (which I am ok with so long as it is an intended decision and not a side effect) and if you go this route I think it is (or should be) heading towards the end destination of getting rid of this idea of worlds and replacing them (perhaps with guilds or groups of guilds)

Option 3 is the one most likely to help towards preserving world identities but I think it would need to change a little bit and steal from option 2.
The way I see this option working would be having any objectives taken called out as captured by server, or if both linked servers particpated than captured by server a and server b.
If you are worried about the amount of text on screen, most people these days know the abbreviations and if not can ask about them for example Henge of Denravi can be cut down to HoD or Isle of Janthir to IoJ.
In terms of how other players see you there is the simple solution of just using borderlands colors as the names but I do think it is important to have server names involved. I have an idea but I don’t know how difficult it would be to implement, if the name plate was the color of the server then the text could be the name of the server without causing confusion as to which side that player is on.
Then of course in the UI both server names (or their abbreviations) would be listed.

My vote goes for Solution 2: Guild Focused Proposal

Beacouse it also provide more reason to be in a guild, wvw is slowly going down in numbers so gather players together is an effective way to slow down the process.

Rather server names mean nothing those days, so call them green/blue/red or another name is the same. Starting with the first time servers got linked on there is no real reason to have a ladder a server name or even tournaments, it is just a matter to have ppl to play with and againist…

Alliance names, just use the abbreviation instead the long name on top of players.

Just make alliances to go with the names, not the current linking, where not the names hidden are the problem – but the worlds being thrown around and belong nowhere. All players deserve a permanent home, that is fundamental to RvR, there is no reason to fight otherwise.

Solution 2 is the best. Make WvW become EOTM , link all the server from T1to8 together and come with overflow maps / mega server would be nice. The population imbalance issue can finally be fixed.

Or just have all the server names visible? Hiding everyone’s names behind new names or guilds accomplishes nothing.

Malediktus.3740:

I want server merges instead of server linkings, so no to all 3

This ^

I like a combination of 2 and 3 – maps are by color, effort (i.e. capturing) is by guild and server identity.

If it isn’t something like red silver general (FA) I wouldn’t waste time. Too many don’t like the generic eotm references. Guilds are somewhat problematic with crows server guilds, bank guilds, and multi guilds pug zergs.

Maybe UI option to turn 2 digit server tag on or off for those that want shorter names….

Vavume.8065:

Malediktus.3740:

I want server merges instead of server linkings, so no to all 3

This ^

pretty much that

Name changes? Is this serious? Why does it matter what we call ourselves? I want WvW issues fixed not all these silly things you guys keep coming up with. Siege cannons, repair hammers, name changes? Let’s get some fixes to WvW that are more meaningful like the nameplate change, adjusting commander icons, siege camping, coverage issues, etc. Those are the things that should be WAY ahead of what we call ourselves.

Why not make it simple? If you’re on, let’s say Devona’s Rest and the camp A is captured regardless if by Host or Guest, make it so it shows the server YOU ARE on.

Same thing with the map names. Why not just show Your server to you? Instead of looking for the house icon or hovering over names looking for my own server, I’d like to see my server in available map’s names. Others can still see The map named after the host, but I want to see my own server’s name. Because being guest for the past few months made my server pride plummet to the ground. It’s more of a being a mercenary for “the big server” that’s hosting us…

So basically if we capture camp A and I’m on server Y (guest) I still see:

“Objective Captured! [MY World Name] has captured [objective name].”

Even if others see it as:

“Objective Captured! [Host World Name] has captured [objective name].”

I like option 2. Why because it promotes the guilds them selves. Which will do a lot more for guilds growth and recognition. While I do recognize the odd specific people from the server community, its usually groups that I recognize more than anything else.
Servers come and go with linkings as do people with migration, guild tags I always recognize those.

I think option 1 alienates both groups.

Option 3 would be better if option 2 can’t be done.

One and three look the most appealing to me. That said, personally I believe that the best solution to the WvW problem comes in the form of server merging. Would having 15 servers be a viable solution?

