World Restructuring

[Biermeister.4678]

For those of us who have been on our server since day one will we get some sort of title for that achievement

[Vanakin.9162]

When I joined Tarnished Coast server (transferring from another) it was because of the role playing kind of diversity and inclusive warmth and humour of the people who were attracted to that server, not because of WvW. Won't this new WvW change break up that community even more than the 'megaservers' did? While I enjoy casual WvW, I enjoy more meeting TC people outside WvW. Is there any thought of introducing new alliances of guilds or some other kind of world/server structure to permit like minded individuals and guilds to band together for experiences outside WvW? Then alliances would serve a greater purpose than just WVW, as they did in GW1. The only thing better than that for me would be to bring back GW1 'International' instances (for towns and guild halls at least), so that I can meet up once again with old buddies from across the US/EU rift.

[dolcolax.1268]

i feel like this would be like a game of league of legends/dota with 5 randoms against 5 friends only on a much bigger scale

edit: are the new worlds smaller than the servers we have now? i terms of total capacity and not online players.

[LINKAZZATORE.8135]

All the complains in this thread are coming from ppt servers that only care about roleplaying :thinking:

Some people forgot that this game mode has also fighting and is not a pve map

[mulzi.8273]

I find it ironic that for 4+ years WvW folks have been railing against the 'eotm' zone, how the lack of servers promote k-training, unbalanced fights, etc. And here we have the borderlands morphing into EotM and everything is claiming it as the game modes savior. You people are fickle.

[Klipso.8653]

Does Anet have plans to add in-game voice communication so that our squads can talk to ourselves and allow commander chat between tags?

This is an important feature that will prevent this change from becoming a new version of EotM

[Mewcifer.5198]

So these are my current concerns:

1) Community. While this does not directly apply to me, I have seen it mentioned in this thread a lot. While yes, there could theoretically just be a guild/alliance based around a server to hold onto that server identity and community there is a reason this probably won't happen for most servers. You will have a lot of people scrambling to try and make these guilds, everyone will be trying to be the guild for that server. Most will fizzle out and die. People will be confused and conflicted about which of these server guilds to join. The fighting for the title and confusion this generates will kill most of the community and connection people felt.

2) Playing with friends. This is the part that affects me the most. I do a lot of PvE and so I have all my guild slots full of guilds meant for the different varieties of PvE content. I have made many good friends in these guilds, but no single guild holds all my friends. By pure luck most of my friends were all on the same server, so I gave some money to be on that server as well. Now I have a dilemma. I would have to be in a guild with all my friends if I wanted to play WvW with all of them. My options seem to be either abandoning one of my guilds which is a hub of content that I enjoy in order to either make or join a WvW guild which may or may not have all my friends in it, or convincing the PvE guilds I am in to label themselves as WvW guilds and then trying to get them to form alliances (or at least convincing one so that my friends in that one can play with me). Overall I am kind of stuck in a bad situation. I didn't join the guilds I am in for no reason, they all have a purpose, I do not want to abandon any of them, but I also don't want to be thrown into WvW without my friends.

[TwilightSoul.9048]

This seems too good to be true, I couldn't have come up with a better idea!One thing remains unclear to me (and I apologize if this has already been answered, I did not read through 14 Pages.) Do I, as a player see my personal WvW "Tier" which determines what kind of World I'll be put into? And as the Leader of a WvW Guild, would I see the Tier of my Guild / my Guild mates?And are there any requirements to make a Guild a "WvW Guild"?

@"McKenna Berdrow.2759" said:Guilds will be able to set their language. An alliance will take the language of the guild that created it. If you aren't playing with a guild then the system will use whatever language you set the game as to sort you into a world that is that language.

I think we should be able to set "preferred languages" rather than one language for our guild, in my guild for example everyone speaks English, the majority of players in my Guild also speaks German and a minority speaks Norwegian, Polish and French so we would like to set "preferred languages" to English and German as most of us have been playing on a German server so far but none of us would mind beeing on an English speaking World.

