Guild Wars 2

I’d like to see ArenaNet add a green screen to the character selection screen. This would allow all members of a guild to snap their own screenshots, send them to one person, and have them combined into a group portrait with some level of uniformity. Snapping the pictures in-world, as others have stated, means dealing with the lighting of the area they’re in, which is different in each zone throughout the day.

Daemonne.5018:

Norbe.7630:

ah,
think of the 3 months as a learning experience not just for you but for your entire server, you may or may not have that chance to do so
maybe one day, for your experiencing that moment, you can lead your server to greatness in battle, even recognize your server as the friendliest and most hospitable in terms of linking
you see linking/merging is not that bad, it adds opportunities… many opportunities

Let me clarify another point. In 3 months there will be another linking. If we don’t voice our concerns now during the first 3 months, then Anet is going to feel that everybody is happy with the change and it could turn out worse for us.

We don’t want to just wait for the polls to roll around for our opinions. We need to let them know from beginning to end. Many views may change in time. Opinions may differ from start to finish. I may even grow to like the “Blob” mentality (doubtful but I never thought I’d like Sushi either) It’ll be a good way for them to gauge the response over time as well.
So it’s not so much that we are coming to the forums and voicing in anger, we are just making sure that we are heard and not drowned out or forgotten that we are in disagreement.

Betas need feedback. We will oblige :-)

Well said, Dae.

We have taken ArenaNet up on their request to provide needed feedback on a beta test, and ArenaNet is listening. Last night, An ArenaNet employee transferred to Eredon Terrace to run with us. One of our members (Ariel/Ursa) spoke with him for over an hour about our concerns, and he assured her that ArenaNet is taking all opinions into account (see her post about this). They are also watching these forums, so, if you haven’t posted your opinion yet, please be sure to do so.

Rasudido.6734:

Dominus.7013:

Had ArenaNet chosen instead to merge servers on the lower tiers, Eredon Terrace would have been on equal footing with our new servermates. We’d have had an equal say in the direction of the server, we’d have welcomed our new friends, and we’d have worked with them as allies. We had hoped to do that with Blackgate as well, and Eredon Terrace met to discuss this a few times this past week. Last night, however, 95% of the comments we saw from Blackgate players mocked us and the number of people we were able to contribute to the WvW effort.

Really do you have any evidence of Blackgate mocking you or anyone from ET?

I ask because the server as a majority has been waiting for the link so we can cooperate with the linked server (we frankly didnt care if who it was). Most if not all of our guilds are willing to share builds, resources and even open recruitment for people in ET if they wish to join and play with a BG guild. We also already discussed how to handle ET when it came to community decisions for WvW and even that was decided that you got as much a say as any BG guild (and before you say something: guild size has never made any difference when it came down to agreeing on something for BG)

I dont even know who in BG would “mock” the amount of people you can contribute because frankly we have multiple more than a couple small guilds of 5-10 players who roam around and do their own thing away form the large guilds. Guess what we love and support them as much we can because what they do is really helpful.

Your post just seems like a convenient story to show the ‘horrors’ of world linking in an attempt to justify your attitude.

Well, I liked your post up until the end, and was prepared to say, “I’m glad you posted this. Hopefully, Mr. Bear is right and the people we saw were in the minority,” and leave it at that (I still feel that way, regardless of your comments). Then you called my comments a “convenient story” as if I’d sat here and decided to make it up. I’m not the only one who has mentioned it in this thread.

In fact, there were several of us on TeamSpeak (40+) playing last night, and we all saw the comments in EotM (we were in there because we couldn’t get into the other maps). Having said that, I mentioned it simply to make the point that those players seemed to agree that our numbers were a drop in the bucket compared to yours (and I was making the point throughout my entire post that merging smaller servers would have been the better decision, because our numbers would have meant we were contributing equally to the new merged server).

