Guild Wars 2

Chinchilla.1785:

I am not saying your memories are invalid, but you should make the best of the limited time left in this game; all things end, so try to have fun with the game play before it does!

And this is why I say folks aren’t looking at things longterm. You’ve already buried the game and are picking at its carrion.

Meanwhile, there’s still people deeply invested in seeing it run a long time. Because of the community they’ve grown.

Your solution is short term. As is all the battlegroup and alliance junk.

Jayne.9251:

Chinchilla.1785:

I am not saying your memories are invalid, but you should make the best of the limited time left in this game; all things end, so try to have fun with the game play before it does!

And this is why I say folks aren’t looking at things longterm. You’ve already buried the game and are picking at its carrion.

Meanwhile, there’s still people deeply invested in seeing it run a long time. Because of the community they’ve grown.

Your solution is short term. As is all the battlegroup and alliance junk.

Well, good thing this “alliance junk”, that was voted in by 82.7% majority, has contributed to the “substantial increase in global WvW participation”….

The server linking (lumping smaller population servers along with larger servers) in WVW has caused a lot of long time players to simply leave the game. I was a solo player for a long time then was adopted by one of the major guilds on my server. The camaraderie, teamwork, and social culture of our server was one of the most endearing things for me, especially when in teamspeak I could actually identify other players by the sound of their voices and finally hear the folks I’d been tagging along after for months.

After the server linking:
1) our 20-30 player squads couldn’t compete against the 50+ zergs of the bigger servers.
2) we could no longer use voice chat as effectively since different servers have different TS sites and the logistics of joining or adding folks to your server who may in a few weeks then be on opposite teams is problematic and seems not to have been thought out carefully by ArenaNet. Additionally, the sheer numbers of other players and the brief window that we are linked makes it challenging to know who everyone is before it’s time to switch links again. Sure getting to know every other WVW player in the world sounds like a good thing but in practice you lose the intimacy and team bonding that come with working in smaller groups on one’s one server.
3) Because of these and other issues WVW just wasn’t as fun or rewarding as it had been and essentially caused most of the leaders and members of my old Guild to simply leave the game.

I’m hearing that ArenaNet has posted numbers supporting the server linking claiming that it has increased the number of players. I think it it is more likely that those players were going to join in any case and if there was any growth it was unrelated to the server linking. I know for a fact that many people have left because of it. Finally I think the biggest mistake that any company can make is simply going after numbers rather then focusing on the quality of the product. The folks who think the megablob game style is preferable have probably never experienced the small-server camaraderie that my server had before linking – so can’t make an informed choice about which works best.
One option? how about server linking on a quarterly basis, as a special event?
ie: unlinked servers 75% of the time then mega matchups once at the beginning of each quarter? wouldn’t that give everyone the best of both worlds?

(Sorry but I’m an Engi I’m always trying to fix things XD)

thanks for listening – see you on the battlefield.
- Copernackus.

atheria.2837:

Case in point? We asked that the top three never be linked – ever.

I didn’t ask for that and I’ve posted on this forum why that’s a terrible idea. Without a link, it means no server is able to be competitive against the old overstacked T1 holdout BG. And we have had two clear cycles now showing what happens when a link is removed from a server that ends up in T1: implosion all the way down to T4 which Anet even had to manually adjust glicko ratings for. Someone in a past thread suggested that the host server should “stand on its own” when it gets to T1, but they forgot that the host server didn’t get to T1 “on its own” in the first place. And this link/de-link meat-grinder effect creates the “tanking for link” incentive.

Jayne.9251:

Chinchilla.1785:

I am not saying your memories are invalid, but you should make the best of the limited time left in this game; all things end, so try to have fun with the game play before it does!

And this is why I say folks aren’t looking at things longterm. You’ve already buried the game and are picking at its carrion.

Meanwhile, there’s still people deeply invested in seeing it run a long time. Because of the community they’ve grown.

Your solution is short term. As is all the battlegroup and alliance junk.

What? My solution is based on what players actually do. As is proven so far, guilds have outlasted servers. One point people have been missing is that people stop playing this game. I suspect everyone’s hay-day was pre-Hot within the first 2-3 years of this game. 2 years is a typical point where games start to drastically decline in population…so it would make sense server populations to disappear too.

KILL was a community guild for JQ. FoW is a community guild for YB. cmd is a community guild for TC. I gave you this solution that you have actual control over. You do not need ANET’s intervention at all.

My actual concern is from fundementals. From GW1 to GW2 they did things backwards, and less innovative to match older MMOs. On topic, GW1 had no servers for people, and that focused it on Guilds. Eventually in the Canthan expansion they introduced Alliance Battles. That expansion gave large identity as Kurzick or Luxon. Both sides each had their players, guilds, and even art styles dedicated to them. But still no servers. Even a moving border indicated which alliance was “winning.” Regardless, you can come to the forums hoping ANET to bring back the old community, but they simply can’t force anyone to play again.

The idea of Luxons and Kurzick is probably a better example than NFL. As for me not understanding cross guild community’s on servers. I am in two guilds as indicated in my signature, and used to play during sea as a normal “pug” that followed SEA guilds. To put it bluntly, I don’t lack perspective in the long run. Even time-zones have their own communities (especially SEA since most did not speak english well).

I am telling you the “long term” solution for this: adapt. ANET cannot fix this aspect unless they magically overhaul the game play, and send out an aggressive ad campaign. Given their WvW team is about 2 people at a time; it is on you, the remnants of past glory, to push yourselves to play or not.

