Guild Wars 2

Caliban.3176:

Veil wasn’t that big of a problem. It just resets targeting, for 3 seconds and gives commanders 3 seconds to change direction (6 or exceptionally 9, if they have really good mesmer coordination) that’s not a lot. It’s too good not to do, but it’s not too strong that it needed nerfs or counters.

I wasn’t saying veil was OP – as you say there are tonnes of ways to counter it, but all of them are as tedious as the tactic itself.

Caliban.3176:

And please don’t call Bull a mindless zerg. They are mindless nor zergy. You blame people for getting trolled by a mechanic that was released hours earlier?

No idea who the group are, but any group of that size that can’t deal with a couple of thieves harassing them over such a long period of time seem to lack some awareness and communication.

To my mind they weren’t getting trolled by any new mechanic, but by a long-term existing mechanic of stealthy thieves flitting about and being annoying (as good thieves should!), which they should have learned to deal with by now. If they’d have done that then they’d never have struggled with the traps in the first place!

(as for the ‘zerg’ word, I’m guessing whoever I originally quoted was using the word in the sense of “group that massively outnumbers me” – to a pair of thieves ten people might as well be a zerg, to a small group 20 is a zerg, to 20 forty is a zerg… etc etc. I appreciate there’s a more ‘correct’ definition to do with styles of play but it’s pretty common to hear people use it just to convey that one side outnumbers the other by a relatively wide margin).

Brangien.7462:

All I see is thieves picking on a clueless zerg.

Indeed! This video was fun though

Pretty soon people will have to learn the various pre-existing ways to counter stealthed thieves, not to mention finding the best ways to make use of the anti-stealth trap itself.

I genuinely like that we have to switch up our play and adapt.

The old meta of veil charging everything was so tedious to counter that anything that moves us away from that is virtually an improvement by definition :p

Jimmy JimBob.2801:

Definitely. We had it when we faced Surmia the old T1 guilds asking for GvGs all the time. It’s just not something that ever happens down here beyond the duels we did with Dzag.

Yeah, and those guilds are generally not in favour of anything less than 20v20 – most refused to do a 5v5 or 10v10, which is a shame as there’s way more fun/skill in co-ordinated smaller fights. As people have been saying it’s a cultural thing.

I’ve actually forgotten who started this thread of conversation but whoever it was I hope you find the fights you want!

In fairness, people often use ‘zerg’ to mean ‘a force that’s way too big for my current group’. So with a party of 5 twenty is a zerg. But with 20 forty would be… etc etc. So to 1 person fifteen would definitely count :p

Are people seriously leaving the game over this? WvW has continued to be lots of fun since the buff, and whatever tweaks they make back to ACs aren’t radically going to change the gametype. It kinda feels like anyone leaving over this would have left anyway.

This is actually a great suggestion and it – or something like it – would make all sorts of matches much more meaningful.

Of course it would be more devastating to lose when it matters, but that just makes the wins sweeter!

… are you sure?!

This is an interesting idea. Had never considered the rationale behind showing enemies whether or not a character is uplevelled. I guess there’s no reason they SHOULD know, and it could make people generally more wary of just charging in if you’re not sure how many 80s you’re up against. Would be interested to see an experiment with this turned off to see what effect it has!

Have they actually said whether or not they’re working on this? It’s definitely one of those ‘polish’ things that would greatly improve our WvW experience if they fixed it.

Suralin.3947:

They should just make it impossible for players to mist form from a downed state to run into the tower/keep. That’s it. It’s not the skill that needs to be nerfed.

This is 100% correct. Not quite as important as vengeance imo, as eles can rally themselves once they get inside whereas warriors are reliant on others to help out.

This is one of the most frustrating bugs they’ve introduced. Would definitely appreciate a dev response on this, at least that they’re aware of it!

pejot.4806:

GH, your current result makes me sad You sentence us for another week in t7

Hehe, sorry! A combination of French holidays, RoS underperformance and good weather has conspired to give you guys the short straw for a second successive week. Hope it goes alright, and that we meet again soon

Tbh they just need to implement the auto-looting that they’ve already discussed. Hopefully we’ll get an update on this soon…

The Hunter.4516:

Maverick.9472:

I believe a certain hunter is looking at the wonderful North american shores…

I believe GH are the worst server i have ever seen on this game

<3

Best of luck finding a server you love to call home!

itsmee.7536:

I hope you guys get many guilds and transfers, so I’m bumping this.

