Guild Wars 2

If they implemented this change as well in WvW like quite a few have mentioned in the past.. Making WvW faction based (for example) as opposed to server based, you’d solve the coverage issues in one fell swoop. Having 3 factions per say (mega servers with multiple even instances of each map), instead of 27 servers (high populated servers vs ghost town servers), you now have solved the problem.

People just have to let go of the “server pride” mentality for the greater good of the game.

Flytrap.8075:

Beorn Saxon.4762:

The megaserver concept seems to have been inspired by unsaid MMO about to launch. That MMO also has only 3 wvw teams(alliances). Not saying it’s good or bad. Just stating observations.

Thank you Captain Obvious.

Hrm. I think I’ll make that my new IGN.

Guys, but what if they assume the EoTM mode, but instead of “Wildland invader” they name you “Jade Quarry Invader” or “X-server Invader”. And additional to that they set you up with the guild/party/world matching mechanic?

That would be acceptable for me.

Beorn Saxon.4762:

The megaserver concept seems to have been inspired by unsaid MMO about to launch. That MMO also has only 3 wvw teams(alliances). Not saying it’s good or bad. Just stating observations.

While the game has 3 Factions and 1 mega server, technically it still has actual “servers” in regards to AvA

Whenever you select a Campaign, that’s like selecting your servers in GW2. how it differs from WvW is while the campaign has an end, The actual match doesn’t reset.. like Keeps/or Towers or anything, it simply hands out a reward based on how ya did and then starts over.

Ragnarok.4506:

I DO NOT want the borderlands and EB to end up like Eotm. EotM isn’t WvW, it is just a 95% karma train. eotm is a PVE map. I still want to fight for my server. I would not want to be a “green” or “overgrowth” and fight against “blue” “red”. if this happens. then wvw will most likely be ruined…

Embrace the badge and karma train.

The concept of servers as a competitive unit has never really worked as intended. Bandwagons have fueled every rise of a server, mass exoduses have caused every equally sharp decline. Few guilds on any given server are native so to speak, and many guilds transfer around frequently, be it for bandwagons, GvG, or the desire to try out a different tier. The same is true with many players that are basically server transients.

I’m not saying that the EotM concept is the answer, but don’t speak as though the server system doesn’t have many flaws as well. WvW needs a system that is:

1. Stable
2. Numerically similar
3. Still something players feel part of (i.e. not players randomly thrown together)

If they do change it to say only 3 teams, then probably lots of blackgate transfers would go to the other less populated servers that are also on the same team and thus anet wins $$$ so as to increase coverage. Still think its applying a bandaid to the problem but we will have to see how it plays out.

I see it going this way as well. It’s been brought up numerous times in the past about tying teams to something else rather than servers (like factions) and creating similar multiple instance maps that should be even.

As of right now, this is the only logical way to solve the coverage / population issues to to unify the servers under some common theme. Unless someone comes up with a better idea, this is all we have to work with at the moment.

Why does everybody think the “Mega-Server” thingy will change the core system of WvW? After April, the 15th, your home server will only truly matter for WvW. Why would the change the system in the Season and when we have an alternative map for WvWing when a matchup is blown out?

The Megaserver is only needed for empty PvE-Maps nothing more.

DeadlySynz.3471:

If they implemented this change as well in WvW like quite a few have mentioned in the past.. Making WvW faction based (for example) as opposed to server based, you’d solve the coverage issues in one fell swoop. Having 3 factions per say (mega servers with multiple even instances of each map), instead of 27 servers (high populated servers vs ghost town servers), you now have solved the problem.

People just have to let go of the “server pride” mentality for the greater good of the game.

This is not necessarilly true.
What if you unite in one side server who have zero to little nightwatch and on the other side servers with an active nightwatch?

The outcome would be the same: The Nightwatch would flip it all.

Ok I Did It.2854:

If they make WvW like EotM it will completely destroy communities, and will probably lead to the mass exodus of several big WvW guilds, with as Anet will soon be competing with other MMO’s coming out this year, it would not make sense to do this.

WvW should be left tied to a server, leave the mega server to PvE/sPvP ( if its needed )

It won’t destroy anything. The communities that exist just need a rallying flag to stand behind and currently that is servers. Most communities don’t care about the server name itself but the community around them. Take away servers and give them something else to rally behind and those communities will shift there with no issues.

You also ignore that the current system has destroyed many communities and will destroy many more. Due to servers and population issues people jump ship all the time. Heck just recently it was SoR who had it’s community gutted and dropped like a stone through the ranks, it certainly wasn’t the first time that happened.

