World Restructuring

[KitOnlyHuman.6807]

There is only one question I have: Are non-WvW guilds going to get Alliances too? I feel that it could be the answer to replace the sudden drop of community that our servers have created. Speaking as a TC roleplayer, I think it'd be great to have a GW2RP alliance of guilds.

[Slugonaut.9841]

All this talk about alliance caps has me thinking...........Say a guild does have a max cap of 500 players in an alliance, but only 60 of those players mark the guild as their WVW guild. Will the alliance population be based off of the active players marking that guild as their WVW guild (makes the most sense) or will it just be looking at the entire guilds roster?

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

@Slugonaut.9841 said:All this talk about alliance caps has me thinking...........Say a guild does have a max cap of 500 players in an alliance, but only 60 of those players mark the guild as their WVW guild. Will the alliance population be based off of the active players marking that guild as their WVW guild (makes the most sense) or will it just be looking at the entire guilds roster?

They stated it only looks at the players that set that guild as WvW Primary

[Slugonaut.9841]

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:

@Slugonaut.9841 said:All this talk about alliance caps has me thinking...........Say a guild does have a max cap of 500 players in an alliance, but only 60 of those players mark the guild as their WVW guild. Will the alliance population be based off of the active players marking that guild as their WVW guild (makes the most sense) or will it just be looking at the entire guilds roster?

They stated it only looks at the players that set that guild as WvW Primary

With that being the case then I really don't see any issue with having to change the max # of players in a guild. I still think guilds will want to keep their Identity and the paranoia of their being these mega guilds swallowing people up to have an active roster of 500 players all choosing that one guild as their WVW guild seems a bit pointless and way too much to manage. But hey, maybe some will try it.....

[Sol.6213]

Something that might help to make this all more palatable is an in-game guild and alliance roster/chooser with some basic stats on each guild and a description of the goals etc. Just about every modern game has something like this already, other mmos, card games etc. Would take some work to implement (and not display basically dead guilds), but would benefit other play types as well including RP (who have shown concern here in this thread).

Leaving the advertisement for guilds outside of the game and relegated to Reddit or obscure forums, or shouting in game, seems to be one barrier to this new wvw design idea.

[Tanith.5264]

I think it's great! Now, if only they would introduce mounts into WvW. I have this wonderful mental picture of my guildmates and I bounding into combat on our bunnies and screaming "RIDE FOR RUIN AND THE WORLD'S ENDING!!!" :lol:

[Grim West.3194]

@Ubi.4136 said:

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:

@Tolmos.8395 said:

@TheGrimm.5624 said:

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:

First thing Guilds already have caps of 500 Roster size, so we already know Guild cap.

Every other “point” you made is handled by the guilds/leaders making up the alliances, because it takes the agreement of the Guild Leaders to even form an alliance, they can fill their guilds and their Allliance as they see fit for their needs, the system won’t hand hold the Allaince making, alliance roster cap will be between 500- 1000 players, players will have to set a WvW Guild as their primary WvW to be counted towards that’s guilds WvW presence and by extension that guilds Alliance presence. This is all clearly laid out in the OP.

But does that still work in this model? Is 500 the right size, too small, too big? Taking the algorithms that are planned how many size guilds of various sizes are being planned so that the mix is right. Yes they shared some conceps which is appreciated but this still sounds blobfest. And when you have disagreements in alliances what tools are in place to handle. Alliance tools by itself might make or break this system.

Considering guilds are replacing worlds, I would think that guild sizes might need a bit of a bump in max player size.

Guilds aren’t replacing worlds... and Anet states that Alliances won’t be able to make up the majority of a World’s population so yeah.

Herein lies the problem.

1. Alliance is at least 2 guilds.
2. Guilds have a 500 member cap, meaning alliances will be at least 1000 members.
3. If an alliance is not a majority of the population, it means they are planning on world sizes being greater than 2000 in population.
4. There are only 4 maps, and it only takes about 300 people to que every map.
5. So, yes, an alliance could easily take over a world so that only they are really seeing a lot of play time.
6. And yes, guilds and alliances will be pre-stacked essentially continuing the problem we have now.