Further, I don’t think I needed to justify my position by commenting on what I hope are a few bad apples. I spent quite a bit of time in my post justifying it in ways that I think are more compelling to developers than “some people were mean to us” (e.g., server community preservation, different modes of gameplay, other options that we thought were better, etc). I certainly don’t think ArenaNet will change course based on a report of negative comments from one player directed at another, either. It was simply an observation many of us made last night, and we hoped it was just a minority (and I said that as well in my post, I believe).

I didn’t take screenshots. That’s on me. I should have, but we were running around in EotM at the time, talking on TeamSpeak, etc. It really didn’t occur to me that I’d need any screenshots, because it wasn’t like I was going to track down the guild leaders of these people and report them.

Having said this, if we are going to be linked, I certainly hope we can work together. I still hope ArenaNet changes course here, but no one on ET (and we met two or three times this past week) wants anything other than to work with BG if this is the way things are going to be. We discussed adding some of your people to our TeamSpeak server, and even created a new group tag for them on the server, and we were hoping you’d do the same for better coordination in WvW.

I think our guild is running tonight, and I hear we can get into the maps, so we’ll see how things go.

UPDATE:

Nice to hear from my guild members and others on ET that everyone from Blackgate has been very nice to members of Eredon Terrace today/tonight, so thank you all for that (they said Moses the Bear has been especially welcoming to them as they logged on to play today).

As Ariel said in a previous comment (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/World-Linking-Beta/page/5#post6116309), this was never about Blackgate, really, it was about our disagreement with ArenaNet. So, I hope we can all have a good time with one another, even if my previous comments about this decision to link T8 with T1 still stand and I hope they eventually merge us with the smaller servers. I think you’ll find that that the people on ET are very friendly as well.

Ariel.6291:

I have been playing this game since pre-release on Eredon Terrace. In effect, by the changes you made tonight, you have taken our server away.

We had a great community and loved playing on our server. Now we don’t even have a borderland. In addition, you put us in a server that has so many people that we have been told there is no chance of getting in on reset night. You didn’t even make adjustments in how many people could be on a map. You did this without any input from us, without any warning and I feel your lack of allowing people who have been paying your salaries ANY input into something this important is a really incredibly bad business model.

I invite any developer who cares about this game, your customers, and who could consider the different modes of play to come that has grown out of the different server population sizes come and join us for a discussion of Eredon Terrace’s opinion of the changes. We would welcome you on our team speak to initiate a conversation.

There are better solutions to your population issues And since the server sizes are forcibly keeping your players from playing due to server OVER population, perhaps you should have considered going smaller NOT larger.

Please feel free to contact me should you care to discuss this further.

Thank you,
Ariel.6291

I agree with everything Ariel (Ursa) has said, and I have a few things to say myself.

The problem with linking servers like Eredon Terrace to Blackgate (or any low-tier server with another in the upper tiers) is that it potentially destroys ET’s sense of community while, at the same time, introducing even higher queue times to Blackgate. How anyone could have thought this was a good solution to low populations on the bottom-tier servers I’ll never know. A better solution would have been to link servers in the lower tiers, which would have roughly doubled the numbers those servers have while stopping smaller servers from simply being absorbed by much larger ones. This would have preserved the communities on the smaller servers that evolved out of necessity over the years (more on this below), and those servers would have felt like they were contributing, because each one in the linked pair would be bringing roughly the same numbers to the matchup.

I realize that ArenaNet likely has no idea what sort of communities have grown on servers like Eredon Terrace, so I’ll talk about our server for a moment. Most of us know one another, care about one another, and have become friends. We meet regularly on TeamSpeak to talk about WvW strategy. We host server-wide events, organized by our guilds, with prizes. Negativity is kept to a minimum because we’re a relatively small community. Those who attack others find very quickly that it goes over like a lead balloon, so arguments are almost non-existent, and we tend to work together regardless of guild affiliation. The point is that we’re a tight, friendly community because it was necessary to be friendly and helpful. We didn’t have the numbers to ignore one another, and most of us (all of us?) felt this made us stronger. And queue times… what are those? We’d heard of them, and almost all of us would say we didn’t want to be on the higher tiers where we had to deal with them. Most of the guilds that left ET over the years would avoid the high tiers, preferring instead to find a server that had more players, but not so many that they had to deal with queues.