Truly an evil mastermind

Murderous Clown.9723:

Nooo please don’t get more people!

We’re having one of the most enjoyable matches for months with you lot at your current strength.

Heh, don’t worry, this isn’t a serious post. I’m not sure if the guy posting it is even from GH (apologies OP if you are!)

Yep, I’ve seen all of these problems as well. Would definitely appreciate an acknowledgement that Anet are aware and looking into it!

Haha. No idea who this guy is, but people are always welcome to make fun, and if a sarcastic recruitment post is how they want to do it then more power to them

:D

(in reality we’re not actually recruiting atm as far as I know, though we’re always open to small, mature guilds, so if you fit that description then get in touch, though I doubt any of those would have been enticed in by this OP or would have read this far…!)

Caliban.3176:

Smart people, with actual posts that make sense, they still exist.

Thank you.

… can you rephrase that in the form of a meme? Preferably one that insults me, my guild, my server, my family, and everything I’ve ever known and loved?

I CAN’T HANDLE ALL THIS CIVILITY!

Seriously though, pleasure talking to you and I hope we can resume the discussion once traps are in game and we’ve had a chance to play with them. Also hopefully there’ll be a roadmap for fixes to your situation by then.

Have fun in the meantime!

Caliban.3176:

Replace what fights? Most of the fights are gone already. I don’t see how anything they add that allows players to battle eachother besides the things implemented already, could help. It’s hard enough already getting players to fight you. We need people to start relying on their weapon skills and utilities not some extra gimmicks or some overpowered siege engines.

I get where you’re coming from.

For me, I have no problem finding good, exciting fights – plenty of weapon skills/utilities, and the occasional mixing in of some appropriate siege. I anticipate traps adding to that mix and providing more entertainment.

But I run in a group of anywhere between 5 and 20 people. I suspect that for larger groups good fights simply don’t exist – in the higher tiers it’s killed by skill lag/blob gravity, in the lower tiers there’s just no opposition.

This is in no way a criticism of any kind, just given that your complaints (which I’m sure are valid, I don’t mean ‘complaints’ in a mocking way there) don’t line up with my experience I can only assume it’s to do with the different things we ourselves do in WvW. If it is indeed true then I’m very sympathetic to your situation and I hope anet are doing things (reduce skill lag, add GvG, whatever else) that will improve it.

On that note I believe they’ve said that their culling guys are working on skill lag as the next priority so there is still hope!

Aneu.1748:

We feel quite strongly about GW2 after so many games have failed over the past few years in terms of giving players like ourselves something to actually sink our teeth into. Now that the real action seems to be getting dumbed down and actual fighting is taking place between objects as opposed to players we are going to make sure our voice is heard and that our objections understood.

I actually really liked your idea of open KotH points… though I disagreed somewhat with your ideas for decreasing door health etc (felt that it would go the other way and encourage constant zerg karma trains for keeps as well as for camps!).

Would totally support your KotH proposals however

As for traps… I see where you’re coming from, but think we need to experience them – and give it time to settle so we can come up with counters – before we decide they have no place in WvW. I really like the increased tactical potential that the idea has, and I doubt that they’ll in any way replace fights or remove the need for fights.

Neandramathal.9536:

People whine too much.

Well, some people will be Vocal On The Forums.

Sometimes I get the feeling all some guilds want to do is put a Veil On The Floor and run around in a big invisible group.

Still, if they want to Vent Of Their Foolishness before we’ve even seen the changes then I hope they at least have lots of fun doing so ;p

And that everybody gives any changes that do come a chance to bed in so we can all find counters and enjoy a less stagnant WvW, which after all is what we’d all like!

(intended with a humorous playful poke to my friends from Virtually Overused This F Gimmick – was just amused to see you all so active straightaway in this thread <3)

Edit: In the spirit of lighthearted jokes as mentioned above by Aneu

Agreed with those saying “wait and see” – it could be really interesting, and force zergs to split up to get around traps, allowing all of us to reshape the battlefield somewhat. Not to mention the obvious idiocy in crying about something that we haven’t even seen or tried yet :p

Shame about the World XP tweaks being delayed though… as someone who plays a number of characters these days it’d be nice to see WXP ranks coming a little faster. But no worries either way.