They might as well start naming the new servers:

1. Ktrain
2. Tower Swap
3. Bag Farming
4. etc

They haven't decided on the size of Alliances yet. They did say "wvw guilds can create wvw alliances (500-1000 players max, still not decided" (reddit). So that is the probable range but even that could change.

[Zephyr.8015]

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@"Raymond Lukes.6305" said:There has been some talk about using Blackgate as an example in the post. Blackgate has been at the top of player activity hours in WvW for a very long time in NA. BG's numbers are twice as big as the average world on NA (without world linking) and 30% larger then the average NA host world. I'm not saying Blackgate hasn't suffered losses of players and coverage but BG is still on top for activity. IT'S NOT JUST BLACKGATE though.Here are all the worlds in NA and EU ordered by size names have been omitted to protect the innocent:

So you're are saying that BG has the most WvW hours played, you are not saying that BG has the most players. Played hours does NOT equal population. It is unfair to say that in general. Like tonight we have scouts, commanders, and players in general that spend hours or most of their day in WvW. BG players have stated numerous times that we have dedicated players and guilds who care about our standing in WvW.

Server status and WvW population takes into account play time hours. This is showing playtime hours. which depicts your WvW population. Its perfectly fair to make this assessment and its accurate. This is why in Tier 1 to compete you need a link and the server trapped below BG have enough to be locked but not enough to compete. It literally explains everything we've been experiencing and the reasons as to why Tier 1 is avoided. Because giving servers a link to compete against something that's taken the last 5 years to organize in a 2 month time frame is damaging to those around it. The linked pairs are servers that can equal or even out pace BG in terms of player activity but not the ability to organize and coordinate given the time frame. There is never an even playing field and thus the sense of competitiveness breaks down completely.

BG should not take this as an attack and Arena Net does not intend it to be that. BG is the product of a system design that's no longer present and a system that was indeed flawed. Servers like BG are the last of its kind when the game has broken down and many have left.

Alright, so 5 BG players play for 2hrs each totaling 10hrs of play time, while on another server lets say for example's sake JQ has 10 players play for 1hr each. Its the same amount of play time just spread differently. While another server has twice the amount of players in the same playtime. This is why I said playtime does not equal players aka population. You can have extremes on both sides, players going into WvW for 10mins to do a daily vet slayer, to Commanders doing a 4hr raid. What I am saying is very plausible that BG has players playing longer hours than other servers. There is also a plausible thing to say that other servers may have players that care less about WvW. This is why I am stating, played hours does not equal players on a server. The chart linked shows total played hours in WvW, Anet saying BG has the most WvW played hours. If you have servers that don't care about WvW as a game type then yes they will have low hours. This chart depending on the players and how much they play is easily skew-able, and is not a good representation of the amount of players. Also a good example is Maguuma, I've watched their population changes from Tier 2, to T1. They go from high positions in all timeslots, to complete opposite when they come up to Tier 1. There is no system anet can put in place to force a server or an alliance to play a game type; that desire has to come from the players want and striving to do better. I am stating that there is a lot more information that goes into a chart like that, and it is not objective or accurate to think that just because BG has the most played hours in WvW that it must equal that we have the most players.

[Grim West.3194]

@Slugonaut.9841 said:All this talk about alliance caps has me thinking...........Say a guild does have a max cap of 500 players in an alliance, but only 60 of those players mark the guild as their WVW guild. Will the alliance population be based off of the active players marking that guild as their WVW guild (makes the most sense) or will it just be looking at the entire guilds roster?

It's based only on the players in the guild that declare for WvW.

Reddit also has a thread with many useful dev comments. It's worth looking at.

[Raymond Lukes.6305]

@Evolute.6239 said:BG-JQ-Mag-YB-FA?

You could at least say the top 5! They're clearly the full servers :p

Cool info either way. pretty much showing/confirming what we already guessed hah

edit: oh thats NA AND EU. Jeeze. I'm guessing #2 is Piken or something then? Or is that JQ?

Yes it's NA and EU. Also you're top five list is inaccurate.

