Guild Wars 2

Lately there’s been some discussion about comparatively large guilds from higher tiers clustering on one lower tier server. I felt inspired to write a story about it, which I hope you enjoy regardless of your opinions on the matter or the server you call home. I also tried to get across every point of view at some point in the story, though my overall opinions are undoubtedly not well hidden I think the conclusion bit before the epilogue acknowledges the complication of the issue.

I also had fun writing it, so thanks to all involved for the excuse and the inspiration

Warning, long

<3

It was a warm end-of-summery day. Manchester United had just won yet another Premier League title, and their famously reasonable manager Alex Ferguson was arriving at the training ground with worries on his mind.

Sure, United were sweeping all in their path in the league again, but somehow he just wasn’t happy. Maybe it was his advancing years, but it felt like everything was just a little ‘too much’ these days.

Everything was bothering him… from the lengthy traffic on match days to even GET to the game, to the critical attitude of the Premier League crowd, to the unsatisfying tactical nature of the football itself.

Lately the metagame had become for all the players to form a human pyramid, with the guy at the top having the ball, making him impossible to tackle without committing a foul. Ferguson thought this was utterly ridiculous, but he had to admit it was effective. It had swept in from the Continent somewhere a couple of seasons ago and they’d all been forced to adapt.

Yup, something was definitely up. He arrived in his office, flicking on the tv, and was vaguely making progress on his morning papers when he was distracted by the sound of a highly excited crowd blaring from his television.

What he saw filled him with shock. It was a football match from the lower divisions – Stockport County versus Tranmere Rovers, two teams down on their luck. Ferguson never paid them much attention, but he was astonished to see players passing the ball back and forth and dribbling past each other in ways he’d forgotten even happened in football. And the score! It was a full-on thriller… 3-2, then 3-3, then 3-4, then a last-second equaliser to 4-4. He couldn’t believe it. Every match he’d played for the last few years had been 1-0 to whichever team got their insane human pyramid up the fastest!

It seemed that out there somewhere people still played football, and even enjoyed it! Sure, there weren’t many crowds – in fact the stadium looked pretty empty – but the more Ferguson thought about it the better that seemed. No queues on match day! Fewer people to please, fewer expectations to live up to.

Later that day he gathered the players. They looked at him glumly, defeated expressions on their faces.

“More pyramid practice boss?” asked the captain, resignedly. The rest of the team let out a gentle sigh and – without waiting for an answer – began to get into position.

“Not so fast!” Ferguson stopped them in their tracks. “We’re going to be trying something a little different today. Take this ball…”

He handed a ball to the captain, who looked at it a little confusedly.

“Put it at your feet. That’s right. Now… kick it to that other player”

The captain looked at him warily, as if expecting a trick. “Am I going to get in trouble?”

“Nope!” Ferguson grinned, anticipating his big reveal. “Go on…”

Slowly, as if remembering an event from years long past, the captain swung his leg through the air and kicked it to his teammate. It was a perfect pass. A shudder of delight went through him, and the rest of the team suddenly went up in a clamor of excitement.

“Can I have a go?!”
“Let ME pass it!”
“Oh god, passing the ball feels so good after all those pyramids!”

Soon the team was pinging the ball back and forth in a happy funk of excitement.

Only the captain wondered what was really happening here, and he went to talk to Ferguson.

“So… are we doing this in the European Champions League tomorrow night then? I’m not so sure it’ll work against the French team…”

“Not quite, not quite. Let’s gather the lads and I’ll explain what’s happening here.”

The players gathered around. This was the most exciting training day they’d had in years and they were wondering what it was all about.

“Everyone, listen up! I’ve had an idea. And I’ve made some arrangements. I’m pleased to tell you that you’re all now Stockport County players.”

He sat back and waited a breath, and wasn’t disappointed when a wall of confused noise erupted from the players. He raised a hand to quieten them.

“Yes, yes, that little club down the road. You just have to trust me on this, but I’m sure you’ll find yourselves very happy with the new system. Our first game is at the weekend against our old rivals Tranmere Rovers in the cup. Let’s make it a good one…”

The day of the match came.

