Guild Wars 2

Xillllix.3485:

Once I went to spectate a GvG match between 2 very popular guilds… Obsidian Sanctum was full and people had to queue to get in.

I think that illustrates the failed potential right there, when a massive amount of player is trying to participate or watch a game mode that is MISSING from the game. It is my opinion that Anet dropped the ball on GvG and made a huge mistake underestimating it’s importance and the expectations of Guild Wars players.

True. I never have understood why they have such a huge chip on their shoulder against GvG. Especially since such a huge portion of the WvW (and even some non-WvW population) want it.

They will probably milk the China bucks for all it is worth. Until that market starts to get bored/disgruntled with no new WvW content, then they will finally start reacting to the problem. But, by that time NA and EU may already be long gone.

Personally I never had any real serious problem with WvW when it was lively and active. It has become a tad bit repetitive and that is my most serious complaint.

However, now I see guilds, friends, and acquaintances from all different servers dropping out of WvW and out of the game at a record pace. Unless this is part of the long-term plan that Anet has for WvW then they need to do something to right this ship, and do it quickly.

Personally I think jumping puzzles/content are one of the most interesting features of this game. I’m not even all that great at them or anything, but I enjoy the challenge and the creative design that has been put in to the majority of the areas that require jumping.

It is one of the few things that Anet really got right about this game.

I understand the frustration felt by people who have trouble with these areas for whatever reason, but you can’t expect them to completely abolish an interesting mechanic that adds new elements and is greatly enjoyed by many people who spend time playing this game.

Its not like mesmer portals are all that hard to come by, so no one has any excuse for missing out on game content.

I just get tired of people who take the attitude of “I can’t do this very well, so therefore it shouldn’t be in the game.”

The problem with varying the match-ups is that it leads to un-balanced matches. While this can be nice, in some cases, simply for the sake of variety and those who want to map or whatever, it leads to even greater boredom amongst those who honestly want to fight. The WvW core from the winning server get bored from lack of competition.

More so than being tired of stale match-ups, I think that people are tired of following the same mechanics over and over again — capturing the same supply camps, assaulting the same keep/tower, and defending the same points. This is what has driven people to seek out open field combat and GvG, or else seek out other games to try.

It should be news to no one that WvW as it currently stands is not in a very healthy position. The only solution I can see is addition of new content, whatever form it may take: new maps, game mechanics, abilities, siege, whatever. And a commitment to regular updates at periodic intervals.

I can’t say that I care much about capes. Even in GW1 I wasn’t a real big fan of them — sort of cheesy-looking if you ask me.

However, I agree wholeheartedly about the guild halls. Similar to what someone else already mentioned, in GW1 our guild hall saw constant use as a meeting hall, rally point, hosting area for a wide array of events that we ran, plus just a general hang-out/socialization area/place to be silly with other guildies. Oh yeah, and we did some GvG too.

It is an odd, naked sorta feeling not having a guild hall now, and a big detractor from the game overall.

Recently we celebrated the 9th year of ESP with a big guild party that included a lottery, scavenger hunt, magic show, and costume brawl tournament.

Looking ahead we plan to organize an even wider variety of guild events and expand upon our player base across all time zones.

We continue to hold WvW 3-4 times a week, guild missions 3 times a week, tPvP twice a week, with a plethora of dungeon and world event activity scattered all in between. Our player base remains strong in NA, EU, and Oceanic/SEA and we extend a warm welcome to new members from all over the world.

As always, drop by our web site or look for any of our members in game to discuss further details and potentially become a part of the ESP legacy.

Something like this would be the last nail in the coffin for WvW and the game format would cease to exist.

Of course. Because it is something they can implement relatively easily and cheaply. Apparently they don’t want to commit much effort to WvW or to creating new game formats that people actually want.

No doubt server transfers have been part of the issue. However, the fact that they failed to pull the plug on transfers within a reasonable time frame means that it essentially became an ingrained part of the game.

More often than not, people are rewarded for jumping ship and those who try to remain loyal to one server are punished.

Still, I would rather not make this another thread about server transfers. That topic really deserves its own dedicated discussion (even though I really don’t think anything can be done about it at this point.)

What I would really like to see is just some legit reason for people to have hope about the future of WvW.