Because of the-lack-of-everything, the long term plan should be to make the game play more important. I can still go back and play GW1, because while people dislike henchmen/hero, they are a long term addition to GW1. I am willing to sacrifice those small servers for better gameplay (even SoR, since I was there when it was T1…).

Server staking killed server pride way before links. As in life ppl tend to be the ones that kill ideals of pride way before a governing body its just easier to blame the governing body then taking on the blame your self.

Chinchilla.1785:

The idea of Luxons and Kurzick is probably a better example than NFL. As for me not understanding cross guild community’s on servers. I am in two guilds as indicated in my signature, and used to play during sea as a normal “pug” that followed SEA guilds. To put it bluntly, I don’t lack perspective in the long run. Even time-zones have their own communities (especially SEA since most did not speak english well).

All you need to do now is add more “Teams” & not limit it to only Luxons & Kurzicks.

1. Give each “Team” a Home Playing Field (Each Server allocated 1-4 Maps). The number of Maps allocated varies in relation to population & battle area demand.
2. Let players from all “Teams” be able to visit each other’s Home Playing Field.

Remember:

1. GW1 All players could “Visit” & play on both EU & NA Servers in Factions.
2. GW2 All players can “Guest Visit” & play on any Server…it’s just that they can’t use this mechanic to play WvW…it’s this mechanic that ANet should re-purpose & tailor it for WvW.

How’s that for a solution instead of World Linking or Merging?

Chinchilla.1785:

Jayne.9251:

Chinchilla.1785:

I am not saying your memories are invalid, but you should make the best of the limited time left in this game; all things end, so try to have fun with the game play before it does!

And this is why I say folks aren’t looking at things longterm. You’ve already buried the game and are picking at its carrion.

Meanwhile, there’s still people deeply invested in seeing it run a long time. Because of the community they’ve grown.

Your solution is short term. As is all the battlegroup and alliance junk.

What? My solution is based on what players actually do. As is proven so far, guilds have outlasted servers. One point people have been missing is that people stop playing this game. I suspect everyone’s hay-day was pre-Hot within the first 2-3 years of this game. 2 years is a typical point where games start to drastically decline in population…so it would make sense server populations to disappear too.

KILL was a community guild for JQ. FoW is a community guild for YB. cmd is a community guild for TC. I gave you this solution that you have actual control over. You do not need ANET’s intervention at all.

My actual concern is from fundementals. From GW1 to GW2 they did things backwards, and less innovative to match older MMOs. On topic, GW1 had no servers for people, and that focused it on Guilds. Eventually in the Canthan expansion they introduced Alliance Battles. That expansion gave large identity as Kurzick or Luxon. Both sides each had their players, guilds, and even art styles dedicated to them. But still no servers. Even a moving border indicated which alliance was “winning.” Regardless, you can come to the forums hoping ANET to bring back the old community, but they simply can’t force anyone to play again.

The idea of Luxons and Kurzick is probably a better example than NFL. As for me not understanding cross guild community’s on servers. I am in two guilds as indicated in my signature, and used to play during sea as a normal “pug” that followed SEA guilds. To put it bluntly, I don’t lack perspective in the long run. Even time-zones have their own communities (especially SEA since most did not speak english well).

I am telling you the “long term” solution for this: adapt. ANET cannot fix this aspect unless they magically overhaul the game play, and send out an aggressive ad campaign. Given their WvW team is about 2 people at a time; it is on you, the remnants of past glory, to push yourselves to play or not.

Because of the-lack-of-everything, the long term plan should be to make the game play more important. I can still go back and play GW1, because while people dislike henchmen/hero, they are a long term addition to GW1. I am willing to sacrifice those small servers for better gameplay (even SoR, since I was there when it was T1…).

This X 1,000! Well written and would read again! +1,000!

Diku.2546:

Chinchilla.1785:

The idea of Luxons and Kurzick is probably a better example than NFL. As for me not understanding cross guild community’s on servers. I am in two guilds as indicated in my signature, and used to play during sea as a normal “pug” that followed SEA guilds. To put it bluntly, I don’t lack perspective in the long run. Even time-zones have their own communities (especially SEA since most did not speak english well).

All you need to do now is add more “Teams” & not limit it to only Luxons & Kurzicks.

1. Give each “Team” a Home Playing Field (Each Server allocated 1-4 Maps). The number of Maps allocated varies in relation to population & battle area demand.
2. Let players from all “Teams” be able to visit each other’s Home Playing Field.

Remember:

1. GW1 All players could “Visit” & play on both EU & NA Servers in Factions.
2. GW2 All players can “Guest Visit” & play on any Server…it’s just that they can’t use this mechanic to play WvW…it’s this mechanic that ANet should re-purpose & tailor it for WvW.

How’s that for a solution instead of World Linking or Merging?

That’s an extremely poor solution that doesn’t salvage “server pride” or make wvw better.

Chinchilla.1785:

Jayne.9251:

Chinchilla.1785:

I am not saying your memories are invalid, but you should make the best of the limited time left in this game; all things end, so try to have fun with the game play before it does!

And this is why I say folks aren’t looking at things longterm. You’ve already buried the game and are picking at its carrion.

Meanwhile, there’s still people deeply invested in seeing it run a long time. Because of the community they’ve grown.

Your solution is short term. As is all the battlegroup and alliance junk.

I am telling you the “long term” solution for this: adapt. ANET cannot fix this aspect unless they magically overhaul the game play, and send out an aggressive ad campaign. Given their WvW team is about 2 people at a time; it is on you, the remnants of past glory, to push yourselves to play or

Lol you’re telling me, are you?