There was a fair bit of media attention, but Ferguson was delighted that nevertheless the slick new Stockport team bus was able to sail right into the car park without waiting in any traffic at all.

The players jumped out, their tracksuits shining and their boots glowingly clean. They strode past the ramshackle Tranmere Rovers bus and a few of their confused players who looked a little intimidated by the physical condition and the obvious opulence of the ex-Premier League players.

Tranmere kicked off to start the game, and were able to string a couple of passes together before they were tackled by the impossibly strong defence of the Manchester United players (in their brand new Stockport County kits). Freed from the shackles of their old tactics the players whooped gleefully as they passed the ball around, the Tranmere players barely able to get a look in.

To the watching crowd it was as if Stockport somehow had many more players than Tranmere – or at least, that’s how it felt. Of course that’s impossible in football, which is what this story is about.

It didn’t take long before the first goal. Ferguson leapt to his feet, cheering, and the players hugged one another and high-fived in congratulations. The Tranmere players formed back up, and with determination in their faces they kicked off again.

…

Half-time arrived. The ex-Manchester United players stormed into their dressing room exuberantly. “SEVENTEEN GOALS” they chanted, singing and dancing their way around the room as they enjoyed their new freedom and the thrill of a massive lead.
“Can you believe the looks we got off those Tranmere players?” one asked. “One of them gave me SUCH a dirty look and I scored my sixth goal after we all passed it around him fifty times. It’s as if they don’t appreciate good football when it’s being played!”

“Ha, yeah,” another replied, “but don’t worry, I’m sure they’re learning a lot from this game and next time we play them they’ll probably be grateful for it.”
“I expect so,” agreed the first. “Anyway, did you see that fifteenth goal? Man, we’re getting so many goals from this, it’s going to look great on our end of season career stats!”

“Career stats… is that a thing?” asked another player who’d been listening in.

“Not really,” the first replied. “I’m not sure why I said that to be honest. Anyway, it’s not like stats matter, we’re just here for good football.”

“Yes, of course we are!” everyone agreed enthusiastically, before resuming excitable discussion of how many goals they all hoped to score by the end of the game.

Soon it was time for the second half and they piled out back onto the pitch excitedly. This was great, exactly what they’d dreamed of all these years without even realising it. Football can be fun again! Who’d have thought the fun would have been hiding down here in the lower leagues?!

It was their turn to kick off. Soon they were passing the ball around their opponents again, and before a minute was even up they had the ball in the back of the net. They turned to cheer and hug and high five, but were surprised as a chorus of boos went up from around the stadium.

They looked confusedly at one another, but soon shrugged it off and played on.

By the time the score reached 28-0 they could no longer ignore the boos. Alex Ferguson turned to the crowd and asked “What’s going on? Why don’t you love us?!”

“This is boring!” one guy shouted. “Didn’t you see last week’s game? 4-4! It was brilliant! This is hardly a game at all.”

“Don’t you think it seems pretty arrogant?!” shouted another. “Sure you CAN do this, but that doesn’t mean you SHOULD. And you certainly shouldn’t do it without considering the consequences of your actions on others.”

“We’ve been coming here every week since the club was founded, I’m worried you’re going to negatively impact the community we’ve made here!” shouted yet another guy, who Ferguson expected was lying.

He probably was just worried he wouldn’t win all the time, as that’s what’s really important to everyone, right? Ferguson couldn’t imagine that anyone didn’t value winning as much as he did so anyone who said otherwise was clearly just pretending.

He continued to listen to the complaints of the crowd, getting more frustrated as he did so.

“I’m really worried some of you are going to take this too literally and point out small unimportant ways that football isn’t like Guild Wars that aren’t relevant to the overall point of the story” shouted another crowd member, but that was far too meta for Alex Ferguson to follow so he dismissed it.

It was time to respond.

“How is this boring?!” Ferguson riposted. “Look, it’s TWENTY NINE – NIL now… how can 29 goals be boring?! The players aren’t bored, they’re having the time of their lives!”