This is a plea to anet to say/do something to show their commitment to WvW. The player base is steadily bleeding out, and most of this stems from the fact that there has been almost 0 support and new content for WvW since the release of the game.

Edge of the Mists does not count as new WvW content. If anything, EotM is now part of the problem. It pulls bodies away from WvW and sends them off on a happy little endless karma train, running around in circles to capture objectives that don’t matter. Back in the days when WvW was still going strong, this might have been a good thing — filtering out the people who just want easy karma so the WvW-dedicated guilds could get their players in. However now, at a time when we are desperate just to have enough warm bodies on the field to keep WvW viable as a game format, it is not positive in the least.

The few updates to the WvW abilities have been nice, but not enough on their own to really entice people to keep playing.

Seasons I and II were like rough bandaids that staunched the bleeding for a little bit, but the made it even worse again after they were ripped off and people realized they were just chasing after an imaginary reward.

WvW rewards still suck overall compared to every other part of the game, and the only reason why people keep playing today is because they enjoy the competition and/or still feel some semblance of loyalty to their server and the other people that they enjoy playing with.

All it would take is a little hope to give people a reason to stick around and see what happens next. It wouldn’t take all that much effort and failure to lend support at this stage in the game will be as good as officially putting a stamp on the game that anet no longer cares about the future of WvW.

We are still actively looking for more ‘casually hardcore’ WvW players to join us in our war efforts .

Currently ESP runs organized WvW events 3-4 nights a week and have our members group up for smaller havoc squads or merging with other TC groups on other days.

We have a large and varied enough player base to run during NA, EU, and Oceanic times. However, we would love to have more players to round out all of these time zones, especially EU and OCX/SEA.

We are currently actively looking for more OCX/SEA players and guilds who can help us keep up the pace with JQ. We welcome players from other time zones as well, but this outlines our greatest current need.

If you hunger for non-stop action where the competition is on 24/7 and large groups to run with any time of day, then T1 is probably the only place left where you can still find that.

As a server Tarnished Coast remains stalwart and inclusive while maintaining a very high level of play and map coordination.

Feel welcome to speak to any of the contacts listed in the original post and we will be happy to discuss further details with you.

If they gave a kitten , then they would have done, or at least said something more by this point rather than ‘we are continuing to monitor the data’.

Hopefully someone is monitoring the drop-off in player retention rate as disgruntled RP and WvW players get fed up. Once you lose those communities, you aren’t going to get them back.

But, judging by all their actions they are more interested in giving brand new players a soft cushion to land on rather than retaining the player base they build up at launch based on the hype of the game.

None, because none of them really look like anything that I want on my characters.

A few edits added to the original post today.

<3 Amelia

As we move into the later stages of GW2, TC is welcome to guilds and individuals who would like to become a part of what is inarguably one of the strongest and most stable servers in the entire game.

Our needs, like the major needs of almost all servers, are late NA, SEA, AUS/NZ, and EU, but we are open to all.

Hopefully you will find a nice home here and the experience will help make the game exciting and rewarding. Check with any of the listed contacts in the original post for more details.

Soon our guild will be celebrating our 9th-year together. It has been a long, fun ride, with much more yet to come.

Whether you are a current TC resident in need of a new guild to call home, or interested in joining forces with us on one of the most stable servers in WvW, we welcome you to check us out.

Being a PvX guild, we keep up a regular mix of activities, seasons or no seasons.

ANET dropped the ball BIGTIME by letting free server transfers go on for so long after release. People naturally flocked to the ‘winning’ servers because they wanted to be where all the action was.

It is like they couldn’t decide if they wanted a realm-vs-realm game or a PvE game, and tried to have both.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work that way. If you want to have serious realm-vs-realm then that necessitates certain restrictions on PvE players and vice versa.

At this point, I honestly don’t know what to do for the game. The server-vs-server thing could have worked if transfers were cut off early after the release date and lower tier servers were allowed to fill up until we had a roughly equal playing field amongst all.

Instead, they opted for server-transfer-wars, all the while acting like the WvW game would have zero effect upon server world populations.

As the rest of us all know, the two go hand in hand, and thus we have the huge disparity that you see today.