Goodness.

And I’m telling you the same: adapt.

I’d be very eager to know the percentage of organized guilds in WvW. I’d suggest it’s around 35%, maybe less. That number fluctuates, of course, because WvW guilds have never been the most stable — or longterm. There are, of course, exceptions.

So Anet should cater to 35%?

You can write all the walls of text you want, and randomly bold sentences.

A poll can determine majority view. Until then, knock yourself out.

Better still, make all these guild-centric changes to NA only and reset EU back to the solo server status and see which model is more populated a year from now. At least EU could accommodate both sets of playstyle — organized guilds and smaller groups.

@Jayne

Since you missed the developer quotes… Anet is catering to the 82.7% who voted in linking, and that linking contributed to more participation… You can quibble all you want, about what you want, but dev facts are dev facts…

Swagger.1459:

McKenna Berdrow GW2 forum post….

“The poll has ended! After removing all votes for “Don’t Count My Vote”, the final results are:

82.7% – Yes

17.3% – No

This mean that World Linking is now officially a Guild Wars 2 Feature. Thank you to everyone who voted!"

---

AnetChrisB post on Reddit…

“We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands.”

Move along people, the devs will work on name plates so you can show your server, but nothing prevents any of you from forming groups with players on your server… Stop complaining about things that are in your hands.

Jayne.9251:

Lol you’re telling me, are you?

Goodness.

I did, and this is where the OP topic of server pride gets derailed. I suspected trying to describe the emotion of pride and nostalgia with any logic might do this. I apologize if you are offended.

Jayne.9251:

And I’m telling you the same: adapt.

What? I have. I made my “community” or “team spirit” with people in guilds.

Jayne.9251:

I’d be very eager to know the percentage of organized guilds in WvW. I’d suggest it’s around 35%, maybe less. That number fluctuates, of course, because WvW guilds have never been the most stable — or longterm. There are, of course, exceptions.

So Anet should cater to 35%?

ANET doesn’t give out such statistics. You can at least count the number of host servers versus the now “dead pride-less waif child” linked servers if you wanted however.

Jayne.9251:

You can write all the walls of text you want, and randomly bold sentences.

Considering I was addressing 2-3 peoples’ notions in one post the length was required. Randomly bold sentences? I intentionally used bold on each sentence that was the main point to the short paragraphs. You didn’t have to read anything outside of bold.

It seems you missed the part where people stop playing games after a while, and so communities fall apart.

If it were me, servers would have never existed in the beginning, and we’d be bickering about guild pride where people just join whatever guilds because they’re mercenaries.

Jayne.9251:

A poll can determine majority view. Until then, knock yourself out.

A poll for what?

Jayne.9251:

Better still, make all these guild-centric changes to NA only and reset EU back to the solo server status and see which model is more populated a year from now.

Which guild centric changes? The major difference between NA and EU is the advantage/disadvantage of language barriers. This means people are segregated, and can remain segregated because of it.

TLDR: I wish specifics were discussed instead of gut responses.

Balthazzarr.1349:

It’s so sad that the huge majority of the comments you see in here now are about removing the linking even though the apparent poll asked for it. But of course the poll was in favor since MOST people that play gw2 are on the top 4 tiers… that in itself skewed the results of the poll. Those of us in the lower tiers that really liked how we played had no chance.

We have also seen our community slowly broken down into either roaming guild groups or simply groups that come in for missions and leave. Most hosts are gracious and fun to run with but it is THEIR server, not ours. A large number of the people I know personally don’t like the big zergs and don’t run in them. I would rather run with a few people and run havoc on camps and towers and battle other roamers than be a “borg” drone.

ANet will continue to see these posts; will continue to ignore them because they know better; and will continue to see people like us play less. As I’ve said in other posts, I’ve seen so many of my friends stop playing completely. The other leader of my guild and her partner are two of them. My guild went from a nice roaming group of about 10 on average, to a group of 1-3 on a good day in WvW. I know at least 6 other people personally that stopped playing because of the linking…. and that’s just people that I know.

One positive thing financially has come out of this for me though.. I spend a LOT less money on gems than I used to since my commitment to WvW and even to this game has dropped off significantly.

I truly don’t understand why ANet thinks that it’s ok to toss people around from server to server and really think that they love it… because I believe most of us don’t. The ones that do (for the most part) already had moved to higher tier servers… :P

I was one of those people who voted for it. But me and a bunch of other people assumed that we would retain our name and/or rotate out every week. If I knew we would be just someone else’s kitten every week I’d vote no

synergy.5809:

Balthazzarr.1349:

It’s so sad that the huge majority of the comments you see in here now are about removing the linking even though the apparent poll asked for it. But of course the poll was in favor since MOST people that play gw2 are on the top 4 tiers… that in itself skewed the results of the poll. Those of us in the lower tiers that really liked how we played had no chance.

We have also seen our community slowly broken down into either roaming guild groups or simply groups that come in for missions and leave. Most hosts are gracious and fun to run with but it is THEIR server, not ours. A large number of the people I know personally don’t like the big zergs and don’t run in them. I would rather run with a few people and run havoc on camps and towers and battle other roamers than be a “borg” drone.

ANet will continue to see these posts; will continue to ignore them because they know better; and will continue to see people like us play less. As I’ve said in other posts, I’ve seen so many of my friends stop playing completely. The other leader of my guild and her partner are two of them. My guild went from a nice roaming group of about 10 on average, to a group of 1-3 on a good day in WvW. I know at least 6 other people personally that stopped playing because of the linking…. and that’s just people that I know.

