Without Server (world) identity, what are we fighting for?

[foxof.8752]

Me: "play for fun with friends, and even enemies as they give you the contents."

Anet: "Give them identities, "Alliance Apple", "Alliance Boys", "Alliance Cat",. "Alliance Dog", "Alliance Pepe"....."

[Dean Calaway.9718]

[This message is unwelcomed and was removed.]

Edited September 30, 2021 by Dean Calaway.9718

[Gibson.4036]

Looking at it as war, why can’t your alliance or guild provide enough identity? Throughout history nations have gone to war allied to other nations who they were at war with in the past and would be at war with in the future.

So your identity is in the guild or alliance. This eight week you are part of the allies against the axis, fighting alongside Great Britain and Russia against Germany and Japan. Next eight weeks you are part of NATO resisting the Soviet Union, allied with Great Britain and Germany against Russia. Your identity is French, and you derive your pride in how you rallied against the enemy, whoever they happened to be, and stood strong by the side of your allies, though they may change.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[kash.9213]

On 9/26/2021 at 6:42 AM, Gibson.4036 said:

Looking at it as war, why can’t your alliance or guild provide enough identity? Throughout history nations have gone to war allied to other nations who they were at war with in the past and would be at war with in the future.

So your identity is in the guild or alliance. This eight week you are part of the allies against the axis, fighting alongside Great Britain and Russia against Germany and Japan. Next eight weeks you are part of NATO resisting the Soviet Union, allied with Great Britain and Germany against Russia. Your identity is French, and you derive your pride in how you rallied against the enemy, whoever they happened to be, and stood strong by the side of your allies, though they may change.

Guilds implode and alliances are going to be about placement, they wont care about your identity. Your identity is the people you're running around with the most day to day and that's often not a lot of guildies after scheduled times. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by kash.9213

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, kash.9213 said:

Guilds implode and alliances aren't going to be about placement, they wont care about your identity. Your identity is the people you're running around with the most day to day and that's often not a lot of guildies after scheduled times. 

Placement? The alliance you’re part of is determined by your guild, and the guild you’re part of is determined by you.

Sure, guilds die off. But servers change over the years, too. The only constant is the name. So that’s what’s important? Having a consistent name?

[Chaba.5410]

12 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Looking at it as war, why can’t your alliance or guild provide enough identity? Throughout history nations have gone to war allied to other nations who they were at war with in the past and would be at war with in the future.

So your identity is in the guild or alliance. This eight week you are part of the allies against the axis, fighting alongside Great Britain and Russia against Germany and Japan. Next eight weeks you are part of NATO resisting the Soviet Union, allied with Great Britain and Germany against Russia. Your identity is French, and you derive your pride in how you rallied against the enemy, whoever they happened to be, and stood strong by the side of your allies, though they may change.

This isn't fighting for survival as a people.  WvW is a game, more like sports.  Some leagues have teams that are relatively static and divisions based on team skill level.  Other leagues mix the players up every season to keep things balanced and prevent team stacking so matches remain competitive and fun.  This is no different.

Edited September 27, 2021 by Chaba.5410

[Gibson.4036]

14 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

This isn't fighting for survival as a people.  WvW is a game, more like sports.  Some leagues have teams that are relatively static and divisions based on team skill level.  Other leagues mix the players up every season to keep things balanced and prevent team stacking so matches remain competitive and fun.  This is no different.

Obviously.

The point is it’s possible to find identity in a smaller group even if you end up allied to your enemy next time around.

Though with how seriously some take this, maybe somehow their survival is on the line.

[Chaba.5410]

2 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Obviously.

The point is it’s possible to find identity in a smaller group even if you end up allied to your enemy next time around.

Though with how seriously some take this, maybe somehow their survival is on the line.

Agreed.  A lot of the playerbase already does this through their guild rather than their server.

[Magnuzone.8395]

Alliances will make WvW into yet another EotM. And thats the very idea behind it. Easier to maintain and more of the pvpve style they usually wanted in the first place. But WvW evolved into something they initially didn't want. Who wants a bunch of hard to please WvW veterans that never spend any cash unless they move to another server? What you want is for the pve community that buy gems to get rabbit ears and then show up to do dailies to be happy. 

 

Be careful what you wish for....

[Gibson.4036]

13 minutes ago, Magnuzone.8395 said:

Alliances will make WvW into yet another EotM. 

Can you explain this to me? I’m pretty unfamiliar with WvW history. How are alliances like EotM?

