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Gandara server perma-locked


Laurencius.9258

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@Josh.4132 said:I’ve said it for about a year now, as nice as it is to have a commander which does that, it does absolutely zero favours for gandara. It’s keeping you in tiers that you can’t necessarily compete in, boosting your average playtime and adding to the problem of always being full. Gandara being full is basically your reward for golem rushing empty maps with 15 golems and 40 people vs 2 servers with 10 defenders between them.

He still tags while every guild has stopped playing and Gandara has been the lowest activity server since. That shows you the overall impact that these 2 nights have. It's basically the difference between being hard stuck in T5 and being competitive in T4.

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@Deratrius.4035 said:

He still tags while every guild has stopped playing and Gandara has been the lowest activity server since. That shows you the overall impact that these 2 nights have. It's basically the difference between being hard stuck in T5 and being competitive in T4.

But it’s also overall impact of probably being full and very high population. As a server you can’t complain about being outnumbered but then have 60 people golem rushing servers with no defenders. The reality is, gandara is full and all that commander shows is that gandara does have the numbers, they just have no motivation to 1). Do things without a commander. 2). Rise to the challenge of being a solo server, instead people would rather sulk and not play until the easier fights come around. I should imagine if gandara actually tried to effectively play wvw in wvw and not pve in wvw they’d stay at least in tier 3, because coming from a server that has been against gandara many times, you certainly have the people, it’s the organisation and motivation that’s missing

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@Josh.4132 said:

@"Deratrius.4035" said:

He still tags while every guild has stopped playing and Gandara has been the lowest activity server since. That shows you the overall impact that these 2 nights have. It's basically the difference between being hard stuck in T5 and being competitive in T4.

But it’s also overall impact of probably being full and very high population. As a server you can’t complain about being outnumbered but then have 60 people golem rushing servers with no defenders. The reality is, gandara is full and all that commander shows is that gandara does have the numbers, they just have no motivation to 1). Do things without a commander. 2). Rise to the challenge of being a solo server, instead people would rather sulk and not play until the easier fights come around. I should imagine if gandara actually tried to effectively play wvw in wvw and not pve in wvw they’d stay at least in tier 3, because coming from a server that has been against gandara many times, you certainly have the people, it’s the organisation and motivation that’s missing

I think this starts to miss the point a little bit. Every server can get a blob on reset, every server "runs from fights/humps siege/can't roam" etc.

Gandara is a strong server, it has a great community, and enjoys to PPT more than most I've been on.Frankly, we're as well-equipped to deal with being an unlinked server as any.

That doesn't make it any less frustrating to have drawn the short-straw in EU by not having a link, and not being ocassionally open to mitigate that.

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@"adammantium.8031" said:

I think this starts to miss the point a little bit. Every server can get a blob on reset, every server "runs from fights/humps siege/can't roam" etc.

Gandara is a strong server, it has a great community, and enjoys to PPT more than most I've been on.Frankly, we're as well-equipped to deal with being an unlinked server as any.

That doesn't make it any less frustrating to have drawn the short-straw in EU by not having a link, and not being ocassionally open to mitigate that.

Well obviously but you said it yourself, he's uncontested for hours, that implies that even vs. some linked servers gandara , at least at the weekend, has better coverage than most other servers. If even a single player follows that commander for the 10 hours he's tagged, across the weekend, thats like 30 hours, i'd say that is more than an average casual player. Now if 50-60 people are all doing that, that's a lot of hours.

As for pulling the short straw, clearly in anet's eyes Gandara has the best chance of competing as a solo server compared to all the others, take it as a compliment, its the people boycotting that are ruining it for the server.

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@"Josh.4132" said:As for pulling the short straw, clearly in anet's eyes Gandara has the best chance of competing as a solo server compared to all the others, take it as a compliment, its the people boycotting that are ruining it for the server.To be quite frank, the main reason that server has not been playing is the same reason as for every other server that tries to dump population: Their guilds are now in the same position as everyone else, having to recruit to sustain themselves and have slowly begun to find themselves split over host and link. When the last relink happened they sat down and every guild listed the players they were losing (A=2, B=3, C=6 etc.) and then they made an attempt at dumping their population (a misguided one, had they read the 2016 relinking information where Anet outright states that they have counter-measures in place for that very thing they tried).