[MaLeVoLenT.8129]

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@"Raymond Lukes.6305" said:There has been some talk about using Blackgate as an example in the post. Blackgate has been at the top of player activity hours in WvW for a very long time in NA. BG's numbers are twice as big as the average world on NA (without world linking) and 30% larger then the average NA host world. I'm not saying Blackgate hasn't suffered losses of players and coverage but BG is still on top for activity. IT'S NOT JUST BLACKGATE though.Here are all the worlds in NA and EU ordered by size names have been omitted to protect the innocent:

So you're are saying that BG has the most WvW hours played, you are not saying that BG has the most players. Played hours does NOT equal population. It is unfair to say that in general. Like tonight we have scouts, commanders, and players in general that spend hours or most of their day in WvW. BG players have stated numerous times that we have dedicated players and guilds who care about our standing in WvW.

Server status and WvW population takes into account play time hours. This is showing playtime hours. which depicts your WvW population. Its perfectly fair to make this assessment and its accurate. This is why in Tier 1 to compete you need a link and the server trapped below BG have enough to be locked but not enough to compete. It literally explains everything we've been experiencing and the reasons as to why Tier 1 is avoided. Because giving servers a link to compete against something that's taken the last 5 years to organize in a 2 month time frame is damaging to those around it. The linked pairs are servers that can equal or even out pace BG in terms of player activity but not the ability to organize and coordinate given the time frame. There is never an even playing field and thus the sense of competitiveness breaks down completely.

BG should not take this as an attack and Arena Net does not intend it to be that. BG is the product of a system design that's no longer present and a system that was indeed flawed. Servers like BG are the last of its kind when the game has broken down and many have left.

Alright, so 5 BG players play for 2hrs each totaling 10hrs of play time, while on another server lets say for example's sake JQ has 10 players play for 1hr each. Its the same amount of play time just spread differently. While another server has twice the amount of players in the same playtime. This is why I said playtime does not equal players aka population. You can have extremes on both sides, players going into WvW for 10mins to do a daily vet slayer, to Commanders doing a 4hr raid. What I am saying is very plausible that BG has players playing longer hours than other servers. There is also a plausible thing to say that other servers may have players that care less about WvW. This is why I am stating, played hours does not equal players on a server. The chart linked shows total played hours in WvW, Anet saying BG has the most WvW played hours. If you have servers that don't care about WvW as a game type then yes they will have low hours. This chart depending on the players and how much they play is easily skew-able, and is not a good representation of the amount of players. Also a good example is Maguuma, I've watched their population changes from Tier 2, to T1. They go from high positions in all timeslots, to complete opposite when they come up to Tier 1. There is no system anet can put in place to force a server or an alliance to play a game type; that desire has to come from the players want and striving to do better. I am stating that there is a lot more information that goes into a chart like that, and it is not objective or accurate to think that just because BG has the most played hours in WvW that it must equal that we have the most players.

Read carefully. Not only did arena net said BGs NUMBERS doubles that of an average server but they're 30% bigger in active population. Not only does BG outnumber everyone drastically but they also are 30% more active by player hours.

[Norbe.7630]

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:

@Norbe.7630 said:

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:

There's still the question as to why a guild would need a switch to be set as WvWguild or activate the possibility to be repped for WvW.Played season ranked pvp?wanna get your guild ranked "legendary"?then play as a wvw guild else play as normally "normal match" then your guild don't get rankedjust my 2 cents

As I understand it, if you want your guildmembers to able to play WvW in the same world with eachother you need to set the guild as WvW guild.

Ranked or not has no effect on that decision. I don't see why a guild wouldnt want that option available to members. I suppose raid only or fractals only or pvp only wouldnt always want their members have any WvW focus whatsoever.

thats one of the downside of deleting worlds, less guild titles

[ClaraFee.2579]

A question (with preface) for Gaile & team,

Prior to world linking, servers / homeworlds had identities that were grown and nurtured through websites, forums, Facebook groups, voice chat servers, etc. I run darkhaven.us, the Darkhaven TeamSpeak, DH Twitter, and other community resources, and can attest to the dramatic decline in - and in some cases a total loss of - community activity that has been directly caused by world linking.