One positive thing financially has come out of this for me though.. I spend a LOT less money on gems than I used to since my commitment to WvW and even to this game has dropped off significantly.

I truly don’t understand why ANet thinks that it’s ok to toss people around from server to server and really think that they love it… because I believe most of us don’t. The ones that do (for the most part) already had moved to higher tier servers… :P

I was one of those people who voted for it. But me and a bunch of other people assumed that we would retain our name and/or rotate out every week. If I knew we would be just someone else’s kitten every week I’d vote no

This so much!

synergy.5809:

I was one of those people who voted for it. But me and a bunch of other people assumed that we would retain our name and/or rotate out every week. If I knew we would be just someone else’s kitten every week I’d vote no

A lot of assumptions were made which turned out to be incorrect. The vote might be a lot different now.

Diku.2546:

Chinchilla.1785:

The idea of Luxons and Kurzick is probably a better example than NFL. As for me not understanding cross guild community’s on servers. I am in two guilds as indicated in my signature, and used to play during sea as a normal “pug” that followed SEA guilds. To put it bluntly, I don’t lack perspective in the long run. Even time-zones have their own communities (especially SEA since most did not speak english well).

All you need to do now is add more “Teams” & not limit it to only Luxons & Kurzicks.

1. Give each “Team” a Home Playing Field (Each Server allocated 1-4 Maps). The number of Maps allocated varies in relation to population & battle area demand.
2. Let players from all “Teams” be able to visit each other’s Home Playing Field.

Remember:

1. GW1 All players could “Visit” & play on both EU & NA Servers in Factions.
2. GW2 All players can “Guest Visit” & play on any Server…it’s just that they can’t use this mechanic to play WvW…it’s this mechanic that ANet should re-purpose & tailor it for WvW.

How’s that for a solution instead of World Linking or Merging?

Swagger.1459:

That’s an extremely poor solution that doesn’t salvage “server pride” or make wvw better.

Team & Server Pride are similar, but not the same.

Letting Players pick their own Match-Ups instead of ANet manually creating them is a poor solution?

You can disagree all you want, but the game design mode that I’m presenting is extremely simple & uses mechanics that’s already working.

It’s a lot more effective in giving a majority of what folks really want from this game mode…without sacrificing the things that World Linking & Merging will destroy in the Long Term…imho

Good Rule of Thumb to follow – K.I.S.S.

Forgive my bump up, just saw this post. I am also an orig FC player. I really miss knowing every single person on our server. Knowing that when I call out for help I know the person will help and not stand there and watch me die.

Since the linking the number of ppl on my blocked list grows with every new link. I know this is counterproductive but I am so tired of being yelled at in map chat.

Many ppl on FC have said they want to go back to being unlinked. Unfortunately this is not going to happen. I feel your pain though and would love to have our original FC back.

Server linking, cross-map team chat, and portable cannons.

Undo them all, please.

XTR.9604:

I don’t see what peoples deal is honestly. The linking has done only good things for this game.. Most servers are well balanced population wise besides tier 4, which is mostly because a lot of players in T4 seem to be inconsistent about when they’re playing. It seems like a lot of them are primarily PvE players that take their guilds in to WvW on and off.

Tier 1 to Tier 3 are thriving with this system in my opinion. WvW is active at just about all times on most of those servers.

And as far as “Server Pride” goes, I’m sorry to say but that isn’t a real thing, it is just something to complain about. Have guild pride, its guild wars, not server wars.

Guilds are temporary, servers are forever.

RodOfDeath.5247:

Guilds are temporary, servers are forever.

Guilds are only temporary if the players let them be temporary… I have guildies who play with me since we started playing World of Warcraft back in 2005.

I am with the OP on this one… I, along with a couple other people I know, have stopped playing WvW since after the third linking. We gave it a chance, but we were never made to feel welcome on the host servers and we miss the camaraderie we had with our old FC server. When I go into WvW now, I don’t know anyone, and God forbid I try to roam… ugh. I’ve been on FC since day 1 four years ago and I will never leave it, it’s my home.

I may not have been in one of the bigger WvW guilds on FC, but I knew the people in them, and they knew me (or at least I like to think they did) and I could rely on them when needed and vice versa.

Please, please, please stop the insanity… release us from this madness called WvW server linking!!

I haven’t posted in 3 years. I honestly haven’t seen anything posted that said “add something” until now. The problem is, I can’t really think of anything to add that Leona or someone else hasn’t already said. But I want to add something.

I want the old WvW back.

I preordered GW2 and started on day 1 of the pre on FC. I never left FC and never had any desire to. As Trinibaje said, I have never been in one of the bigger guilds (we are in the same guild actually), but I have run with some of them, a lot. FC guilds were always fun to run with. We were almost always outmanned. We usually had small zergletts instead of blobs. Most of all, we had fun. And we learned to fight. And well. We had the best pvpers in the game in the old days. Back then, if a group of 5 or 6 enemies came upon one of us I felt sorry for the enemy. They were outnumbered. Not anymore. Anet decided to get rid of FC.

We may have been bottom tier but we were still proud of our little server. I miss all of that. I tried to give this new system a chance but it just doesn’t work.

Although I ran with the bigger guilds I spent most of my time scouting. Scouts used to be important. Now they are a joke. Soloing of any kind or even running in small groups is usually nothing more than throwing bags at the enemy. It’s not fun anymore. Plus we are being linked with servers that we had rivalrys with. Now we are expected to fight alongside them and make gains for them. We get nothing for winning. I absolutely hate when a group of FC and/or myself take an objective and the message goes up that says the host server took it. That is such a slap in the face.