This also means that Gandara now has the same three options as everyone else:

  1. Abandon friends on links and carry on, watch more friends quit the game over this etc.
  2. Continue not playing for the majority of the link period
  3. Find a new place to transfer to and get milked by Anet for gems or as a gold-dump while PvE thrives in gold (which btw. means PvE'rs transfers more easily in WvW than main WvW'ers do as they have less gold and things cost more here, being at a competetive disadvantage for transfers B) ).a) choosing different servers splits their communityb) choosing a link husk means they can try to rebuild community but it comes with no 100% certainty and they will bleed players regardless

None of this because whatever server they are, whose fault it is or whether they had it comming or not - but because the system is absolutely horrible and we have known it to be a short-term solution since its inception in 2016. The same Relinking threads from back then clearly states that relinking was a quick-fix (>6mo) system while they had a more elaborate system in mind (Alliances). That's right, Alliances was outlined by the devs on these forums already in 2016-05, almost two years before the 2018-02 announcement that is now 3 years old. That post also predates whatever "WvW overhaul" was planned already since 2015 that Colin and Mike referred to as abandoned in the 2016 AMA's on Reddit and promised WvW would be a priority going forward. I guess it was a "priority" for a month or two giving us Relinks, a copy of the reward track systems and a late copy of a chance to earn leggy armor.

Of course, it didn't help that Anet whisked the most publically active WvW team-lead over to work on LW a mere month or two (2016-08 comment) after the Relink beta (2016-05). It's sort of how they recently whisked the PvP balance guy over to work on new EoD elite specializations a few months ago. WvW/competetive always gives and never gets. It will actually be interesting to see if the new elites will follow the old patterns of being ridiculously imbalanced post-release or if they decided to abandon the PvP balance project to ensure that EoD balance was better out of the box. I'm not betting on it.

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Not going to bother reading all of this, im guessing your mad due to the fact your getting stomped, if so get gud. If your mad due to not being able to recruit for a guild outside of the server, transfer (cha ching anet makes money maybe). u think anet cares about guilds, about your loyalty to a server??? they are prioritizing balancing population for that one day LMFAO then everyone transfers over the next few days ahahahahahh. na joke busy with pve or eod. There is a solution im sure you can work it out either way regardless, gogo use all that amazing wvw rewards to pay for a full server exodus to another server. i heard fsp is recruiting.

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@Laurencius.9258 said:@"Zok.4956" You say it wasn't locked prior to 5/18/2020 - source please - I don't remember it being open then.

The source is the data from Anets official API. I use gw2gh.com that reads and collects the API-data, others use gw2mists etc. for this.

Gandara is not over-stacked and it is not over-populated.

If a server is "full" then it is over-populated.

Whenever you go into WVW there are maybe 5 Gandara players vs 50 players on both the other servers. How does 5 people constitute a overpopulated? Please explain Zok, since you have all the answers.

I think it is called cognitive bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias

I stand corrected and I stand proven correct. Gandara suposedly is full with 291 players

Anet does not show the exact numbers. Anet only gives "full", "very high", "high"...

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Meanwhile 30+ gandara players defended their nc for 4 hours earlier, then one hour later their night commander logged on to flip empty keeps all night with a different 40+ people and this is with a server organised boycott lmao. How can you even complain about numbers when you have 30 people defending a camp? The problem with gandara is that if they aren't massively outnumbering or able to cloud, they wp from fights and start complaining about fights that are easily winnable for a server which isn't 90% ranger. Instead of blobbing single roamers, you could have taken that 30+ squad to another map and actually done something both fun and useful for the server. The whole "boycotting to become open again" kills me everytime, because you are an overpopulated server, actively trying to become more overpopulated so that you can what? continue to waypoint from 50vs50 fights? Golem rush with 60 players instead of 50? guarantee that every gank on gbl is at least 10 vs. 1 whenever you leave spawn instead of 7vs1? Any serious player/guild would have left gandara years ago, and when you do eventually open up you're gonna attract the exact same people that are there now, which will not benefit gandara in the slightest