Community resources like these can cost a lot of money, time, and other resources, and require expertise and commitment to setup and maintain for the community. Prior to world linking, all of it was - according to other community leaders and myself - well worth it, because of the team cohesion we were able to bring to people. That community cohesiveness has since been replaced by disorder, confusion, and a significantly less personal experience due to the constant mixing of worlds and players (not to imply that this mixing has no benefits; it certainly does).

Players, guilds, worlds, and the playerbase as a whole were - in some ways - better off back then, even though the state of WvW gameplay and matchmaking was perhaps not. Many of us miss the tight-knit communities that we worked so hard to build, and so my question for you is this:

What are ArenaNet's plans to address the loss of identity and cohesion that many communities have experienced since world linking?

As mentioned in your post, the changes you're proposing do indeed look promising as fixes for some problems and the introduction of much-wanted features like Alliances - and for that, I believe players are super excited. But I would argue that the proposed changes do not address the social problems that have been made manifest since the disappearance of things like "Darkhaven proper" - an example of one of many communities that has mostly dwindled away since world linking. For big guilds, yes, these look like all-around positive changes. But for smaller groups of players, and individual players that aren't part of huge guilds, and new players, (all of which I assume comprise a large segment of the total player count) I only see these problems being compounded moving forward.

Many of us would be grateful if you would please share your thoughts on community concerns like these. Thanks for your time. :)

[Zephyr.8015]

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@"Raymond Lukes.6305" said:There has been some talk about using Blackgate as an example in the post. Blackgate has been at the top of player activity hours in WvW for a very long time in NA. BG's numbers are twice as big as the average world on NA (without world linking) and 30% larger then the average NA host world. I'm not saying Blackgate hasn't suffered losses of players and coverage but BG is still on top for activity. IT'S NOT JUST BLACKGATE though.Here are all the worlds in NA and EU ordered by size names have been omitted to protect the innocent:

So you're are saying that BG has the most WvW hours played, you are not saying that BG has the most players. Played hours does NOT equal population. It is unfair to say that in general. Like tonight we have scouts, commanders, and players in general that spend hours or most of their day in WvW. BG players have stated numerous times that we have dedicated players and guilds who care about our standing in WvW.

Server status and WvW population takes into account play time hours. This is showing playtime hours. which depicts your WvW population. Its perfectly fair to make this assessment and its accurate. This is why in Tier 1 to compete you need a link and the server trapped below BG have enough to be locked but not enough to compete. It literally explains everything we've been experiencing and the reasons as to why Tier 1 is avoided. Because giving servers a link to compete against something that's taken the last 5 years to organize in a 2 month time frame is damaging to those around it. The linked pairs are servers that can equal or even out pace BG in terms of player activity but not the ability to organize and coordinate given the time frame. There is never an even playing field and thus the sense of competitiveness breaks down completely.

BG should not take this as an attack and Arena Net does not intend it to be that. BG is the product of a system design that's no longer present and a system that was indeed flawed. Servers like BG are the last of its kind when the game has broken down and many have left.

Alright, so 5 BG players play for 2hrs each totaling 10hrs of play time, while on another server lets say for example's sake JQ has 10 players play for 1hr each. Its the same amount of play time just spread differently. While another server has twice the amount of players in the same playtime. This is why I said playtime does not equal players aka population. You can have extremes on both sides, players going into WvW for 10mins to do a daily vet slayer, to Commanders doing a 4hr raid. What I am saying is very plausible that BG has players playing longer hours than other servers. There is also a plausible thing to say that other servers may have players that care less about WvW. This is why I am stating, played hours does not equal players on a server. The chart linked shows total played hours in WvW, Anet saying BG has the most WvW played hours. If you have servers that don't care about WvW as a game type then yes they will have low hours. This chart depending on the players and how much they play is easily skew-able, and is not a good representation of the amount of players. Also a good example is Maguuma, I've watched their population changes from Tier 2, to T1. They go from high positions in all timeslots, to complete opposite when they come up to Tier 1. There is no system anet can put in place to force a server or an alliance to play a game type; that desire has to come from the players want and striving to do better. I am stating that there is a lot more information that goes into a chart like that, and it is not objective or accurate to think that just because BG has the most played hours in WvW that it must equal that we have the most players.

