Guild Wars 2

I’ve said it before, my negative experiences since moving to SoR from Mag has been minimal. I myself am quite good at ignoring negativity in video games. Those kinda ppl are like that in real life, and a rotten existence I bet that is.

Yeah, it’s not the optimal setting for “serious” WvW play, but I always end up having fun. As Synosius said, we have a small-med sized group who are quite dedicated to wvw. During the day it can be a ghost town, but I or a guildy will pop on a comm tag and take camps and within 30 min or so we have a nice little group. If more ppl during the real slow times did the same(more often) the casuals who peek into the maps and leave when they don’t see a tag would more than likely stay and join on you.

I’ve actually learned to play a lot smarter since moving to SoR(since we’re outnumbered probably 75% of the time). That, and I’ve had the luxury to play and learn with/from a couple really experienced and crafty commanders when I play in the evenings.

I’ll help any way that I can, so if anyone here from SoR wants, add me to friends, whisper me in game if you need some warm bodies. If I’m not in the middle of something, I’d be happy to join. I might even bring some guildies. Most are PVE/PVPers, but we’ve got some great wvw players. I’m fairly positive things will turn around if SoR can stay away from the infighting. If others don’t push their ideas on how wvw should be played(unless it’s a new wvw player), I think it really can turn around.

And the guilds who leave for more serious competitive play, I don’t blame them at all. Yeah, it does hurt the server, but that’s the style of game they want to play. They paid for the game just like me, who am I to say what style of play a guild is looking for? A couple of the guilds who left were part of hate towards SoR. They’re gone. hated to see MEGA leave, but they can’t be blamed for that. GL HF, don’t complain, be part of a solution if you’re gonna stay.

This is probably irrelevant for me to say right now , but it would be cool to see other Top Tire servers look at the bottom of the list and say ,hey we should help them out or …a very huge / popular WvW guild transfer to SoR or and T8 server just to see how many numbers it would bring and to see how fast which ever server they join can climb the ladder, its allot of hard work and to some might be pointless but to me its more about the challenge and to show other mid / top tire servers whats what . merging servers can be a good idea but i wish the community of higher servers were more tight and communicative with other low tire servers. just my 2 cents.
k im done.

madd.7183:

This is probably irrelevant for me to say right now , but it would be cool to see other Top Tire servers look at the bottom of the list and say ,hey we should help them out or …a very huge / popular WvW guild transfer to SoR or and T8 server just to see how many numbers it would bring and to see how fast which ever server they join can climb the ladder, its allot of hard work and to some might be pointless but to me its more about the challenge and to show other mid / top tire servers whats what . merging servers can be a good idea but i wish the community of higher servers were more tight and communicative with other low tire servers. just my 2 cents.
k im done.

That happened to Kaineng, and look where Kaineng is now… HoD also suffered the bandwagon effect (not as bad as Kaineng) and is also back where it was prior.

Unless people decide to stay on the friggen server, nothing is going to change and things will just go back to what it was before, or even get worse.

JDjitsu.7895:

They’re gone. hated to see MEGA leave, but they can’t be blamed for that.

Aww <3. We feel like we were put in a rough spot. The people we spent most of our WvW time with all left… and to the same server! Most of our SoR friends who didn’t head to NSP are people we PvE with… and we can do that from wherever.

I feel like I have pretty strong relationships with a lot of guilds from SoR, both guilds that left and guilds that remain. I hope we can keep doing stuff together, though I understand if people are hurt by our actions.

Plus, I’ll have my alt account on SoR, so you’ll still see me occasionally. :-)

madd.7183:

This is probably irrelevant for me to say right now , but it would be cool to see other Top Tire servers look at the bottom of the list and say ,hey we should help them out or …a very huge / popular WvW guild transfer to SoR or and T8 server just to see how many numbers it would bring and to see how fast which ever server they join can climb the ladder, its allot of hard work and to some might be pointless but to me its more about the challenge and to show other mid / top tire servers whats what . merging servers can be a good idea but i wish the community of higher servers were more tight and communicative with other low tire servers. just my 2 cents.
k im done.

The only challenge is keeping your players with you. There’s nothing challenging about bringing 20-30 down to T8 and PvD for 6 months until there’s fights. There’s no challenging zerg fights until you get to T4-ish. Not saying the players are bad, but a T1 or T2 commander has much more experience commanding a large group of people in a fight than those lower tiers who, from observation, are much more casual about that stuff and just rely on numbers rather than staying tight on tag and following commands.

In all honesty SoR was a very good server for wvw daily.
Now it is for PvE, with an occasional WvW aspect a few times a week.

Though the underlying causes which have caused it to fall from being a competitive server for WvW are many. A lot of the current situation has to deal with issues which were not dealt with or taken care of for over 1-2 years, so it slowly snowballed into more important issues. Though by the time things got changed a bit, it had been to late. Many of the guilds who left SoR posted their reason on the SOR forums.

As for SoR being “dead” it is not “dead” it’s just no longer a competitive WvW server currently.