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The issue is that one server should never be more or less permanently locked, constantly unlinked and unable to compete over the period of each MU. Yes, we can raise a blob later Friday and Saturday thanks to a dedicated commander that knows how to rack up the points very efficiently. But we can't spread the player base we have across the rest of the week. Just look back across the MU histories and in most cases, you will see a strong start, but as soon as real life takes over on a Monday morning no chance of competing. These same blobs you mention Gandara having on a weekend evening, return the favour all day Sunday through Friday. Have said it before, any unlinked server is at a disadvantage and you destroy their community. Kodash community was devastated by constant locks and no links, their players moved on, now they are a medium population link server, is that right?

And finally, to the self-appointed pro players ;) that claim it's all about the ability of the players on a server, I suggest we have a new server added, perhaps we could call it "Git Gud World" you should all transfer to that, have no roamers or pugs. Put together your meta build blobs only and be locked. Then let's see how well you do constantly fighting in T5. I think you would all transfer out immediately and WSR, Fort Ranik proves the point. Take over a medium population server and abandon it as soon as it gets unlinked, destroying their core community in the process.

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Weird, when the last fighting guild left gandara you were celebrating, now your whole server is just crying on the forums. Justice: Served. Regards from the toxic elitists

Any serious player/guild would have left gandara years ago, and when you do eventually open up you're gonna attract the exact same people that are there now, which will not benefit gandara in the slightestXD this

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@"Faolain.2374" said:Meanwhile 30+ gandara players defended their nc for 4 hours earlier, then one hour later their night commander logged on to flip empty keeps all night with a different 40+ people and this is with a server organised boycott lmao. How can you even complain about numbers when you have 30 people defending a camp? The problem with gandara is that if they aren't massively outnumbering or able to cloud, they wp from fights and start complaining about fights that are easily winnable for a server which isn't 90% ranger. Instead of blobbing single roamers, you could have taken that 30+ squad to another map and actually done something both fun and useful for the server. The whole "boycotting to become open again" kills me everytime, because you are an overpopulated server, actively trying to become more overpopulated so that you can what? continue to waypoint from 50vs50 fights? Golem rush with 60 players instead of 50? guarantee that every gank on gbl is at least 10 vs. 1 whenever you leave spawn instead of 7vs1? Any serious player/guild would have left gandara years ago, and when you do eventually open up you're gonna attract the exact same people that are there now, which will not benefit gandara in the slightest

They would go to defend NC when called for one simple reason. People want a fight and they wanted to hold objectives for once. The fact that they also defended... Bay, Hills, Water Camp, Vale, Briar, Lake tower, Mill and Quarry (for a total of about 2 hours actually) aren't highlighted in your post but ARE relevant; it indicates the player base were trying to have fights and defend objectives. Kind of the entire game mode reason right? Exact same reason why if we try to attack Vale when you're hoping to upgrade our Bay to T3 for yourselves, the entire blob shows up if it's likely to be lost in order to hold it.

So the commander was going around defending objectives and trying to get Hills/Bay upgraded to T3. If someone calls out in map chat that 1-15 people are trying to take camp X (whether X is north, vale or elsewhere) AND the server wants to hold said camp to upgrade objectives to T3 for waypoints or ppt, AND it's the only action available to try and keep people on tag... then to start complaining about the commander taking said action is a bit odd.

With low online population (note, I mean online at a time - not server overall) and other servers having plenty to outnumber you most of the time as they're 2 servers linked, I think people get bored re-taking the same objective for 2 hours. Note, bored - meaning they'd prefer to play another game so do so. I've not played GW2 for 2 weeks. Really easy... I was playing other games and having a blast. Come back, some tidy fights (winning or losing), but inbetween I know in other games the enjoyment level surpasses GW2 WvW.