Can you take the population of the bottom 9 servers and distribute those servers individually into the top 15?

If you end up with a server way over population could you offer players on that server a free transfer off to any Medium population server of their choosing with a end date on the offer instead of a population threshold to ensure that guilds are able to stay together?

Just some food for thought. I feel like the real issue is that player pop went down, but server count did not adapt. Pull the people out of the ghost town servers, give them a stick and let the higher pop servers remind them how much fun it is swinging it.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Since a lot of nameplate suggestions are coming up in this thread I figured I would let everyone know that the simple nameplate feature will be coming. Simple nameplates will be an option to replace either enemy or everyone’s names with a colored icon – red, green, or blue – and the only thing that will show besides the colored icon is the guild tag and commander tag. We want to reduce nameplate clutter in WvW and not add to it, which is why a nameplate suggestion was not one of the 3 proposed solutions. Also it should be noted that titles do not display in WvW (outside of a soon to be fixed bug where they display to squad members.) So displaying your world name through the title system would not be a good solution either.

That’s a great idea!

Does this mean a blue team member will see enemy as:
Red Invader, Green Invader? This format (with no guild tag) would be great! Players won’t be able to tell who the commander is by guild tag, hence more fair.

However for the allies/teammates on the same blue team, would it be difficult for players to team up with people they know since allies now have no name tags? And what about people in squads/parties? Maybe only people in groups can see eachothers’ names + guild tag? Everyone else outside squad/party would just read: Blue Ally?

As well, what about profession nameplates from GW1 and blue party numbers? Would this encourage team play + party search while at the same time de-cluttering nameplates? (screenshot attached)

Currently it’s really hard to tell who is in your sub-group with a 50man zerg, what if people in your subgroup had full names/guild tags displayed while other allies in zerg have nameplates like Blue Ally?

What do you guys think?

If we still have to have the server linking, I would suggest just using option 1 with the alliance name being the map name. It makes it simpler. Also, I think we should just use the alliance name to report who has captured what. Giving more credit to a guild just because they have more people at the capture seems to ignore the impact the others had to achieve it. If anything it should be the commander and his group that gets credit.

Option 1 = EotM system, well ok guess that works well enough. Would this lead to getting rid off/condensing all servers since x amount of the time. It seems there is not enough population to maintain how many servers there is atm. How does this hamper/control the constant timezone issues we face though.

Option 2 = seems like a great way to alienate small/medium size guilds. If not that easy rage targets should x scribe buffs are not running on said objective taken

Option 3 = N/A no thoughts towards this one.

ANet will miss a huge opportunity to create an epic game mode.

Why aren’t you encouraging Players to be emotionally invested.

Don’t you realize how critical “Team” identity can be?

Professional Sports are prime examples of what crazy fans are capable of when spending money for their love of “Team”.

The proposals that are presented here will only create a blase level of interest…imho

If you want players that will crazily throw money at you…make them emotionally invested.

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Try a Google Search for – wvg world vs globes

Since we are mixing servers on a single team anyway the identity is already muddled. New names aren’t going to help.

Why not just go with the above nameplate option? “Red has captured [x]” “Blue has captured [Y]”… Similar naming works fine in Edge of the Mists and it simplifies having to figure out naming going forward if new server worlds are added.

If we need to figure out which servers we are linked to, that information can still be in the WvW dialog window.

Telemin.7380:

My two cents: This is too little too late, considering that server identities have been systematically killed off with pve mega server and current world linking.

So, I guess I am saying leave it as it is and not use any development time on it.

What he said

I’m not very keen on 1&2, however, 3 seems like a good idea to somewhat improve the situation.

Given there’s a simplified nameplate feature coming, perhaps the coloured icon can be different for each server (same colour for linked worlds of course). The colour allows the team to be quickly ascertained, but the icon identifies the specific server.

The icon can be part of the server identity. It would be good if it were possible to show all linked server icons on the maps next to the map name. Hovering over an icon would bring a tooltip up with the name of the server.