Reverence.6915:

The only challenge is keeping your players with you. There’s nothing challenging about bringing 20-30 down to T8 and PvD for 6 months until there’s fights. There’s no challenging zerg fights until you get to T4-ish. Not saying the players are bad, but a T1 or T2 commander has much more experience commanding a large group of people in a fight than those lower tiers who, from observation, are much more casual about that stuff and just rely on numbers rather than staying tight on tag and following commands.

And, based on the T1 commanders who have come down over the past year or so to “save us” and “show us how it’s done”, T1 commanders don’t have a clue how to react when opponents don’t behave like like they do in T1. Zerging rots your ability to think reactively apparently.

Rimmy.9217:

Reverence.6915:

The only challenge is keeping your players with you. There’s nothing challenging about bringing 20-30 down to T8 and PvD for 6 months until there’s fights. There’s no challenging zerg fights until you get to T4-ish. Not saying the players are bad, but a T1 or T2 commander has much more experience commanding a large group of people in a fight than those lower tiers who, from observation, are much more casual about that stuff and just rely on numbers rather than staying tight on tag and following commands.

And, based on the T1 commanders who have come down over the past year or so to “save us” and “show us how it’s done”, T1 commanders don’t have a clue how to react when opponents don’t behave like like they do in T1. Zerging rots your ability to think reactively apparently.

I admit, there’s a lot of ‘stack and push’ commanders in T1. Truth is though, they’re also the ones getting wiped in every engagement unless they outnumber their opponents by a large margin. Large group fighting that I’ve seen in lower tiers tends to devolve into a fustercluck with the bigger zerg winning a lot of the time. A lot of players playing the builds and classes they want to play without optimising builds or party synergy. The more casual nature of lower tiers(which is why I go down to T5-T8 with my alt btw, it’s fun now and then to get away from T1) lends itself to those kinds of fights. Not a bad thing, just very different.

But yeah, lots of poopy commanders in T1 for sure. I probably am part of that category :P

Fusterclucking is how you know you’ve got a k-train group in an unexpected fight.

If you’re in bronze and can’t solo a camp, tower, and keep (although not necessarily especially quickly), you are probably in the wrong place.

Rimmy.9217:

If you’re in bronze and can’t solo a camp, tower, and keep, you are probably in the wrong place.

Oooh all by yourself? my panties just dropped.

LetoII.3782:

Rimmy.9217:

If you’re in bronze and can’t solo a camp, tower, and keep, you are probably in the wrong place.

Oooh all by yourself? my panties just dropped.

Well, you know how it is for us in bronze – a barren wasteland devoid of other players. If not solo, then with who?

Rimmy.9217:

Well, you know how it is for us in bronze

No, I do not. Likewise you and gold.

sad to know about this. Sadly this kind of thing happens all the time in wvw. I know there are some good people in SOR. I hope you guys stay positive.

I myself is not a good pug cmdr, so i can’t give you a lot of suggestions, but i think it would be good if you guys focus on ppting, and avoid open field combat atm. Losing against enemy zerg will probably demoralize your zerg even worse. Make some havoc groups, and ninja some stuffs. Don’t be afraid to put kitten ton of sieges in your keep. Look at YB and their shameless siege creep. It’s starting to pay out now. And ofc, stay positive.

LetoII.3782:

Rimmy.9217:

Well, you know how it is for us in bronze

No, I do not. Likewise you and gold.

Ah, the defense of the single-accounted.

Rimmy.9217:

Fusterclucking is how you know you’ve got a k-train group in an unexpected fight.

If you’re in bronze and can’t solo a camp, tower, and keep (although not necessarily especially quickly), you are probably in the wrong place.

I do that in T1 too. It’s not exactly what I would call fun.

Whelp. We aren’t in last place anymore.

I think the real question is going to be where my server will end up the week we finally hit T8?
If SoR continues to actively defeat SF they’ll likely be the winners of T8 once BP gets there, as I doubt my server will be able to actively compete. We’ll see in a week or two!

SoR has been having a pretty good week so far. They have been giving us here at Kaineng some pretty good fights, especially when defending their own BL. Whatever you have been doing to bolster your numbers, it seems to be working! Keep it up!

Yeah Dietere, we’re enjoying the battles with you guys also. I’ve had some great duels the last week and a half with your server mates. It’s nice not to get ganked when there’s an obvious duel going on when I down someone’s party. But I main a thief, I’m used to ppl trying to gank me You Kaineng guys are like a steamroller though. And with players who act like you, I’d say a classy steamroller.

I’d have to give a good amount of the credit of our bolstering to Gaiscioch(and no I’m not from the guild, I’m in [ecto] not to be confused with [ECTO]mind you). They’ve become a lot more active in WvW as of late, and just in time because we’ve lost a lot of our “active WvW” guilds to a myriad of situations. There’s also been a few more of us logging in more in the AM and tagging up to attract others who might be doing dailies and come follow and learn that WvW is where it’s at. And most everyone is feeling the positive vibes lately and playing better because of it. We’re still seriously out-manned by all we go against, but as a whole, things don’t feel hopeless.