I dunno how to fix it at his point honestly. Too much time spent supporting the wrong sort of behavior has done a helluva lot of damage.

shrugs they are digging their own grave. If they don’t want to listen or take action, then we only have the price that we paid for the game/gems on the line, and they have the future of the game/their jobs on the line.

Can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.

It is not a small number of players. Also, the number of players who view megaservers as a major problem also make up a large percentage of the active community in the game (compared to those who are just passing through until the next big game comes out).

These are supposed to be feedback threads. My only hope is that they are taken seriously.

They should really just scrap the whole seasons idea and try something different. They keep making it worse as they try to make it better.

Updated today with all the most current information about TC.

We are still up for accepting a few more WvW-oriented individuals into [ESP]. Our guild is an ideal choice for those who enjoy playing the game, and want to be competitive in WvW while still keeping a fun, laid-back feel.

We do a little bit of everything — from zerg vs zerg to helping sentry and small havoc.

Stripping away every bit of ‘home’ that servers ever had was a huge mistake, a grave oversight that will have long-term negative results on the longevity of the game.

If you want a ‘realm vs realm’ game, then you need to have realms. This isn’t rocket science.

What they really need is more districts, and lower soft caps, plus a way for people to select between them. That way organized groups can at least do their thing without having to /log out /quit /get frustrated over what should be a simple operation.

Make a silly post and they will reply. Post about any serious issue and you can expect radio silence.

I appreciate the fact that it very well may be difficult to implement some of the changes that are needed.

However, why they would FORCE a broken system out the door and into the live game on EVERY single zone within just a WEEK and then asking for feedback AFTER this system that doesn’t work has been rushed out he door (feedback that doesn’t even receive any replies) . .

Well, it sorta boggles the mind.

The only thing that is going to cause the Megaserver situation to ‘stabilize’ is if either
1) Anet makes broad, sweeping changes to the way megaserver is currently implemented (which doesn’t seem to be happening)
or
2) People leave the game and populations start to stabilize (which is already happening)

Problem is, it is a lot of the most loyal and active players (WvW and RP communities) and good people who are getting frustrated and leaving.

Oh well, I guess they have China now at least.

There needs to be some sort of official response to this thread, even if it is just closing it, at least that will still be an answer.

eleshazar.6902:

Well I can say that the mega server is helping me get over my guild wars 2 phase. I used to play everynight when I got home from work for at least 4 hours. These past few weeks I still log in to TS to talk with my guildees, but I only run like one dungeon a night with them (30 minutes). I’ll wait until some actual content is added into this game, and the megaserver gets a real solution before I dedicate time and money back into this game.

I find your signature amusing. Maybe everyone should change their tag to ‘Megaserver’ as a form of protest.

I hope I am wrong, and I wish you luck. But, you might have an extremely difficult time finding a Kaineng guild — being one of the least populated servers, and thus, probably not that many organized guilds still running on it.

Regarding the guild influence/recruiting issue, I think what they are planning on doing is to make it so that eventually all guild influence is stored in the same pool, regardless of what home world your members are on.

They probably also think that this will totally fix the issue and will be an ideal situation for all guilds.

While I am sure that some people will like it, basically it is just another step to try and undo the entire server system and transform the community into one massive blob where everyone is a winner. Also another step that will further undermine the efforts of those who play this game primarily for WvW.

I have honestly never been one to complain about anything before, but I really, really don’t like the direction that this game seems to be headed at the moment.

Yes, how dare people attempt to play the game as it was designed, rather than karma train all day long.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce our new WvW-Recruitment officer: wiggle cat~

When current, well-established guilds already have issues trying to get all of their members on the same map instance, I sort of doubt that creating a temporary guild for an RP event would have any better results.

How is it not obvious by now that this was not a good update, and it needs to either be a top priority to amend it heavily, or else it needs to be removed from the game until they can come up with a better option.

After playing for a bit post-update I have tried really hard to find anything positive about the whole megaserver thing. I just can’t find anything though.

Its bad design, its bad for guilds, its bad for the old server communities, and ultimately it will prove to be bad for the game.

An update should add important content or features that help to keep ahead of the competition. Instead, the game has taken a few steps backwards.

SilasLews.6790:

This is truly disheartening. Before the patch announcement, I’d been seriously considering transferring to Tarnished Coast for the RP environment. I haven’t actually gotten much into GW RP yet (nervous and afraid of heckling), but I’d kept hearing how the atmosphere on the RP servers is so much better, and I wanted to be with other people who appreciate the world and the history.

