Guild Wars 2

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Straegen.2938:

Jayne.9251:

Yes, but you’re saying to use the pugs and smaller guilds to be the “mortar” .. meaning they randomly get assigned to a shifting “server”.

The most important goal of a matching system should be a fair fight. The server system has almost no way to make that happen over a period of time. In fact it creates matches so lopsided for such long periods it drives players out of the game mode. Most don’t like to log in and immediately find they have no chance at victory. Most don’t like to log in and find their opponent has stopped showing up.

WvW would have more players if most matches were close and the fights were fresh. Any system that moves WvW in that direction is a win. I also believe identity is important but that is why guilds exist in MMOs. Guilds are a players group identity.

Scoring should be related to a player and players guild performance with an alliance being the battleground where that scoring takes place. Tracking kills, KDR, objectives taken, objectives defended, etc by guild and player along with victory conditions delivering substantial rewards has tremendous untapped potential.

Well., it appears that you have a particular tunnel vision that doesn’t even let you debate content — you don’t address a single issue I’ve raised. I get it. It’s the Internet after all.

Your idea would ruin WvW as we know it. I know you don’t think so, but it would.

Saying “greater good” in this case does not laud John Stuart Mill. It just means you don’t fully understand how WvW maps work and that you just fight without context. You only see one side of the gameplay — and that’s fights.

I can only tell you that if you lose your defensive team, you lose what keeps WvW active.

WvW will never be equal, even with your suggestion. It’s not meant to be.

dumb idea solves nothing

Faux Play.6104:

You seem to be the one with tunnel vision. Having guilds does not have to equal karma train. You can easily have guilds that specialize in any play style for WvW. Guilds also don’t have to be large.

Considering GW2 it’s bigger than WvW limiting who you can WvW with to the piece of hardware that stores your account information is pointless. If you like the way WvW has been trending since launch, then keep doing the same thing. You know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Jayne.9251:

Straegen.2938:

Large guilds would anchor a match and small guilds/PUGs would fill in the gaps.

Dear god, please stop this silliness.

If you believe this works, then you have no clue about how your defense teams work. Most of them are the “pugs” who will “fill in the gaps” and as such are used to working with smaller groups to do the jobs the guilds just plain won’t do. It takes time and proven teamwork to make that function. Randomly dispersing them will result in a non-cohesive group that will crumble with this model.

You NEED to have both groups on map in order for WvW to work.

If you only have guilds and fights, your map is going to turn into a giant k-train, indistinguishable from pve-champ train maps. If you enjoy that, please go to pve.

If you only have defensive types, then nobody attacks, and it grows equally boring.

You NEED both.

Saying these “pugs” will fill in the gaps indicates a clear disconnect on what really goes on in your wvw maps.

Faux Play.6104:

Faux Play.6104:

You seem to be the one with tunnel vision. Having guilds does not have to equal karma train. You can easily have guilds that specialize in any play style for WvW. Guilds also don’t have to be large.

Considering GW2 it’s bigger than WvW limiting who you can WvW with to the piece of hardware that stores your account information is pointless. If you like the way WvW has been trending since launch, then keep doing the same thing. You know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Jayne.9251:

Straegen.2938:

Large guilds would anchor a match and small guilds/PUGs would fill in the gaps.

Dear god, please stop this silliness.

If you believe this works, then you have no clue about how your defense teams work. Most of them are the “pugs” who will “fill in the gaps” and as such are used to working with smaller groups to do the jobs the guilds just plain won’t do. It takes time and proven teamwork to make that function. Randomly dispersing them will result in a non-cohesive group that will crumble with this model.

You NEED to have both groups on map in order for WvW to work.

If you only have guilds and fights, your map is going to turn into a giant k-train, indistinguishable from pve-champ train maps. If you enjoy that, please go to pve.

If you only have defensive types, then nobody attacks, and it grows equally boring.

You NEED both.

Saying these “pugs” will fill in the gaps indicates a clear disconnect on what really goes on in your wvw maps.

Name me one defense-only guild that is not the server’s community guild …. Just one, let alone several per server.

Go on.

Sounds like you are making my point for me. Guilds do actually provide more than one play style. It sounds like your definition of a community guild is one that is defensive so I doubt I could name one.

If statistics are tracked for guilds performance in different categories they could easily take pride at exceling at whatever play style they want to specialize in.

