RIP Server Identity and RP

While I think these new WvW changes will help improve WvW, I think they will fundamentally hurt everything else.I'm a big believer in server identity and a proud Tarnished Coast player. People need to feel like they are apart of something. I'm afraid in an attempt to fix WvW, they're fundamentally changing the game up too much. Over 90% of the Guild Wars 1 fanbase no longer plays this game. You know why? Guild Wars 2 was too much of a change from the original. If you change your game too much from its original conception, you can promise yourself to lose your current audience. You better pray for a new one.I don't speak for everyone, but the two things I do the most is casual WvW with friends and public RP on Tarnished Coast. Removing servers entirely will kill this for me. It's the last thing keeping left to this game, and I know I'm just baby-raging on the internet, but I promise if the patch comes out in its current conception, I will uninstall the day of the patch. I know I don't speak for a majority of the community, but what's the value if there is no server to identify under? Where's your pride? In your alliance? I can understand this for WvW, but why should this destroy server communities outside WvW?And while the changes do sound positive for WvW, this could possibly bring its own problems with it. What if all the best guilds ally together and imbalance the system? Will they then remove alliances and just leave us with guilds? What's left at that point?Sorry for the rant, I'm just really upset about the changes.

Your server is irrelevant outside of WvW since megaservers were introduced. Just create a guild for RP and wear your tag as your "pride" badge.

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Your server is irrelevant outside of WvW since megaservers were introduced. Just create a guild for RP and wear your tag as your "pride" badge.

That's not true. Sharding binds people together mostly by server and it's fairly easy to find TC players. This will be impossible with the new patch.

@Zhohan.3859 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Your server is irrelevant outside of WvW since megaservers were introduced. Just create a guild for RP and wear your tag as your "pride" badge.

Improvise, adapt, overcome. I already posted you a solution.

@Zhohan.3859 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Your server is irrelevant outside of WvW since megaservers were introduced. Just create a guild for RP and wear your tag as your "pride" badge.

That’s only if there’s more than 1 map shard open for any given map. Guild and party play a bigger role in placing you on a map with more than 1 shard open. (I get placed on maps where people map chat in German or French, even though I’m not on a designated Language server, and I run my client in English, most likely because that is the only map currently open))Usually if there’s more than 1 shard open, it’s because of a world event, whether ingame or community made, not because of RPers.You also have the freedom to taxi into a shard with other RPers if you party up with them. WvW doesn’t have that luxury for obvious reasons, this new system is very very needed for WvW population balance. But let’s veto it because PvE players Cba to make a guild for their community, and must rely on Server identities to maintain something that they can already manage themselves.

I don't get the issues with Servers, WvW apart.

Firstly, the changes described are proposed, not set in stone. If there is overwhelming feedback against it then the devs will stick to server linking as stated in the announcement. Secondly, and with all due respect, I think server pride is not as prevalent currently as previously. Certainly, I can appreciate some still find meaning in their server name and I completely understand more prominent WVW servers wanting to retain their identity. However, outside of WvW, the megaserver system has largely reduced the significance of original world name.I personally wouldn't go out of my way to check which server a party member is affiliated with, I occasionally notice the title, but in PvE it has no impact.

Perhaps what PvE players should consider is that these changes would predominantly help the WvW scene and refresh the mode. The devs' intentions are not to upset people, but to shake up WvW and bring more players to the game, maybe some returning vets, who can say for certain...How would this benefit a PvE player also? Well, simply put - its an attempt to combat population decline and extend the potential lifespan of GW2 while providing more opportunities for players to participate in WvW. More (potential) revenue for ANet to develop better systems and content is also a part of this.

If you read the main thread for this discussion you would have come across this post, which is meaningful, respectful and in complete agreement with Anets proposed changes for the better;

@"Foghladha.2506" said:Greetings,I felt it was important that I comment on this. Many of you know me as the Leader of Gaiscioch, the community that campaigned for several months to have a server named after a member who loved this game deeply and never had the chance to play it. Roger "Oldroar" Rall is the reason Gaiscioch came to Guild Wars 2 in the first place. His passion for this game and the development team behind it inspired many of us to fall in love with it as well. ArenaNet answered by naming a server Sanctum of Rall in his memory and we turned a common man into a legend.

This wasn't the only place ArenaNet paid tribute to him. They knew servers may not last forever and in the email exchange we shared even mentioned that servers are not permanent and may be removed in the future. We knew this going in. They did however surprise us with the Historian GoshKia in the Black Citadel who shares the legend of Oldroar.

