Why do we need Alliances?

[Playmate.8521]

Dont get me wrong, but i dont get why we need alliances. In fact this beta now is just changing Servernames to other Servernames and mixing Players (guilds) and thats it. It makes the life easier for Serverhopping Guilds/People but is this what you want? Helping people to hop servers easy and fast? Destoying existing communitys?

 

I know alliances from Guild Wars 1 - it was Kurzick and Luxon and we had one Map we fought against and got points and then we could donate to points to our ally and if we had enough points we could hold a city with a VIP area for the ally members. So it made a sense to be in an ally but i dont see the sense in GW2 - please explain it to me, what this beta has to do with alliance and why we need this in wvw. Oh and my Server isnt good in wvw but i still stay on this server because i love the "vibes" we have there - i feel like home when i join wvw map, even when we have a drama im teamchat. And now its just bs for me. I play wvw since 2012 and i dont see a future for me in wvw with this ally-bs.

[James.3982]

Sure, in short: Better matchup ACTIVITY balance - MORE Pride in communities/Alliances.


Server Pride/Communities: Since you played from 2012, you probably remember when the servers actually meant something. Back when you would teleport to PVE, Lion's Arch, and ask for help in EBG. Nowadays server communities mean less and majority of the players changing homes do that to: Find more competition, more opponents and enemy activity - or stronger server communities to join and win more fights and rewards. Server pride or server events mean less and less.

Alliances are supposed to bring back some of that pride and meaning behind YOUR TEAM. Since now you can create your own alliance and train and improve to challenge others. Next up Anet has told that they'll be working on WvW rewards - hopefully finding good rewards for well performing alliances.

Server Balance (For balanced activity in matchups!):
Right now - all Anet has are Worlds. They look into player activity in certain World and pair them together as evenly as possible.

With the Alliance system, you would have:
Worlds - Alliances - individual guilds outside alliances - individual players outside guilds.
These options give you a lot more freedom to try and balance Worlds/Matchups to have as even activity as possible. (or even reduce the number of worlds if there is not enough action to go around.)
Balancing the fighting power of an alliance is impossible, that is up to the players. Stacking will still happen, but activity of each world is way easier to balance.


Hope that helps o/ There is no perfect system, but it'll be much better than what we have right now.

[Playmate.8521]

Server Pride/Communities <- Alliances destroy "my Team" - it isnt possbile to get all people together - on our Server it was possible. Many People i know (veterans) said already, they will stop playing wvw when alliances really start - and i can understand it. I repeat, NOW it was just sending ppl on different "new" servers. There will be no stability anymore, because when your "server" is bad you choose for the next week a other server from your list/create a new guild. It will be worse than it is now with the server hopper.  (Btw an alliance was a community of 10 guilds and not just one guild randomly mixed with other guilds)

 

 

Server Balance (For balanced activity in matchups!): <- one server will be always ***** up. People from our Guild, which didnt get on the right server are now on servers without any activity. I know its just a beta test but this is how wvw works. Its impossible to get a balance between the servers. If you want balanced fights you need to organise GvG - you cant control wvw activity (maybe when you reduce the maximum players per map). 

 

I repeat this part again - it just helps the serverhopper-guilds because they dont have to spend money to change servers. Reduce one Server and make wvwvw to wvw (2 teams) and then you have a better chance to get balanced matchups but not with 3 teams. Just look how it was in GW1 with the kurzick and luxon fights/pride. The solution is near and still so far. But lets destroy wvwvw first. 

[IIIIIIIIII.7930]

We dont need alliances and they will never work. This game's player base is too casual for something like forced guilds to work. This whole scheme looks like the hardcore/gvg playerbase paying off the devs so they can badwagon for free. Server pride/identity actually does exist (at least on NA) for most communities. While people aren't as nationalist about it as they were 8 years ago, most people actually do settle down and are more or less satisfied with the communities and relationships they built over the past 8 years. It's the only the hardcore players that have an identity crisis, constantly moving servers to find fulfilment (and never succeeding). 