[kash.9213]

On 9/26/2021 at 10:01 AM, Gibson.4036 said:

Placement? The alliance you’re part of is determined by your guild, and the guild you’re part of is determined by you.

Sure, guilds die off. But servers change over the years, too. The only constant is the name. So that’s what’s important? Having a consistent name?

The name isn't the only constant on a server, why would you say that? Even after a long stretch of being the link instead of the host, NSP still has it's own vibe and I'm not sure we even have guilds left. Mag is still mostly the same Mag from years ago and none of those guilds look the same. You're putting too much stock into guilds and too much trust into alliances that aren't even a thing yet. We can blame Anet for the state of WvW as much as we want but it's the playerbase and mostly those guilds who have no loyalty or concern for individuals who move around and game the system that's left most matchups lopsided or vacant. 

[Dawdler.8521]

5 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

The name isn't the only constant on a server, why would you say that? Even after a long stretch of being the link instead of the host, NSP still has it's own vibe and I'm not sure we even have guilds left. Mag is still mostly the same Mag from years ago and none of those guilds look the same. You're putting too much stock into guilds and too much trust into alliances that aren't even a thing yet. We can blame Anet for the state of WvW as much as we want but it's the playerbase and mostly those guilds who have no loyalty or concern for individuals who move around and game the system that's left most matchups lopsided or vacant. 

But you're just describing exactly why the alliance matchmaker is needed for WvW.

[kash.9213]

10 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

But you're just describing exactly why the alliance matchmaker is needed for WvW.

I don't think breaking up servers and scattering people is needed for WvW. The structure itself is stale and and giving even more control of players time to guild leaders isn't the shake up WvW needs. 

[Skynet.7201]

The better question would be this.

What are we fighting for right now???

[Gibson.4036]

17 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

You're putting too much stock into guilds and too much trust into alliances that aren't even a thing yet.

Well, I'm not saying guilds will suddenly fill the gap of team identity and spirit, but I also don't assume they'll be worse than what servers have become.

I've been on Sanctum of Rall since launch day. I had a big break from the game, so I don't know what its history has been over the last nine years. When I joined, though, I saw it as a server with a friendly, community kind of vibe. In a wonderful show of heart on the part of ArenaNet, they named it because a guild had one of its members who was looking forward to GW2 pass away before launch. I always felt that kind of heart was reflected in many who chose the server as home.

It wasn't super competitive. As far as I know it's always been middling in its WvW standing. I'm a little sad to lose the chance to fight for a server that I've always had a fondness for. But I know a lot of that is pretty vague, amorphous perception. I have no idea how many people who are still on SoR even know where it got it's name, or that at launch it had a quality of being one of the "maybe not so competitive, but a lot of heart" servers. 

And I know people will create meaning. It's built into who we are as humans. Maybe guilds won't become rallying banners. Maybe alliances won't engender loyalty and pride. But maybe they will. And as Skynet pointed out, I don't see server pride as being all that strong right now that we should be wringing our hands over what the loss of server identity will mean.

[Xenesis.6389]

43 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Well, I'm not saying guilds will suddenly fill the gap of team identity and spirit, but I also don't assume they'll be worse than what servers have become.

I've been on Sanctum of Rall since launch day. I had a big break from the game, so I don't know what its history has been over the last nine years. When I joined, though, I saw it as a server with a friendly, community kind of vibe. In a wonderful show of heart on the part of ArenaNet, they named it because a guild had one of its members who was looking forward to GW2 pass away before launch. I always felt that kind of heart was reflected in many who chose the server as home.

It wasn't super competitive.

As far as I know it's always been middling in its WvW standing. I'm a little sad to lose the chance to fight for a server that I've always had a fondness for. But I know a lot of that is pretty vague, amorphous perception. I have no idea how many people who are still on SoR even know where it got it's name, or that at launch it had a quality of being one of the "maybe not so competitive, but a lot of heart" servers. 

And I know people will create meaning. It's built into who we are as humans. Maybe guilds won't become rallying banners. Maybe alliances won't engender loyalty and pride. But maybe they will. And as Skynet pointed out, I don't see server pride as being all that strong right now that we should be wringing our hands over what the loss of server identity will mean.

 

lol..... history lesson...

 

 

They gave up first week of tournament, they had elitist guilds that hated pugs, and the server imploded after that.

 

[Gibson.4036]

On 9/29/2021 at 2:06 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

lol..... history lesson...

 

 

They gave up first week of tournament, they had elitist guilds that hated pugs, and the server imploded after that.