JDjitsu.7895:

Yeah Dietere, we’re enjoying the battles with you guys also. I’ve had some great duels the last week and a half with your server mates. It’s nice not to get ganked when there’s an obvious duel going on when I down someone’s party. But I main a thief, I’m used to ppl trying to gank me You Kaineng guys are like a steamroller though. And with players who act like you, I’d say a classy steamroller.

I’d have to give a good amount of the credit of our bolstering to Gaiscioch(and no I’m not from the guild, I’m in [ecto] not to be confused with [ECTO]mind you). They’ve become a lot more active in WvW as of late, and just in time because we’ve lost a lot of our “active WvW” guilds to a myriad of situations. There’s also been a few more of us logging in more in the AM and tagging up to attract others who might be doing dailies and come follow and learn that WvW is where it’s at. And most everyone is feeling the positive vibes lately and playing better because of it. We’re still seriously out-manned by all we go against, but as a whole, things don’t feel hopeless.

What we’ve been doing is hosting SoR community events, and then after the PvE event is over, we bring it into WvW. Casual players and players from other guilds tend to want to keep hanging with out us after the PvE event, so it makes our numbers high when we get to the BL/EBG.

But it’s an inconsistent thing. To the guilds that are doing what they can with what they have, I salute you.

There was a whole chain of events that went down to crack our WvW community. What usually happens to cause quite a few WvW-centric guilds to leave is the tournament. We didn’t win, so we are, “a bunch of scrubs” so they leave. This year, we suffered losing over 90% of our active WvW guilds.

I don’t have the full-on account of events or remember the guild names. But from what I understand and what I’ve been told from the accounts of several people (not all from GSCH) so please take this account of events with a grain of salt. I wasn’t there.

On this year’s tourney, one guild wanted us to throw a match, and another guild wanted us to just keep pushing and win. Both threatened to leave the server so we were going to lose at least one no matter what. We ended up losing, so what happens? Both leave. These are the same people who told GSCH to stay out of the fight, and we actually honored those wishes but when push came to shove, they blamed us for the loss. I guess because we’re an easy target. There was a LOT of animosity and backroom drama caused by a small number of dissenters, and clashing egos, but since nobody really dealt with these issues more early on, the WvW community crumbled. People either left GW2 entirely or Guild Leads took their guilds elsewhere.

Because we lost so many WvW-Focused communities, other ones started to leave as well when we kept dropping tiers and getting steamrolled down the ranks. We lost our night crew. We lost most of our daycrew. The WvW-Hardcore communities want a chance to win in WvW instead of just losing and losing and losing because of a lack of coverage. So they too, left because they were fairweather.

Then when we got down to the lower tiers, more WvW-Communities simply left because there weren’t any fights at all to find, or they’d log into a BL only to realize that there’s no one there. All that were left were the casual communities such as casual guilds, small tattered guilds who stayed away from WvW, and Day 1 guilds that will stay on SoR no matter what. The WvW-communities that were leftover were frustrated due to the lack of numbers period, and that they couldn’t get the casual community into WvW. It was like trying to convince a stick of deodorant to belch your dog’s sense of humor. That’s how inconceivable it was, and that’s more or less due to how WvW is designed. Which is something I elaborate further on here. So they left for greener pastures more or less due to frustration, and I don’t blame them. If I want my 24/7 PvP war fix, I play Planetside 2. I wouldn’t play GW2 for it anymore because of the lack of fights (or non-lopsided fights) that you could find.

As of now, the only time you’re going to find a sizeable number of people in WvW is when a guild schedules an event, and that’s a sad state in my opinion but we’re all taking it one day at a time. We need to recover from our loss, pick ourselves back up, stop the blame game, and march our way to a place where SoR is happy. We’ve taken our first steps by clawing out of dead last, and we really have no where else to go but up.

If GW2 sees a population surge, or if some guilds move down to SoR, I hope that the WvW community that it creates is better, happier even, than what we had before.

JDjitsu.7895:

Yeah Dietere, we’re enjoying the battles with you guys also. I’ve had some great duels the last week and a half with your server mates. It’s nice not to get ganked when there’s an obvious duel going on when I down someone’s party. But I main a thief, I’m used to ppl trying to gank me You Kaineng guys are like a steamroller though. And with players who act like you, I’d say a classy steamroller.

I’d have to give a good amount of the credit of our bolstering to Gaiscioch(and no I’m not from the guild, I’m in [ecto] not to be confused with [ECTO]mind you). They’ve become a lot more active in WvW as of late, and just in time because we’ve lost a lot of our “active WvW” guilds to a myriad of situations. There’s also been a few more of us logging in more in the AM and tagging up to attract others who might be doing dailies and come follow and learn that WvW is where it’s at. And most everyone is feeling the positive vibes lately and playing better because of it. We’re still seriously out-manned by all we go against, but as a whole, things don’t feel hopeless.

Yes, compared to last week, you guys have started to be more dominant. Don’t worry, Kaineng used to be in that situation. Now, with SN starting to have a presence nearly all day and night, we have great EB coverage. That sounds what you guys are getting with GSCH, as I have seen them with pretty massive zergs when I’m roaning.
Keep up the good work, you guys are really fun to fight (I run in the SIN guild) in your borderlands
P.S. You guys need to pick up your borderland awareness, me and my guild mates will paper the keeps and all towers and it will stay that way for an hour or so.

oscuro.9720:

P.S. You guys need to pick up your borderland awareness, me and my guild mates will paper the keeps and all towers and it will stay that way for an hour or so.