Maybe if this is implemented, a weighted random selection for a linked servers name can be chosen, rather than the largest linked server. The largest servers would generally have their name on the map, but every now and then the smaller server (in comparison) get a turn.

Reading through the replies and putting all the reasonable suggestions together, I am suggesting a option 4 which is….

Shorten the server names into their initials like….
Pink Nation become “PN”, displaying “PN” on everything
Pink Nation + Blue Nation will become “PN/BN”, displaying as “PN/BN” instead of just “Pink Nation”

I believe it can be quite easily done and will fit just well into the existing UI.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Since a lot of nameplate suggestions are coming up in this thread I figured I would let everyone know that the simple nameplate feature will be coming. Simple nameplates will be an option to replace either enemy or everyone’s names with a colored icon – red, green, or blue – and the only thing that will show besides the colored icon is the guild tag and commander tag. We want to reduce nameplate clutter in WvW and not add to it, which is why a nameplate suggestion was not one of the 3 proposed solutions. Also it should be noted that titles do not display in WvW (outside of a soon to be fixed bug where they display to squad members.) So displaying your world name through the title system would not be a good solution either.

If this feature is optional how does it invalidate the idea I proposed?
(Red Gold Soldier AR)
If anything this option to use a colored icon only strengthens my suggestion because you can no longer use the argument that casual players will find the system confusing. Anyone that can’t remember what server they are on or what paired servers they are fighting can just turn on the simple nameplate.

For the rest of us (especially roamers) that like to know who we are fighting, or fighting alongside, we can keep the simple nameplate off and learn what server everyone is on.

1. Which proposal is your favorite?

Solution 2: Guild Focused Proposal

The guild focused glory rewards are exactly what WvW needs. The guest server identies have pretty much died due linking.

Adding 51 new world names and 27 new world alliance names every 2 months is way too many. You will play with upto 7? other worlds linked to your side. That’s too many to claim victory for yourself should your side win.

2. What, if anything, would you change about any of the current proposals?

Include team color in the guild focused announcement.

Display the announcements in chat only. Mid screen announcements should be reserved for server messages only.

Expand the guild focused announcements to include major battles. For example “Green [ABC] has defeated red [Much] in a fight near [Redbriar]”. Major battles shape the matchup maybe even more than objectives. Often 3 wipes in a rapid succession is enough for a squad to move to another map.

3. Is there another proposal you think is better?

Return back to non-linked worlds. Merge servers and reduce playable area in a matchup if need be. Introduce strict migration policies to keep the populations equal but yet allow guilds to transfer as whole. Adjust worlds’ Glicko parameters when transfers occur. Publish weekly activity levels for all worlds.

As someone who is directly affected by these decisions (mostly WvW-Player, playing on Dzagonur since the beginning, linked with Abaddon’s Mouth, witnessed by our enemies as Abaddon player) I am extremely disappointed by these choices.

I am proud of my server. When i came back to the game 2 years ago, we were in the lowest tier. But we got our kitten together, threw in some gold to finance our best commanders, established a coverage and slowly worked our way up again. When the world linkings hit, we were in the mid of climbing silver league, beating our rivals in long standing (Abaddon’s Mouth and Elona Reach) every week. We attracted our fair share of bandwagoners, but the core of the Dzago WvW players was always what made the server work – and we were proud that we could show our enemies that we did it, against all odds.

And all of a sudden, we’re linked to Abaddon. A server that we spanked in fights for 7 weeks in a row and that only got points due to nightcapping. We were like: WTF?

But okay, we were focussing up, got all those Aba scrubs in line and formed one of the mightiest WvW-alliances that are there at the moment. Last week Abaddon got its first silver medal.

Yes. Abaddon got it. Abaddon. No mentioning of Dzagonur here.

Don’t get me wrong, I do understand technical limitations and economical choices. But even the community of Abaddon says that they are carried by Dzagonur and not the other way round. We want our identity back.

tl;dr:
Please give us a [DZ] Plate next to our name. Or anything like it. Please, please please do not take server identity away even more than you already did. You are slowly ruining what is left of a game mode we love.