(For an example of one of our server-wide events, have a look at “A Scandal in Eredon Terrace”, the “mystery night” event all our guild leaders hosted a while back — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2ZTGq3iZX0 — We’ve had many of these events on our server, ranging from larger, more elaborate events to smaller, more impromptu events, over the years, and we are currently hosting an event once a month.)

We on Eredon Terrace feel that we’ll simply be swallowed whole by Blackgate. We can’t play on reset night anymore (something we really enjoyed, because there’s obviously a lot of energy on the first night, so it was considered a server-wide event we’d all participate in; we’d meet prior to reset, go over the plan, and head out together). Further, this linking of servers is actually worse than merging them. Separate voice chat. Separate communities. We feel like guests on Blackgate, not like part of the same community.

“TylerB” said (on Reddit) that he expects “WvW will be a whole lot more exciting for those smaller servers. Like most changes, there are potential tradeoffs … we believe more players will benefit from the change than be hurt by it.” (source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4fjrxt/we_are_the_gw2_dev_team_here_to_chat_with_you/d29n0az) You’re missing the point, Tyler. You could have taken a different approach and preserved what we liked about the lower tiers while also increasing numbers. Those two ideas are not at odds with one another. Why didn’t you ask us? It’s obvious that no one making this decision has been to ET. We would have told you what we thought would work, and it’s not much different than what you did, so it wouldn’t have been technically impossible.

Had ArenaNet chosen instead to merge servers on the lower tiers, Eredon Terrace would have been on equal footing with our new servermates. We’d have had an equal say in the direction of the server, we’d have welcomed our new friends, and we’d have worked with them as allies. We had hoped to do that with Blackgate as well, and Eredon Terrace met to discuss this a few times this past week. Last night, however, 95% of the comments we saw from Blackgate players mocked us and the number of people we were able to contribute to the WvW effort. We hope they are a minority, as Mr. Bear has promised in another comment, but the minority seemed to those with a welcoming attitude. I understand this. Look, we’re increasing your queue times. I wouldn’t be happy if I were you, either. I don’t take it personally at all, but comments like the ones we saw from your players last night would have been shut down by everyone else on ET if we heard them. Our guilds don’t allow it, and when we see it, we speak up immediately. Two different communities, I guess.

I realize that the community created on Eredon Terrace, born out of necessity, was probably an accident in ArenaNet’s eyes. For years now, ArenaNet has done absolutely nothing about the unbalanced populations. Several suggestions have been made over the years (e.g., merging lower tiers, making server transfers free for a short time to give guilds on higher tiers a chance to try lower tiers without worrying about the cost of changing their minds, etc), but no action was taken. So Eredon Terrace made it work for our players as best as we could. Aside from the low player numbers, we liked what we had.

Now, ArenaNet has decided to throw us into tier one. Why? Do you think we stayed in the lower tiers because we couldn’t afford the gems to transfer? Do you think it was merely about loyalty to ET? We’ve had guilds leave and return over the years. It’s not about that. We stayed here because we never wanted to be in the higher tiers. We don’t want queue times (what a terrible waste of an evening and our time). Further, we’ve learned to play a slightly different game on the lower tiers than they play above us, and that’s why we stayed. We liked it. Sure, we wanted more players, but ArenaNet had other options that would have preserved, for the most part, the sort of communities and gameplay we like in the lower tiers while also adding more players. Instead, you threw us into tier one without notice.