Jayne.9251:

Faux Play.6104:

Faux Play.6104:

You seem to be the one with tunnel vision. Having guilds does not have to equal karma train. You can easily have guilds that specialize in any play style for WvW. Guilds also don’t have to be large.

Considering GW2 it’s bigger than WvW limiting who you can WvW with to the piece of hardware that stores your account information is pointless. If you like the way WvW has been trending since launch, then keep doing the same thing. You know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Jayne.9251:

Straegen.2938:

Large guilds would anchor a match and small guilds/PUGs would fill in the gaps.

Dear god, please stop this silliness.

If you believe this works, then you have no clue about how your defense teams work. Most of them are the “pugs” who will “fill in the gaps” and as such are used to working with smaller groups to do the jobs the guilds just plain won’t do. It takes time and proven teamwork to make that function. Randomly dispersing them will result in a non-cohesive group that will crumble with this model.

You NEED to have both groups on map in order for WvW to work.

If you only have guilds and fights, your map is going to turn into a giant k-train, indistinguishable from pve-champ train maps. If you enjoy that, please go to pve.

If you only have defensive types, then nobody attacks, and it grows equally boring.

You NEED both.

Saying these “pugs” will fill in the gaps indicates a clear disconnect on what really goes on in your wvw maps.

Name me one defense-only guild that is not the server’s community guild …. Just one, let alone several per server.

Go on.

I would rather them make a gvg map just for GvG with rank/ladder/ bracket tourneys instead and have WvWvW open to all. You can still have alliance or even faction based instead of servers, but everyone in and out of guilds should be able to play. WvW is one of the only places a WvW only guild can even recruit members, so this would just ensure guilds shrink over time.

There was nothing wrong with reping a single person guild.

lil devils x.6071:

I would rather them make a gvg map just for GvG with rank/ladder/ bracket tourneys instead and have WvWvW open to all. You can still have alliance or even faction based instead of servers, but everyone in and out of guilds should be able to play. WvW is one of the only places a WvW only guild can even recruit members, so this would just ensure guilds shrink over time.

Here’s a MUCH better idea, that was stated countless times by countless people. Make the cities server based again. Then guilds could recruit people from their actual servers again, and servers could actually call in for backup again, and WvW could get influxes of new players again.

Phantom.8130:

Here’s a MUCH better idea, that was stated countless times by countless people. Make the cities server based again. Then guilds could recruit people from their actual servers again, and servers could actually call in for backup again, and WvW could get influxes of new players again.

Or just LA would be nice, it’s a really laggy city anyway.

You folks realize the Mega Server still tries to place everyone of a World on the same map instance right? Even right now, if you look around in the cities, you’ll find players of our linked worlds being prioritized to the same instance. With that said, I’d still rather have the Capital Cities be Worlder only instances.

The OP’s idea is still absurd. Though if you wanted “Alliances” then the Dev’s could simply make special Guilds, outside of our regular guilds, that we can join. The big thing is that these guilds cannot be player controlled.

Jayne.9251:

Well., it appears that you have a particular tunnel vision that doesn’t even let you debate content — you don’t address a single issue I’ve raised. I get it. It’s the Internet after all.

You are the one not debating and instead simply being contrary. Exactly what do you think will keep WvW viable over the long term? I surely hope your answer isn’t the same system that we have been using for the last few years.

Jayne.9251:

Your idea would ruin WvW as we know it. I know you don’t think so, but it would.

Agree to disagree. I believe fair fights and player/guild based reward scoring is more important than arbitrary server identity and nebulous coverage scores.

Jayne.9251:

Saying “greater good” in this case does not laud John Stuart Mill. It just means you don’t fully understand how WvW maps work and that you just fight without context. You only see one side of the gameplay — and that’s fights.

The server system currently has nothing to fight for. An empty score system devoid of rewards, a map with objectives that don’t do anything and stale lopsided matches have driven nearly every decent guild out of WvW. Context… holding onto an antiquated system choking the life out of the game mode makes no logical sense. At the very least the OP is putting forth an idea.

Jayne.9251:

I can only tell you that if you lose your defensive team, you lose what keeps WvW active. WvW will never be equal, even with your suggestion. It’s not meant to be.

True equality can never effectively be achieved (nor should it) but what can be done is to create matches where victory conditions are always possible. Rewarding guilds and players that defend, flip, attack, etc and rank them on how well they did is key to revitalizing WvW. Make the different modes of WvW count and allow players/guilds to see how well they do.

I do believe if all they do is change how WvW is scored, the population of the WvW will be half what it is today in a few months with little chance of enticing former players to come back.