It’s not really a question of awareness. Outside of those events where a guild is out in force, SoR’s population is little to none. We do not have the consistent numbers or commanders, especially to play defense. Most of what we have been doing is pure offense. “If you take 99 points, then we’ll win with 100.”

oscuro.9720:

P.S. You guys need to pick up your borderland awareness, me and my guild mates will paper the keeps and all towers and it will stay that way for an hour or so.

This is coverage buddy… Nothing to do with border awareness. If there is no people, things won’t flip back by themselves… And your server specifically is known for having off-hour players.

Like I said to Isredel on TS, I think SOR being in the lower tiers now, is good in the long run for the community.

Yes the initial shock is slowly fading, and yes many miss their friends, however I think SOR is going to find a new nice cozy home along the wvw tiers. One which wont be causing players to pull 20hour shifts in wvw, or give up real life to keep their server in their wvw ranking spot..

Personally, I like tier 8. I’ve done T1 – T8 and have to say that by the time you hit T8, all those “Pro” players are pretty much gone and what you’re left with is humble players, who will duel you fairly, jump in a party with you and chat, and the guilds are just out there to have fun. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to the roid rage testosterone fest that goes on in Tier 1. Tier 1 reminded me a lot of playing d1a ball. Everyone thought they were pro caliber and 90% of them couldn’t even pull their own weight. Not saying everyone in Tier 1 is bad, I know for a fact there are some Phenomenal players and guilds up there that I had the ability to face off with and learn from, but all in all you get a lot of trash talk, big expectations, and big egos that thrive on tearing other people down to make themselves feel better about themselves.

As I said in college, I just wanna play ball. People in T8 are out there because they love the game and want to play it. We don’t have to be the best at everything, we’re allowed to screw up and make a bad call, when you make an error it’s not blasted all over the forums, all over the official sites, and teamspeaks, and talked about for weeks on end. You move on to the next play.

Regarding BP, I feel your pain, we’ll keep the yak’s warm till you get here and hopefully you’ll find the change of pace refreshing. If that does happen, Kaineng. I’m gonna miss you guys. SN and SIN have been a ton of fun to face off with and I love the duels we’ve been sharing the past couple weeks. It’s been a real pleasure facing off against KN and SF the past two weeks. Thanks for the fights guys. If we go up, we’re gonna have to drag ya with us.

*Gets all teary eyed*

Our guys are hoping we get another week up against SoR, we’re starting to plan out strategies to deal with your big groups >:) It has been really fun, though I’ve mostly been playing on my level 10 up-leveled engineer this weekend, so I can’t say I have participated much, except playing rally-bot once they realize I’m an up-level :p

I have no idea how to explain it, but back when I first met SoR after you fell down to bronze first time, I could sort of feel it when playing against you that your people where not happy, not enjoying themselves. No idea how, just got the feeling. Now I just keep feeling that you guys are having fun. And that makes it so much more fun to play against you Keep it up!

I’m also looking forward to meet BP (Fresh meat and all that!) and see where they will settle down, kinda suspecting that they will push us up to Tier7 with AR+FC, which might not be so bad...

Here was the deal: Wildstar happened.

SoR made a real push to be a viable server. Next thing you know, we ended up in T1. While in T1, we encountered blobby blob blobs and siege humping over and over and over. SoR liked to fight rather than defend, and we were getting tired of the T1 PPT fest, so we (all major guilds) started scouting other viable servers so we could get some real fights in before Wildstar launched. We all liked SoS, so we (TW) planned our move there before jumping ship to WildStar. Most of the other major guilds moved to TC or SoS. We (TW) made sure every other single guild that wanted to move to another home had that chance before we moved. (In essence, we turned the lights off before we said good bye).

Those that stayed had various reasons, and we understanded them all. We truly enjoyed our time on SoR, the community, the desire, the ups and the downs. TW is currently back in GW2 (Wildstar was a bust, lol), but these things happen to servers. I was on Kaineng from is humble beginnings to meteoric rise to its equally meteoric fall. I have witnessed many servers rise and fall (most recently Yaks and Maguuma) and many guilds rise and fall, but in the end you have to decide what type of WvW gameplay suits you best. SoR will never be what it once was, but that doesnt mean you cant still enjoy the game.

Wildstar? Really? We got back every player that left for WS a week after they left and they even brought more people with them when they came back. Wildstar was a flashfire of epic proportions. Not even Star Wars had that quick of a turnaround. It was like “Hey guys lets go swimming! Oh snap thats freaking cold I’m outta here” Some returned the very next day.

The thing that really drives me crazy is this line " (all major guilds) ". This alone has been the bane of Sanctum of Rall’s existence since the “Major Guilds” arrived on the shores of Sanctum of Rall. They preach a united community but if you’re not on the WvW map 24/7 you’re not a major guild. Then you get alienated and pushed out and asked to stay off the map while the Major Guilds go and do all the work. Then when fit hits the shan who’s to blame? The lesser guilds for not helping.