Some are boycotting hoping the server opens so guild mates formed during link ups can transfer in, or angry there's no link up every other 8 week session as they can't transfer to the NEW link server. It's annoying and the reasoning seems non existent to players when they plain don't see many people about to understand why it's "full". That's all.

My personal stance is never pay to transfer, that's rewarding the "host" who, it feels like, designs the system to generate money. Additionally, feedback from players who transferred out and then back on the rare occasions Gandara was open, don't report favourably about their experience of the endless series of transfers that then occurs. One or two roaming friends who transferred out of the server in anger then regretted it... and since stopped playing entirely as they couldn't get back. That's their choice. Just outlining why some won't transfer. They accept this means the server may not open.

With regards to the lack of the more familiar roamers on the server(s) as am sure it's not just Gandara with this - that's very simple indeed. They are enjoying playing other games. Nothing to do with Gandara, but the game; the balance, the state of it and how stale it gets if you play it a lot (wvw). They're enjoying playing other games and say they will likely check out the game when the expansion drops, but not before. They're jaded with the game, or more likely, the "host".

Believe it or not no-one likes rolling opposition either - the odd time we had a link up and were matched up against other servers protesting, there was zero enjoyment to be had roaming while we had 380+ tick and commanders struggled to lead as there's literally nothing to do. Any enemy sighting was greeted with "YES, SOMETHING TO DO" responses which led to dozens converging on one poor player. It isn't fun, but is understandable.

Here's a screenie from August when 2 opposition were boycotting, and we had 440 a tick. That was dull as hell to play. In that matchup I think I played about 2 hours the entire week.https://ibb.co/nRRrdhg

Of course, for those on those servers who did log on - the game mode wasn't likely remotely enjoyable. They probably stopped playing without direction as simply put - what's the point. You're just meeting huge numbers of opponents and zero fun. We have similar right now, some are upset and not everyone is in the comms to find out why people can't be arsed with the game for now.

I won't transfer as I joined Gandara with friends in 2012. They don't play, but I'm not leaving the server in case I can persuade them back in :) I do think the linkup system is a bit mental though. I'm not complaining the server is shut - I mainly dislike the balance of the game.

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Wow, @"Meowmaru.9341" that was quite negative and I don't think Gandara deserves that. I don't think any server deserves that, whether they perform well, or they perform bad. It's simply not everyone's goal to be top of the line, but it is surely not the goal to be bottom of the line.

I know, the information we do have available is incomplete, and there is no hard connection between the pieces of information, but that isn't our fault. As Anet is unwilling to create transparency, gw2mists and wvwstats (and similar sites) are the pieces we have, and from that you can draw conclusions.

gw2mists tells us, that not many registered players are on Gandara, compared to other servers. We have no reason to believe that the amount of registered players on gw2mists from Gandara is for some reason significantly lower than that of other servers. But of course you can draw that conclusion, despite no evidence given.Now add to that some information from wvwstats: activity as measured in kills+deaths. Especially over the lasts weeks, where Gandara has made its way from T3 to T5 and thus was facing different servers with different populations, the numbers have been consistently low. Lowest of all servers world wide. Now you can, of course, believe that this is, because the whole Gandaran population is especially good at running. They can't kill people, but they also cannot be killed, because they always run away, and somehow they do that way better than everyone else. Were they just bad fighters, they would have low kills, but a lot of deaths. So that must be it, right?

I believe that's how you build a conspiracy theory, because what I actually see in game does not match this theory. Gandara players go for fights, they do not overly employ hit-and-run tactics with greater success or "skill" than anyone else. We also see no, to very low queues on borders.

Seeing all these facts as unrelated pieces of information that match up "just by chance" and thus would not tell us anything about population - that is how you build a conspiracy theory. But if you accept the facts present as actually being connected they suddenly point to a population problem.

And in the end it might not even be relevant, because the goal of WvW server status should not be to balance population. Balancing population is not an end to itself, it just a means to and end: Achieving matchups where everyone can have a chance, where everyone can have fun and the possibility to win. Thus opening a server, that's already performing very well is a much bigger problem, than opening a server that's performing pretty bad ...