DeWolfe.2174:

You folks realize the Mega Server still tries to place everyone of a World on the same map instance right? Even right now, if you look around in the cities, you’ll find players of our linked worlds being prioritized to the same instance. With that said, I’d still rather have the Capital Cities be Worlder only instances.

The OP’s idea is still absurd. Though if you wanted “Alliances” then the Dev’s could simply make special Guilds, outside of our regular guilds, that we can join. The big thing is that these guilds cannot be player controlled.

The thing about megaservers is, it was flawed from the get-go. They never perfected it, so there’s still mixed groups and people are still put on different instances. That made things a major headache for the RP community as well. Even people in parties still get split up and need to be pulled into the instance, as long as it’s not already full. So, that’s another plus for making cities server based again. It’ll help two communities that have kicked in the junk by the megaserver, and go a long way in restoring community relations with Anet too.

Faux Play.6104:

I would also think people in T1 would want some sort of gate in terms of experience and results in game vs a donation to anet to qualify someone to play at that level.

Might want to try and actually play on T1 before presuming to know what we want maybe?

Faux Play.6104:

Sounds like you are making my point for me. Guilds do actually provide more than one play style. It sounds like your definition of a community guild is one that is defensive so I doubt I could name one.

If statistics are tracked for guilds performance in different categories they could easily take pride at exceling at whatever play style they want to specialize in.

Jayne.9251:

Faux Play.6104:

Faux Play.6104:

You seem to be the one with tunnel vision. Having guilds does not have to equal karma train. You can easily have guilds that specialize in any play style for WvW. Guilds also don’t have to be large.

Considering GW2 it’s bigger than WvW limiting who you can WvW with to the piece of hardware that stores your account information is pointless. If you like the way WvW has been trending since launch, then keep doing the same thing. You know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Jayne.9251:

Straegen.2938:

Large guilds would anchor a match and small guilds/PUGs would fill in the gaps.

Dear god, please stop this silliness.

If you believe this works, then you have no clue about how your defense teams work. Most of them are the “pugs” who will “fill in the gaps” and as such are used to working with smaller groups to do the jobs the guilds just plain won’t do. It takes time and proven teamwork to make that function. Randomly dispersing them will result in a non-cohesive group that will crumble with this model.

You NEED to have both groups on map in order for WvW to work.

If you only have guilds and fights, your map is going to turn into a giant k-train, indistinguishable from pve-champ train maps. If you enjoy that, please go to pve.

If you only have defensive types, then nobody attacks, and it grows equally boring.

You NEED both.

Saying these “pugs” will fill in the gaps indicates a clear disconnect on what really goes on in your wvw maps.

Name me one defense-only guild that is not the server’s community guild …. Just one, let alone several per server.

Go on.

Still waiting for you to name one guild that plays defense. On any server. (I happen to know of one on GH, but that’s it).

Even a guild that splits its time to defend. 50/50. So it’s not left to the pugs to do.

Just one.

If you can’t even name one, how do you expect WvW to function when all those not guilded aren’t there to do those jobs for you?

If you think it will be one big blowout fight, you’re mistaken. It takes both sides of the coin to make WvW work.

Straegen.2938:

Jayne.9251:

Well., it appears that you have a particular tunnel vision that doesn’t even let you debate content — you don’t address a single issue I’ve raised. I get it. It’s the Internet after all.

You are the one not debating and instead simply being contrary. Exactly what do you think will keep WvW viable over the long term? I surely hope your answer isn’t the same system that we have been using for the last few years.

Here’s what I want you to answer:

Jayne.9251:

Straegen.2938:

Large guilds would anchor a match and small guilds/PUGs would fill in the gaps.

Randomly dispersing them will result in a non-cohesive group that will crumble with this model.

How would you employ this pugs as mortar? If they are not guild aligned (and frankly not everyone wants to be in a guild), how do they ascertain who they play with week after week?

I’m telling you that the people who do the grunt work on your maps, the ones who call out for defense, the ones who scout, are NOT part of a big guild, if any guild at all. You lose those people because their network is broken up with your idea and randomly assigned, and you lose your maps.

This is what I want you to address.

Straegen.2938:

The server system currently has nothing to fight for. An empty score system devoid of rewards, a map with objectives that don’t do anything and stale lopsided matches have driven nearly every decent guild out of WvW.

Sooo wait .. you’re saying guilds will fight for ppt? Oh wow. lol.