Read carefully. Not only did arena net said BGs NUMBERS doubles that of an average server but they're 30% bigger in active population. Not only does BG outnumber everyone drastically but they also are 30% more active by player hours.

To directly copy what the GM said: There has been some talk about using Blackgate as an example in the post. Blackgate has been at the top of player activity hours in WvW for a very long time in NA. BG's numbers are twice as big as the average world on NA (without world linking) and 30% larger then the average NA host world. I'm not saying Blackgate hasn't suffered losses of players and coverage but BG is still on top for activity. IT'S NOT JUST BLACKGATE though.Here are all the worlds in NA and EU ordered by size names have been omitted to protect the innocent: his/her entire post is about WvW ACTIVITY. Blackgate has been at the top of of PLAYER ACTIVITY HOURS. Those numbers aka hours are twice as big as the average NA world, and 30% larger than a NA+Link. So that's what I am reading. So I stand by my point that activity hours in a game type does not equal player population on a server.

[Klipso.8653]

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@"Raymond Lukes.6305" said:There has been some talk about using Blackgate as an example in the post. Blackgate has been at the top of player activity hours in WvW for a very long time in NA. BG's numbers are twice as big as the average world on NA (without world linking) and 30% larger then the average NA host world. I'm not saying Blackgate hasn't suffered losses of players and coverage but BG is still on top for activity. IT'S NOT JUST BLACKGATE though.Here are all the worlds in NA and EU ordered by size names have been omitted to protect the innocent:

So you're are saying that BG has the most WvW hours played, you are not saying that BG has the most players. Played hours does NOT equal population. It is unfair to say that in general. Like tonight we have scouts, commanders, and players in general that spend hours or most of their day in WvW. BG players have stated numerous times that we have dedicated players and guilds who care about our standing in WvW.

Server status and WvW population takes into account play time hours. This is showing playtime hours. which depicts your WvW population. Its perfectly fair to make this assessment and its accurate. This is why in Tier 1 to compete you need a link and the server trapped below BG have enough to be locked but not enough to compete. It literally explains everything we've been experiencing and the reasons as to why Tier 1 is avoided. Because giving servers a link to compete against something that's taken the last 5 years to organize in a 2 month time frame is damaging to those around it. The linked pairs are servers that can equal or even out pace BG in terms of player activity but not the ability to organize and coordinate given the time frame. There is never an even playing field and thus the sense of competitiveness breaks down completely.

BG should not take this as an attack and Arena Net does not intend it to be that. BG is the product of a system design that's no longer present and a system that was indeed flawed. Servers like BG are the last of its kind when the game has broken down and many have left.

Alright, so 5 BG players play for 2hrs each totaling 10hrs of play time, while on another server lets say for example's sake JQ has 10 players play for 1hr each. Its the same amount of play time just spread differently. While another server has twice the amount of players in the same playtime. This is why I said playtime does not equal players aka population. You can have extremes on both sides, players going into WvW for 10mins to do a daily vet slayer, to Commanders doing a 4hr raid. What I am saying is very plausible that BG has players playing longer hours than other servers. There is also a plausible thing to say that other servers may have players that care less about WvW. This is why I am stating, played hours does not equal players on a server. The chart linked shows total played hours in WvW, Anet saying BG has the most WvW played hours. If you have servers that don't care about WvW as a game type then yes they will have low hours. This chart depending on the players and how much they play is easily skew-able, and is not a good representation of the amount of players. Also a good example is Maguuma, I've watched their population changes from Tier 2, to T1. They go from high positions in all timeslots, to complete opposite when they come up to Tier 1. There is no system anet can put in place to force a server or an alliance to play a game type; that desire has to come from the players want and striving to do better. I am stating that there is a lot more information that goes into a chart like that, and it is not objective or accurate to think that just because BG has the most played hours in WvW that it must equal that we have the most players.

Read carefully. Not only did arena net said BGs NUMBERS doubles that of an average server but they're 30% bigger in active population. Not only does BG outnumber everyone drastically but they also are 30% more active by player hours.

Not surprising on a play-hour graph. We have a lot of players who log 10+ hours every day in WvW, and i would be surprised if any other server could come close to that. But I doubt that we actually have more active players than other top servers, we just play longer.