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@"nthmetal.9652" said:

I believe that's how you build a conspiracy theory, because what I actually see in game does not match this theory. Gandara players go for fights, they do not overly employ hit-and-run tactics with greater success or "skill" than anyone else. We also see no, to very low queues on borders.

Are we even playing the same game? because for second night in a row i've seen their night commander actually waypoint their entire 50 squad, as soon as my 30 squad has come to defend the objective, like actually turn around and waypoint before the fight started. Its clearly called out of linked in chat because they all port together

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@Faolain.2374 said:Are we even playing the same game? because for second night in a row i've seen their night commander actually waypoint their entire 50 squad, as soon as my 30 squad has come to defend the objective, like actually turn around and waypoint before the fight started. Its clearly called out of linked in chat because they all port together

Yes, and in that very same night, the whole zerg has beaten, and has been beaten by enemy zergs. Of course you can port out. Of course you can run. But while having a FULL server, doing so consistently over a whole evening is NOT possible. Doing the same thing over a whole week is even less possible.

And as I said before, it is pointless, even if it were. If you could really build a server that is as full as other full servers and can manage to consistently, over a sustained amount of time, port out without causing kills and deaths, this is not a problem, if at the same time that server cannot win any matchups. And as population balance itself is only a means to an end that should not be a reason to keep a server locked and thus prevent guildmates from playing with each other.

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Not offended at all; perhaps as suggested you stop focusing on the individual start on the topic - the class i play or method of playing has zero bearing on the server being "full", or unlinked, or any combination thereof.

The question about the closed server stands, the claim was huge blobs defending NC indicating its very lively is unsubstantiated. My thinking was maybe it was other border (EB?) or at a time I was not on if Saturday, hence different observations. But the points about people not wanting to move meaning it's not opening (because no-one moves and it's full) is very valid. The points (un-raised) that there are many alt accounts at rest are also valid (but I've not read how they come to population).

The points about it being "dead" or boycotting to try and open up being pointed out as a very misguided effort if no-one is moving off (unless the idea is to make some move off as it appears dead) and log ins are irrelevant to the population (i.e un-played accounts don't impact, and players not logging into WvW won't change anything either), then those are excellent points being made as well. Trying to do something to force it open isn't necessarily going to change anything. All good points being made.

The idea people are toxic, or can't play, or anything else has zero bearing upon the population being "full". Hence why when people keep going on about how much they think individuals, groups, the entire server are not welcoming/bad/play poorly - that's no relevance to the actual point of the thread. Gandara is full and un linked, no matter how many ex-Gandara players who moved keep bringing these particular points up.

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So I just spent several hours playing WVW and for Gandara I saw one other player and two bots - this is standard for Sun - Thurs. Opposing us were huge zergs of dozens of players on both sides. This is like playing chess where your opponent starts with all their pieces and you have a couple of pawns. On a whim, I logged in to my old Stormbluff Isle account and there are scores of SI folks running about in WVW. Both servers are 'full,' yet only SI has actual players. Whatever metrics Anet is using to determine WVW player population are broken to the point of uselessness - Gandara is not full - there are no zergs guarding camps, no hoards spamming underpopulated servers - Gandara is the underpopulated server. Soon as I can save up enough gems, I'm moving my main account to Stormbluff Isle. Gandara is a WVW dead server and Anet won't let anyone onto it to bring it back to life. If Anet wants an empty server no one can get onto, that's their problem.