Straegen.2938:

Context… holding onto an antiquated system choking the life out of the game mode makes no logical sense. At the very least the OP is putting forth an idea.

Choking the life .. a bit dramatic

This game mode has actually kept people playing WvW for three years without any significant upgrades or changes to the game. Why? Because communities sprung up from this antiquated system where people know each other and actually log in for the community.

Guild groups that jump from server to server don’t get to experience this, so I kind of understand why there’s a disconnect.

Straegen.2938:

True equality can never effectively be achieved (nor should it) but what can be done is to create matches where victory conditions are always possible.

Yup and that was within the player community’s control to do this, but they chose not to and instead waited for Anet to step in and play parent — which they’ve done with the server linking (note this solution lets them destack player-rigged servers at will, and lets people retain their existing communities — at least Anet gets how important community is to the vitality of this game).

Straegen.2938:

Rewarding guilds and players that defend, flip, attack, etc and rank them on how well they did is key to revitalizing WvW. Make the different modes of WvW count and allow players/guilds to see how well they do.

Yup. And the new changes have addressed those issues nicely — and still (surprise! surprise) managed to keep server identity. WvW is flourishing again. They did a good job. I’m not sure why people are still pushing this alliance model, when it clearly doesn’t consider the entire population, but instead just an elite grouping.

As a developer I’d want my game to be inclusive, not exclusive. This OP suggestion is the latter.

Jayne – good points +1.

No. Not now not ever.

@Jayne.9251 guild wont fight for ppt only, but if a castle could be somewhat a extension of the GH, pride and very good chest rewards over holding time would make people fight and defend more instead of blob empty stuff.

I think I figured out the reason for this silly thread. It is the game title. Guild Wars…..so some expect wvw should be guild based, I guess.

Still a really absurd idea, imo. Wvw would be dead in less than six months if something like this was ever implemented, imo.

Aeolus.3615:

@Jayne.9251 guild wont fight for ppt only, but if a castle could be somewhat a extension of the GH, pride and very good chest rewards over holding time would make people fight and defend more instead of blob empty stuff.

lol.

They can claim the keeps and towers now. Proudly raise their guild flag. Do they defend? Nope.

What I think people want is something to stroke the ego of the associated guild’s they’re in — they want an entire server their own BIG GUILD NAME HERE server — with everyone else supporting their ambitions. Which on a public MMO is a bit silly (although a few have tried lol).

Jayne.9251:

Aeolus.3615:

@Jayne.9251 guild wont fight for ppt only, but if a castle could be somewhat a extension of the GH, pride and very good chest rewards over holding time would make people fight and defend more instead of blob empty stuff.

lol.

They can claim the keeps and towers now. Proudly raise their guild flag. Do they defend? Nope.

What I think people want is something to stroke the ego of the associated guild’s they’re in — they want an entire server their own BIG GUILD NAME HERE server — with everyone else supporting their ambitions. Which on a public MMO is a bit silly (although a few have tried lol).

Perfectly stated, Jayne, imo. Along with many of your other responses in this thread.

Jayne.9251:

Aeolus.3615:

@Jayne.9251 guild wont fight for ppt only, but if a castle could be somewhat a extension of the GH, pride and very good chest rewards over holding time would make people fight and defend more instead of blob empty stuff.

lol.

They can claim the keeps and towers now. Proudly raise their guild flag. Do they defend? Nope.

What I think people want is something to stroke the ego of the associated guild’s they’re in — they want an entire server their own BIG GUILD NAME HERE server — with everyone else supporting their ambitions. Which on a public MMO is a bit silly (although a few have tried lol).

humm good point, well defensive mechanics can be a"bad gimmick thing", is not rewarded well, and guilds that hold stuff should be rewarded better, but game is designed to work like AB to simulate non-stop activity, but that would be a different chat and many things needed to be changed to make a decent gameplay, the point of being WvW guild cantered isn’t to make acces to wvw for guild only, but add features, some minor new elements while holding camps/tower/castles, or even good rewards, Guilds atm aren’t noting more than chat rooms with grind options to lvl up some sorta gimmicks that are being reviewed by devs at player request because they were to much of a broken system, Guilds should have strong entity in the game, strong features system w/o discriminating smaller groups, when i say strong does not ment damage…

WvW lacks a progression feel system, every stuff players do is reseted, so much effort to play blob overwhelming empty towers or smaller groups for what??
A game mode with no entity.