But now it seems like there’s no safe haven for RPers. I don’t want to join an RP guild because I love my current guild and the people in it. I don’t know enough roleplayers to be placed on a map with RP-oriented folks.

I agree with the idea of an RP tag—something that I can turn on when looking for roleplayers (and that would take precidence over other criteria when matching maps) and turn off when I want to do guild events and world events. Something RELIABLE. All of the solutions offered thus far by ArenaNet are hit-and-miss. And that simply does not work for a dedicated RP community.

This is a good point. One of the earlier replies from Anet was ’Guild up RPers!" with the idea that if RPers were all in RP guilds then they would have a better chance of being on the same maps together.

However, they totally miss the point that some RPers may not want to be forced to join a guild just so they can play in the type of environment that they prefer, or may want to RP on the side, while being a member of a non-RP guild.

Something actually cool that they could do (as opposed to all of the very un-cool stuff they have been adding into the game lately) is make Lions Arch a ‘home’ map for each server. And then let each server have their own customized version of Lions Arch that gets rebuilt based upon a combination of Living Story actions, accomplishments, and WvW achievements, and whatever else.

Each server would have their own, slightly unique version of LA. Then at least we could have SOME little bit of identity still in this game, a place to rally for WvW, and a place to socialize with our own group of familiar people.

I can almost guarantee that they will never do it, but you have to admit it would be nice, and would almost make up for the whole megaserver fiasco.

Then they would just have to figure out some way to fix the overpopulation at world events and the fact that guilds and parties have extreme difficulty grouping together and we would almost be back to being even again.

The addition of Cantha would be great. So would Elona. So would the Ring of Fire Islands and the Crystal Desert and the Far Shiverpeaks (all of which are currently on the game map, but non-explorable)

The different cultural themes that the expansions in GW1 brought to the table were part of the allure. It really felt like you were traveling somewhere different and exotic, rather than just more of the same ole same ole.

The game really needs to add some sort of major new content, and the more creative the better. Living story alone won’t cut it. Dropping in one little random new zone at a time here and there won’t cut it either.

So, +1 to Cantha since a lot of other people seem to be fond of that one.

Swoo.5079:

I would like to know exactly what the people that haves PCs that can’t play with megaserver were doing during the Living Story.

Because this is no different than Living Story on patch day in every single map.

There were also some comments about most people being in big guild and communities.

They aren’t. Most people solo and play with a couple of friends.
And with the megaserver it means those people have no need to join a big guild or community.

The people who pick up the game and then quit within a few months tend to be the same people who run around solo, don’t join guilds, don’t take part in community events, and don’t communicate with their server-mates.

While I don’t have exact statistics either, I would say with confidence that out of those people who have been playing this game for any significant amount of time, the overwhelming majority are in guilds. And have at least at some point, they have probably taken part in a large, coordinated group event of some sort.

The whole megaserver ideal of ‘who cares, who needs guilds/communities/etc’ works great if all you are concerned about is maintaining a revolving-door clientele. People will buy the game, level a character to 80, get bored and leave for whatever other latest and greatest thing is being hyped.

However, it completely contradicts the goal of maintaining a loyal fan base. Those player-initiated levels of organization and social grouping are what make the game fun for the longer-term.

If they are going to keep megaservers in place, then it should be HEAVILY slanted towards higher population servers. If people on low-pop servers want more populated maps, then fine. Let them come over. It would function more like an auto-guesting feature which is what many people would probably end up doing anyway.

Larger server communities that put a lot of work and effort into being organized and operating together shouldn’t be punished and split apart for the sake of the few.

Also, you need to really lower the soft cap on all maps and increase the number of instances. Give people some space so it isn’t such a crazy log jam on every single map and at every single event.

I also still like the idea of giving each server some sort of dedicated staging event that is ONLY for that server, and gives people a place to organize and discuss WvW.

None of this would be as good as just removing megaserver entirely, but it would at least be better than how things are right now.

Megaservers didn’t increase the amount of trolls. It just made them nearly impossible to avoid.