“Well, perhaps not,” replied the most eloquent member of the crowd. “But everyone else involved is bored. And have you thought about next week? And the week after? Every team you play is going to get thumped, so you’ll have stadiums full of crowds who can’t even watch a decent match for years.”

Ferguson was getting annoyed now. It was undeniable that he’d improved the quality of the football in this league. And nothing he’d done was against the FA rules! Surely that was important?

He made that point back to the crowd. “This is totally legal and within the rules!”

“Ha, no-one gives a stuff about the rules, mate. This is football, we play for fun! We all pay our money to come here for entertainment, for a few hours out of our Saturday of enjoying some sport. This…” he gestured at the pitch, where the players were again hugging and cheering a goal in the midst of the disappointed quiet of the rest of the stadium. “This isn’t sport, and the only people having fun are those new players. Look at the Stockport fans, even!”

Ferguson turned his eye to the section of the ground where the Stockport fans were sat. They looked… well… confused. And not confused like a Stockport fan ALWAYS is, this was a new kind of confusion.

They seemed to be celebrating the goals, but less and less as each goal went in. Sure, their team was winning, and they’d spent a lot of time following this team through highs and (mostly) lows, so they should be enjoying that, right? But at the same time you could see definite worry on their faces, and embarrassment on the faces of a few more.

Maybe it didn’t matter that you won, maybe it mattered HOW you won..? That was a dangerous, horrible thought, and Ferguson pushed it immediately to the back of his mind, never to think of again.

“Anyway, yeah, this has been really, er… interesting,” he said to the crowd, “but I have to go do a press conference now.”

The game was over, and Ferguson went to his press conference. This would be easy, surely, nobody could criticise a win by over forty goals!

To his utter astonishment the first question was barbed and directed at him.
“Do you not think it’s dishonourable to transfer the Manchester United squad to win easy games against the likes of Tranmere Rovers?”

Dishonourable! Him! He’d never done anything dishonourable in his life! Not so much as a yellow card. Anyway, it was an easy answer:

“Everything I’ve done is totally within the rules, so, no, not dishonourable at all.”

Here came the follow-up. Probably it would be about how awesome he and his team are for winning by such a large margin.

“Do you not think it’s unfair on the spectators and the community of both these clubs to have such lopsided matches?”

He nearly spat out his delicious camomile tea in surprise. This was getting on his nerves.

“Community?! Where I come from, things like results matter! Anyway, I know a thing or two about communities, coming from a very large one myself. Do you not see how few travelling fans there were? How can so few people call themselves a community? And I’m not sure how paying for a ticket to see Stockport week-after-week all their lives gives them any right to tell ME – or anyone else – what to do! If they don’t like it they probably should never have developed an interest in football, and they certainly shouldn’t be daring to express their dislike out loud! What crybabies!”

At this point the Tranmere manager – who had been sat silently next to him – cut in.

“Do you not think you’re failing to consider this from any perspective but your own?”

Ferguson was on a roll and wasn’t about to let this pipsqueak put him off.

“Ha, and don’t YOU start! I seem to recall Tranmere getting a fair few Premier League transfers of their own a while back! Doesn’t that make you a hypocrite, and all your opinions invalid forever?!”

He sat back triumphantly.

The Tranmere manager sat for a moment before leaning forward into the microphone.

“Yes, you’re right. We did get a few transfers some seasons back. We had a new chairman, a lot of money pumped into the club. And there were these foreign players going for cheap from the top league – we thought it’d be a good idea. Of course, not everyone did, but… well, what’s done is done.”

He continued in a low voice.

“It seemed good for a while, sure. We won the league that year, got promoted. It seemed fun, too, and we didn’t listen to the crying of our opponents… well, except maybe to take private satisfaction from it. We pretended not to, of course. We were just about ‘the quality of the football’. Just like… you, I guess.”

“But it really ripped the heart and soul out of the club. There were divisions. Factions. People arguing like they never had before. In the end we couldn’t hold it together and all the most divisive people left. It got really nasty – this old club had to sell its ground and move to somewhere smaller. But, you know, we’re happier now. We’re more united than ever before, and those who thought it was a good idea have all left or changed their minds.”