[zinkz.7045]

@"Xtc Soul Dragon.2067" said:In your initial post you blatantly display whom your ire and dscrimination is aimed at, and that is my home server, since prerelease, of Blackgate.

They mentioned Blackgate in one paragraph merely as an example of how world linking is too blunt an instrument to allow them to balance coverage.

As you have apparently missed it, population/coverage imbalances have been an issue since day 1, if you had frequented the forums then you'd remember that soon after launch there was a "nightcapping" megathread precisely because of how those imbalances basically rendered WvW has a competition meaningless.

Favoritism will determine who is tier 1, not skill or dedication or hours or sacrifice.

I hate to break it to you, but part of the reason WvW needs a change and part of the reason it has died off to the extent it has, is "winning" is meaningless, no one with an ounce of logic cares less about "winning" in a game mode that is a joke as a competition, precisely because all that really counts is population/coverage. A WvW matchup is akin to having a sports match where after half time only one team comes back out and are able to score freely with no opposition, that is not competitive or skilled in the slightest.

Go ahead and replace the failed Edge of the Mists experiment; the lacklust rewards of that gamemode will not be missed. Do not delete 5 years of WvW rivalry and identity for shallow and foresight-lacking purposes, you as the developer do not write the history of your game, the players do.

Maybe this is the only game you've ever played, but servers are merely a grouping, people can have "pride" or "community" around different types of grouping, take EVE Online that is based on alliances made up of corporations (guilds) and to be blunt that game has a far deeper, stronger community than GW2 will ever have, the notion that servers are the only way those things can be achieved is nonsense.

...the moment you expunge that from the game is the moment that WvW ceases to have a reason to exist in a lot of our hearts and minds.

Really maybe you should look outside your own stacked T1 server, and over both EU and NA, WvW is in a really bad state, which is why most of the actual WvW players have either left or barely play anymore.

[Catty.3894]

Sounds awesome to me, excited to see how this plays out. People talking about server pride are literally talking about how they enjoy feeling prestige over a concept rather than having an actual community of friends. They talk about community and in the same breath they explain how the people they enjoy being around wouldn't want to be in an alliance or guild with them or each other. It's incredibly obvious that what they're really talking about is some of the conveniences they've found in their current circumstance. I don't have respect for people that use deceptive wording to get sympathy. I feel like they're insulting everyone elses intelligence with comments as contradictory as that. Furthermore, when they're not talking about how they'll be torn apart from their community of people that wouldn't want to be associated with them; they talk about how disadvantaged they might be as a pug in fights..... in a new system that's meant to address imbalance much more strongly than before, and creates multiple organized small groups over just huge centralized ones.It's like those crazy political talks where someone's using every single "good" word to describe something that in reality represents no human value.

Not talking about Tarnished Coast being regarded as the go to RP server though, that's a valid concern, depending on how many rp-ers there are.

[UnKnownarising.1403]

What will happen to the competition we currently have between survers/worlds and won't these guild groups and alliances ruin wvw for the solo roamers? I think that this is a good system, but if issues like these aren't addressed, then it could greatly affect the wvw player base.

[ThomasC.1056]

Hello,

Thanks a lot for letting us know about the path you're following and your goals on those topics. It's very much appreciated.

I'm overall really interested in this new mechanic. I think it's fair to give the players the opportunity to organize themselves in Guilds and Alliances and overall gather with anywhom they want to play with. To all of those fearing for random players out of guilds, this is a genuine concern, but we can't forsee its extent since we don't really know the fraction of a server's population that is "random player out of guild" vs. "player in a WvW guild".

Also, about the metrics, I think it's a good thing to cater with playtime and participation during that playtime, because there're a lot of playstyles. Any policy saying : "we'll be doing metrics on the amount of supply spent on build sieges for associations" would be a clear flag of "what to do". You think it's ridiculous to use an example with building siege ? Well... It's just as ridiculous as doing metrics like "player killed" or "damage delt".