 

That's cool. Kinda proves my point. I have a memory of what SoR was supposed to be at launch. Not even what it was, but the idea I picked up at the beginning. I was around the game for a little while, then took a long break, so I don't know the history of the server. I also barely touched WvW back then.

But I know these things are ephemeral, subjective. Which is why I have a healthy doubt when people say that server identity is so important now, 9 years into the game, and that alliances will destroy WvW once and for all.

____________

EDIT: I should add, that in my last few weeks as a WvW newcomer (pretty much), I have only had two negative experiences with fellow SoR members. One who whispered me an inappropriate sexual comment about my toon. The other who was grousing in /map about the lack of coordination between groups on our side.

With the rest of my experience I've found SoR WvWers to be helpful, intelligent, determined and gracious.

____________

Evern heard of Dunbar's number? Robin Dunbar is an anthropologist who posited that, due to our human brain structure, we can only really maintain a significant relationship with any depth with about 150 people. Beyond that, we really have a relationship with shared ideas and goals. It's possible that by limiting the group we can identify with in WvW to fewer than 500, we'll be able to form deeper, stronger identity than with the thousands and thousands on our "server", because we can have a real relationship with a greater portion, rather than a vague notion of "what this server is about".

Edited October 5, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[Gibson.4036]

Another thought, Alliances should give clearer bragging rights to winners. If your Alliance keeps getting rematched with different Alliances, but you are consistently on the winning team, it marks your Alliance as the contributing factor. I would think that would lead to more pride than being part of a stacked server.

Edited September 29, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[kash.9213]

33 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Another thought, Alliances should give clearer bragging rights to winners. If your Alliance keeps getting rematched with different Alliances, but you are consistently on the winning team, it marks your Alliance as the contributing factor. I would think that would lead to more pride than being part of a stacked server.

However proud people are right now for stacking servers is about how proud they'll be cleaning out and stacking guilds for alliances. 

[Gibson.4036]

1 minute ago, kash.9213 said:

However proud people are right now for stacking servers is about how proud they'll be cleaning out and stacking guilds for alliances. 

With the exception of the people that flock to stacked servers but don't actually make the cut for the 500 person leet alliances.

Maybe.

Maybe there will be an increase in pride because the elite will be able to say they've got a 500 person limit, so people can't just claim their server is overloaded with players?

[Leaa.2943]

On 9/25/2021 at 6:21 AM, subversiontwo.7501 said:

In all fairness, a "bandwagoner" is someone who transfers to a place where it is popular to transfer (to "win", to gain access to existing content rather than attempt to build content where it is low, etc.). With that in mind, most servers have bandwagoners. If someone tails the WSR core around, they are bandwagoners. However, if someone comes to these forums and asks where there are alot of nice, social and somewhat casual players and gets directed to stack Gandara deep into full: They are also a bandwagoner.

I don't really care about whatever % of the population it is, but I think it is apt to point out that alot of people here on the forums confuse who- or what a bandwagon(er) is: It is usually not whoever triggers the migration, it is whoever follows the migration. It is especially important to underline in a thread about "server pride", because alot of the people who espouse server pride and points fingers at others are many times the bandwagoners themselves (eg., they have transfered to some relative healthy server at one point [content or tier] and then they drape themselves in that server's "pride"). In fact, having a "server identity" makes people more likely to be or become bandwagoners even though there are indeed some guilds that follow other guilds around.

 

I think you are very aware of that we both know what a bandwagon server is and everything else, consider we are in the same guild....

 

As for your last thoughts. It is kind of interersting what you are saying because most servers in EU are broken due to links and bandwagons.. Gandara who never was the bandwagon server and always kept their comunity is the most functional servers in whole EU: Now i am not saying we are the best or anything even close to that, i am just saying we are no bandwagoners, we never where and have the most helathy WvW comunity who is involved in the daily WvW every day. 

 

This will obviously break when alliances are comming since we can not move the whole server to one world with alliances or what ever it will be called. In EU today there are many old veteran players with a lot of knowledge no doubt about that. But half of those are make, break and remake guilds who changes every other month, because this time we will rock and it will be great with the same players with the same ego, with the same outcome and then they go on a break until a new guild reform. Again they have a lot of knowledge but i don't see how they will lead WvW alliances in to something good. 

 

Then we have the smaller and medium guilds who is rading, some do gvg and some dont. Some are very good others not so much and some are climbing. This people still the passion left, they might be able to run some of the alliances and do some good with it. 

 

Then we have the PvE guilds who will join and do what ever they will do which will maybe work but likely not, at least not in EU where we still have a lot of veterans who is gonna eat them for dinner. But yes they will be alliances for sure. 