“Sure, call us hypocrites… but changing your mind in the face of evidence isn’t hypocrisy, it’s just sense. This won’t be our problem every week – you’re the ones who’ll have to maintain this week-after-week, and deal with the outside pressure and the internal pressure.”

“Hey, maybe it’ll work out for the best and you’ll forge a great new club out of Stockport with the best of everything. Maybe it won’t. But I speak for all Tranmere when I say we’re glad we won’t have games like today forever and that soon we can go back to playing some fun football with teams that know what we’re about and share our values.”

“Anyway. We have a new transfer policy now. A couple of players from a higher division – sure. That’ll help. That’ll improve our squad. A whole new squad from above? No thanks! We’ve been there and done that and seen what it did to us before.”

Ferguson cut in for a second, seemingly thoughtful.

“A whole new squad? That just shows your ignorance! Our premier league squad was made up of nearly one thousand players, I obviously didn’t bring them ALL!”

The Tranmere manager regarded him in disbelief. “Well, yes… but you do know a football team is only eleven players right? How many did you bring?”

“Only thirty-three.”

“Thirty-three. That’s an oddly specific number.”

“Yes, thirty-three. It’s another new tactic – we’ve realised that at the end of the game we can substitute on a whole new team and play again. And then again! And by the end of the next game our first squad is rested enough to come back and repeat the process. We call it nightkicking because it goes on way into the night most days.”

The Tranmere manager sighed and looked at his fourteen players – one full squad and three subs, and knew there was no way they could go straight back out and play against a fresh team rightaway. Let alone keep doing it constantly.

Ferguson didn’t give him time to respond.

“Anyway, maybe things aren’t as lopsided as you think. Remember at kick off? You guys held the ball for a whole minute without conceding a goal!”

The Tranmere managed considered whether or not it was worth responding. Did Ferguson really think his tiny squad could play constantly at their full strength? Maybe, maybe not.

He was starting to think that maybe Ferguson thought everyone had the resources available to the ex-Manchester United manager and that perhaps he just didn’t realise that the rest of the world was different. He was wondering how to get that across when the press conference was called to an end and it was time to go.

Still, at least this wasn’t going to be his problem forever. Next week he was playing against Burnley. Good old reliable, fun, friendly Burnley.

As he drove away from the ground he saw some Stockport fans still sat in the stands and felt sorry for them. They’d been Stockport fans forever, and they were no doubt wondering what would happen to their club in the weeks and years to come.

“I wish you well,” he muttered to himself as he drove off back to Tranmere.

He passed the Stockport team bus on the road, and saw all the ex-Manchester United players chatting happily.

It’s a tough situation, he thought to himself. Those players are undoubtedly happier. They can’t have been enjoying the lack of football they’d had lately. But all they’ve done is transfer the problem onto their opponents. Maybe there’s no way to make everyone happy here, unless… well, maybe all these players could have spread out among all the teams in the league. That way all the players would get to play football, but we wouldn’t have to watch Stockport win 40-0 every week while the rest of the league are playing exciting games.

Of course, that would leave the Premier League unable to compete in Europe… but did anyone really care? Let the Champions League winners play their crazy pyramid strategy, while over here we just play for fun. Could such a system really work?
It would depend on them, he supposed, looking over again at the ex-Manchester United players as they watched replays of their goals on their iPads over and over and over. Everything hangs on what they decide to do.

Does their love of football trump their love of scoring easy goals over and over? For today it seemed not, but maybe someday everyone could live in harmony. Or so he hoped…

Epilogue, many seasons later.

Alex Ferguson sat in his refurbished Stockport County office and looked at his pile of trophies. He gazed out the window at their state-of-the-art training ground and their new shiny stadium off in the distance. He hadn’t known what he was planning when he came here, but what a journey it had been.

Still, something didn’t feel right. He’d had to wait in traffic all morning on the way to the Stockport ground, and they’d been forced to adapt their football lately to fit the demands of the European matches they’d started qualifying for. Currently the metagame was some kind of invisibility device that prevented both teams from even seeing the ball. His team had sighed a little when he’d made them start using it but of course it was just a necessary evil to compete at this level.