Let’s look at the facts. Right before season 1, IRON went back home leaving a gap in our coverage. I loved IRON, those guys were stand up people and a ton of fun to fight along side. I get that, this was a major hit to our community right before S1 kicked off. What happened next, truly was messed up and you can blame wildstar or gaiscioch or whoever you like but that does not change the teamspeak meeting that decided our fate. If we didn’t throw a match to drop out of T1 FEAR was going to leave SOR. If we did throw a match CHOO was going to leave SOR. Lets see. Lose a 500 person guild or lose a 500 person guild. Good choices here and the rest of SOR just had to take whatever fate was delt out. You can dance around it all you like but in the end that doesn’t change the fact that FEAR left because we wouldn’t throw a match, causing us to drop to Tier 2 where CHOO TW and so many others chose to split as well. In the end we lost everything and it sure as hell wasn’t because of Wildstar or a guild that you all asked to stay off the field before thursday.

Sanctum of Rall is right where it needs to be now. We dropped all the way to the bottom. Bled out every single player that held onto that “All Major Guilds” or “WvW Guilds” mentality. What we have left is the TRUE nature of SOR. Good, Honest, Caring people who join together night after night regardless of the guild tag above their head and work together to crawl out of this hole we were dumped in. Now anywhere we go from here is on Us. The REAL SOR.

I give a huge shout out to all of Sanctum of Rall: FoW, WF, NICE, Aco, EG, WR, SoR, SIN, Hope, EVIL, LEM, ECTO, TID, PPP, POTE, ESC, CWAR, UO, FBB, Ale, ISA, ecto, TRS, FoF, OCX, PH, GSCH, and sooooo many others that join us out there night after night for some fun in WvW. Anywhere we go from here is on us. We’ve got a fresh canvas and we know how to paint it red.

We may be down, but we certainly ain’t out.

https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/t31.0-8/10873525_10152507925499080_3098284353738476076_o.jpg

Mishi.7058:

Like I said to Isredel on TS, I think SOR being in the lower tiers now, is good in the long run for the community.

Yes the initial shock is slowly fading, and yes many miss their friends, however I think SOR is going to find a new nice cozy home along the wvw tiers. One which wont be causing players to pull 20hour shifts in wvw, or give up real life to keep their server in their wvw ranking spot..

Agreed, SoR at it’s height was a lot of work, a lot of fun, and took every spare moment of our lives.. Can’t do that forever.

Jeknar.6184:

oscuro.9720:

P.S. You guys need to pick up your borderland awareness, me and my guild mates will paper the keeps and all towers and it will stay that way for an hour or so.

This is coverage buddy… Nothing to do with border awareness. If there is no people, things won’t flip back by themselves… And your server specifically is known for having off-hour players.

Fair enough, I don’t really know your server population layout. I do know you guys have a few roamers, and that is the extent of my knowledge on your server.
Best of luck to your server!

Foghladha.2506:

Let’s look at the facts. Right before season 1, IRON went back home leaving a gap in our coverage. I loved IRON, those guys were stand up people and a ton of fun to fight along side. I get that, this was a major hit to our community right before S1 kicked off. What happened next, truly was messed up and you can blame wildstar or gaiscioch or whoever you like but that does not change the teamspeak meeting that decided our fate. If we didn’t throw a match to drop out of T1 FEAR was going to leave SOR. If we did throw a match CHOO was going to leave SOR. Lets see. Lose a 500 person guild or lose a 500 person guild. Good choices here and the rest of SOR just had to take whatever fate was delt out. You can dance around it all you like but in the end that doesn’t change the fact that FEAR left because we wouldn’t throw a match, causing us to drop to Tier 2 where CHOO TW and so many others chose to split as well. In the end we lost everything and it sure as hell wasn’t because of Wildstar or a guild that you all asked to stay off the field before thursday.

If you remember, BG and JQ bought MANY MANY guilds before Season 1 (I know for a fact that BG bought at least 15 WvW guilds directly from Dragonbrand causing its implosion). SoR refused to buy guilds, which imho was very admirable, but the lack of PPT meant that we were dropping to T2 no matter what. Ace (FEAR) decided we needed to move to T2 faster, but SoR didn’t cave in and he lost a lot of credibility when he moved. (FEAR also imploded shortly thereafter).

Absolutely everyone I know was talking about the move to Wildstar and were just hanging out until then. EOTM also came out around the same time (probably to try and keep everyone from moving) and everyone on SoR lost interest in real WvW. (Remember the “last” SoR reset meeting and absolutely no one volunteered to do reset? Remember when SoR had an open EOTM channel? Remember JQ and BG pitching a fit because SoR stopped playing WvW?)

If you think T8 is good for SoR, then I believe it’s also in a good place. Most of us (except Ace…) have very fond memories of the whole journey. Most of us feel like everyone contributed an equal amount, but being in T1 requires everyone to be on TS, everyone on a level 80, and everyone to coorperate; that was the magic of SoR, because it worked (mostly) when we all worked together.

