Guild Wars 2

Over the past year we have seen Kaineng continually bleed players to other servers. Now, at the end of this year we are seeing the server almost completely void of players. The point of this post is to outline that because of the blatant and factual missing player base, and complete inability to compete, I think it is time to merge Kaineng into another low population server. I can’t comment on other servers at the moment, but it might also be true that we start merging some low population servers into other lower tiered servers.

Disband the high population servers to fill in the lower populated ones.

See how that works?

Blockhead Magee.3092:

Disband the high population servers to fill in the lower populated ones.

See how that works?

Why fracture an established playerbase instead of just merging fractured ones?

If you do not like the WvW atmosphere on Kaineng, then maybe you should transfer. If you are not from Kaineng, then understand that some folk actually enjoy the challenge of playing on a low population server… that’s why they stay.

Atherakhia.4086:

Why fracture an established playerbase instead of just merging fractured ones?

Wouldn’t pushing a bunch of unknown people into established servers fractured them as well?

I’d have mentioned merging from top down, but I feel like that would be undeserving of not only the money those folks that transferred spent, but to the loyal player base of that top server. The difference between that kind of a server and Kaineng, for example, is that the player base on Kaineng is completely distraught. I see people literally every day, and not just your average complainer… loyal people, distraught over the situation. Some of these folks just can’t justify spending the money to transfer to fix their problem, and I don’t blame that at all for that. The fact is that there is just no reason in my mind, and I’m sure others can agree, that Kaineng actually exists at all. There is just not enough people over all to justify the reason for it to exist. That kind of situation when prevalent as it is is the reason for merging bottom up instead.

Atherakhia.4086:

Blockhead Magee.3092:

Disband the high population servers to fill in the lower populated ones.

See how that works?

Why fracture an established playerbase instead of just merging fractured ones?

Because that “established playerbase” was created by the fracturing of previous established playerbases.

But you’re right, they don’t need to be disbanded. Drop the map caps to about forty and the populations will sort themselves out. There will be a lot fewer matches where the first place server has a greater score than the second and third place servers combined.

And closer matches are better matches for everybody, plus players who enjoy playing don’t leave, which means more of those matches in the future.

People who think that overstacked servers are fun can stick to EotM, and can karma train as much as they like.

Its been already discussed a lot of times… There are people that play in the lower tiers because they don’t want to deal with the large population servers that’s blob all day.

Also, in order to merge a server, other 2 servers would have to be merged (we can’t have a tier with only 2 servers). So you would be messing 3-6 communites and not only Kaineng’s and whatever server it would be merged with.

Also I find funny when the higher tiers says they are “estabilished communities” when most of them are just a bunch of bandwagoneers that jumped left and right.

epborden.7492:

Another reason they won’t merge is because when servers are merged it looks like the game is losing players. The game IS losing players, but they refuse to merge the servers out of fear instead of facing the facts. Desperation is the downfall of many.

And because it’s a really bad idea.

When my own server suffered the mass exodus that plunged us down to tier 8, we had practically nobody left in WvW at any given time. At prime time, you could have gathered all of the online players and supplied them from a single camp – yes, that low.

So it would have looked like we would have wanted a merger. But we didn’t, and still don’t. We played as we could, obviously PPT wasn’t something we could really manage for a while, and over time a few people started playing again, and then a few more. We’d get the occasional transfer, but not so many that you’d notice. And a whole wave of PvErs started discovering WvW and some of them stuck. And so now we’ve climbed about halfway back to where we fell from, and the game is satisfying. We’ve had the same matchup for three weeks now (and with a 40% chance of getting again after reset, looks like) and I think all three servers are fairly happy with it. Our scores have us essentially neck and neck throughout the week, there’s roaming and small groups and havoc and zergs – something for everybody. And close matchups keep people playing.

Would we have had this if we’d been merged with some other server? What server would we have been merged with at the time? Kaineng? Eredon Terrace?

Both of those were in the bottom tier when we landed there. Kaineng rose up for a while, largely on the strength of its night crew, and has now dropped back down to rank 24.

But Eredon Terrace? The very name of the server is synonymous with “dead last”, and look at them! They got some transfers (translation – people chose to go there rather than being forced to go there) and have taken off like a rocket. They went up much faster than my own server and, if they play like they have been for another week, they’ll probably overtake us.

Where would they be, I wonder, if they’d been forced into a merge like you want to force others into?

And if things on your own server are so bad that you don’t even want to go into WvW anymore, and you don’t want to run around with whatever few people you can scrape together, and you don’t want to wait and try to build something back up… you have the option to choose another server to play on.

But don’t force others to go to a server that’s picked by somebody else. That’s what mergers are.

Amen Brother Rimmy

Ok, Bronze servers don’t want to be merged. So I say merge Silver servers. They won’t mind. They all wish they were bigger and desire to play with large numbers of players.

So just merge all Silver servers into 3 servers. Then we’ll have a 9 member Gold League and a 9 member Bronze League and everyone will have a choice of which style they want to play.

Johje Holan.4607:

Ok, Bronze servers don’t want to be merged. So I say merge Silver servers. They won’t mind. They all wish they were bigger and desire to play with large numbers of players.

So just merge all Silver servers into 3 servers. Then we’ll have a 9 member Gold League and a 9 member Bronze League and everyone will have a choice of which style they want to play.

Hopefully they’ll lower the map cap so that doesn’t happen either.