Idly he cast his eye over the newspaper, and suddenly jolted at the sight of the familiar Manchester United name lying somewhere near the bottom of the football leagues. He barely thought of Manchester United these days – no-one did. They’d been forced to move to a smaller ground after he took all their players to Stockport, and most of their fans had left too. Probably they were the ones filling the new Stockport stadium.

The article was about how brave United were being in still going, and how they’d scored a few goals and done pretty well in their latest match against a non-league team. Not an invisibility device in sight! And definitely no traffic…

The germ of an idea began to form in Alex Ferguson’s mind. He turned to his assistant manager.

“Gather the lads. I’ve got a brilliant idea…”

I could of swore this forum was used to QQ about thieves, mesmers, and elementalists ..
Not for story telling.

iAmTheDuke.6201:

I could of swore this forum was used to QQ about thieves, mesmers, and elementalists ..
Not for story telling.

Noted ;p I can only apologise – will try to make my next post a proper old-fashioned balance whine!

Love the story!

Amazing. Loved it:)

nice story and you now the story you wrote is almost true. look at PSG getting hundred of millions to become a European class soccer team.

anyway there is nothing you can do, if guilds want to transfer to lower tier that’s their right and nobody can stop them

edit:
what about a story about all the matches in the leagu going 0-0, what’s more boring 30-0 or 0-0 forever?

Oresh.4729:

anyway there is nothing you can do, if guilds want to transfer to lower tier that’s their right and nobody can stop them

Indeed. In fact I explicitly acknowledged this. Though just because people can do something doesn’t mean they should, or that those affected shouldn’t be able to say how they’ve been affected.

Honestly it’s not so much the fact that they stomp servers for 1-2 weeks on their way up.

It’s when they transfer off these failed “projects” and leave the server originals to fight in a tier they don’t belong in month after month after month.

But good story.

>OP

You mean “Soccer”. Football doesn’t have any teams called Manchester United.

Great read and great point!

It sure would be nice to not have to deal with some of these massive transfers and mega-zergs, along with their ridiculous strategies that makes no sense whatsoever other than to maximize efficiency within the game’s flawed rules. Then watching another massive transfer ruin numerous matches for weeks to come before they get right back to where they were before.

I initially transferred around to find a community I really enjoyed, but now that we’ve grown into such a large population, I’m starting to notice little things here on my server and there that would’ve never been tolerated in the community I decided to call ‘home’ …nothing particularly bad, but for me at least, it’s starting to lose the appeal that drew me here in the first place.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

>OP

You mean “Soccer”. Football doesn’t have any teams called Manchester United.

Hahaha. I wondered about writing an NFL version featuring Bill Belichick as the main character for our trans-Atlantic friends, but figured you guys were smart enough to get it without a translation ;p

I love football of both kinds so feel free to mentally substitute whatever characters you like

New England Patriots FTW:)

Hyung.6140:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

>OP

You mean “Soccer”. Football doesn’t have any teams called Manchester United.

Hahaha. I wondered about writing an NFL version featuring Bill Belichick as the main character for our trans-Atlantic friends, but figured you guys were smart enough to get it without a translation ;p

I love football of both kinds so feel free to mentally substitute whatever characters you like

This wouldn’t translate well to American Football though. – We don’t have an equivalent here to the lower leagues like the Championship, League 1 or League 2… and there is definitely no way for a non-league team team to play an NFL team!

There’s the NCAA, but players only have 6 years of maximum eligibility in the sport competing in games for 4 years (+1 redshirt year and 1 extra medical redshirt year for extreme cases only – lookup Case Keenum or Jason White if you don’t believe me!) Then there’s also the Canadian Football League and the Arena Football League where some players go that don’t end up in the NFL, both of which use different rules, a different number of players, and a field with different dimensions.

Yeah, I thought about that. Wondered about Belichick taking the Pats to a high school league or something equally as absurd (it’s a fantasy land of course!) but then decided it wasn’t worth the effort

Hope you enjoyed it anyway!