This is why I'd like to suggest an additional way to assign players : asking them to sort their favorite roles. Some times ago (I think it was in the previous forum), there was a really interesting thread about roles in WvW, so I think it's be nice to add somewhere in the WvW panel a question : "What do you like to do in WvW ?" with answers like : "Large scales battles" (aka blobbing), "Objectives management and scouting", "small scale roaming and encounters", etc. This may sound anecdotical, but it also may prevent some situations like the well-known ever-blobbing k-train server, or the world famous siege construction team, while allowing players with their favorite playstyle to enjoy or more "flavoured" experience.

I'm not really sure about the impact these informations should have, especially given all the already stated criterias, but it may be worth considering.

[LINKAZZATORE.8135]

Many of the complains about having full guilds would be fixed by adding 1 extra slot dedicated exclusively to a wvw guild you'd like to join

[Tiawal.2351]

Congratulations Anet, for being brave enough to start this. There will be problems, but if you keep improving on these ideeas, WvW will live, and will be a great alternative to any other team based PvP game out there.

If you can achieve this, you deserve our monetary support as well. Adding Gem store based WvW custom skins and other things that the community can propose is one way, far better than income from transfers, that is part of why the game mode got in so bad state. Many of us understand that a game has to make revenue, and if we really want a fun WvW, making it very profitable should be our aim as well.

[Swamurabi.7890]

If the balance patch Feb 6th affects WvW positively like this thread I might explode.

[Kitty.6219]

A bit unrelated to wvw and probably already asked, but is there a way or plans to use the alliance guild system for guild missions?? Some missions like bounties, challenges and treks are not shared across all guilds and I feel it would be nice to have an allience to do guild missions once for 3 or 4 guilds because dropping & switching guilds is a bit inconvinient with the current system.

Thanks for reading this <3

[Vermillion.4061]

@Klipso.8653 said:Does Anet have plans to add in-game voice communication so that our squads can talk to ourselves and allow commander chat between tags?

This is an important feature that will prevent this change from becoming a new version of EotM

Takes 5 seconds to have a discord link posted in team chat with API verification already being a thing anet doesn't have to add in-game voip.

[Djamonja.6453]

@"X T D.6458" said:Btw nice job anet listening to the elitist crowd so they can have their own private playground.

I am curious how do you think you can achieve any semblance of population balance, when a bunch of guilds that play in one timezone can stack a new server each time, capping the population, keeping out anyone not in the guild, and not having anyone from different timezones to fill in the coverage gaps?

How long do you think it will take before server A starts complaining wvw is dead because server B doesn't have anyone on at the same time?

How long do you think it will take before it turns into a EoTM style ktrain, because you took away any meaning to matches since everything will just reset every other month, therefore you are only playing for personal rewards...hmmm does scouting, defending, roaming, small team play give more rewards or blobbing up and ktraining?

Oh and I really love the part about ''evaluation''. Forget about being able to jump into wvw anytime you want, the game will now judge you based on how long and how much you play!

You need to take a deep breath and really think this whole thing through. Explain each part of your thought process -- why do you think "a bunch of guilds that play in one timezone can stack a new server each time, capping the population, keeping out anyone not in the guild, and not having anyone from different timezones to fill in the coverage gaps?"

How do you think they can do that? Which timezone can they do that in? Can they pull that off in tier 1 with a bunch of big alliances from BG, Mag, JQ, etc.? Unless you can explain how they can outstack the other alliances/guilds, you're just being dramatic.

[Norbe.7630]

@Tiawal.2351 said:

Adding Gem store based WvW custom skins

heres an idea, a guild claiming a Keep gets you a customized Gemstore Keep ^_^

[saerni.2584]

I like the proposed changes and look forward to them being implemented.