I can’t say what I really want to say….I would probably get banned.

I can say I started out FC and will ALWAYS be FC no matter what Anet does to us.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

You have server pride within a name and not the physical individuals of the community. You place too much concentration on the actual name and not whom you’re playing with. A server is nothing more than a house and while it’s good to have pride in the upkeep of your house you should have more pride in your family and friends.

How does server-links stop you from playing with your community versus the other system? If you do not like mass numbers than you can still move to a lower tier to avoid the blobs. How does your group size reflect your server pride. WvW isn’t who has the biggest blob it’s who has the most coverage. This has never changed whether it’s the “old” system or the “new”.

I do not like Server-links. But I do not wish to go back to the old.

This is not true for me. I play on a EU server that still have the same players they always had. The same community, the same guilds the same players i knows for many years. It have not changed for us at all. But the linking system where one of the servers linked are populated with all the worst trolls in EU, were the language is so bad 24/7 that you feel sick and block nearly the whole linked server, and they all being banned on the TS of our comunity. That was a challenge. But we managed to get through even that. We got unlinked and got old linked server back who we have no issues with, nor did we have with any other link.

So yes links are not working as intended. And server pride is still a thing, and we still play with the same people. You might not, and your normal server might not, i don’t know. But mine is.

Leaa.2943:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

You have server pride within a name and not the physical individuals of the community. You place too much concentration on the actual name and not whom you’re playing with. A server is nothing more than a house and while it’s good to have pride in the upkeep of your house you should have more pride in your family and friends.

How does server-links stop you from playing with your community versus the other system? If you do not like mass numbers than you can still move to a lower tier to avoid the blobs. How does your group size reflect your server pride. WvW isn’t who has the biggest blob it’s who has the most coverage. This has never changed whether it’s the “old” system or the “new”.

I do not like Server-links. But I do not wish to go back to the old.

This is not true for me. I play on a EU server that still have the same players they always had. The same community, the same guilds the same players i knows for many years. It have not changed for us at all. But the linking system where one of the servers linked are populated with all the worst trolls in EU, were the language is so bad 24/7 that you feel sick and block nearly the whole linked server, and they all being banned on the TS of our comunity. That was a challenge. But we managed to get through even that. We got unlinked and got old linked server back who we have no issues with, nor did we have with any other link.

So yes links are not working as intended. And server pride is still a thing, and we still play with the same people. You might not, and your normal server might not, i don’t know. But mine is.

Well said.

I don’t have server pride, what I have is a bad PC in Australia with bad internet. I miss playing WvW but I can’t handle the population in WvW…

Need quiet servers or a tier with half the map cap population. Roaming tiers, small groups, not 80 man zergs causing my PC to freeze from across the map just because they clashed with another 80 man zerg.

Roanwolf.8437:

I wholeheartedly agree with LionPride. I too have seen our server and other low population servers lose what community they had. Most people who stayed on a low pop server did so for a reason. Under the old system if we were dissatisfied we could have easily moved to a higher pop server. It may not be as much about server pride as it is play style, and a community of like minded players along with pride thrown in for good measure. Today I could move to a higher pop server if playing with blobs was what I want but I choose to stay with a low pop server.

That being said much of what I liked about the low pop servers and fighting in wvw has been destroyed by server linking. We are now at the mercy of the host server we are linked with. If the host server has a similar play style then its not too bad but if they are different then we are stuck with the straw we drew for two months of no fun for us.

I can’t say this any better than LionPride did so I will quote here

“All the smaller servers are just numbers and placed where ever Anet decides. We just fill a gap and we don’t matter. While host servers enjoy a rank , smaller server just get tossed around like a hot potato”.

I’m quite sure the high pop servers would see this a bit differently if they experience what we do with no choice in the matter and were forced to play in a different style for a server they do not belong to for the duration of the link. Then only to be thrown in with another server you do not belong to and have to fight for them.

Well said.
Since linking I have also been in every single tier but one thing has remained the same, our server contributes but gets no recognition. I really like my wvw buddies and miss all the ones who have drifted off to other games since the real impact of linking hit home.
I am not sure a new vote would yield a different result, but it might be time to take the temperature of the wvw community on linking again. It clearly has not worked as intended for many players.

TheDivineMissC.7413:

Roanwolf.8437:

I wholeheartedly agree with LionPride. I too have seen our server and other low population servers lose what community they had. Most people who stayed on a low pop server did so for a reason. Under the old system if we were dissatisfied we could have easily moved to a higher pop server. It may not be as much about server pride as it is play style, and a community of like minded players along with pride thrown in for good measure. Today I could move to a higher pop server if playing with blobs was what I want but I choose to stay with a low pop server.

That being said much of what I liked about the low pop servers and fighting in wvw has been destroyed by server linking. We are now at the mercy of the host server we are linked with. If the host server has a similar play style then its not too bad but if they are different then we are stuck with the straw we drew for two months of no fun for us.

I can’t say this any better than LionPride did so I will quote here

“All the smaller servers are just numbers and placed where ever Anet decides. We just fill a gap and we don’t matter. While host servers enjoy a rank , smaller server just get tossed around like a hot potato”.

I’m quite sure the high pop servers would see this a bit differently if they experience what we do with no choice in the matter and were forced to play in a different style for a server they do not belong to for the duration of the link. Then only to be thrown in with another server you do not belong to and have to fight for them.