[Chaba.5410]

@Zephyr.8015 said:So I stand by my point that activity hours in a game type does not equal player population on a server.

Yes, and? You missing the point that activity hours is still the largest for a very long time? Twice as big as the average world on NA. Even if BG players were to not play such long hours, they still have enough players to stay on top.

[Raymond Lukes.6305]

There has been a lot of discussion about the player “evaluation.” We already use play hours to determine population status of a world. With this system, moving people around ever two months we would like to track a few more things that can help us distribute players more effectively. One thing we are looking at tracking is commanding. Commanders are a big part of WvW no matter if your prefer scouting, roaming, running with a havoc squad or the zerg. Commanders are not the only piece to the WvW puzzle but they are a big piece. We would use commander time and squad sizes to determine a scaler to that commander players play time. For example, these are not the real values but I am not even a full cup of coffee in so for my sake I am going to make the math easy, PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC all play for roughly 100 hours a week. PlayerA commands smaller havoc squads, PlayerB is a PUG zerg commander, and PlayerC does not command. For all the time a commander is commanding squads let us say of more than two and less than size ten we’ll count those hours at a one and a half times multiplier and higher than ten we’ll count it at two times. If Player A were always commanding, in the small squad range, while playing their time, adjusted hours would be 150 hours. If PlayerB were always commanding, in the large squad range, while playing, their adjusted hours would be 200. Since Player C did not command their hours, remain the same at 100. Doing this can help us get more even matches. WvW is not completely a number of bodies game. A hundred veteran players will always beat a hundred casual players.

[MaLeVoLenT.8129]

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Zephyr.8015 said:

@"Raymond Lukes.6305" said:There has been some talk about using Blackgate as an example in the post. Blackgate has been at the top of player activity hours in WvW for a very long time in NA. BG's numbers are twice as big as the average world on NA (without world linking) and 30% larger then the average NA host world. I'm not saying Blackgate hasn't suffered losses of players and coverage but BG is still on top for activity. IT'S NOT JUST BLACKGATE though.Here are all the worlds in NA and EU ordered by size names have been omitted to protect the innocent:

So you're are saying that BG has the most WvW hours played, you are not saying that BG has the most players. Played hours does NOT equal population. It is unfair to say that in general. Like tonight we have scouts, commanders, and players in general that spend hours or most of their day in WvW. BG players have stated numerous times that we have dedicated players and guilds who care about our standing in WvW.

Server status and WvW population takes into account play time hours. This is showing playtime hours. which depicts your WvW population. Its perfectly fair to make this assessment and its accurate. This is why in Tier 1 to compete you need a link and the server trapped below BG have enough to be locked but not enough to compete. It literally explains everything we've been experiencing and the reasons as to why Tier 1 is avoided. Because giving servers a link to compete against something that's taken the last 5 years to organize in a 2 month time frame is damaging to those around it. The linked pairs are servers that can equal or even out pace BG in terms of player activity but not the ability to organize and coordinate given the time frame. There is never an even playing field and thus the sense of competitiveness breaks down completely.

BG should not take this as an attack and Arena Net does not intend it to be that. BG is the product of a system design that's no longer present and a system that was indeed flawed. Servers like BG are the last of its kind when the game has broken down and many have left.

Alright, so 5 BG players play for 2hrs each totaling 10hrs of play time, while on another server lets say for example's sake JQ has 10 players play for 1hr each. Its the same amount of play time just spread differently. While another server has twice the amount of players in the same playtime. This is why I said playtime does not equal players aka population. You can have extremes on both sides, players going into WvW for 10mins to do a daily vet slayer, to Commanders doing a 4hr raid. What I am saying is very plausible that BG has players playing longer hours than other servers. There is also a plausible thing to say that other servers may have players that care less about WvW. This is why I am stating, played hours does not equal players on a server. The chart linked shows total played hours in WvW, Anet saying BG has the most WvW played hours. If you have servers that don't care about WvW as a game type then yes they will have low hours. This chart depending on the players and how much they play is easily skew-able, and is not a good representation of the amount of players. Also a good example is Maguuma, I've watched their population changes from Tier 2, to T1. They go from high positions in all timeslots, to complete opposite when they come up to Tier 1. There is no system anet can put in place to force a server or an alliance to play a game type; that desire has to come from the players want and striving to do better. I am stating that there is a lot more information that goes into a chart like that, and it is not objective or accurate to think that just because BG has the most played hours in WvW that it must equal that we have the most players.