[Klipso.8653]

@Vermillion.4061 said:

@Klipso.8653 said:Does Anet have plans to add in-game voice communication so that our squads can talk to ourselves and allow commander chat between tags?

This is an important feature that will prevent this change from becoming a new version of EotM

Takes 5 seconds to have a discord link posted in team chat with API verification already being a thing anet doesn't have to add in-game voip.

Discord does not support commander chat, problem remains

[Sombra.3246]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:A message from McKenna Berdrow:

I want to update everyone on the design we currently are investigating to help achieve population balance between worlds, and the goals we hope this new World Restructuring system can achieve.

The goals of the World Restructuring system are:

• Create great matches
• Handle population fluctuations
• Balance teams
• Diversify WvW experiences

It is important to keep in mind that we still are investigating and working on this system. It is possible that this system will continue to evolve as we develop it, and we will be constantly testing to make sure the system meets our goals and our expectations for a quality experience. This post is an opportunity to share with you our plans for the new system, and respond to questions before the system is far long in the development process.

Restructuring Worlds

Even though world linking has brought world populations closer together, it is impossible for us to get populations and coverage any closer because the current worlds do not give us the granularity needed to do that. For example in NA, Blackgate has decent coverage across all time zones whereas worlds like Crystal Desert have higher peak times and lower off-hour times. Because world linking isn't granular enough, we don't have the ideal link that allows Crystal Desert to have coverage that is similar to Blackgate.

This is why, in the new World Restructuring system, we will remove all players from their current worlds, and make new worlds every eight weeks. This will create more granular pieces, which allow us to avoid situations like the Crystal Desert example.

Since worlds will not exist any longer, the "World Selection" that currently is available in character select will be eliminated, and instead a selection for playing in either North America or Europe will replace it.

World Creation

The system creates new worlds and assigns them a pre-generated name at the start of each season. We use 'season' to describe the time between World Restructuring. We plan on eight-week seasons, which is similar to the current time between links. We will discuss more about seasons later.

World Creation builds teams so they have similar predicted participation, skill, coverage, and language. Team assignment moves players onto teams by calculating the contribution value of a player and using that calculation to distribute players fairly. We plan to track stats like play hours in WvW, commander time and squad size, time of day, and participation levels. The exact stats have yet to be determined and we are open to suggestions of other stats to use in this system. This new system will expand upon the current calculation that uses play hours for linking.

If a player has played WvW before, we will be able to use the statistics from their account to sort them into a new world. The system also makes a world assignment for players who have not played WvW before, when they first begin WvW. Ideally the system will assign a new player to a world on which their friends or guild mates play, thereby making it easier than it is at present for people to play with friends in WvW.

Playing with Guild Mates

We want to make sure that playing with WvW guild mates is easy in this new system. Guilds will be able to specify if they are a WvW guild. This essentially means the World Restructuring system will consider that factor at the start of each season when assigning the guild to a world. On an individual player level, once a player's guild has specified they are a WvW guild, the individual player will be able to set ONE of their guilds as their personal WvW guild. When World Restructuring happens at the start of a season, as long as you have specified your WvW guild, you will be assigned to the same world as everyone else in your WvW guild, guaranteeing you will be able to play with your guild mates.

Creating Alliances

We also want to make sure that existing WvW communities can play together in this new system. A WvW guild will be able to invite other WvW guilds to their WvW Alliance. WvW Alliances function as a party for guilds. When World Restructuring happens, the system assigns all members in the WvW guilds that make up the WvW alliance to the same world. These WvW alliances will have certain restrictions on them, such as a finite number of guilds or number of players. Our current plans for alliance size are somewhere between 500-1000 members, and we are still considering the technical and match-making ramifications of the number that we settle upon.

World Creation Summary

So to summarize world creation: at the start of every season our new World Restructuring system will use recent statistics, based on similar predicted participation, skill, and coverage, to create worlds filled with alliances, guilds, and unaffiliated players.