Foghladha.2506:

What we have left is the TRUE nature of SOR. Good, Honest, Caring people who join together night after night regardless of the guild tag above their head and work together to crawl out of this hole we were dumped in. Now anywhere we go from here is on Us. The REAL SOR.

“Good, honest, caring?” Absolutely. I love my friends from SoR.

“Join together night after night… and work together to crawl out of this hole?” Not even close.

There were a ton of people, myself included, who wanted to help build SoR back up. My chosen strategy was to be more effective with the people we had. Not “run more hours.” Not “only WvW guilds invited.” None of that.

It was more about focusing on server strategy, server class composition, and individual knowledge and ability. In return, I spent most of my time arguing about how many Rangers are acceptable. (Which I still think is 10% or less.)

My impression of SoR, or at least those that didn’t leave in the latest migration, is that it’s full of awesome people… until you suggest that they change something they’re doing to help the server succeed. Then it’s full of angry people.

That’s definitely an environment that certain people are looking for, but for those of us willing to re-gear, to level a new class, to learn how to do something new or different, SoR let us down. And I’m saying that as somebody who founded his guild on SoR on August 25th, 2012. I was there for the ups and the downs. I was there for the first server meeting on, what was it, the Monday after launch? In Shaemoor? On Raidcall?

Anyway, I continue to wish all my friends on SoR the best. I think, if you can find a way to be more open, more adaptive, more strategic, you can begin to truly make progress and find your way again. You’ve got the brains and the heart, that’s for sure. <3

you can stop telling us how bad we are now, kthxbye. youve repeated this post like over a dozen times in various forums.

it takes 2 to argue btw. you left the server months ago and here it is again, sor was a terrible place and we left but we have many friends =middle finger=

I have argued with roughly ZERO ppl on sor since I started commanding and I have a rly abrasive personality and I rly luv to argue. its so rare that anyone even takes my argument bait too (cept for that one guy we both know )

Could people stop trying to pin blame on larger guilds for SOR’s current state.
In reality even after those guilds left things never got better.

If it was the loss of TW/Fear/Choo and larger wvw guilds" then SoR wouldn’t have lost a ton of WvW’ers back in Sept.-Nov. of this year.

So what would explain the current state SOR is in?

In all honesty it’s the divide of different types of players, lack of teamwork that happened, lack of communication, babysitting guilds because they wouldn’t speak to one another half the time, and lack of fun. It’s not based off of X guild or Y guild.

About the people on SoR now being the Real SoR. That is kinda hurtful to those of us who had to move off the server to save our guilds from dying out, or save ourselves from quitting GW2 again due to lack of players to wvw with.

I know I myself moved my main off SoR; however I never stopped caring for SoR even to this day.
Did I want to move off sor? No.
Did I move my main? Yes.

Reason was because the time I play there was no one in WvW, and playing WvW alone was boring and it was either I moved, or took yet another break from GW2. Now I did leave an alt account on SoR, and I am a Rallian for life, however to hear it spoken as I am not a “true SoR” is a bit demeaning/offensive.

Hi Eko. For what it’s worth, I always thought you were part of the solution, not part of the problem. And as a small correction, I didn’t leave the server months ago, I left about two weeks ago.

And I’d just like to +1 what Silvannas said. Most of us who left did it to save our guilds and our communities, not out of malice or anger. It does hurt to see us called “not true SoR” etc. from people we respect and admire.

But hey, that’s fair. We left. It’s okay for you to be unhappy with us. In the end, though, if you want to know why SoR died, you have to ask the guilds that left why they left. We’re telling you. As you mentioned, I’ve done it DOZENS of times. It’s up to you whether you care to do anything with that information or not.

What Im trying to say is… accept the break up. Move on. If you still want to be friends after, focus on you own positve aspects and share them.

It was more about focusing on server strategy, server class composition, and individual knowledge and ability. In return, I spent most of my time arguing about how many Rangers are acceptable. (Which I still think is 10% or less.)

My impression of SoR, or at least those that didn’t leave in the latest migration, is that it’s full of awesome people… until you suggest that they change something they’re doing to help the server succeed. Then it’s full of angry people.

Trying to convince a mostly casual community to change their builds just for the sake of one specific game mode is once again, like trying to convince a stick of deodorant to belch your dog’s sense of humor. It really doesn’t make sense to try. You need to find the people who are willing to be more serious about WvW and then pitch your changes to them.

When Fog mentioned, “Crawling out of this hole.” I think he means just getting SoR into a place to where it’s happy and can instead have fun in WvW instead of getting stressed out over it to the point to where it feels more like a second job.

timmyf.1490:

My impression of SoR, or at least those that didn’t leave in the latest migration, is that it’s full of awesome people… until you suggest that they change something they’re doing to help the server succeed. Then it’s full of angry people.

That was the impression I got from my 2 week stay on SoR on my alt (you guys hadn’t moved yet at the time). I would say that there are people willing to change, but are overshadowed by the people who would rather show up to WvW in uplevel PvE specs and ride the weekly 2 hour karma trains and to hell with those people trying to make WvW fun for themselves by trying to defend and win. In this respect, GSCH has a lot to answer for as the proponents of the weekly karma trains that really warp what WvW is meant to be, in my opinion.