Cufufalating.8479:

Except last week, WSR almost always finishes 2nd, and ever week people from the losing server come here and accuse the winning server of focusing them. I do wonder if they ever considered the possibility that WSR is just better at defending their BL than them? I guess not…

I think some of us were trying to get this point across :p

WSR has quite a few scary guilds. Mostly ones with tags starting with ‘T’, for some reason.

Vynt.5218:

Hello there! It’s going quite good, too bad I haven’t had enough time to play WvWvW this weekend. What about you? Do you like the small scaled fights? Like 10men vs 10men taking keeps?

That sucks, hope you find some time tomorrow (or at least that whatever else you’re doing is as fun!). Myself I’ve fit in a fair bit. Taking in a lowbie necro for her first WvW outing tonight too

Had a lot of fun in a small group in EB yesterday (or possibly the day before, I forget), running as a party of five (with occasional assorted hangers-on coming and going). Managed to take Langor against a similar number of defenders, then got a treb up on blue keep.

More blue defenders arrived, we struggled to hold Langor against them while still hitting the keep, things escalated and much fun was had.

Eventually lost Langor to inevitably growing enemies but only after some pitched battles in the lord room. So yes, some good fights

Plus it was great to be able to achieve anything at all with just a few of us. Suspect my level 10 necro will need to hug a larger group a little more this evening though… :p

Vynt.5218:

Oh, so I heard Gunnar’s posters are friendly. What is this madness going on atm?

Vynt! Nice to see you man

How’s your long weekend going? Having a blast in WvW?

Personally I’m already dreading going back to work on Tuesday, but enjoying a long WvW session with occasional forays into Monaco (you played it? Hit me up if you have it and we’ll go heist some stuff. I’m utterly serious.)

Catch you later <3

Eclipse.1567:

Clearly having between 20 (60 in prime time) constantly on AS BL have nothing to do with your lack of player on other maps then.

2 fronts? thats why nothing on WSR BL has been touched (except spawn tower) when you already reseted 2 times our keps on AS and on EB?

The problem is that you try to be cool and fair on forums when on the field you are doing the exact opposite

I can assure you we’ve been fighting in WSR bl this matchup, just not as successfully as in AS bl. We will hopefully remedy this, but so far they’ve been very strong defenders – it’s not for lack of trying!

We’ve also been defending against both servers in our BL, and fighting both in EB.

Not really sure what else we can do, but there’s no conspiracy to focus AS or anything like that.

Eclipse.1567:

Again, GH propaganda about hating unbalanced match up when the only thing you are currently doing is focusing the 3rd.
WSR is so free from you that they even took your full upgraded SM.

O_o

I can assure you we mean it when we say that we don’t like unbalanced matchups. Why would we bother making up propaganda about it if we secretly did like unbalance?! We’d just post lots of gloating posts about winning if we were those kind of people, instead of several apologies for being in this tier in the first place.

I’m also not sure why you think we’d bother to focus Arborstone in the first place? What do we gain from ignoring WSR? (which we don’t, I spent a lot of time defending SM from their endless trebs already since reset :p)

Why do you think we would just give a fully upgraded SM away to WSR?! Obviously they just had a strong force online at that time and mounted a successful attack, and fair play to them, that’s the aim of the game!

I guarantee we’re going to be trying to get it back

Anyway, I’m sorry you think we’re focussing you. We’re definitely fighting on two fronts. If you like we can party up and I’ll give you safe escort to our battlelines against WSR so you can see them personally :p

Have a good day

First time in this thread since reset – got to say it’s a breath of fresh air and glorious civility after the threads of the last couple of weeks <3

Have enjoyed WvW so far generally running with a small group of about 4-5 trying to cap towers here and there. Sometimes successfully, often we get wiped, sometimes we have a great fight with a bunch of WSR/AS guys.

I agree with everyone that has apologised on behalf of GH – we hate unbalanced matchups regardless of what end of it we’re on, and would much rather be matched with two servers we’re equal to. But sadly none of us get to choose our opponents so we’re going to spend a couple of weeks stomping and then getting stomped, none of which is fun for anyone involved.

Hopefully the ladder will settle out with the latest population shift sooner than later and we can go back to a bit of jeopardy over the actual scores

My plan is to ignore the score entirely whatever matchup I’m in and just look for as equal fights as possible. Hope you guys all find lots of fun out there

100% agree, players being unable to damage doors would solve a lot of problems without creating any. If you want to get into a tower/keep use some siege. Not hard!