So here are your options:
1. No more servers and 3 sides whether they are factions, colors, or whatever with an Eotm style overflow map system. Server communities are displaced temporarily and eventually rally behind a faction, color, etc. This helps alleviate the population/coverage issues.
2. Things remain as they are, population/coverage issues still remain, and communities continue to die as the population eventually condenses onto 3 servers anyway.

You have to be very short sighted to think that leaving things as they are will be anything but bad for WvW.

I think it would be interesting for them to merge servers like that utilizing the megaserver technology. But yeah, they’d have to preserve individual server identity.

One way they could is do exactly what they’re doing for PvE content: Prioritize joining the instance that your server is currently on.

Mashing all PvE together is going to leave some people bitter. No more “server first” kills, etc.

Fixing the WvW population problem can’t come soon enough.

BTW let’s face it, megaserver exists from the beginning… It was called overflow…
The only difference will be that now your main map will be also an overflow, but without a name “overflow”…
So megaserver is only marketing slogan, nothing more. Maybe just slightly better rules to gather people together.
I suppose that rules existing in overflow will be just copied to megaserver. After all, these numbers( “excellent results table”) were taken from somewhere, likely from overflows…

Whatever it is, I’ll be enjoying the trainwreck.

The summary of the last CDI on this topic was that merging was a bad idea. ANET would basically being giving a bigkittento the WvW community if it was implemented. I doubt they will do that.

If it’s Red Vs Blue Vs Green I would expect group queues or else trying to find your guilds’ map etc is too chaotic… Otherwise organized guilds vs other guilds outside of OS is dead which will make WvW just casual’s farming wxp/karma & dead? plus server identity is important for competition. I could give a rats kitten who is winning in eotm.

PvP-wise, EoTM is an epic failure. I predict Anet will continues pushing in that direction anyway for WvW.

Lord Kuru.3685:

PvP-wise, EoTM is an epic failure. I predict Anet will continues pushing in that direction anyway for WvW.

We need to stop referring to EotM as a WvW map. It is a PvE karma train map where you can kill players.

Style.1092:

BTW let’s face it, megaserver exists from the beginning… It was called overflow…
The only difference will be that now your main map will be also an overflow, but without a name “overflow”…
So megaserver is only marketing slogan, nothing more. Maybe just slightly better rules to gather people together.
I suppose that rules existing in overflow will be just copied to megaserver. After all, these numbers( “excellent results table”) were taken from somewhere, likely from overflows…

PR exercise to avoid actually saying we have too many empty servers and need to close/merge them.. easier to say lets put it all together in a big pot call it a new name, but allow your account to still be tagged to a historical server name.. simples really.

Many moons ago it was requested that ANET face up to tough decisions and merge servers to avoid this kind of scenario.. now though all I can picture is the endless map drama incoming across PvE maps . As for WvWvW… eek I fear for the effects this might have when the news gets announced sometime soon.
Like others have said I prefer to avoid EotM as to me it lacks identity and immersion, sure WvW has pretty much lost all that was tactical before the zergwars began but it still has some decent server pride and PvP style rivalry. If it is forced down the faceless random route that is EotM then I wouldn’t be surprised if many take a jump off the wall and go find their fun fix elsewhere.

Add to that I am pretty sure other MMO’s have tried mega server ideas and performance didn’t improve quiet how they thought it would.

For now though I guess we will all just have to wait and see what happens next.

Natronix.9827:

Doesn’t have anything to do with wvw it seems

My guess is WvW will be moving to a faction style system instead of servers sometime in the near future.

imagine,

priory VS vigil VS whispers

pure awesomeness

Red vs Blue vs Green is coming! This is a Brilliant way for Anet to consolidate servers with out “The Game is Dying!” mass panic!

This could potentially be huge, depending on what they come up with. It’s a straight up improvement for a lot of people in PvE for certain, but the implications for WvW could be amazing. Or not.

Make this good a.net!

I’d be entirely okay with a 3 way faction system, but only if Anet implemented some strong features that emphasised the importance of belonging to a good core WvW guild. Guild halls, guild alliances and WvW based guild missions would be a good start.

this is a great opportunity for a.net to bring back the gw1 factions.

kurzick VS luxon and add new ones for example balthazar.

At first I thought 3 factions would be great. Then I thought again.

Someone pointed out that EOTM is not balanced – how can that be if there are multiple instances of it? Every instance except the last should contain the same number of people. But apparently its not?

What if there are the same population problems in the 3 factions that there are in servers now? Say one faction is dominant. Or one faction is noticably worse.

That would be exponentially worse than it is now. Because there would be no options to get out of it. You can transfer servers now, FvF you can’t. Servers can change tiers and thus get different competition, FvF you can’t.

Once a faction becomes dominant or the forever loser it would be a giant snowball effect to doom for everyone. This is the one reason I hope they don’t go that way.