Well said.
Since linking I have also been in every single tier but one thing has remained the same, our server contributes but gets no recognition. I really like my wvw buddies and miss all the ones who have drifted off to other games since the real impact of linking hit home.
I am not sure a new vote would yield a different result, but it might be time to take the temperature of the wvw community on linking again. It clearly has not worked as intended for many players.

AnetChrisB post on Reddit…

“We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands.”

“substantial increase”….

It’s time for some of you to give up your single server mentality and focus on moving wvw forward, not backwards.

Swagger.1459:

AnetChrisB post on Reddit…

“We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands.”

“substantial increase”….

It’s time for some of you to give up your single server mentality and focus on moving wvw forward, not backwards.

And which way I may ask is forwards and which one is backwards ? Because among things you quoted is “return of the Alpine Borderlands”, clearly a step back, not a bad step though. You contradict yourself. Also this statement does not reflect how much did each of the individual changes, and if in any way, contribude to this “substantial increase”.

Then, numbers are one thing. Quality is another… I don’t think quality improved that much… opposite might be true in same cases. In others… I’d agree that there was progress… but this world linking… I’m not sure if it’s one of them. Not saying it’s terrible tho, but ambiguous at least.

To elaborate more, I’d actually propose more radical approach as this “lower server tossing”, as someone here named it has problematic effect on comunity. This change I’d “try” would be to permanently connect realms wow style.

Server pride died in 2013. During that 1st year of WvW anet had the opportunity to create the greatest sandbox style PvP game since DAOC. If they would have put proper dev time into WvW to stop the need for 24 HR coverage, proper defense rewards, AND CULTIVATED THE GROWING GVG SCENE AT THE TIME WvW would be the biggest draw in this game today with populations so large merging would be impossible.

Wizigard.4760:

Swagger.1459:

AnetChrisB post on Reddit…

“We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands.”

“substantial increase”….

It’s time for some of you to give up your single server mentality and focus on moving wvw forward, not backwards.

And which way I may ask is forwards and which one is backwards ? Because among things you quoted is “return of the Alpine Borderlands”, clearly a step back, not a bad step though. You contradict yourself. Also this statement does not reflect how much did each of the individual changes, and if in any way, contribude to this “substantial increase”.

Then, numbers are one thing. Quality is another… I don’t think quality improved that much… opposite might be true in same cases. In others… I’d agree that there was progress… but this world linking… I’m not sure if it’s one of them. Not saying it’s terrible tho, but ambiguous at least.

To elaborate more, I’d actually propose more radical approach as this “lower server tossing”, as someone here named it has problematic effect on comunity. This change I’d “try” would be to permanently connect realms wow style.

Just because you personally don’t like alpine doesn’t mean I made any contradictory statements… alpine was voted in by the community btw.

Move forward, as in… Linking is not being removed. Time to get over it and talk about other wvw stuff…

It’s not like ANet is going to suddenly remove World Linking or immediately Merge Servers…

I don’t think it’s right to put others down & to tell people what to do…imho

I feel that people are welcome to create their own thread(s) or join in other threads that are focused on topics that they prefer to discuss.

I agree with the overall sentiment of this particular thread that World Linking & Merging are horrible solutions…

Still believe that ANet should consider an Alternative Solution that’s driven by a better Long Term Vision…imho

Diku.2546:

It’s not like ANet is going to suddenly remove World Linking or immediately Merge Servers…

I don’t think it’s right to put others down & to tell people what to do…imho

I feel that people are welcome to create their own thread(s) or join in other threads that are focused on topics that they prefer to discuss.

I agree with the overall sentiment of this particular thread that World Linking & Merging are horrible solutions…

Still believe that ANet should consider an Alternative Solution that’s driven by a better Long Term Vision…imho

Read the facts…

Swagger.1459:

McKenna Berdrow GW2 forum post….

“The poll has ended! After removing all votes for “Don’t Count My Vote”, the final results are:

82.7% – Yes

17.3% – No

This mean that World Linking is now officially a Guild Wars 2 Feature. Thank you to everyone who voted!"

---

AnetChrisB post on Reddit…

“We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands.”

Move along people, the devs will work on name plates so you can show your server, but nothing prevents any of you from forming groups with players on your server… Stop complaining about things that are in your hands.

Linking is not going anywhere. More players are playing in part because of linking. No, the devs are not making your “free for all” wvw with double-triple the amount of maps that can’t be covered…

The dev team is moving forward and more players are happy, time to think of ways to make this current system even better…

Maybe have another poll?

Let each server determine their own fate if they want to stay link or not?

@Swagger.1459

I feel that this thread discusses people’s feelings about what Server Linking & Merging is doing or would do to their “Community” in the Long Term…rather than continue to argue with you.

You’re entitled to your opinion & can continue to disagree with me.

I’m not trying to offend you & I hope you didn’t feel that you were singled out in my previous post.

However, you’re misinterpreting & misrepresenting what I’m proposing.

People can read & judge for themselves what I’m suggesting to “fix” WvW.

My signature below probably explains it better than this thread would.

We should let people continue their discussion on “Server Pride”…imho

rhayan.9580:

Maybe have another poll?

Let each server determine their own fate if they want to stay link or not?

Their fate would be running around maps with 2 or 3 or maybe 0 wanna be roamers who play twice a week telling themselves soloing camps and towers with paper siege is “real wvw”.

one day people will learn all servers are the same

I have been on SOS since GW2 starts now its a semi dead server ,those links paired with sos are useless ,maybe merging 2 dead servers from tier 3-4 will fix this non wvw empty servers .