Looks like we get a new match up

Best of luck to all next week, have fun, don’t worry too much if any enemy server blobs up, and try not to be too bored by endless huge groups veil charging at you.

And above all – always be ready to learn and adapt and improve as a player! ALWAYS. Even if Anet buff arrow carts…

spiritus.7983:

Hyung.6140:

I don’t know who this was, but I can only apologise on behalf of EVERYONE at Gunnar’s Hold that this has happened to you.

really?

Haha spiritus, I think you might have missed the sarcasm in my post <3

I tried to lay it on thick enough that it couldn’t be missed, but I know someone will always think you’re being serious even if you can’t possibly be…!

Nemesys.7251:

dying on 3 vs 3 and with a good fight and come back with 4 vs 3 is really lame at this hour,but we know this is how gunnar play right?

I don’t know who this was, but I can only apologise on behalf of EVERYONE at Gunnar’s Hold that this has happened to you.

We don’t quite have the same devotion as Ruins of Surmia at ensuring that every single fight has exactly equal numbers, but we’re inspired by your example and are trying to stamp out this kind of thing.

Hopefully we’ll find out who it was and encourage them to move to another server, as this is just disgraceful behaviour. Good luck in your (exactly equal) fights in future and hope to see you on the battlefield (unless I’m with a group that outnumbers you slightly in which case I’ll just watch, of course).

ThomasKreshant.6572:

Gah, It was a secret and now everything is ruined!!

We’re supposed to be the super unfriendly server that is self centered and generally despicable!!

You can’t let people know we’re rooting for them etc, you obviously failed the ‘how to be a super villain 101’ class’

Hahah

Afaik we have a pretty respectful/amusing relationship with most servers from FSP downwards. Only exception I remember is AG – wasn’t there something about some guilds there that have a grudge?!

And obviously these two weeks have been something of an exception too!

Still, keeps life interesting. Which is what you need when you’re bored at work, right TK?

Nice work Anya! It’s no secret that we’re rooting for you – though in an ideal world we’d be meeting again instead of passing each other on the way up/down.

Hopefully catch you on the battlefield sooner rather than later… best of luck

Nymph of Meliai.6739:

pity about your failed double team at Jerrifer’s Slough, EB (10:45am)… didn’t notice at first that you were 50/50 GH and Dz…

not in any way suggesting an alliance on the evidence of 6 players but why were you fighting together?

I wasn’t there, but I expect a few people from each server found themselves near each other. Maybe they partied up, maybe they danced a little, maybe they just finished the JP together and were enjoying the taboo thrill of hanging around with ‘the enemy’.

Maybe one of them threw down a ram and built it as they passed Jerrifers, wondering if the other server guys would take the hint and throw down a ram of their own? Maybe they all simultaneously realised they could try and cap a tower together then turn on each other in the lord room and see what happened?

In short – maybe they were just having fun.

I hope you do the same today <3

It’s not like he was totally innocent either. He’d said some shameful, shameful things, often late at night when the alcohol and the fury and the FORUM machine made an unholy combination that he somehow couldn’t resist. He picked one out of the archive.

WCHURCHILL: “Lol Hitler hope u hadn’t got 2 used 2 that keep thx for all the sick upgrades m8”

Embarrassed at his own gloating – and terrible English – he screwed up the old message and set fire to it with his comically oversize cigar.

And then there’d been that time when they’d all simultaneously realised they could strategically use punctuation and gaps to send crude pictures to each other… a few characters at a time.

He and Montgomery had giggled themselves sick sending a picture of one of them squatting over a knocked-down Hitler’s head after they’d successfully recaptured a small town in northern France.

It had seemed so funny at the time, but now it felt… well… childish.

Next to him the kitten machine cranked back into life. He pulled the paper off and read it:

AHITLER: “Not chatting tonight, noob? Still upset that we wiped you earlier?”

Oh god. Why was this godforsaken FORUM ever created in the first place?! That was it! The final straw had been reached.

“Montgomery, come here!”

His top general marched in swiftly, a concerned look on his face.

“What is it, Winston? Another message from the enemy? I’ll help you come up with a sick burn if you want! I thought maybe we could rhyme Hitler with something! Mitler, maybe. Or Pitler!”

He trailed off as he saw the stern look on Churchill’s face.

“No, Monty. No more sick burns. No more Pitler! This ends now. Destroy the FORUM. Burn all the messages. Destroy the evidence that it ever existed! The world will be better off if it never knows that FORUM was ever created. We can’t let this ever get out – can you imagine if the public had access to this kind of technology?”