Aeolus.3615:

Jayne.9251:

Aeolus.3615:

@Jayne.9251 guild wont fight for ppt only, but if a castle could be somewhat a extension of the GH, pride and very good chest rewards over holding time would make people fight and defend more instead of blob empty stuff.

lol.

They can claim the keeps and towers now. Proudly raise their guild flag. Do they defend? Nope.

What I think people want is something to stroke the ego of the associated guild’s they’re in — they want an entire server their own BIG GUILD NAME HERE server — with everyone else supporting their ambitions. Which on a public MMO is a bit silly (although a few have tried lol).

humm good point, well defensive mechanics can be a"bad gimmick thing", is not rewarded well, and guilds that hold stuff should be rewarded better, but game is designed to work like AB to simulate non-stop activity, but that would be a different chat and many things needed to be changed to make a decent gameplay, the point of being WvW guild cantered isn’t to make acces to wvw for guild only, but add features, some minor new elements while holding camps/tower/castles, or even good rewards, Guilds atm aren’t noting more than chat rooms with grind options to lvl up some sorta gimmicks that are being reviewed by devs at player request because they were to much of a broken system, Guilds should have strong entity in the game.

No I completely agree with you. Without guilds, there’s no, um, wars.

But they can’t be the end-all and be-all. There’s so many different factors that go into making WvW an addictive mess that it is.

Perhaps we should have a more thoughtful thread on what role guilds could potentially play in wvw — and view it from a if/then cooperative type of query (ie. there should be perks for joining a guild, etc .. which I think they tried to do with the halls)?

Well, the strong win/win banners, SM cheating waters, the SM ship, looks way more a implementation to make guilds a end-all be-all, than many stuff players suggested over the GH cdi topic.
A rpg game being themepark, sandbox, or whatever needs to have a progressive design and feel, especially in large fight content as WvW.

And yeah i wish also that Anet had intentions of growing “what means to be in a guild”.

You do realize that there are a lot of people in this game that actually do not want to be in a guild right? And also people who do not want to zerg around the borders in some giant super guild.

Guild only wvw will never happen folks.

/thread

@Leaa.2943, but that is what already happens blob or be blobbed or both , being a guild centered game does not means to drop off others that are on non guild, besides it could be even better also for those players, its just the how things are implemented.

@Swagger.1459, no one is talking about that, dont be limited.

@Jayne.9251
There are entire servers that have a reputation of playing defensive. Is that because they don’t have any guilds?

Let me post a couple facts:
Servers are region based (NA, EU, China)
Regions have peak and dead times for their game population.
WvW game mode is dependent on maintaining a consistent representation across all time zones.
Guilds don’t have to be large. My “guild” is my guild storage vault.

Just because Blizzard uses servers, or some people have an emotional attachment to them doesn’t mean they make sense for this game mode. The current system is imbalanced by design. Anet can’t even give stuff away without people complaining, so any fix they make to the system will upset some people. Maybe it is my narrow mind, but the only other solution I see is to monitor the overall player population by region per time slot. Then hard cap players per server by time slots so the player base is forced to reorganize.

TorquedSoul posted a good article on the subject. They put a lot more effort into communicating the concept than I did.

I always hated the “guild” part of the gulid wars name even with 1 because guilds fail precisely because of the deficient individuals in charge of them.. Now we see the long history of guild oriented focus culminate in complete ignorance about solo mmo play, which was aided to some extent in the past. You now have people thinking they are so great that solo players aren’t even on their radar in terms of interest…absolute, trained ignorance by game companies. “guild” is only a name and nothing about the ingame “guilds” makes you important just to set the op straight.

Or….. standardize and officiate GvGs so WvW fight guilds can get a proper stage to let their guild shine, rather than just let pugs leech off their fights and get bags and make ungrateful comments when guilds tag down. It doesnt even have to be GvGs (as that scene has become completely toxic that even GvG guilds dont want to play anymore) maybe just some sort of KDR & Warscore scoring chart that keeps track of guild-wide kills/deaths/objective captures and rewards those who are superior.

Guilds are the reason wvw isn’t completely desolate and they deserve more than just a pat on the back and an emblem on a keep. A guild’s renown in wvw consists of absolutely nothing more than being a forced good samaritan distributing free buffs and tactics. Allowing guilds to form alliances and build unstoppable fighting forces and being allowed to take pride in their achievements is little to ask considering how much they give out for free to everyone else without asking for anything in return.

Faux Play.6104:

@Jayne.9251
There are entire servers that have a reputation of playing defensive. Is that because they don’t have any guilds?