Now I know some of you love us and some of you would sooner pour salt on anything I say. The fact is Guild Wars 2 needs this. It's long overdue and even Sanctum of Rall will benefit from this system in the long run. We've had "Alliances" come to our server and "Drag us kicking and screaming to T1" and as quickly as they came, they left taking with them a good chunk of the community. What didn't fall out then would leave over the next year. Sanctum of Rall has been small and tight nit for a few years now and all of us Rallians still band together week after week. It doesn't matter if our server is no more. WE are the legend of Rall and will form a Sanctum of Rall Alliance with the guilds that remain. I suspect other server loyalist communities will do the same for their server.

This game has always been about Alliances. There are circles of Guilds that band together and transfer from server to server over and over again. It's always been that way. What this system does is match Alliances, Guilds, and Players up with others that compliment their weaknesses. Gaiscioch for example can rally a giant pugzerg full of random people who might be great and might be learning. Pair us with a composition group and you find total destruction. We draw attention, they kill everything. It's a perfect balance that ArenaNet sees the potential to create.

I for one Support this idea 200% and believe ArenaNet is heading the right direction. Our time on Sanctum of Rall has been filled with epic moments we wont ever forget and it will live on in us. A memory is not bound to a server. It's bound to people. Those people will still be there by my side when this battlefield changes.

That said, Gaiscioch will be forming up the Sanctum of Rall Alliance and will be looking to rally up the rest of our server community to form a tight nit alliance.

Couldn't have said it better myself, this is server pride.

Who's to say the server assignment get deleted?

Because I'm guessing it dont. They will just hide them from the UI. From a PvE shard allocation perspective, they could easily not change anything while still revamping WvW like this. After all its just a string in the player database, not your "actual" server as that went poof with megaservers. Its the same thing for WvWers really. It only decide what matchup and what side you join.

We've seen first hand what happens when the game forget about it lol (that glorious reset where everyone joined a random server).

Theres already no servers outside of WvW.Im in EU so in pve open world everyone is EU, theres no gandara, desolation, baruch bay, etc...Outside of WvW everything will be exactly the same like is now and in WvW you have your alliance to fight for.

@"Kheldorn.5123" used fewer words to say the same thing I was going to post. The main thing I'd add is: why not wait to see if this actually has a meaningful impact on your gameplay before uninstalling?

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Your server is irrelevant outside of WvW since megaservers were introduced. Just create a guild for RP and wear your tag as your "pride" badge.

@Zhohan.3859 said:Over 90% of the Guild Wars 1 fanbase no longer plays this game.If you change your game too much from its original conception, you can promise yourself to lose your current audience. You better pray for a new one.They don't have to pray; GW2 sold 5 million copies by 2015; GW1 sold maybe a million in its entire history. Most businesses would easily give up the entire original customer base to quintuple sales and still get a similarly-loyal and enthusiastic fan base. Fortunately, ANet didn't have to.

There's no evidence any of us have as to what fraction of former GW1 players started playing GW2 and stopped, for any reason. And even if we did, we wouldn't know why. People leave games all time, due to RL, guild drama, finishing their goals, burn out, and sure, sometimes because a sequel isn't enough like the original to suit them.

Long story short.PvE hasnt had servers in a long time.Server identity was lost years ago. Only WvW will be affected by this change.In PvE and PvP this change is neglectible

After the megaserver was put into place you were most likely to see other server mates in your current map which made it easier for random RP which (I think) is partially the OPs point. For people not on TC (the unofficial RP server) you relied on individual connections or guilds to taxi you in for events or the such so there is currently that outlet. However, the mega guild often used can fill up very quickly. I myself haven't gotten into GW2 RP scene (did it in WoW, just not here) though it was nice to see it out and about while I was doing random stuff so I've been semi curious as to how it will work outside of WvW.

They did comment on something from the WvW discussion (have it below) if that helps for the OP when the question was brought up concerning RPers so hopefully they will look into it more and at least they are aware of the issues that it could raise for the community.

@Raymond Lukes.6305 said:

@Tolmos.8395 said:I would like to reiterate the previous questions posed, and not yet answered, about how this will affect Roleplayers.This is something we hadn’t fully considered and we’ll start looking into possible solutions.