1. SOLN1: I think that’s just going to take away identity more, eventually names won’t even mean anything to anyone.
SOLN2: Interesting, but how does that have anything to do with identity outside of each individual guild? Not to mention it would be extremely confusing as well.
SOLN3: My favourite out of these three. Although it sound pretty limited on how much it would actually change the current state.

2. How about mixing solution 1 and solution 3? Give the alliance a name (in panel UI – hover over to display servers, map UI). When a server captures an objective, display the respective server’s REAL name.
Within the alliance, try to make as much separation and distinctions as possible. To the opposing teams, just display the alliance’s name in the nameplate and interface? Objective capture message can show the respective server’s REAL name to the opposing team, just give it the correct background color.
and plz do away the host-guest server relationship

It’d be great if you could make it feel like an alliance of individual server (with separate identities) coming together (give it an alliance name) to fight the alliance of the other servers (where you would only care about their alliance name).
PVE analogy is (Order of Whisper, Priory, Vigil coming together to form the Pact to fight Elder Dragons (notice Elder Dragons? no one cares as much about the individual dragons in this case)

Maybe have a small marker or something to mark which servers they’re from for enemies?

3. I won’t recommend merging servers because linking is way better than having to remerging every few months for balance. idk idk, it is a hard topic to solve.

Ideally I would want a System like option 1. Whereas each world’s name is combined.

Example: if Jade Quarry(higher ranked) and Eredon Terrace where to merge
The first word would be the first word of the higher ranked server. (Jade)
The Second word would be the second word of the lower ranked server (Terrance)
So this merger would be “Jade Terrance”

Additionally any use of “of” is used. (So Jade Quarry and Henge of Denravi = Jade of Denravi)

I really like option 2.

I really don’t think you should be catering to people who care about ‘server identity’ when their guild is what is important.

IF I were to change anything else – I really like EotM-style linking. I know you can’t do that for WvW because the queues would be massive, but it’s something to think about for the future.

What really bothered me about the guest server thing when world linking started is i mostly only wvw with people on my server and so a whole group of only FoW people would capture an objective and it’d say (Host server captured an objective) and we’re like what there’s not a single (host server member) here. And that has continued to grind my gears although less so as time has worn on. Yes host server holds the bulk of the population but if you didn’t need to be a host you wouldn’t be one. People complained about population imbalance before linking and they’re complaining about it after linking. Maybe we just like to complain.

I would prefer something simple like the server with the most members present gets the capture announcement. That would suffice for preserving my server identity just fine. I don’t even care if the host server gets their name over the borderland. Because even if theres two x members and 1 x member capturing a tower you can’t say the 1 x member did more work no matter how good he is. Those two members carried twice the sup and gave twice the targets to defenders.

I don’t think the general idea of the first proposal necessarily requires generating a bunch of unique names. Some parts of the current UI already use the colors to refer to each faction (Bloodlust). Why not just call them things like “Crimson Alliance”, “Viridian Alliance”, “Cobalt Alliance” and be done with it? That should be very straightforward to implement — simpler than all the other proposed solutions.

And guilds can already get credit by claiming a structure. The system currently only excludes guildless players from guest worlds from getting any credit.

Any system that involves giving credit to only whoever has the most members present could cause intra-faction squabbling and tiresome silliness of that kind. Furthermore, if a World X roamer kills everything in a camp and then a World Y zerg comes along just to stand in the capture circle, why should World Y be considered for credit over World X?

I prefer the 2nd one.
As for a system that’s better, I would choose the gw1 pvp system (it actually worked) and just increase the max number of players on a team to 20 and make it a three way battle.
Even wow is getting a 15v15 arena battle

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

• When objectives were captured, the name of the guild that contributed most when capturing the objective would be displayed. For example, “Objective Captured! [Guild Name] has captured [objective name].”

Oh you mean like when you are capping a camp alone, kill all the guards etc and in the last second another person jumps into the circle and for some reason he can claim first? No thx.

We would not display guest world names to enemies because we believe that would make fighting enemies more confusing since it would be harder to tell which world you were fighting.