The above graph displays an example of what makes up a world under the World Restructuring system. Keep in mind, due to the algorithm used to keep worlds balanced, the number of alliances, guilds, and individual players can be wildly different between worlds, but the participation and playtime should be relatively the same.

Seasons

Seasons break WvW into cycles where several matches will play out. The current design for seasons is 8 weeks, but we are open to feedback. Matches are still a week long, so there would be eight matches a season in the above scenario. During the season, we will still be using 1-up, 1-down.

Stages:

1. Season
   1. Once new worlds have been created and everyone has been sorted onto their WvW worlds, the new season has officially began.
   2. During a season players can manage their WvW guilds and alliances after reset and through the end of Week 7, but their WvW guild and WvW alliances will not be updated until the start of the next season.
   3. Ex: If you are playing WvW with Guild A this season and decide to set Guild B as your WvW guild in the middle of the season, you will not be able to play with Guild B until the next season, unless you transfer (more about that later).
2. Season End
   1. A week before the season ends, that is, during Week 8 in the season, you no longer will be able to manage your WvW guilds or alliances. Your WvW guild and alliances will be locked down at this time.
   2. Everyone is kicked out of WvW, as they are with every reset. WvW will spin back up, as it currently does after reset, and everyone will now be sorted into their new worlds.
3. World Creation
   1. Alliances, guilds, and individual players are sorted to be on a world.
   2. This will happen at the same time as current WvW reset.

Transfers

 

Region Transfers

Transferring between regions, from NA to EU, will still exist. We have not determined the costs for transferring but a region selection will be available on the character select screen that will allow transfers.

World Transfers

We understand that even though this system tries to keep guilds and alliances together, there will be times during the season when people want to change teams. Because of this, there are plans to allow transfers between worlds during a season. This means that new worlds will have size restrictions on them, as they do currently.

Players will be able to select worlds from the WvW panel in game. Worlds that are available for transfers will show up in the new WvW world panel. Worlds can be in these three different states:

The cost of transfer worlds has not been determined.

Transitioning to this System

This system is going to take time to make. As mentioned in the WvW FAQ, part of the reason we did World Linking was because it utilized a lot of existing tech and did not require a considerable amount of time. This allowed us to address the growing population issue quickly, while also being able to address other WvW issues. This new system is going to take considerably more time to make. We do not have a release date, but this is going to require several months of work and it will share resources with any other WvW changes that we work on.

Transitioning to this system is going to be slow and we want to make this transition as smooth as possible. Once this system is ready, we plan to give everyone several weeks to form their WvW guilds and alliances. We also want to give titles related to the worlds on which players currently are playing when World Restructuring goes live. If there are other transition ideas, we would love to hear them!

We will continue with World Linking until World Restructuring is ready to ship.

Feedback

That was a lot of information and I am sure there are many questions. The team will do its best to answer them. We appreciate any feedback on this system. Your opinions of this system, as well as the community's response, will be an important part of how we tackle this project.

If the reception is not great for this system, then the other alternative is most likely to continue World Linking. Even though making a choice between the two systems might seem like too drastic a change for some people, we have been exploring other designs to deal with WvW populations for years and we believe that World Restructuring or World Linking are the only solutions that meet our requirements. Simply "blowing up" worlds or removing people from the worlds on which they currently play is high risk (which is why we have avoided it for so long), and the only reason we are considering World Restructuring now is because it allows players to maintain and continue to build some of the communities they've created through the years.

Will we get a one time free transfer when this is implemented, for players that would like to switch from EU to NA for example?

[Vermillion.4061]

@Klipso.8653 said:

@Vermillion.4061 said:

@Klipso.8653 said:Does Anet have plans to add in-game voice communication so that our squads can talk to ourselves and allow commander chat between tags?

This is an important feature that will prevent this change from becoming a new version of EotM

Takes 5 seconds to have a discord link posted in team chat with API verification already being a thing anet doesn't have to add in-game voip.