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@Chips.7968 said:

@"Faolain.2374" said:Meanwhile 30+ gandara players defended their nc for 4 hours earlier, then one hour later their night commander logged on to flip empty keeps all night with a different 40+ people and this is with a server organised boycott lmao. How can you even complain about numbers when you have 30 people defending a camp? The problem with gandara is that if they aren't massively outnumbering or able to cloud, they wp from fights and start complaining about fights that are easily winnable for a server which isn't 90% ranger. Instead of blobbing single roamers, you could have taken that 30+ squad to another map and actually done something both fun and useful for the server. The whole "boycotting to become open again" kills me everytime, because you are an overpopulated server, actively trying to become more overpopulated so that you can what? continue to waypoint from 50vs50 fights? Golem rush with 60 players instead of 50? guarantee that every gank on gbl is at least 10 vs. 1 whenever you leave spawn instead of 7vs1? Any serious player/guild would have left gandara years ago, and when you do eventually open up you're gonna attract the exact same people that are there now, which will not benefit gandara in the slightest

They would
go
to defend NC when called for one simple reason. People want a fight and they wanted to hold objectives for once. The fact that they also defended... Bay, Hills, Water Camp, Vale, Briar, Lake tower, Mill and Quarry (for a total of about 2 hours actually) aren't highlighted in your post but ARE relevant; it indicates the player base were trying to have fights and defend objectives.

Actually, you proved the point that the server is not empty and has lots of players and a lot player activity.

I think people get bored re-taking the same objective for 2 hours. Note, bored - meaning they'd prefer to play another game so do so. I've not played GW2 for 2 weeks. Really easy... I was playing other games and having a blast. Come back, some tidy fights (winning or losing), but inbetween I know in other games the enjoyment level surpasses GW2 WvW.

It is not different on the other servers.

Anet does not count how much players are on a server or what they do, but how much player activity (simplified: the sum of play time in WvW of all players that play WvW during the counted time period) and from this they group servers into "full", "very high", "high" etc. With one exception: Baruch Bay will never become "full" because it is the only server for the spanish language.

If player activity on Gandara would drop substantial, the server population would go from "full" to "very high" to "high" to "medium" .... but as long as player activity does not drop a lot, the server will stay in "full" or "very high".

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@"nthmetal.9652" said:gw2mists tells us, that not many registered players are on Gandara, compared to other servers. We have no reason to believe that the amount of registered players on gw2mists from Gandara is for some reason significantly lower than that of other servers. But of course you can draw that conclusion, despite no evidence given.

Just because you do not see a reason for a statistical bias is no evidence that the numbers from gw2mists are adequate samples for all the population of all servers.

People register accounts on gw2mist because they want to. As a result, registered accounts on gw2mists are not a random sample https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_sample for the whole WvW population because of selection bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias

I believe that's how you build a conspiracy theory

exactely. seeing something in numbers without scientific evidence or by doing statistics wrong is a "good" starting point for a conspiracy theory like "Gandara is full because Anet hates Gandara".

Apophenia is also typical of conspiracy theory, where coincidences may be woven together into an apparent plot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

But if you accept the facts present as actually being connected they suddenly point to a population problem.

You did not present a lot of facts that could prove your point. Maybe you have a different understanding of "facts".

Added: But I do agree, that Gandara seems to have a population problem, because the server is so overstacked, that as a result it is "full" most of the time.

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Its a tough one really but I think its more an internal issue with Gandara more than anything. As i've said one of the best things about Gandara is its chill, relaxed community, but its community is also its biggest issue as a lot of people don't want that but then are also the server loyal/refuse to move. Having once been on Gandara for 4+ years I did enjoy it until we got stuck in tier 1 with deso for what seemed like forever. Wasn't how I liked to play so ultimately moved, yes I miss it but it all comes down to what people want from the server. Like you have no link, but you still have your community, which is worth moving there for. If its not the community that people care about but instead love fighting/ppt, they should probably move to a better suited server where they'd have more fun.

Since it seems Gandara has lost both its home defender roam squad and its commanders, its very doubtful that Gandara will ever become the t1 server it was before. Even the last link with Fort Ranik, which is one of the least populated servers, Gandara didn't get above T3? The reality is Gandara has players but they don't all want the same thing and so are scattered across maps doing different things, but because they have that many players overall there will never be an appropriate link to be paired with.

I don't think there is any point waiting for this miraculous change to happen on Gandara , because I doubt its ever going to happen now. Instead people should just pay the what? 150g? to transfer, go explore and play with your friends. Same goes for guilds, most guilds that stay on one server eventually run out of people to recruit. Go explore god dammit! :)

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