Is Blackgate happy about this? Were you guys desperate for more players? Were you begging ArenaNet to sent ET to fight alongside you? Now you have even higher queue times, so ArenaNet has made that issue worse for you. This was simply a bad decision all around. Had ArenaNet asked the community — their customers — what they wanted, I’m positive this solution wouldn’t have ever come up or would have been pushed to the bottom of the list. And, yes, ArenaNet, we are your customers, and you’re making a bad business decision here. We’ll be the ones buying your expansions. We buy gems. We trade our money and time for a service, we expect to be heard when we have complaints, and we expect you to take everything into consideration when you attempt to resolve those complaints. You let this population problem persist for years, and then you didn’t listen to other ideas or ask us how we felt when you chose to merge Eredon Terrace with Blackgate. Instead, you solved one problem (server populations on lower tiers) and created several new problems.

To my friends on Eredon Terrace, the time to remain silent is over. Be heard by posting your comments to this thread. Many of you may not know what to say. You may feel that others have already said it. Do not let this stop you from saying something — anything — about the way you feel. Everyone on ET (and Blackgate) who doesn’t like what they see right now needs to speak up immediately and add their voices. Otherwise, ArenaNet will assume that it’s just a small minority of players who have a problem with this, and Tyler will tell us that the majority of players are happy with the change because the complaints are minimal. What I heard last night on TeamSpeak paints a different story. Not a single ET player seemed happy.

As Ariel has said, we welcome anyone from ArenaNet to our TeamSpeak server to discuss this matter further. We’d be happy to tell you more about our server, the way we play your game, what we’ve come to love about it, and why we’re unhappy about this change.

Thank you for your time.

Regards,
Xander
The Forgers of Orr [TFoR]

Name: The Forgers of Orr [TFoR]

Web Site: ForgersOfOrr.com or TFoR.gd

Gameplay: PvX — Guild Missions and WvW twice a week. On our off days we do WvW, dungeons, fractals, PvP, World Bosses, and even a bit of Silverwastes.

Server: Eredon Terrace [ET] — We are one of the oldest guilds on the server, founded in October 2012, about a month after Guild Wars 2 was released.

Preferred Language: None, but we always like having people with fancy accents who pronounce “zee” as “zed”. :)

Active Time: 7:00 PM – 12:00 AM Eastern Time, though members are usually on throughout the day as well.

Schedule of Events:

• Mondays, 8:00 PM Eastern Time — World vs World Guild Rally -- TFoR Takes Over the World (vs World)
• Wednesdays, 8:00 PM Eastern Time — Guild Missions
• Fridays, 8:00/9:00 PM Eastern Time — World vs World Reset Rally
• Sundays, 7:00 PM Eastern Time — Guild Missions (we have two nights of guild missions to help ensure that all members get their Guild Commendations for the week).
• Every other month — All-hands guild meeting (We use this time to discuss the state of our guild and get feedback and suggestions from members, but we encourage members to get involved and make suggestions whenever they have them.)

Other Information:

• TeamSpeak: Eredon Terrace maintains a TeamSpeak server for all residents, and our members are on TeamSpeak when we are in-game. (It’s not mandatory that you join TeamSpeak, but you’ll always find us there during our events.)
• TeamSpeak Music Bot: We have one! We play music. Sometimes one of our members will even play funny sound effects on TeamSpeak at exactly the right moments!
• All guild upgrades are unlocked and we always have active guild buffs.
• We value friendly, helpful players and pride ourselves on being a welcoming, friendly guild. We’re a tight bunch, and many of us have become close friends over the years. We are always looking for new people to join us.
• We are willing and able to train you and provide help whenever necessary. New to the game? No problem! We welcome anyone who will participate and help all members better enjoy the game.
• We provide siege to our World vs World commanders using gold and siege donations to our guild bank.

Contact Information:

Feel free to contact any of our High Council Members.

• Ariel.6291
• Anylehilator.8970
• Dominus.7013
• ArkhamsJester.5206
• HeliosTheTurnt.8439

Blobbing more and enjoying it less? Afraid your commander only loves you for your “build?” Hop off the Ktrain and join Eredon Terrace’s Forgers of Orr [TFoR]! We’re still having fun and going strong after three years!