Discord does not support commander chat, problem remains

Nobody outside of Blackgate uses commander chat anymore and you can do workarounds on discord with multiple accounts.

[LINKAZZATORE.8135]

@Sombra.3246 said:

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

A message from McKenna Berdrow:

I want to update everyone on the design we currently are investigating to help achieve population balance between worlds, and the goals we hope this new World Restructuring system can achieve.

The goals of the World Restructuring system are:

• Create great matches
• Handle population fluctuations
• Balance teams
• Diversify WvW experiences

It is important to keep in mind that we still are investigating and working on this system. It is possible that this system will continue to evolve as we develop it, and we will be constantly testing to make sure the system meets our goals and our expectations for a quality experience. This post is an opportunity to share with you our plans for the new system, and respond to questions before the system is far long in the development process.

Restructuring Worlds

Even though world linking has brought world populations closer together, it is impossible for us to get populations and coverage any closer because the current worlds do not give us the granularity needed to do that. For example in NA, Blackgate has decent coverage across all time zones whereas worlds like Crystal Desert have higher peak times and lower off-hour times. Because world linking isn't granular enough, we don't have the ideal link that allows Crystal Desert to have coverage that is similar to Blackgate.

This is why, in the new World Restructuring system, we will remove all players from their current worlds, and make new worlds every eight weeks. This will create more granular pieces, which allow us to avoid situations like the Crystal Desert example.

Since worlds will not exist any longer, the "World Selection" that currently is available in character select will be eliminated, and instead a selection for playing in either North America or Europe will replace it.

World Creation

The system creates new worlds and assigns them a pre-generated name at the start of each season. We use 'season' to describe the time between World Restructuring. We plan on eight-week seasons, which is similar to the current time between links. We will discuss more about seasons later.

World Creation builds teams so they have similar predicted participation, skill, coverage, and language. Team assignment moves players onto teams by calculating the contribution value of a player and using that calculation to distribute players fairly. We plan to track stats like play hours in WvW, commander time and squad size, time of day, and participation levels. The exact stats have yet to be determined and we are open to suggestions of other stats to use in this system. This new system will expand upon the current calculation that uses play hours for linking.

If a player has played WvW before, we will be able to use the statistics from their account to sort them into a new world. The system also makes a world assignment for players who have not played WvW before, when they first begin WvW. Ideally the system will assign a new player to a world on which their friends or guild mates play, thereby making it easier than it is at present for people to play with friends in WvW.

Playing with Guild Mates

We want to make sure that playing with WvW guild mates is easy in this new system. Guilds will be able to specify if they are a WvW guild. This essentially means the World Restructuring system will consider that factor at the start of each season when assigning the guild to a world. On an individual player level, once a player's guild has specified they are a WvW guild, the individual player will be able to set

ONE

of their guilds as their personal WvW guild. When World Restructuring happens at the start of a season, as long as you have specified your WvW guild, you will be assigned to the same world as everyone else in your WvW guild, guaranteeing you will be able to play with your guild mates.

Creating Alliances

We also want to make sure that existing WvW communities can play together in this new system. A WvW guild will be able to invite other WvW guilds to their WvW Alliance. WvW Alliances function as a party for guilds. When World Restructuring happens, the system assigns all members in the WvW guilds that make up the WvW alliance to the same world. These WvW alliances will have certain restrictions on them, such as a finite number of guilds or number of players. Our current plans for alliance size are somewhere between 500-1000 members, and we are still considering the technical and match-making ramifications of the number that we settle upon.

World Creation Summary

So to summarize world creation: at the start of every season our new World Restructuring system will use recent statistics, based on similar predicted participation, skill, and coverage, to create worlds filled with alliances, guilds, and unaffiliated players.

The above graph displays an example of what makes up a world under the World Restructuring system. Keep in mind, due to the algorithm used to keep worlds balanced, the number of alliances, guilds, and individual players can be wildly different between worlds, but the participation and playtime should be relatively the same.