Even if they did implement server merging for WvW (ArenaNet said the implications of megaserver for WvW would be a “long term plan”, so I’m doubtful anything about WvW is in this feature patch) I really doubt they’d do it so poorly that it would kill off WvW guilds. I mean c’mon: They aren’t Square Enix. Even though ArenaNet may take a while, they know what they’re doing.

@Johje Holan: I think the thought here would be that red vs blue vs green would be servers grouping up based on population (whether that’s based on total or WvW is another thing.) So there wouldn’t be an issue with populations, because the populations would be evened out by the system.

For instance, say there are four servers: A high population (7,000), a medium population (5,000), another medium population (5,000), and a low population (3,000). You could group the high and low population servers together and the medium population servers together and have a very nice 10,000 vs 10,000. Obviously the numbers wouldn’t be that round, but it would be much better than right now where half the WvW matches are complete blowouts due to population and coverage.

This could be the final death toll for WvW. I’ve never been one to say that the sky is falling and ‘oh no WvW is dying’. It isn’t what it once was, by any means, but personally I think we have been holding relatively stable.

If you take away server identity, and mess with the cohesion of the server communities that have worked hard together to improve themselves, and make all progress and past records meaningless . . well . . . you are going to see a huge number of WvW guilds signing off and looking elsewhere for competition.

this is going to kill small guilds who pvx… it is going to make guild recruitment much more difficult for guilds that do pvx but have a wvw focus.

It is also going to damage server pride. Some servers are like big guilds in themselves, or contain communities of multiple guilds working together in harmony as one.

If they were going to bring down the walls between NA and EU then I would possibly be more in favour… the separation destroyed my GW1 guild.

ceol.9175:

Even if they did implement server merging for WvW (ArenaNet said the implications of megaserver for WvW would be a “long term plan”, so I’m doubtful anything about WvW is in this feature patch) I really doubt they’d do it so poorly that it would kill off WvW guilds. I mean c’mon: They aren’t Square Enix. Even though ArenaNet may take a while, they know what they’re doing.

Actually, the reason people are so worried is that Anet has shown time and again that they don’t know what they’re doing.

I’d bet they didn’t consider at all the implications of no longer being able to ask for help in Lion’s Arch.

flyro.6083:

Red vs Blue vs Green is coming! This is a Brilliant way for Anet to consolidate servers with out “The Game is Dying!” mass panic!

Except that the ANET leader of WvW has already written a summary in the last CDI that said the EotM 3 way solution is not popular.

They’d look pretty silly if they implemented this now, and so I doubt it will happen. It would be a horrible move for WvW. People enjoy playing with others they know, whether that is in the same guild or not.

A better solution would be server consolidation.

style.6173:

Lord Kuru.3685:

PvP-wise, EoTM is an epic failure. I predict Anet will continues pushing in that direction anyway for WvW.

We need to stop referring to EotM as a WvW map. It is a PvE karma train map where you can kill players.

You, sir, described all of WvW right there, tho.

A better solution would be server consolidation.

Here’s a riddle about EU:
There are 7 German servers.
There are 5 French servers.
There is 1 Spanish server.
There are 14 international servers.
What way of server consolidation would make even remote sense?

Congrats 98% of these comments are pointless, your like trolling yourselves how about wait to see what they say before you guys end the world on a thread lmao

this is a conundrum !

they need to find a way to add factions while preserving server identity, unity, plus figure out a way that doesn’t scream the dreaded server consolidation, aka servers are dying aka the game is dying jump ship syndrome.

for factions they’d need to come up with compelling reasons to foster faction loyalty.
while allowing players to switch factions if they so desire

Of course with some degree of difficulty and reprisal, you are essentially a defector and unwanted by anyone till you prove yourself loyal again to whatever faction you choose to represent next.

Reverence.6915:

It’s terrible news for WvW. So many of us go to LA or Gendarran Fields to ask for help in WvW when it’s needed. Just going to screw a lot of PvE heavy servers over

….and all the AFK TP flippers will listen to you and jump into WvW for defend the world from evil and corruption.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Actually, the reason people are so worried is that Anet has shown time and again that they don’t know what they’re doing.

I’d bet they didn’t consider at all the implications of no longer being able to ask for help in Lion’s Arch.

I dunno, honestly I think you all are spoiled. Try playing another MMO and getting the same level of quality out of it. This sort of update is a rare thing to happen. I play FFXIV and you would never see a release like this. They have major content patches, but it’s a vertical gear grind and they always mess something up with anything they implement. They actually just added something akin to GW2’s transmutation system… except instead of making it simple like ArenaNet is aiming to do, they made it so you need to get specific charges depending on the piece of equipment (roughly 4 or 5 different levels of charges spread out over 7 crafting professions for the various levels of armor) and there are a handful of restrictions that aren’t very clear.