Honestly I wouldn’t have any issues with this or even get confused. I don’t know which standards you have when it comes to player intelligence, but I don’t expect this to be a problem when people can see beforehand which servers are linked up together. Better yet, it would identify a group or guild much better because you KNOW they were from a specific server. Just generalizing a link up is not fun at all. And we all know that some servers in the past or in the present have some type of grudge or hostile feelings to eachother.

1. Which proposal is your favorite?
None. But if I had to pick, I would go for option 2 or 3 with some changes.

2. What, if anything, would you change about any of the current proposals?
See question 3

3. Is there another proposal you think is better?
Someone mentioned, displaying their server but infront of their server name, have either “red”, “blue” or “green” infront of their names so you won’t have a chance to be confused about it. You can identify yourself to a color like we have always done and you can identify yourself from a specific server towards the enemy. When your side captures something, either be it “captured by <color> alliance”. And maybe incase a big majority of a guild capped it, do “captured by <guild> from the <color> alliance”.

Thank you for asking and not just implementing. Appreciate very much the opportunity to dialogue here with the Devs and other WvW players.

1. Which option do I like? none of them.

However, the ‘broadcast system’ is part of the problem, not the server identity displayed.

Can we get a poll on whether to keep that broadcast system?

• in my face when it pops up – give me the option to move it or turn it off. I ignore it most times, anyway.
• gives me information I DON’T want – I know which server pairing took it by the color the object changes to – no need for a broadcast of any server/alliance/linking info.
• gives me the name of the objective when we use the directional information to refer to objectives – NE camp, SE Tower, Hills, Bay. Because “While the two borderlands maps are physically identical, the locations on them have different names.” So, the notice system gives me LESS information when I have to figure out where is: “The Godsword”, for example.
• doesn’t give me information I DO want – How many players took that camp? What is their guild tag? Which way did they head from there?
• doesn’t broadcast when we proc outnumbered buff and tell me HOW outnumbered we are: “You have the outnumbered buff. 25 players just entered map through Hills Waypoint”. Now, THAT is information I could use.

2 – What would you change about current proposals? – Do NOT broadcast guild names. We do not claim objectives at certain times on purpose – so that the opposition does not know we (guild) are on map. So, yea – no thank you. We would like to remain in control of whether to disclose our guild’s presence on a map.. We don’t want the system taking that out of our control.

3. Is there another proposal you’d suggest? -Get rid of the broadcast system altogether

Eliminate the broadcast system – some of the naming problem (what to display) is solved.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hi,

The moderator team is going to have to do quite a bit of clean-up on this thread, so let’s get a few things straight:

• This is a well-intentioned thread by the World versus World Team. They are inviting your feedback and engaging on an important subject. Please do share your thoughts.
• To those of you sharing valid feedback, sincere thanks!
• The WvW Team is not involved with game balance.

A. Given the above, I am first assuming this aesthetic change will not greatly impact other potential game play issues.

1. Option 2. It is the only option to enhance the raw game play experience, and that to me is a long term change. From that perspective, the game play itself lacks clarity in communication, and giving a Team Color only helps by adding more visual communication. The colors are always there, while the server/alliance names would change too often.

2. I am indifferent on the guild name, but a simple [TAG] would suffice. We wouldn’t want to see a guild called MMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmm [MMMM] spammed across the screen every time they capture a camp.

3. In regards to “recognition issues”, not really. Desire for recognition is a player issue first, and might mean the game play does not satisfy them enough. However, aesthetics are the best way to solve said issue.

B. Given the above quote, whereby I assume this change will drain more effort from other game play changes.

1. Don’t do any or pick the one that requires less than a week or two.

2. Doing this will allow time to make game play changes that are more important than aesthetic identity issues.

3. Good game play changes will draw in (and keep) more players, so they can then form their own communities around their desired activity (in this case WvW).

Regardless of what is chosen, always try to ask, and predict: Will this help or hinder the game play? And why?