I understand server pride. I've been on Desolation since day 1 and often said I'd never change, even if I could switch servers whenever I wanted for free, because I'm too attached to this one. And that's in spite of the fact that I rarely play WvW and the megaserver system made servers largely irrelevant in PvE a long time ago. I am kind of sad to be officially losing that.

But as other people have said in practice those communities will still exist. The guilds, the alliances, the informal groups of friends etc. aren't going anywhere. Sure you might need to make an extra bit of effort to get together (like using the currently abandoned role-playing section in the LFG tool to taxi people into a map) but if it's important to you to keep playing with these people then it should be worth the effort.

I'm still in 2 Desolation-based guilds (one has been officially inactive for years but like servers a lot of us are reluctant to leave it, so it's still got members and we still talk) and I've got other Deso-based players on my friends list. My server community isn't going anywhere, even if the server is gone. So apart from the name I'm not really losing anything.

Edit: I will have to remember to change my forum signature though.

IMO people from Tarnished Coast and Piken Square have been unusually fortunate. They got their server "country" for enough time to truly form bonds that allow them to still bind together in the megaserver system. IMHO, this will not change with these new "Worlds". The guilds and alliances that get formed from TC, PS and others will still play together and keep those names going on with whatever "pride" they want.

Now take the people OUTSIDE those servers. People who weren't able to join such happy RP places before the Megaserver introduction (Mostly because those servers are always full). For they, RP is truly nonexistant. This include lots of new people.

Server are no longer what keeps people together. They don't promote unity or alliance. Because they are too rigid (population limits+ cost for transfer), they also don't help people find a place in the community. And they are a terrible hindrance for WvWvW fair play, balance and fun. They need to go.

Need a way to keep pride? -> Found an Alliance.Need a way to promote RP? -> Add an RP toggle to the sharding priority list. (This is what we still need)

Server Identity died for me, when megaservers were introduced. Not that it's a bad thing.As someone who plays mostly instanced content/PvP(where your server doesn't matter), open world PvE(where megaservers made things a lot easier and more enjoyable, and if you had to be with a certain player or group, the game let you swap your shard for free anytime there's space on the map) or EotM(It's not WvW but I like it. I don't see how this change might effect this map/mode and again, your server doesn't matter that much here).I guess if was more into "real" WvW, I'd care more about my server. What I do care about and identify myself with is my community, my guild(s), the random players I do a Metaevent or run a Fractal with. After megaservers were introduced, I never looked back and saw myself as a member of a given server anymore, switched once to get to a better EotM community but wasn't worth it. With the new system, as I read the comment and understand what they're about, I think it will change nothing for OP. Your TC Pride will turn into pride for guilds and communities you allready should have.For me, this change will make running small size casual wvw with guildies a lot easier. As of now, we don't do WvW as a guild as we're scattered across 6 different servers. We're mostly an open world PvE guild, very casual. With the changes, we will be able to set the guild to wvw guild to end up on the same shard for the duration of the season, as far as I understand it.I'm wondering how ANet will handle the transfers they talked about and what will change for guilds, new upgrades(read: goldsink), UI for alliances etc.

time will tell i guess

@"Ardid.7203" said:IMO people from Tarnished Coast and Piken Square have been unusually fortunate. They got their server "country" for enough time to truly form bonds that allow them to still bind together in the megaserver system. IMHO, this will not change with these new "Worlds". The guilds and alliances that get formed from TC, PS and others will still play together and keep those names going on with whatever "pride" they want.

Now take the people OUTSIDE those servers. People who weren't able to join such happy RP places before the Megaserver introduction (Mostly because those servers are always full). For they, RP is truly nonexistant. This include lots of new people.

Server are no longer what keeps people together. They don't promote unity or alliance. Because they are too rigid (population limits+ cost for transfer), they also don't help people find a place in the community. And they are a terrible hindrance for WvWvW fair play, balance and fun. They need to go.

Need a way to keep pride? -> Found an Alliance.Need a way to promote RP? -> Add an RP toggle to the sharding priority list. (This is what we still need)

Oh yeah. I'm all in for adding new options outside of WvW, should we get to set our own priorities for sharding. I guess having ppl select/unselect categories like RP, PvP, WvW etc. would help ANet to shard together the likeminded.

@Zhohan.3859 said:I'm a big believer in server identity and a proud Tarnished Coast player. People need to feel like they are apart of something. I'm afraid in an attempt to fix WvW, they're fundamentally changing the game up too much. Over 90% of the Guild Wars 1 fanbase no longer plays this game. You know why? Guild Wars 2 was too much of a change from the original. If you change your game too much from its original conception, you can promise yourself to lose your current audience. You better pray for a new one.