I think the whole tangent topic of ‘what does or doesn’t constitute a RPG’ is taking attention away from the fact that there is a large RP player base in this game, despite the fact that GW2 doesn’t seem very inclined to make it easy for them.

Megaservers for GW2 is like trying to shove a square peg down a round hole.

GW1 had a server system — a rather good one actually. This game came out in 2005 and the server switching technology was simple and elegant. It outshines the GW2 megaserver in every way: every player could clearly see what districts were available for a given map, you could choose districts based on language preference, and it was almost never an issue to get to where you wanted to go.

It is also true that GW1 wasn’t really a true MMO in the classical sense — every single map outside of cities was instanced for a max party size of 8. Given the construction of that game, the server system made perfect sense.

With GW2, which very much follows the classic MMO model, and is supposed to be based around guilds, large player communities, and large groups of players interacting together, this megaserver business is completely illogical.

It is sort of like what someone else said once before about Edge of the Mists: there are no real teams or sides since you are just tossed in with a bunch of random people so no one cares who wins. This restructuring of the entire PvE server system threatens to have the exact same effect upon the rest of the game.

My assumption was that GW2 was supposed to be about large groups of players being able to play and interact together. Here, we have large groups of players: guilds, RPers, server communities, who want to interact and play together; who enjoy having their own identity within the game, but are finding their efforts hampered by megaservers. I am sure you can see the disconnect here.

Miss Firesss.3704:

I like the buff, it lets me know when a giant group has come onto the map, and gives us time to prepare.

Pretty much this. The only thing the out-manned buff currently is useful for is giving you some indication of troop movements across maps. Every other effect is negligible and not even worthy of taking notice.

ykyk.2740:

Keep megaservers for the open world maps, use home servers for cities.

Doh.

While there are still a lot of issues with Megaservers for open-field PvE too, the above would at least be an improvement for WvW, and allow people to have a bit of stable community ground to stand on.

Even if it was just ONE city that was dedicated to a particular server it would provide a community rally point — sort of like a server-guild-hall. Currently, pretty much every single ‘feature’ of the new system hurts player communities and breaks up the cohesiveness of servers for the purpose of WvW.

This is related to all the other issues, but it is also quite a pain to try and organize any player-run events. As a guild, we periodically like to plan out and run special things like scavenger hunts, map-trivia, what have you. The difficulties now being faced in accomplishing this are similar to those experienced while attempting to run guild missions.

We are 100% all based on the same home server (not that home servers even really seem to exist any more) and most all members rep 100% as well, so if we aren’t getting paired up together then there is clearly something wrong.

Basically, I don’t really get what guilds (big guilds anyway) are supposed to be able to do together any more if every single map is always getting filled to capacity and there is no possible way to identify the maps that people are being placed in.

If saving server space is really such a desperate issue, hopefully you guys can devise a better way to do it then cramming all players into the “GW2 Mall of America” where you constantly have to be shoulder to shoulder and it is easy to get lost.

The entire megaserver idea is good in theory, but terrible for this game in practice. Nothing would be better in the long run for the game than if they scrapped the idea entirely, or at the very least, limited it to only certain PvE zones.

Basically, you are forcing a system on the player base that the player base doesn’t want. How many posts does it take to get the message across?

Morrigan.2809:

So let me tell you about my experience yesterday:

I was leveling a new character when someone said Behemoth pre’s are up.

I switched to an 80 only to find that he was halfway down because I was in another part of megaserver

After he was dead I switched back to the character I was on before- and when someone asked about Behe replied in map that he had just died.
Only to be called a troll and a liar because he was up— so in the space of 10 min I was on 3 different Megaserver shards or whatever..

Now think about this- basically all those people you see around you?
You are never likely to see them again because they are completely random.
This is not good- it makes other players nothoing more than pretty npc’s, you have no reason to engage with them because they are as fleeting as bubbles.
Megaserver completely destroys community.

oh- I forgot, for the first time since the patch I saw that one of my friends were on and at Maw- naturally I wanted to join him.
So I went to Maw- only there was no friend, 2 other people and no Maw.

That was when I just logged out.

MMO’s live and die by the cohesion of their communities- we have none atm.
It is currently more lonely playing GW2 than it is playing a single player game

This is an excellent example of how the whole megaserver thing actually works contrary to the stated goal. Thanks for the post.