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Solution 2: Guild Focused Proposal

Instead of having an alliance name, worlds would be referred to by their color.
• The borderlands would now be called Red Desert Borderlands Green Alpine Borderlands, or Blue Alpine Borderlands.
• The color designation would replace the “host” world’s name in almost all areas except within announcements.
• When objectives were captured, the name of the guild that contributed most when capturing the objective would be displayed. For example, “Objective Captured! [Guild Name] has captured [objective name].”

{snip}

Questions:
1. Which proposal is your favorite?
2. What, if anything, would you change about any of the current proposals?
3. Is there another proposal you think is better?

1— Well, the game is Guild Wars 2, so proposal 2 makes the most sense to me. However, as to your other questions;

2— If we’re going with option 2, to prevent really small guilds or F2P guilds from taking prominence away from guilds that have been here, you might want to limit those messages to guilds that could (don’t have to, just have the upgrades to) claim the objective. For example, TACO can claim Camps, Towers, and Keeps. We’re mostly roamers (used to be, anyway… ) and so we never bothered with SMC claiming. If we helped take SMC, our name would not be in the list of possibilities for displaying the name. Likewise, a guild that could only claim camps at this point would be out of the running to display their name in taking a tower.

3— Why not finally get rid of worlds entirely, and just go with a series of guild alliances?

As a side note… it would be nice if we extended claiming objectives to Edge of the Mists… I want my extra supply.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Since a lot of nameplate suggestions are coming up in this thread I figured I would let everyone know that the simple nameplate feature will be coming. Simple nameplates will be an option to replace either enemy or everyone’s names with a colored icon – red, green, or blue – and the only thing that will show besides the colored icon is the guild tag and commander tag. We want to reduce nameplate clutter in WvW and not add to it, which is why a nameplate suggestion was not one of the 3 proposed solutions. Also it should be noted that titles do not display in WvW (outside of a soon to be fixed bug where they display to squad members.) So displaying your world name through the title system would not be a good solution either.

Also, thank you for this.

Option 1 treats all players the same, which would be a nice change. I assume Alliance names will change every time the combination of servers does so this is what players on “guest” servers experience anyway.

Option 2 is impersonal and very EotM but would also work. The guild bit seems the same as claiming objectives.

Option 3 could provide more value to “guest” server contributions. Now give us points for our work and this could be a decent option. I assume you’ll use the majority server name for the broadcast, so this will still tend to favour the larger “host” server as they are likely to have more players at the capture.

My choice: 1 or 3.

Also, regarding the “simple nameplate” feature: please, please, please also differentiate the icons by shape as well as color. Please keep in mind color-vision impairments when you implement these QOL changes. Please.

1 would work for me if alliance assignment was permanent for given servers. At that point one would be fighting for server and alliance, building camaraderie, relationships, and identity.

Otherwise all of the proposed changes would be meaningless, in my opinion, and not at all address my reasons for disengagement from the game mode.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Since a lot of nameplate suggestions are coming up in this thread I figured I would let everyone know that the simple nameplate feature will be coming. Simple nameplates will be an option to replace either enemy or everyone’s names with a colored icon – red, green, or blue – and the only thing that will show besides the colored icon is the guild tag and commander tag. We want to reduce nameplate clutter in WvW and not add to it, which is why a nameplate suggestion was not one of the 3 proposed solutions. Also it should be noted that titles do not display in WvW (outside of a soon to be fixed bug where they display to squad members.) So displaying your world name through the title system would not be a good solution either.

Unrelated to topic at hand but why is this the case? I can understand not displaying pvp/PvE titles in wvw, but what’s the point of the coveted wvw titles if you can’t display them in wvw, not to mention the demoralizing the enemy with Ultimate Dominator?

Jacion.6302:

Unrelated to topic at hand but why is this the case? I can understand not displaying pvp/PvE titles in wvw, but what’s the point of the coveted wvw titles if you can’t display them in wvw, not to mention the demoralizing the enemy with Ultimate Dominator?

Demoralise? It makes me laugh because the player has in all probability obtained the title farming in EOTM.

forumbugwhatchagonnado