As a veteran GW1 player I can assure you this won't chase me away. In fact I welcome the change. Server Identity died for me years ago.

I think a lot of folks are kind of missing the overall issue here on the RP front.

When the game first came out, Tarnished Coast was this sort of "unofficial" RP server. It was a place where anyone interested in getting involved with that community could go and be immersed in an entire game world of like minded individuals. However, when Megaservers released, it changed that a bit. Now, with channels, there was a high probability you might end up with those people if you were part of Tarnished Coast, but there was also a chance you would end up on a channel where no one was interested in that sort of thing.

The issue with removing sharding comes down to how the channels are currently selected. When you make a new account, you still get to choose Tarnished Coast as your shard. If you do that, then you will continue to have your channel selection prioritized for other like minded people. Removal of the concept of shards eradicates this last little strand keeping those people together. Without new players needing to understand how the megaserver system works, even a cursory google search of "Guild Wars 2 RP Server" is going to pop Tarnished Coast right up, so those players will be likely to correctly select that.

Now, a lot of folks keep saying the RPers should just all join guilds together, and that this is a good and valid solution to the problem. There are 2 primary issues with guilds that limit this ability:

A ) Guilds have physical limitations in how many members they can have.B ) Guilds are conceptually limited in that you need to actually join the guild, which can be difficult for a new player if they have never run into members of that guild before or don't understand how channels / megaserver system works. In fact, they may begin to think the game just lacks that type of player.

Now, I get it; RPing is kind of an odd playstyle. I'm not an RPer myself, but I find that they keep the game world feeling active. Seeing people holding conversations throughout a city while I run through almost feels as if there are dynamic NPCs moving around, which really makes everything just feel more alive. I, at least, enjoy that.

But all of this being said: regardless of how you feel about the RPers or their playstyle, one thing we should all agree on is that we want what is best for the longevity of this game. RPers, in general, tend to like to look pretty. Fashion Wars is priority 1 for many of them, and this means gem purchases. If we actively eradicate their playstyle in the pursuit of furthering another, we could likely lose a decent source of income for the game for no good or valid reason. That's not beneficial to any of us, so its important that some form of a solution be implemented to help keep these players engaged and not actively discourage them from logging in.

It’s ok you’ll get over it.

Agreed. What Tolmos said. I don't RP myself, but I do very much respect the Tarnished Coast community for their professionalism and maturity. Many of the responses here validate that opinion.

But I also recognize that PvP and WvW are in trouble. So I say let this change play out. I'll keep my conclusions to myself, but remember that the TC community is more than World versus World.

A lot more. Keep in mind the RP server was unofficial. Server identity is all about its players. I thought it dead with the mega mergers, but I see RP every night in Divinity's Reach even now.

Don't lose faith. The community isn't going anywhere. And neither is our identity. ?

Not sure what it's worth, but in the megathread at least one Dev has vaguely addressed the RP elephant in the room, stating that they "hadn't considered" how this would effect the RP community and would "Look in to it" The running suggestion is to create some kind of alliance system beyond just the wvw one, where people could form an "RP" tagged alliance that would allow mega-server sorting priority.

@Ardenwolfe.8590 said:Agreed. What Tolmos said. I don't RP myself, but I do very much respect the Tarnished Coast community for their professionalism and maturity. Many of the responses here validate that opinion.

But I also recognize that PvP and WvW are in trouble. So I say let this change play out. I'll keep my conclusions to myself, but remember that the TC community is more than World versus World.

A lot more. Keep in mind the RP server was unofficial. Server identity is all about its players. I thought it dead with the mega mergers, but I see RP every night in Divinity's Reach even now.

Don't lose faith. The community isn't going anywhere. And neither is our identity. ?

I think what the OP might be looking for in a compromise is that the current system that is being proposed actually continue as planned, EXCEPT the eradication of server selection and character creation.

Basically: the server selection at start up is being deemed unnecessary because it will no longer be used in WvW; the contention is that it still serves a purpose, at least, for open world PvE. So if we keep the current server selection at startup instead of getting rid of it, and just have it apply to everything that isn't WvW, then nothing else about the proposed WvW changes would need to change. WvW would just ignore that server selection.

Sort of a win-win situation.

Well on the plus side, there will be less server and tier bashing.

wvw needs the change who cares if we whont be able to rep servers wvw needs the change for new players