Even considering the recent buggy living story updates (which frustrated me just as much as the next person), they still have a better track record than 99% of developers.

Players have a pretty clear concept of their server homes. As someone from piken square I know what my server is like, I know what deso is like and each server has a personality.

With this change I wont even be able to say a map I am standing in is “my home”, as there will be strangers there. Not guests….guesting is a separate and temporary thing, they will be playing normally and the map is just as much theirs as mine.

This change is hitting people hard in the one area they still have some loyalty and I think the consequences will be painful.

Guess my thread wasn’t necessary. Thanks to the mod for merging it, I was about to delete it and you were faster.

“Later this week, we’ll be discussing how our transition to the megaserver system will affect the timing of world bosses and some changes we’re making to support this. We’ll also be discussing the long-term plan for guilds and WvW in relation to our megaserver system, so check back each day this week for more information!”

News::
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-megaserver-system/

See also main thread on general forum:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feedback-Questions-MegaServer

- Concerned about losing community feel because that is all that keeps my guild in this game.

And reading between the lines, probably more than ANet thinks informed customers are capable of, I believe I understand this from both a business and a technical viewpoint. I understand this is important for PvE and the overall longevity/health of the game.

Am waiting to see ANet’s concept of how this will affect WvW and then how it actually does before passing judgment.

style.6173:

Lord Kuru.3685:

PvP-wise, EoTM is an epic failure. I predict Anet will continues pushing in that direction anyway for WvW.

We need to stop referring to EotM as a WvW map. It is a PvE karma train map where you can kill players.

Style, spot on correct. +1

I’m not super knowledgeable about servers and whatnot, but I would assume improvements to the server and it’s capabilities could also mean improvements to things like lag, bleed caps and AOE caps.

Plus they know server pride is important.

This may just be a big net gain for WvW.

DevonCarver.5370:

DaMikenatr.7041:

I know we don’t really speak well of the CDIs at times, but they did make a post addressing how they understand the World Identity is too important based on player feedback, so I don’t know that they would change something in that direction. Of course all we can do for now is speculate.

To quell speculation early, that is not what we are doing. The announcement will have more info, but we are absolutely not getting rid of worlds and putting everyone into an EotM type system.

Thanks Devon!

DevonCarver.5370:

To quell speculation early, that is not what we are doing. The announcement will have more info, but we are absolutely not getting rid of worlds and putting everyone into an EotM type system.

Ty for this reply Devon!

Well, Vivox’s customer list still shows NCSoft as TBA. But I’d be far too optimistic to think it would be that.

Perhaps enabling overflow for certain maps? OS is a reasonable choice to experiment with, since actions there do not affect score. Next possibility would be EB.

DevonCarver.5370:

DaMikenatr.7041:

I know we don’t really speak well of the CDIs at times, but they did make a post addressing how they understand the World Identity is too important based on player feedback, so I don’t know that they would change something in that direction. Of course all we can do for now is speculate.

To quell speculation early, that is not what we are doing. The announcement will have more info, but we are absolutely not getting rid of worlds and putting everyone into an EotM type system.

This is very sad news and a bad design decision. The only 2 options I see left on the table are grouping servers together on one side and of course just merging servers. The first option will not in anyway fix the coverage problem as SEA/EU coverage will still be on 1-2 servers. The second option effectively destroys the server communities of all but 3 worlds and once again does not fix the coverage issue. Maybe if you bring EU servers into the fold, but I believe long ago that was stated as not possible.

Unless of course you don’t think there is a problem with current population/coverage issues…that of course means we have an even bigger issue. Then again you guys thought another WvW tournament was a good idea, it’s not even a tournament since higher wvw population servers win, almost all current matchups are blowouts that are in no way fun. That of of course brings us back to the question then of, what are you going to do about the population/coverage issues that basically ruin any competition in WvW?

They should offer +100%-%200 magic find to whoever transfers from high populated servers to low populated.

For example: If I transfer from BG to a bronze server, I get a boost of %200 MF. If I transfer to silver I get a %100 MF.

Zylonite.5913:

They should offer +100%-%200 magic find to whoever transfers from high populated servers to low populated.

For example: If I transfer from BG to a bronze server, I get a boost of %200 MF. If I transfer to silver I get a %100 MF.

lol next thing you know Kaineng will be in tier 1

Factions is the solution for the worst WvW problem: coverage wars. It can’t come soon enough.

yanniell.1236:

Factions is the solution for the worst WvW problem: coverage wars. It can’t come soon enough.

If you want to see the collapse of the entire game, then sure.