Guild Wars 2

Which servers do yo guys think have the best communities? Also, how would you correlate the relation between tiers and their communities? Does T1 have the worst? Does T8 have the best? Is T4 the best mix of both?

I’m asking because I’m debating on transferring servers, and preferably I want to go to a server with a great community as well as the ability to fight well.

I might be biased playing on Gunnars Hold, but i do loooooove this community to bits and were known as a “fight” server.

are you talking about general everyday people on the map type of “communities”? Or are you using the word to describe the organization of a small percentage of a server who dedicates themselves to maintaining a world community website, forum & VOIP that give each world their unique flavor and who are usually more of the WvW focused?

I think those are two very different but equally important things and I’ve seen the word “community” used to describe both so you might get very different answers depending on what the poster responding assumed you meant. Just something to be aware of. Also EU, NA or both?

I’m talking about NA btw, sorry for the confusion. I should’ve mentioned that in the OP.

Also, when I say community, I’m talking about the forum website, VOIP, etc. Actually talking people voice-to-voice is far more superior than talking to eachother in map chat.

[s]Well, I have to say that in terms of EU servers, Aurora Glade is amazing.
Organising server-wide events during weekends (saturday night live raids and such) and the major WvW guilds are very open and willing to help people out, not uncommon to see them switching over to an open raid if there’s a lack of a commander and such…

Possible downside is that the actual WvW community is relatively small as there was a lot of folk leaving that server not too long ago. It’s been primarily a PvE server since…
The community that is there is strong though, often making a good ‘quality over quantity’ statement.[/s]

You posted you ment NA right before me posting :P

Organization increases the higher you go up and decreases the lower down you go generally. So organization-wise, t1-2 blow every other server out of the water. t3-5 tend to have basic organization, far superior use of voip and scouts than bronze, but they tend to have similar levels of organization in regards to things like private forums and whatnot (Dh has some but they’re rarely used) as there is in bronze. They also don’t get nearly as much TS participation as t2, but it’s still far above bronze.

As far as servers with standout communities, I’d put forth the following:

NSP: The most resilient and diehard community around. Spent months in the grinder of t3, came out mostly intact.

IoJ: Similarly resilient community, didn’t survive t3 as well as NSP did but those that stayed also seem die-hard and loyal. Easily the funniest/most entertaining server around (they’re definitely a troll server, old school Maguuma-esque).

Dh: (disclaimer: this is my server, but I’ll try to be fair) A community/fights focused server. Lots of guilds here, guilds love each other and get along generally. Guilds, while focused on fights, are also focused on building a community that wants to stick together (we’ve gotten a tonnnn of transfers in recent memory, I don’t think 1 single full guild of any size has left the server, those that disbanded/went inactive had the majority of their players disperse into Dh guilds instead of leaving).

SBI: They have fun and they don’t care what anyone else thinks. One of the best commanders in the game (Bannok) who leads very organized pug zergs (they give guilds a run for their money). Excessively organized for a pug server, lots of scouts and effective defense.

These are the only 4 standout communities I’ve noticed in my time in silver. Bronze all servers have a flavor and a community, but I don’t recommend moving there honestly so I won’t speak on that subject.

I don’t have any experience outside of T1 having been on JQ since Beta but I would say the communities that have endured the longest are likely the most well built and those are not limited by what tier a world is currently in. There are worlds like YB, NSP, TC, SoR & others that build very tight knit communities early on because they had common interests tying them together.

The Jade Quarry community started off strong because it tried to draw in players familiar with the concept of “Realm Pride” from previous games and the idea that even in the era of free world transfers you stayed put. I was always very disappointed that ANET didn’t give the world communities a better way to show off their worlds personality. These days you just have to go hunting for a “feeling” from forum posters or guest around to all the community websites to get an idea what each one is all about. I don’t know about other worlds, but it seems like JQ goes through phases of that strong sense of world identity showing up in game and others of where you only feel it if you are part of the forums and TS.

I think T1 NA has a strange overall community. Meaning, since we’ve been fighting a decent number of these people since launch (no, really), or are now fighting alongside them, there’s a lot of friendships that have developed over the years. It’s pretty hard to explain if you’re not up here, but it’s evident to most of us. There’s always sour apples, and people who are too salty for words, but overall… it’s highly dysfunctional, but it works. So, no, I do not believe T1 NA has the worst community. Not by a long shot.

Wouldn’t it also depend on when you play. If all or most of the fun/helpful/orgainized etc etc people are in bed or at work when you play then it probably won’t matter much. I know fun people in T8 NA but almost all have turned back into pumpkins by the time I’ve logged in.

Yeah, it’s kinda common to see some ex-jq/bg/tc that move amongst the t1. Also there are organized cross server guilds that work on builds and solo fights. I can’t be biased to my server, because I’m pretty sure the other two are equally built in terms of a wvw, website, voip community. Some days we share 2v1’s other days we all just get into a clusterf*** battle without care about towers and such. Really quite fun. All have some who roam and havoc, yes there are large scale battles too. Happens. T1 is pretty good imho. I’ve been on other servers even transferred down to t8 to check it out before landing on a t2 server which moved up to t1…

Maybe try to add more to what you are looking for. Maybe there are specific guilds that fit your match. I’m sure everyone here enjoys there servers and communities otherwise they wouldn’t be playing.

zhonnika.1784:

I think T1 NA has a strange overall community. Meaning, since we’ve been fighting a decent number of these people since launch (no, really), or are now fighting alongside them, there’s a lot of friendships that have developed over the years. It’s pretty hard to explain if you’re not up here, but it’s evident to most of us. There’s always sour apples, and people who are too salty for words, but overall… it’s highly dysfunctional, but it works. So, no, I do not believe T1 NA has the worst community. Not by a long shot.

No – on TC, which is T1 BTW, has a very decent community. We do work together in WvW, I think it just depends on the guilds. It is how the GL sets up the guild as to whom they attract. If you have an odd GL, you will get odd people.