Seasons

Seasons break WvW into cycles where several matches will play out. The current design for seasons is 8 weeks, but we are open to feedback. Matches are still a week long, so there would be eight matches a season in the above scenario. During the season, we will still be using 1-up, 1-down.

Stages:

1. Season
   1. Once new worlds have been created and everyone has been sorted onto their WvW worlds, the new season has officially began.
   2. During a season players can manage their WvW guilds and alliances after reset and through the end of Week 7, but their WvW guild and WvW alliances will not be updated until the start of the next season.
   3. Ex: If you are playing WvW with Guild A this season and decide to set Guild B as your WvW guild in the middle of the season, you will not be able to play with Guild B until the next season, unless you transfer (more about that later).
2. Season End
   1. A week before the season ends, that is, during Week 8 in the season, you no longer will be able to manage your WvW guilds or alliances. Your WvW guild and alliances will be locked down at this time.
   2. Everyone is kicked out of WvW, as they are with every reset. WvW will spin back up, as it currently does after reset, and everyone will now be sorted into their new worlds.
3. World Creation
   1. Alliances, guilds, and individual players are sorted to be on a world.
   2. This will happen at the same time as current WvW reset.

Transfers

 

Region Transfers

Transferring between regions, from NA to EU, will still exist. We have not determined the costs for transferring but a region selection will be available on the character select screen that will allow transfers.

World Transfers

We understand that even though this system tries to keep guilds and alliances together, there will be times during the season when people want to change teams. Because of this, there are plans to allow transfers between worlds during a season. This means that new worlds will have size restrictions on them, as they do currently.

Players will be able to select worlds from the WvW panel in game. Worlds that are available for transfers will show up in the new WvW world panel. Worlds can be in these three different states:

The cost of transfer worlds has not been determined.

Transitioning to this System

This system is going to take time to make. As mentioned in the WvW FAQ, part of the reason we did World Linking was because it utilized a lot of existing tech and did not require a considerable amount of time. This allowed us to address the growing population issue quickly, while also being able to address other WvW issues. This new system is going to take considerably more time to make. We do not have a release date, but this is going to require several months of work and it will share resources with any other WvW changes that we work on.

Transitioning to this system is going to be slow and we want to make this transition as smooth as possible. Once this system is ready, we plan to give everyone several weeks to form their WvW guilds and alliances. We also want to give titles related to the worlds on which players currently are playing when World Restructuring goes live. If there are other transition ideas, we would love to hear them!

We will continue with World Linking until World Restructuring is ready to ship.

Feedback

That was a lot of information and I am sure there are many questions. The team will do its best to answer them. We appreciate any feedback on this system. Your opinions of this system, as well as the community's response, will be an important part of how we tackle this project.

If the reception is not great for this system, then the other alternative is most likely to continue World Linking. Even though making a choice between the two systems might seem like too drastic a change for some people, we have been exploring other designs to deal with WvW populations for years and we believe that World Restructuring or World Linking are the only solutions that meet our requirements. Simply "blowing up" worlds or removing people from the worlds on which they currently play is high risk (which is why we have avoided it for so long), and the only reason we are considering World Restructuring now is because it allows players to maintain and continue to build some of the communities they've created through the years.

Will we get a one time free transfer when this is implemented, for players that would like to switch from EU to NA for example?

"This is why, in the new World Restructuring system, we will remove all players from their current worlds, and make new worlds every eight weeks. This will create more granular pieces, which allow us to avoid situations like the Crystal Desert example."

[Sombra.3246]

Will we get a one time free transfer when this is implemented, for players that would like to switch from EU to NA for example?

"This is why, in the new World Restructuring system, we will remove all players from their current worlds, and make new worlds every eight weeks. This will create more granular pieces, which allow us to avoid situations like the Crystal Desert example."

That just means that we will no longer be in our individual servers within NA or EU, it does not answer my question.