Hyung.6140:

“I’m really worried some of you are going to take this too literally and point out small unimportant ways that football isn’t like Guild Wars that aren’t relevant to the overall point of the story” shouted another crowd member, but that was far too meta for Alex Ferguson to follow so he dismissed it.

Definitely the best part! Great post.

Hyung.6140:

It was a football match from the lower divisions – Stockport County versus Tranmere Rovers, two teams down on their luck.

As possibly the only County fan who plays GW2 I’d just like to say this is understatement of the century. We’d struggle against Vabbi.

Word.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m Malaysian and proud that our countrymen have bought some football clubs and helped boost the club up into the Premier League. But it kinda hurts to see what has happened to Cardiff. They’ve been stripped of their identity.

I still make jokes that they aren’t a Welsh club anymore but a Malaysian club, and I get a few nods of approval from their diehard fans.

great stuff Hyung

This my friend is genius!

And this bit in particular really made me laugh out loud:

““Anyway, maybe things aren’t as lopsided as you think. Remember at kick off? You guys held the ball for a whole minute without conceding a goal!”

Really very nicely done indeed!

Great read! Bloody long post, but very enjoyable!

Soooooo true.
I am a T7 EU player and I approve this message.

Also very well written.

It is a very amusing story. However it does not relate in any way to RoS as the transferred guilds do not care about winning as your fictional Ferguson does.

So it might be very entertaining though it is does not make a strong point or case about anything about these guild transfers.

Keep writing though.

Absolute Genius

It’s not just lower tiers that are feeling the strain, tier 4 used to be stable with 6 servers competeing and hoping in and out every 2 weeks for a fresh match-up. Now with bandwaggoning, Tier 4 looks like a mess with 60 man guilds transfering and the bandwagoners following, it’s like an ex Piken/SFR/Deso reunion in here.

Theres no space for 15-20 man guilds (that sleep at night) anymore as tier 4 becomes 60/70/80 man guild groups. Hence why XxX left the tier, and I am sure more will follow as the blob meta travels down the tiers. If you do meet a rare 15-20 man group and dare to win one encounter the entire zone falls on your head in a huge handholding blob. Blob your guilds up to counter it or lose. Losing breaks your puggie community, blobbing kills your guilds fun.

Gandara blobbed up all it’s guilds once and won tier 3, it’s a proven method that works, but simply no-one wants to play that way except WXP kittens who probably never contribute to the community anyways and play for points not for fun or challenge – 1 spam is only fun for about a day.

Is that server utopia around in any tiers where a puggies blob stays on EBG, the friendlies/voice comms/Infantry guys defend the home BL with pride beavering away in 5 man teams and the BLs are covered by lots of smaller man guilds engaging in 10 v 10 or 20 v 20 or even 30 v 30 all prime time, that sleeps at night and the 20 vs 20 vs 20 insomniacs and day crews have some fun? If anyone finds it please let me know – Gandara wants to be there.

AnnieGYG.6842:

Absolute Genius

It’s not just lower tiers that are feeling the strain, tier 4 used to be stable with 6 servers competeing and hoping in and out every 2 weeks for a fresh match-up. Now with bandwaggoning, Tier 4 looks like a mess with 60 man guilds transfering and the bandwagoners following, it’s like an ex Piken/SFR reunion in here.

Theres no space for 15-20 man guilds (that sleep at night) anymore as tier 4 becomes 60/70/80 man guild groups. Hence why XxX left the tier, and I am sure more will follow as the blob meta travels down the tiers. If you do meet a rare 15-20 man group and dare to win one encounter the entire zone falls on your head in a huge handholding blob. Blob your guilds up to counter it or lose. Losing breaks your puggie community, blobbing kills your guilds fun.

Gandara blobbed up all it’s guilds once and won tier 3, it’s a proven method that works, but simply no-one wants to play that way except WXP kittens who probably never contribute to the community anyways and play for points not for fun or challenge – 1 spam is only fun for about a day.