Read carefully. Not only did arena net said BGs NUMBERS doubles that of an average server but they're 30% bigger in active population. Not only does BG outnumber everyone drastically but they also are 30% more active by player hours.

To directly copy what the GM said: There has been some talk about using Blackgate as an example in the post. Blackgate has been at the top of player activity hours in WvW for a very long time in NA. BG's numbers are twice as big as the average world on NA (without world linking) and 30% larger then the average NA host world. I'm not saying Blackgate hasn't suffered losses of players and coverage but BG is still on top for activity. IT'S NOT JUST BLACKGATE though.Here are all the worlds in NA and EU ordered by size names have been omitted to protect the innocent: his/her entire post is about WvW ACTIVITY. Blackgate has been at the top of of PLAYER ACTIVITY HOURS. Those numbers aka hours are twice as big as the average NA world, and 30% larger than a NA+Link. So that's what I am reading. So I stand by my point that activity hours in a game type does not equal player population on a server.

Player activity is the only thing that determines population status. Do you understand. And BG had everyone beat by double. Counting physical accounts is largely pointless because if we were to do that then each server has about 100k+ accounts able to enter wvw. Your points dont make sense. BG is stacked to death. Arena Net pointed it out.

[MaLeVoLenT.8129]

@Raymond Lukes.6305 said:There has been a lot of discussion about the player “evaluation.” We already use play hours to determine population status of a world. With this system, moving people around ever two months we would like to track a few more things that can help us distribute players more effectively. One thing we are looking at tracking is commanding. Commanders are a big part of WvW no matter if your prefer scouting, roaming, running with a havoc squad or the zerg. Commanders are not the only piece to the WvW puzzle but they are a big piece. We would use commander time and squad sizes to determine a scaler to that commander players play time. For example, these are not the real values but I am not even a full cup of coffee in so for my sake I am going to make the math easy, PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC all play for roughly 100 hours a week. PlayerA commands smaller havoc squads, PlayerB is a PUG zerg commander, and PlayerC does not command. For all the time a commander is commanding squads let us say of more than two and less than size ten we’ll count those hours at a one and a half times multiplier and higher than ten we’ll count it at two times. If Player A were always commanding, in the small squad range, while playing their time, adjusted hours would be 150 hours. If PlayerB were always commanding, in the large squad range, while playing, their adjusted hours would be 200. Since Player C did not command their hours, remain the same at 100. Doing this can help us get more even matches. WvW is not completely a number of bodies game. A hundred veteran players will always beat a hundred casual players.

And what if I command without a pin. You saying that you will hinder a alliance size or world size based off someones commanding potency. Makes me not want to wear a pin what so ever.

[CETheLucid.3964]

@SugarCayne.3098 said:... as a pug you don’t care.

Okay? Enjoy your random placement? You choose that. If you want it to be not so random, take active steps to be where you want to be with friends, family, guildies, people you want to play with. You have some months, maybe a year to get it figured out. Get on that buddy.

[Tolmos.8395]

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Raymond Lukes.6305 said:There has been a lot of discussion about the player “evaluation.” We already use play hours to determine population status of a world. With this system, moving people around ever two months we would like to track a few more things that can help us distribute players more effectively. One thing we are looking at tracking is commanding. Commanders are a big part of WvW no matter if your prefer scouting, roaming, running with a havoc squad or the zerg. Commanders are not the only piece to the WvW puzzle but they are a big piece. We would use commander time and squad sizes to determine a scaler to that commander players play time. For example, these are not the real values but I am not even a full cup of coffee in so for my sake I am going to make the math easy, PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC all play for roughly 100 hours a week. PlayerA commands smaller havoc squads, PlayerB is a PUG zerg commander, and PlayerC does not command. For all the time a commander is commanding squads let us say of more than two and less than size ten we’ll count those hours at a one and a half times multiplier and higher than ten we’ll count it at two times. If Player A were always commanding, in the small squad range, while playing their time, adjusted hours would be 150 hours. If PlayerB were always commanding, in the large squad range, while playing, their adjusted hours would be 200. Since Player C did not command their hours, remain the same at 100. Doing this can help us get more even matches. WvW is not completely a number of bodies game. A hundred veteran players will always beat a hundred casual players.

