In the current state of the game there will never be balance and will never end in a close match-up. Are there any matches out there where the servers are pretty equal in points? I play on Fort Aspenwood which is a “mid tier” server and yet our points are way beyond the other two servers combined. I wake up in the morning and we own the entire map. However this seems to be happening at every match-up from the top tiers to the bottom tiers. Next weeks matches will be the same story except a different server will own the entire map every night. While it seems unfair to block out certain parts of the world from playing on a server something really needs to be done to keep the longevity of the game going.
I also think there needs to be more incentive for PvP oriented players in WvW other than enjoyment of the gameplay. I love the gameplay don’t get me wrong, but the gameplay alone won’t keep people playing for long periods of time. Starcraft 2 had a huge player base at release but Blizzard never expanded on the other features. Where was the clan support, auto tourneys in like in war3, global leaderboards, etc? The player base of sc2 fell flat in short time. While this isn’t sc2 it could learn from a similar mistake that assuming gameplay alone keep people playing for a long time.
Currently the reward for winning is just PvE buffs and sever pride. Being a PvP player I could really care less about what PvE buffs I get. Sure I also can passively get more health and such but if the other servers are receiving this too then it’s not really a buff for PvP and only for PvE. I’m not even sure I want my server to be a winning server with the ques. All that would mean is more people transferring to my server to win and increase my wait time to enjoy WvW.
I was disappointed in Mike’s current state of the WvW article today as it didn’t really address anything aside from how to avoid a shorter que. (transfer to a lower pop server) I think the larger issues are what I stated above. WvW’s state is fine for someone who wants to casually enter a WvW now and then. For the people who primary want to WvW and the WvW guilds I think there needs to be more to look forward to than some PvE buff and my server moving up a spot. Just a few quick ideas would be better recognition for extraordinary players and guilds. If people could make a name for themselves they would have more incentive to play than for their server.
I would love to hear other people’s thoughts and if they are similar to mine. I apologize if this post came off as an unorganized ‘dear diary’ rant. I had a few beers and just wanted to shout to the world how I feel about WvW.
Thanks for the read and feel free to post your thoughts.