Jeknar.6184:

RodOfDeath.5247:

Guilds are temporary, servers are forever.

Guilds are only temporary if the players let them be temporary… I have guildies who play with me since we started playing World of Warcraft back in 2005.

And servers are forever regardless of whichever hot new game the locust swarm of players feeds upon next.

What a false dichotomy!

If the server is the neighborhood, then the guild is the family. They’re arbitrary distinctions in the end anyways. Both kinds of things can have social connections, but you know some people’s ideas of “family” can be different, and honestly it’s all arbitrary to me. Some people care about their guild, but others just associate themselves with the server they play on. Did anyone forget you can join multiple guilds? And there’s also a ton of solo contributors that just don’t work under a guild structure or really any kind of structure? Blobbies tend to call it pugs or roamers that they have to content with queue space for. I just like to call them “unincorporated players”

Some people would ask, “well, what if your guild transferred!?” I would most certainly follow them. But then I’d also follow them away from this game too, so what? Doesn’t mean I don’t value my connections over here, even if the same people would follow me. It’s just simply a nice thing to go to a VOIP room with the same few people and regulars that are loosely connected to me and it’s different from interacting with guildies.

From my view, I’ve noticed a lot of people will do stuff like throw down ton of siege and all that defending jazz and I don’t see many possible reasons unless they genuinely like to PPT or their guild likes to PPT just for the kitten of it which is entirely possible but in 2016 I find that even sillier than any concept of server loyalty.

Finally, I’d also say that two of the linked servers that were linked to us are now host servers and a lot of them strongly identified as their respective server even when they were linked with us, I think there’s gotta be something. Or they just didn’t want to be listed as “Stormbluff Isle [x]” as a motivation. I could understand that too. But hey, something mattered.

rhayan.9580:

Maybe have another poll?

Let each server determine their own fate if they want to stay link or not?

Kinda like that idea. Only the sever can obviously vote on their fate and in addition, absolutely no pvers influencing the vote. Many have mentioned this, but wvw rank should come into play. Not sure what the cut off should be though, maybe around bronze rank.

MORE POLLS, hooray to string us along lol

I debated a good while on whether to actually make this post or not and if it was even worth trying but here goes.

Just to quickly address those who are saying server pride doesn’t exist or died in X Y or Z, what you are actually saying is it died for You then. Just because you do not have it doesn’t mean others do not.

Over the past four years, I have very much enjoyed the community that we had slowly built up on FC (recurring theme here perhaps?). Sure there were hiccoughs, and some disagreements, but over time the community that was forged was the best I have been a part of. To give some background for those who have not been on FC (or at least recently), a good portion of us put community first. Sure, there were guilds, and we all have guild loyalty, but loyalty to the server was strong as well. We did regular community events (or at least when those of us setting them up remembered to set them up). The result was a strong, friendly community relatively free of toxic behavior. Even the roamers, of which we had many, behaved themselves (mostly :P).

As some of you have pointed out, the server system has, over the years received quite a few hammer blows, such as the megaserver for pve. Despite all these, our server stayed relatively strong, community-wise. Week after week, we hung on, hoping against hope anet would find a solution. I’m sure a lot of you can appreciate how hard a blow it was to a lot of us then that the eventual solution turned out to be a painful shattering blow to the lower tier server communities, not quite enough to outright kill them, but to encourage a slow, painful bleed-out.

Some were ready to quit immediately (not at all helped by our first pairing), and yet we encouraged them to stick it out, hoping improvements to the system would be made. They weren’t, and as a result a good few of us have been left feeling betrayed. A betrayal of the amount of time put in to try and make the system anet neglected for so long work, only to have the entire thing smashed before our eyes.

Swagger, your main argument so far appears to be simply these two quotes:

Read the facts…
Swagger.1459:
McKenna Berdrow GW2 forum post….
“The poll has ended! After removing all votes for “Don’t Count My Vote”, the final results are:
82.7% – Yes
17.3% – No
This mean that World Linking is now officially a Guild Wars 2 Feature. Thank you to everyone who voted!"
AnetChrisB post on Reddit…
“We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands.”

Firstly, the way that poll was presented was heavily in favour of linking. The two, and only two choices (apart from people abstaining) was revert to the previous system or to work on finding a method of linking that worked. They effectively forced those who disliked the old system and the current linking into voting for it, with the vague promise that it would be improved upon. So to say 82.7% of people wanted this exact system and are happy with it are a gross distortion of what it actually was.

On your second quote, it is more a question than a rebuttal, but when exactly was that quote from? How recently? Also bear in mind, by looking purely at numbers, you are forgetting that it is possible that the people making up those numbers are entirely different people to a lot of the people who stuck with wvw for years. If so, then they are just as likely to leave again once things begin to fade again. Choosing short term number increases over long-term loyal players is a very risky strategy, providing that the intention is to keep wvw going, rather than simply cashing in on what is left of it.

RodOfDeath.5247:

in addition, absolutely no pvers influencing the vote.

that’s a great mindset you got going on.

on topic, I would prefer anet kept things simple as before. why fix what isn’t broken?

For everyone blobs are not fun.
Smash all da buttons till smaller zerg is all done.
I liked my small server that my pc could handle.
Now i just cry when my graphics get scrambled.
On reset night now curses get hurled.
God da** I hate this new worlds v worlds

Baba Boey.8547:

For everyone blobs are not fun.
Smash all da buttons till smaller zerg is all done.
I liked my small server that my pc could handle.
Now i just cry when my graphics get scrambled.
On reset night now curses get hurled.
God da** I hate this new worlds v worlds

Blobs are fun if you are part of an organised group, with each sub group setup properly with proper zerging builds, on TS having a laugh as you wade through hordes of foes. Boon strip sniping enemy commanders, then bombing on his down state, is a particular favourite of mine.
(I used to have a PC that couldnt handle EB, so i know the feeling of frustration).