 

Then we have the obscure guilds, small guilds with people like you and me who done our share of WvW in all shapes and forms and are pretty content with what we do and rather want to go on doing that then being stuck in one thing. And if we are it usually ends up with a make, break and remake tyep of thing so we go back to the old guild. (i am not saying you will do that when alliances are comming i am jus trying to bring up why alliances in EU wont work) and also the other guilds such as comunity guilds, roaming guilds all of them good people but none of them will work on their own. 

 

And that leads up to a point that i have. WvW today is about fights, about structures and all that stuff we done for all this years. MANY servers in EU have given up on structures and dont give a kitten about it, well at least not as long as someone on the server do and make the ppt they need for the people wanting to log in and having wp to move smooth on the map and so on. But at some point this ppt and ppk people clash together and stop helping eachother and now you have a map that owns nothing. People log on and see it and log out. Guilds run gvg and fights for a while but then they realise there are no people around at all. And now they move to EotM or OS because faster to go there. And your WvW structure is gone and EotM and OS is what is left because the others see no reason to do anything if the server/world or what ever dont work together. 

 

This have happen in EU on SO many servers. You have alt accounts, i have alt accounts you must have seen it too and heard people start talking about kittening dead server and what they wanted is somehow not what they wanted and now it is dead. And they move. 

 

So because of all the differences in EU WvW, because of eveyrthing that is going on and how Anet is breaking EU for each relink. I dont see how anyhthing of this is gonna change with alliances. GvG guilds will go to EotM and OS and maybe even guildhalls if is true whats been said about the new one, and everything else will either make or break. 

 

In NA they always run with guilds. Guild raids are nearly always "open" and with open i dont mean open mic, but more, hey i am on scrapper can i run with you guys tonight, sure join our discord/ts and you are much welcome. Obviously not always but that is the structure NA have. EU don't. Guild in EU run their thing and they should if that is what they want, i am just pointing out that alliances might work better in NA then in EU. 

 

Look i wrote just as much as you do 🙂

Also i log in to this forum once in a moon so dont expect answewr until some where in future 😛

[Stand The Wall.6987]

fight with your guild to get good fights. what the hell else for?

[Custodio.6134]

Well, i guess i´m repeating a lot of stuff that has been already said, but there are multiple things you could consider "fighting for" without referring to the servers. 

1. your alliance-guild (specifically the guild, not the whole alliance). That´s also a big part of the status quo already, at least for the more progressive players regularily raiding in a WvW-guild. Yes, the guild is part of the Server, and the guild is fighting for the server, but the removal of the specific server won´t change your style of play, or your goals. 

2. your alliance (consisting out of multiple guilds). As we know from the initial Beta, the "alliance" and "team" are one and the same. So you could consider the alliance your new "Server". If you don´t frequently change your alliance-guild, the composition of your alliance will not change too much (yes, there will be guilds getting added and removed from your chosen alliance, but the core of players YOU chose to join shouldn´t fundamentally change). At least the changes shouldn´t be more frequent than guilds hopping from server to server currently. 

and, as guilds now become more important, here a few guild-related thoughts: 

1. improvement. You can always improve your gameplay, be it solo-roaming, smallscale or zerging. A dedicated WvW-guild helps a lot in that matter. 

2. "prestige". probably the most boring one, but if you can keep up in a top-tier of the WvW-Ranking, it´s the "satisfaction" of standing on the top of the leaderboard. There are players that have only this one goal. 

also you have to consider: 
many server-communities have already either made a new guild to move their player-base into the same alliance, or re-structured a community-guild to server as alliance-guild for the players from their server, in order to mostly keep the old server consistent during the beta, and perhaps the final release. In most cases (not counting the mistakes ANet already admitted that were not intentional) those communites stayed together. And the rest of the slots got filled with players that didn´t care for "server identity" anyway. 

The only thing i agree on "missing" is some type of reward that gets granted for winning a matchup. There is no real incentive to win a matchup currently, and sometimes the imbalance of teams discourages from winning a match, if you already know that your next enemy will be overstacked. BUT: if the alliance-system is able to properly balance population and activity, while preventing bandwagoning/overstacking this won´t be that much of a problem anymore. 

ofc, assuming that it works as intended

[AlCapwnd.7834]

On 9/23/2021 at 2:55 AM, SweetPotato.7456 said:

What are we fighting for when the server identity is removed and all that's left is but a label or name plate. 

Bags. Its all about BAGS baby!