There are some really dedicated WvWers in GSCH. It’s a pity they aren’t given much support to do more and push more people into WvW.

I must say though, that SoR kept me slightly more interested than ET when ET was ranked last, though the problems differed immensely between the 2 servers.

That was the impression I got from my 2 week stay on SoR on my alt (you guys hadn’t moved yet at the time). I would say that there are people willing to change, but are overshadowed by the people who would rather show up to WvW in uplevel PvE specs and ride the weekly 2 hour karma trains and to hell with those people trying to make WvW fun for themselves by trying to defend and win. In this respect, GSCH has a lot to answer for as the proponents of the weekly karma trains that really warp what WvW is meant to be, in my opinion.

There are some really dedicated WvWers in GSCH. It’s a pity they aren’t given much support to do more and push more people into WvW.

I must say though, that SoR kept me slightly more interested than ET when ET was ranked last, though the problems differed immensely between the 2 servers.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been with quite a few of our WvW events. We take what we can, and if there’s a call to defend a structure such as a keep or SMC, we’ll be there within a manner of how long it takes to get there from the border. We don’t just come in twice a week, we usually go in several times a day to take structures and defend important areas. We have commanders who will stick around for over 3-5 straight hours on their days off of work or before/after their workday. To see you blame us for PLAYING THE GAME is ridiculous.

GSCH is filled with quite a lot of people who have little spare time for gaming, and only a handful even want to play in WvW. At least those who are in WvW positively affect our PPT by papering enemy keeps and towers.

Instead of pointing the blame at one or a few communities, you should instead blame the whole design of WvW, and the fact that there are 4 different game modes, not many wanting to stick to just one or build themselves for just one.

Reverence,
Explain this:

FACT: To win in WvW you need PPT

YOUR ACCUSATION: If you take keeps and towers your Karma Farming

So how exactly are you supposed to gain PPT without sieging again?

After the larger wvw guilds had left in the first exodus I was one of the many that stayed and tried to help rebuild SoR and looked forward to bronze wvw for a change to get away from all that garbage that went on in t1 at the time. I went to server meetings, talked with guild leaders trying to recruit them over to SoR, posted recruitment ads here on the forum, donated siege to commanders, even helped setup the new SoR TS the day it was created. A few months ago I realized that no matter what SoR was going nowhere and I just stopped caring because I was not having any fun watching it die again and again and seeing many friends leave. I had been on SoR for 22 months, played through every tier and against every server. I did all I could to help it, even commanded when I could. On my last night in SoR I put up my pin and recapped our garrison with 2 other people…this was about 30minutes into reset night…the handwriting was on the wall and this is when I knew it was definately time to go.

As far as GSCH goes, look I like you guys personally you do great things for the community and have a lot of nice people. But heres the thing you guys are a multi gaming community you cannot act like you run or control SoR because of the name because you are not dedicated leadership. Doing Karma trains in wvw a couple times a week does not count as dedicated wvw leadership for gw2. That is how other servers manage to succeed and rebuild because of dedicated leadership. I mean you guys didnt even use SoR’s TS for your raids, criticized and attacked all proposed ideas without bringing up any ideas yourselves, refused to go along with anything we wanted to do that other servers tried and successfully employed to rebuild and stabilize. This toxic environment, the constant butting of heads by ego driven commanders, and everyone unable or unwilling to come to any understanding or agreement so yea SoR was long meant to be the graveyard of WvW. And before you get all angry and try to flame on me for those words, reread my first paragraph, I am no bandwagoner, I did more for SoR then anybody will know, I wish it would have worked, but there were was too much working against SoR. It was a tough decision for me to leave and one that took a lot of self convincing, but in the end there was no other choice. And GSCH in all honesty, if your happy with the way SoR is now, your either deluded or so kitten stubborn you cannot ever admit you might be wrong…I say both.

SOR had a smaller pop than the other t1 servers and its talent was spread thin. Whe Iron left they became an uncompetative server over night. It was like a crack in a dam that busted loose.

I loved playing there prior to S1. The commanders were especially awesome. But there were a lot of egos and it all exploded.

Foghladha.2506:

Reverence,
Explain this:

FACT: To win in WvW you need PPT

YOUR ACCUSATION: If you take keeps and towers your Karma Farming

So how exactly are you supposed to gain PPT without sieging again?

Who said anything at all about winning? Who at this point of the game still cares about that? Criticisms levelled at GSCH is that you guys don’t care about WvW. You’re a PvE guild with a few WvW players. There’s no desire to actually participate and boost WvW presence in SoR from GSCH. There’s little to no desire to improve open field fight skills within the guild leadership. It leads to conflict with the people and guilds that do care. That’s generally why SoR’s second exodus happened, even though SoR was in a very good position to rise back to Silver.

If you go completely hands off WvW and keep your trains to EoTM, SoR might actually bounce back as your extremely large PvE population gets slowly introduced to WvW via ANet events such as Sneak Attack and tournaments.

Rev your points are mostly valid. We are working on it but large changes take time.

I wish I could hang a sign on the door… closed for renovations

And maybe later… grand re-opening! Under new management.