I don’t know, but i’ve been told, Jade Quarry is good as gold.

Blobs can be fun to some people to others they are not i think op point was that now people who didnt want to blob fight or in my case cant have no choice because if you are on a smaller server and have a grp 0f 20 say you have no other option than to either grp up with map blob or get run over and thats all you can do. Now if your in it just for the loot or that playstyle than alls right in the world. but if you would like to play in a small server the way you have been for years than your sol. to fix the imbalance that wvw had in the begining they should have stopped transfers all together. And instead made high pop servers unavailabe to new players so that servers filled out evenly. They should never have allowed server stacking where players who have no loyalty to there chosen home server can just jump around to whatever srever can provide thier greedy little pockitses with the most bags

I was actually looking forward to the server linking when it first became a thing. I wasn’t quite satisfied with my home server of the time so I was hoping linking would change something, at least. I wasn’t wrong, even though the first pairing I was part of wasn’t exactly ideal or cooperative in the end.

I switched over to my current home server before the end of the first linking because I was lured in by the sense of closeness and coziness I could feel even as an outsider of the time. Reading Leona’s post made me realize that since we started to get linked with more servers and time passed, that homely feeling has disappeared somewhere along the road. I’m glad I was part of it before it vanished.

Can’t blame it on other servers, you guys are as stuck with us as we are with you. ;D

However, in the long run I have traded the closeness of a server to a closeness of one single guild I run in wvw once in a while, though I have to admit that as a pve scrub that I am, I have been doing less wvw and more pve as time has passed in the era of linking.

As a faulty product of pve, I preferred the company I was in over the enemy players we could find. I just prefer smaller community over many communities overlapping. Just my two cents.

Baba Boey.8547:

Blobs can be fun to some people to others they are not i think op point was that now people who didnt want to blob fight or in my case cant have no choice because if you are on a smaller server and have a grp 0f 20 say you have no other option than to either grp up with map blob or get run over and thats all you can do. Now if your in it just for the loot or that playstyle than alls right in the world. but if you would like to play in a small server the way you have been for years than your sol. to fix the imbalance that wvw had in the begining they should have stopped transfers all together. And instead made high pop servers unavailabe to new players so that servers filled out evenly. They should never have allowed server stacking where players who have no loyalty to there chosen home server can just jump around to whatever srever can provide thier greedy little pockitses with the most bags

Well said. Pretty much if you don’t want to bandwagon to better server. Then continue to be blobbed down by overwhelming numbers or go somewhere else for your RvR action. GW2’s WvW is now nothing more then a contest of who’s server can stack the most, and who’s blob has more numbers then the other.

A story.

Once upon a time I only played PvE, I enjoyed my PvE and did not play PvP or WvW. Then PvE megaservers happened. Everything felt strange, I missed seeing old familiar names so I dared to venture into WvW. It was fun again to be playing alongside familiar people (even if I didn’t converse with them).

WvW became my main thing to do. I dabbled in PvE as much as I had to, but in WvW I met great people and had fun playing with them often. All was well until Desert Borderlands came along, that was the first time I started playing WvW less. Finally, Alpine was returning but soon after so too came megaservers for WvW (essentially). I tried to play it, I enjoyed the reward track, I enjoyed playing Alpine again, hell, I even enjoyed being linked with a server. There was a sense of camaraderie.

As it were though, before long I missed the old ways. If I wanted to be on a server with this many people, I would have moved to one previously. Eventually it came to a point where I don’t even run on guild WvW nights, I’ve just lost the fun in it. It comes down to a simple thing, I can’t play the way I used to play, so I don’t play anymore.

Nowadays I am back to PvE, but not very enthusiastically. I’ve swallowed the PvE megaserver pill over time, it certainly has it’s perks and if I wanted to play with fellow server mates, WvW was the place to be. What now?

Skeletonwitch.3280:

A story.

Once upon a time I only played PvE, I enjoyed my PvE and did not play PvP or WvW. Then PvE megaservers happened. Everything felt strange, I missed seeing old familiar names so I dared to venture into WvW. It was fun again to be playing alongside familiar people (even if I didn’t converse with them).

WvW became my main thing to do. I dabbled in PvE as much as I had to, but in WvW I met great people and had fun playing with them often. All was well until Desert Borderlands came along, that was the first time I started playing WvW less. Finally, Alpine was returning but soon after so too came megaservers for WvW (essentially). I tried to play it, I enjoyed the reward track, I enjoyed playing Alpine again, hell, I even enjoyed being linked with a server. There was a sense of camaraderie.

As it were though, before long I missed the old ways. If I wanted to be on a server with this many people, I would have moved to one previously. Eventually it came to a point where I don’t even run on guild WvW nights, I’ve just lost the fun in it. It comes down to a simple thing, I can’t play the way I used to play, so I don’t play anymore.

Nowadays I am back to PvE, but not very enthusiastically. I’ve swallowed the PvE megaserver pill over time, it certainly has it’s perks and if I wanted to play with fellow server mates, WvW was the place to be. What now?

Sounds like it’s time for you to find another RvR game that supports your playstyle. Because from the sound of it GW2 is no longer doing it for you.