Is that server utopia around in any tiers where a puggies blob stays on EBG, the friendlies/voice comms/Infantry guys defend the home BL with pride beavering away in 5 man teams and the BLs are covered by lots of smaller man guilds engaging in 10 v 10 or 20 v 20 or even 30 v 30 all prime time, that sleeps at night and the 20 vs 20 vs 20 insomniacs and day crews have some fun? If anyone finds it please let me know – Gandara wants to be there.

T7 used to be like that. On Gunnars a lot of us define our community by our server pride and willingness to fight in 10/20 man groups while having a good core defending our BL.
Though if you’re looking for 20 v 20 v 20 at night not at all.

I think the main point here is to consider if you’re looking to transfer down to a lower tier is “What impact would we have on the matchup” Because there’s absolutely no point coming down if your transfer is going to massively skew the matchup one way or another. Then all you get is easy mode wins and eventually you end up back where you started.

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

I think the main point here is to consider if you’re looking to transfer down to a lower tier is “What impact would we have on the matchup”

Idd
The 3 guilds that have transferred to RoS will only push them up one or two tiers its not THAT big a deal. Its the momentum they create that pushes them back up to T1.
Every player looking for easy wins or being on the ‘best’ server (ie a massive number on Deso and SFR who will go into freefall now) are going to be looking at the match up this week seeing them slaughtering GH and Dzag and will be itching to get in on the ‘fun’.
Over the course of the week RoS are going to get a massive number of small guilds and solo players that tend to go under the radar and if / when they go up a tier they’ll then be too big for FSP and AM and it’ll be the same situation – them slaughtering them giving more momentum to the bandwaggoners.
For a 30+ man guild to swap servers they really have to be very careful or they’ll just end up back in the position they transferred to avoid. They dont seem to recognise the impact on a match they have (especially in lower tiers).

Also annie means 20 v 20 v 20 in total. Not 20v20 fights. Currently we in gandara have about 20 insomniacs on a very good night.
While AG and BB have a couple of pretty organised 20+ man groups running around on 2 or 3 maps (20 on each to be clear) at 2am : /.
Then RS and AR get up at the crack of dawn and golem rush everything down with 50 man groups or some other crazy rubbish.
Gandaras insomniacs have gotten a bit burnt out or remembered that sleep is pretty kitten nice so were not competing in any way shape or form most nights (had a tick of 10 for about an hour a night or two back and similar ticks are becoming par for the course recently)

Smooth Penguin.5294:

>OP

You mean “Soccer”. Football doesn’t have any teams called Manchester United.

I’m confused, are you referring to that hand egg game?

OT: had fun reading it, but not gonna comment on the point

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

T7 used to be like that. On Gunnars a lot of us define our community by our server pride and willingness to fight in 10/20 man groups while having a good core defending our BL.
Though if you’re looking for 20 v 20 v 20 at night not at all.

I think the main point here is to consider if you’re looking to transfer down to a lower tier is “What impact would we have on the matchup” Because there’s absolutely no point coming down if your transfer is going to massively skew the matchup one way or another. Then all you get is easy mode wins and eventually you end up back where you started.

I know, I was there, still miss you guys a lot But sadly I was a PvE kitten back then only dropping by WvW for the night shift and drunken fun with Jess and Fizz, there was 0 population of PvE on Gunnars so I moved with my old guild to Gandara.

It’s a shame the guilds didn’t split up a bit among the tier, but I’m sure they all did their research and had their reasons why. XxX are an awesome bunch of guys despite Nem can be “difficult” at times.

And yeah, I am on about just 20 vs 20 vs 20 over all 4 maps at night lol It’s a rare night we can get more than 10 on a night crew.

Like Caid said, those servers will move up in time back to blobs and 1 spam and 80 man guild groups, it’s just difficult in the meantime to try and hold the resident community together on the “battered” server while they do.

Caid.4932:

Idd
The 3 guilds that have transferred to RoS will only push them up one or two tiers its not THAT big a deal.

If only it was just 3. Unfortunately I can think of at least 7 guilds off the top of my head (1 un c’d tbf)

Caid.4932:

Also annie means 20 v 20 v 20 in total. Not 20v20 fights. Currently we in gandara have about 20 insomniacs on a very good night.