I definitely saw some great first steps before I left. Increased Teamspeak use, focusing on smaller units rather than a single map tag, etc.

But so long as statements like this:

Trying to convince a mostly casual community to change their builds just for the sake of one specific game mode is once again, like trying to convince a stick of deodorant to belch your dog’s sense of humor. It really doesn’t make sense to try.

…are the accepted norm within the community, the ceiling for SoR is very low.

If you mostly play PvE and expect to come into WvW without changing your build, you will be in trouble. This is the FIRST lesson I teach my guild members when we come into WvW. And immediately after, I offer to help them get WvW gear (usually by running AC paths for Soldiers gear).

Casual doesn’t mean ignorant. You can play casually a few hours a week and still take time to update your traits and switch out a few pieces of equipment. And asking nicely shouldn’t be like doing whatever you’re saying with the deodorant. (Sorry, that’s a metaphor with which I’m unfamiliar.)

Anyway, as Eko said, I should really just accept the break-up and move on.

I moved my main account to yaks bend when the max exodus happened but left my alt. account in SoR. I just finished mapping on a low level character and found the community as awesome as ever had one problem sp the stupid skritt king and map called for help within 5 mins had ppl helping me.

SoR WvW isn’t dead it is just not what is was before but the spirit of SoR is still there which I think is more important than PPT or winning etc.

Criticisms levelled at GSCH is that you guys don’t care about WvW.

We care, but we aren’t going to go in and treat it like a second job.

There’s no desire to actually participate and boost WvW presence in SoR from GSCH.

Thanks to [EVIL] as well as other peeps for joining in on this event. It was a blast.

It leads to conflict with the people and guilds that do care. That’s generally why SoR’s second exodus happened.

You were on our server for two weeks, and know little to nothing about the chain of events that went down in our server. I spoke to a variety of people from a variety of guilds and servers to get their perspective on the events that unfolded before making my post here, to give a summary of what happened without naming any names save for our own.

If you go completely hands off WvW and keep your trains to EoTM, SoR might actually bounce back as your extremely large PvE population gets slowly introduced to WvW via ANet events such as Sneak Attack and tournaments.

“You guys are casual, so exclude yourself from an entire game mode.” is what I’m getting out of this line.

I’ve said it before, but you conveniently ignored it to suit your own argument. GSCH schedules commanders and a handful of us (Between 10-15 people) several times daily, not two times a week. And even if not, this is a video game, we’re here to have fun. To quite a bit of us, WvW is still fun in moderation.

At the end of the day, people like you who wanna ignorantly fling insults and criticisms at our community from the distance of your own home server are not the kind of people I’d actually want to play with, so I’m going to go ahead and ignore all future posts by you.

But heres the thing you guys are a multi gaming community you cannot act like you run or control SoR.

We don’t. This is pretty much the antithesis of what GSCH is. We never sought to control the server. We sought to help unite it though community events, the very well-made Sanctumofrall.com website, and unite us under the banner of Rall. Nowadays, we solely use TS when doing WvW and SoR Community events.

Doing Karma trains in wvw a couple times a week does not count as dedicated wvw leadership for gw2.

conveniently ignoring pieces of the other posts to support your own criticisms and arguments must be a fad here.

And GSCH in all honesty, if your happy with the way SoR is now, your either deluded or so kitten stubborn you cannot ever admit you might be wrong…I say both.

The way SoR is now is one of mending the community, encouraging the people who stayed, and once again doing what we can to unite ourselves. No, we’re not content the way SoR is right now, but we’re taking steps towards a place to where we (as in the majority of SoR) can be happy.

Everything else you said, I honestly can’t comment on, as they are a mix of events I wasn’t there for, and don’t have any info on. Regardless, I hope you’re happy on the new server you’re in.

Stay strong SoR! Fought you on your way to lower tiers, one of the best servers per capita. Also run with some ppl who started at SoR , and if they are any indication, your community is fun.

GL

First of all if your gonna suggest not conveniently ignoring pieces of other posts to support yours…please take your own advice.

Very well made website??? That website was an outdated joke, we had to constantly ask Fog to update that thing and change it to look as sharp as the websites of other servers because the SoR one looked ridiculous in comparison. Heck it had the names of guilds that were no longer on the server, for months, still registered on it.

And congratulations on finally using the TS…of course now that theres nobody left to pay for and manage it. At least better late then never right? But for close to 2 years you guys just used your own rc channel instead of the server TS. Which is fine thats your choice, but you have to understand WvW is not like going onto a pve map. It requires structure, coordination, proper setup etc. In the past if you guys just suddenly brought in a group at a random time and queued the map with pve geared players all in your own channel in raidcall, OF COURSE it was going to cause problems.

And Ive known GSCH for 2 years now, I know how you guys do WvW, sure you have some people during the day. But the majority come for the 2-3 times a week karma train, most of which are in pve setups. Which is why you guys were always slaughtered when SoR was in higher tiers, not only that but it disrupted the groups already on the maps and caused queues often leading to losing upgraded keeps.

you were the toxic community that you rail against, you finally transferred and good riddance.

I knew you from HL, I have experienced your leadership and you were the sole reason I didnt fall in with agny after the split.