Montgomery looked surprised but after a moment nodded resolutely.

“You’re right. I’ll give the orders.”

As he turned to go the machine cranked up one – final – time. Churchill picked up the last ever FORUM message and unrolled the paper.

AHITLER: “ROFL, just wiped twice our number of your guys AND the Americans. We didn’t even bother with weapons or armour and STILL won. You all SUCK!”

Churchill’s eyes narrowed. Montgomery paused, waiting patiently for the final authorisation to destroy the FORUM forever.

“Wait just a moment, Monty…"

Montgomery stood completely still.

“Pass me that keyboard…”

Here’s a quick story to start this thread off.

The World At War

A VERY SECRET BUNKER. 1941.

CONNECTING…

YOU ARE CONNECTED. USERNAME IS ‘WCHURCHILL’

DOWNLOADING (1) POSTS
…
…

AHITLER: “Hey Churchill! Thanks for all the loot bags last night! FARMED <3 lololol, love Hitler”

Churchill ripped the printout from the machine and sighed heavily. Not again! He was beginning to deeply regret signing up to the top secret intra-governmental project to communicate across long distances in the early days of the war.

Codenamed “FORUM”, it had started with such good intentions, as these things often did. His advisors had thought it would perhaps help bring about an early end to the war… and, indeed, it had been promising at first. Thumbing through a stack of earlier messages he couldn’t help but be amazed yet again at how far downhill FORUM had fallen. And how quickly!

He looked over at some of the very first messages from the early days of the war.

AHITLER: “Nice push last night! You nearly had us going for a bit but we had the early momentum and I have to admit it carried us. Still, looking forward to tomorrow – night night!”

CDEGAULLE: “Ah, we just wanted to get our keep back Well defended, I suppose…”

BMONTGOMERY: “Indeed, very strong defence you’ve got there. We definitely won’t be back to try again at the same time tomorrow though so don’t bother defending!”

WCHURCHILL: “Silence, Montgomery! Don’t tell them that. They’ll go and defend the Eastern front instead, and we’d HATE IT if they did that. Tee hee!”

Churchill remembered their own innocent attempts to mislead the enemy with an embarrassed shiver. Still, it had all been relatively civil. When had it all gone wrong?! He flicked through a few more pages…

BMONTGOMERY: “Shut it, Goering. Maybe we’d have had it that time if you hadn’t zerged us! Pathetic, really.”

CDEGAULLE: “Yeah, they’ve basically been zerging since the very start! One second I was sat having a delicious croissant (NOT because I’m a lazy French stereotype, but because croissants are DELICOUS, before you say anything!) and the next a huge zerg is there covering half of Belgium. I mean, really.”

AHITLER: “Zerg! Ahahahaha. You think we’re a noskill zerg? Do you even know how hard it is to organise a huge, technically superior army to march across the whole map together? Not to mention the multiple fronts we’re forced onto because you guys keep making alliances.”

Churchill shuddered. The zerg/alliance accusations had gone back and forth and back and forth for MONTHS. At times he felt like he’d spent more time replying to these messages than he had planning the actual war.

Calling all WvW-ers!

I recently wrote a story set in the real world to illuminate some aspects of our beloved World vs World. You can find it here

It was very fun to write and got a universally positive reaction (though the thread was ultimately closed because it was deemed too similar to some existing threads – lol!) but it got me thinking that there must be some more writers out there who could share some entertaining stories about our experiences here in World vs World.

Maybe you’re bored at lunchtime at work and have a couple of minutes to do some writing, or maybe you’re queueing for EB. Thrash out a few quick words and entertain your friends/enemies/neutrals here!

So – feel free to chime in with a story. Here’s some guidelines to get you started:

• Can be set in the real world or in Tyria, whichever you wish.
• Must be about World vs World, either directly or indirectly (this is the WvW forums after all!)
• Can be funny, dramatic, satirical or surreal – the choice is yours.
• Keep your stories positive and your story criticism encouraging ?
• If this isn’t your thing, you don’t have to say so… just chill and move on, though I hope you enjoy your stay in this thread while you’re here.
• Have fun!

You’re on Dzag, right, Ferawyn? Which guild are you in, out of interest?

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!

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

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.

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!

Story time!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/A-story-of-football-and-Guild-Wars/first#post1905954

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…”

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…

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.”

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 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.