Aye. We had an American guild that joined us for a couple of weeks. They could field roughly 20 people on a night, and they turned the map completely green for us for the duration of their stay. Unfortunately (they were lovely people and really integrated well) lag got too much for them so they moved back to NA. However despite them being a great addition for the community their presence did hurt the matchup a fair bit as I’m sure RoF and Dz can attest to.

A few nights after they left I stayed up until 4am and at one point I was one of 4 people keeping tabs on 3 borderlands. T7 just isn’t equipped for a 20 man night crew. We did have some great 5v5 fights though in the small hours.

Caliban.3176:

It is a very amusing story. However it does not relate in any way to RoS as the transferred guilds do not care about winning as your fictional Ferguson does.

So it might be very entertaining though it is does not make a strong point or case about anything about these guild transfers.

Keep writing though.

omg, you so don’t get it.
Are you the incarnation of Ferguson?

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

Caid.4932:

Idd
The 3 guilds that have transferred to RoS will only push them up one or two tiers its not THAT big a deal.

If only it was just 3. Unfortunately I can think of at least 7 guilds off the top of my head (1 un c’d tbf)

Well yeah it was 3 initially, I’m sure by the end of the week you’ll be able to name a few more. The mass migration has started.
We have a server guild we made for april fools day (which pretty much every wvw’er on the server joined) its pretty funny to see the number who change server. Kicking about 3 a day recently. All guys you wouldn’t notice from small guilds and stuff, so im sure theres many, many more joining who aren’t in guild groups.

Should check it again, would put money on a dozen or two being on RoS by now.

Ferawyn.6542:

Caliban.3176:

It is a very amusing story. However it does not relate in any way to RoS as the transferred guilds do not care about winning as your fictional Ferguson does.

So it might be very entertaining though it is does not make a strong point or case about anything about these guild transfers.

Keep writing though.

omg, you so don’t get it.
Are you the incarnation of Ferguson?

If that is what you think, sure.

Caid.4932:

Well yeah it was 3 initially, I’m sure by the end of the week you’ll be able to name a few more. The mass migration has started.
We have a server guild we made for april fools day (which pretty much every wvw’er on the server joined) its pretty funny to see the number who change server. Kicking about 3 a day recently. All guys you wouldn’t notice from small guilds and stuff, so im sure theres many, many more joining who aren’t in guild groups.

Should check it again, would put money on a dozen or two being on RoS by now.

Haha such is the way of things. I’m actually now hoping RoS do get more guilds because it will take them up much faster.

Caliban.3176:

If that is what you think, sure.

Tbf you did completely miss the point afaic

@Caliban: Sorry if my post sounded rude. It’s not that I think bad of you or something, I wanted to say you probably don’t have really a feeling for the typical mindset of low tier players hence you missed imho the point of the op.

I don’t agree with his point. I think it is not true. The server I was on travelled through many tiers, lower ones included. So I do know a little bit about the mindset of those tiers. Even SFR was an underdog server at certain points in time.

The story told here does not relate to what is happening on RoS. It is irrelevant, it is not like that. The worst part is where you assume that these transferred guilds kill anything in their way with relative ease (cfr. scoring 17-0 in one half of a match). This is not true.

Also it seems like these guilds would enjoy winning so hard if that were ever the case and I assure you that they wouldn’t. Nothing would get me to transfer off of a server faster than knowing my guild could destroy anything my enemies might throw at me.

Thinking the point you make with your story is wrong is not the same as missing the point.

Caliban.3176:

It is a very amusing story. However it does not relate in any way to RoS as the transferred guilds do not care about winning as your fictional Ferguson does.

So it might be very entertaining though it is does not make a strong point or case about anything about these guild transfers.

Keep writing though.

Who mentioned RoS? I don’t see any mention here before you brought up RoS. Are you trying to tell us something about RoS? Because as far as I can tell this story is about Stockport County.

Hi everyone,

Please feel free to join this thread where we are having a discussion on this same issue https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Guilds-dropping-down-tiers-for-good-fights/first#post1898373.

Thanks for your understanding.
This thread is closed.