Let me post a couple facts:
Servers are region based (NA, EU, China)
Regions have peak and dead times for their game population.
WvW game mode is dependent on maintaining a consistent representation across all time zones.
Guilds don’t have to be large. My “guild” is my guild storage vault.

Just because Blizzard uses servers, or some people have an emotional attachment to them doesn’t mean they make sense for this game mode. The current system is imbalanced by design. Anet can’t even give stuff away without people complaining, so any fix they make to the system will upset some people. Maybe it is my narrow mind, but the only other solution I see is to monitor the overall player population by region per time slot. Then hard cap players per server by time slots so the player base is forced to reorganize.

TorquedSoul posted a good article on the subject. They put a lot more effort into communicating the concept than I did.

I’d suggest you look at the cosmology of those “defensive servers” to discover it’s a mish-mash of a bunch of tiny guilds/solo players — and not one big guild.

I guess you’re just ignoring the overwhelming “NO” you’re getting in this thread eh?

And not just from me.

szshou.2193:

Guilds are the reason wvw isn’t completely desolate…..

Tell that to Blacktide – I remember fighting against Blacktide when they were one of the top servers then the big Blacktide guilds decided to hop servers and Blacktide went into free-fall until they hit the bottom of the table where they pretty much remained until linking was introduced.

Every time a large guild hops server it causes massive damage to that server and sometimes causes a cascade effect with other large guilds doing the same. It is the individuals and small guilds that keeps the server going and are it’s only hope of rebuilding and recovering.
Replacing servers with alliances would merely amplify this effect and eventually kill off WvW as a viable game mode entirely.

If you want to help WvW then encourage Anet to make server hopping more difficult.

Jayne.9251:

How would you employ this pugs as mortar? If they are not guild aligned (and frankly not everyone wants to be in a guild), how do they ascertain who they play with week after week?

In a better system, players/guilds would have a friends/enemies list. The matching system would prioritize players sticking with their friends and fighting against their enemies.

The concept is to have player and guild alliances small enough to shuffle around for balance and fight diversity but large enough to encompass identity and consistency. In contrast the server system is too static causing coverage issues, population shortage, stagnation and boredom. In a sense it is a micro version of the server link system.

Jayne.9251:

I’m telling you that the people who do the grunt work on your maps, the ones who call out for defense, the ones who scout, are NOT part of a big guild, if any guild at all. You lose those people because their network is broken up with your idea and randomly assigned, and you lose your maps.

Rather than scoring based on what a side holds and rewarding based on what a side takes, my suggestion is to reward based on individual guild/player metrics. Get rid of the PPT score. Instead Players/Guilds would be ranked based on their performance in a variety of categories. If a player is the best yak slapper they would be rewarded accordingly. If a guild is rocking the KDR, big rewards. All the important metrics would have a ranking both inside a match and across all the matches. Sort of like the new WvW reward tracks.

Jayne.9251:

Sooo wait .. you’re saying guilds will fight for ppt? Oh wow. lol.

No. PPT is a horrible scoring system and exists only because the server system is ridiculously antiquated. PPT is nearly pointless and basically meaningless in a larger context.

Jayne.9251:

This game mode has actually kept people playing WvW for three years without any significant upgrades or changes to the game. Why? Because communities sprung up from this antiquated system where people know each other and actually log in for the community.

The real reason is because nothing better has come along. If any of the upcoming Alliance MMOs pan out (Camelot, Crowfall), WvW is effectively dead. Almost every person on my friends list is gone from WvW. Very very few of the premier guilds that played in WvW are still around.

Jayne.9251:

Yup and that was within the player community’s control to do this, but they chose not to and instead waited for Anet to step in and play parent — which they’ve done with the server linking (note this solution lets them destack player-rigged servers at will, and lets people retain their existing communities — at least Anet gets how important community is to the vitality of this game).

The server system is in many ways anti-community in its current form. If a new player logs into PvE, meets friends they enjoying playing with and joins their guild, there is no way for them to know if I will be able to play with those people in WvW. Many guilds are now spread across multiple “servers”. Even if a guild is centrally located there is a good chance the server they are on is Full or the transfer cost is prohibitively expensive.

Even the server link is anti-community. Any friends on a linked server a player likes to play with will be lost in a few weeks. They won’t even have the possibility of playing with those newly forged alliances for weeks possibly months, years or never. At least in an alliance system players will routinely play with their friends and always play with their guild mates.