And what if I command without a pin. You saying that you will hinder a alliance size or world size based off someones commanding potency. Makes me not want to wear a pin what so ever.

Honest question here but... why? I mean, what detriment is there to wearing the pin if you are already doing everything else?

[shiri.4257]

Raymond deserves a 2nd promotion. Chaba needs to be hired by Anet as a moderator. All the my dead community cries...chill out. Your community died before linkings when you could only field 20 people throughout prime time and 5 through OCX/Sea in bronze league. For the ones in them "top tier communities." Get a grip, your "community" is a conglomeration of guilds and players that have been moving in and out for a bandwagon for years. If you had to take a look at actual numbers vs the analyzing your community after taking a bong, you'd come to the same conclusion. I bet you couldn't even put 500 people in 1 community guild under the parameters: 1) they were on the server since start and never transferred when the going got tough 2) they actually contributed something to community: ie: gold donations for warchests to buy those "community guilds" onto your server (sarcasm). 3) The guilds that have stayed on your server and anchored it through the rough times prolly don't give a rat's ass about non contributing wvwers like zergbusting teefs and mobile 1 push ACs aka Rangers. What did you do? Log in, capped a camp and yelled "INC, HALP THEY ON LORDS?"

I'd venture to bet "Blackgate Community" consists of 80% immigrants.

[MaLeVoLenT.8129]

@Tolmos.8395 said:

@MaLeVoLenT.8129 said:

@Raymond Lukes.6305 said:There has been a lot of discussion about the player “evaluation.” We already use play hours to determine population status of a world. With this system, moving people around ever two months we would like to track a few more things that can help us distribute players more effectively. One thing we are looking at tracking is commanding. Commanders are a big part of WvW no matter if your prefer scouting, roaming, running with a havoc squad or the zerg. Commanders are not the only piece to the WvW puzzle but they are a big piece. We would use commander time and squad sizes to determine a scaler to that commander players play time. For example, these are not the real values but I am not even a full cup of coffee in so for my sake I am going to make the math easy, PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC all play for roughly 100 hours a week. PlayerA commands smaller havoc squads, PlayerB is a PUG zerg commander, and PlayerC does not command. For all the time a commander is commanding squads let us say of more than two and less than size ten we’ll count those hours at a one and a half times multiplier and higher than ten we’ll count it at two times. If Player A were always commanding, in the small squad range, while playing their time, adjusted hours would be 150 hours. If PlayerB were always commanding, in the large squad range, while playing, their adjusted hours would be 200. Since Player C did not command their hours, remain the same at 100. Doing this can help us get more even matches. WvW is not completely a number of bodies game. A hundred veteran players will always beat a hundred casual players.

And what if I command without a pin. You saying that you will hinder a alliance size or world size based off someones commanding potency. Makes me not want to wear a pin what so ever.

Honest question here but... why? I mean, what detriment is there to wearing the pin if you are already doing everything else?

if they are going to add on 50 more hours to my play time because i command large forces simply for wearing a pin they will adjust me, the preferred way for any fighter is to run without a pin anyway. People will start to do this more so and I will to because its unfair to add on hours played just because I'm an effective commander. Its even more harsh to limit said world, guild or alliance based off someone commanding.

[Slugonaut.9841]

I think random placement could be fun, especially for a mercenary type roaming squad/guild. Specifically choose not to be a part of any alliance and enjoy floating around to different matchups/fights every 8 weeks. At least in theory that sounds kind of fun to me, a way to diversify any kind of stagnation from either straight up server alliance play or even a way to break out of being stuck in a certain tier.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

It sounds good, especially for the hard-core, serious WvWers.

If I understand correctly, though, won't that mean that any new player is going to be stuck in a server with all the other people who have no idea what they're doing? If so, I'm wondering if that is going to be good for the long-term future of WvW.