[Chaba.5410]

Hardcore players don't move servers because of an identity crisis.  They move because of content issues.  Servers are hollowed out shells of what they once were.
 

[jul.7602]

24 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Hardcore players don't move servers because of an identity crisis.  They move because of content issues.  Servers are hollowed out shells of what they once were.
 

By moving, you mean bandwagon? The reason they have no content is because they bandwagon to 1/2 servers, and then nobody wants to fight them; or they have nobody to fight. IDK about your observations, but my server seems to be doing just fine.

[Chaba.5410]

7 minutes ago, jul.7602 said:

By moving, you mean bandwagon? The reason they have no content is because they bandwagon to 1/2 servers, and then nobody wants to fight them; or they have nobody to fight. IDK about your observations, but my server seems to be doing just fine.

What does that have to do with moving because of identity crisis?

They move because of content issues, like you just confirmed.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Chaba.5410

[Playmate.8521]

1 hour ago, Chaba.5410 said:

What does that have to do with moving because of identity crisis?

They move because of content issues, like you just confirmed.

 

i think he means, that this is the Problem - many move because they dont have anyone left to fight and moving does not really help. Thats a content issues they made by themself.

 

WvWvW isnt GvG - and the most just move servers because of GvG. Like the guy earlier said its about server pride too and ppl leaving a server just because of enemies that isnt server pride. I dont get why anet cant give them GvG tournaments etc? (btw im sorry i have no clue about pvp in gw2 - so i dont know anything about the pvp content). If you all want GvG instead of WvWvW then we just make the maps smaller and make restrictions for the maps. So the GvG Players have their maps without any pugs. 

 

WvWvW is like a "home" for me, people i know (since 2012), people i like, people i dont like, it feels good to follow a commander or be the commander, help my server to defend a tower or keep, trashtalking, our trolls, our drama - thats my server and not just an alliance that changes every x weeks, our server has personality. I dont care if we loose or win a matchup - i dont wanna loose them all because some super serious gvg players need more ?!?!content?!?!? in wvwvw

And nearly all people are in differnt guilds with different goals - some are wvw only, others focussed on pve others for raids/fractals - also the restrictions are different. Im since 10 years in my guild... And why do they call this alliance when its all about the guild you in? Yout cant choose the other guilds you get mixed in wvw -so it is totally random.

btw sorry for my terrible english - its not my native language - i hope you understand my point. 

Edited October 16, 2022 by Playmate.8521

[Chaba.5410]

18 minutes ago, Playmate.8521 said:

 

i think he means, that this is the Problem - many move because they dont have anyone left to fight and moving does not really help. Thats a content issues they made by themself.

 

WvWvW isnt GvG - and the most just move servers because of GvG. Like the guy earlier said its about server pride too and ppl leaving a server just because of enemies that isnt server pride. I dont get why anet cant give them GvG tournaments etc? (btw im sorry i have no clue about pvp in gw2 - so i dont know anything about the pvp content). If you all want GvG instead of WvWvW then we just make the maps smaller and make restrictions for the maps. So the GvG Players have their maps without any pugs. 

 

WvWvW is like a "home" for me, people i know (since 2012), people i like, people i dont like, it feels good to follow a commander or be the commander, help my server to defend a tower or keep, trashtalking, our trolls, our drama - thats my server and not just an alliance that changes every x weeks, our server has personality. I dont care if we loose or win a matchup - i dont wanna loose them all because some super serious gvg players need more ?!?!content?!?!? in wvwvw

And nearly all people are in differnt guilds with different goals - some are wvw only, others focussed on pve others for raids/fractals - also the restrictions are different. Im since 10 years in my guild... And why do they call this alliance when its all about the guild you in? Yout cant choose the other guilds you get mixed in wvw -so it is totally random.

btw sorry for my terrible english - its not my native language - i hope you understand my point. 

I agree that moving around doesn't always help.  Players have very little transparency into server populations.

But the content issue isn't only a player-created problem caused by players moving around.  It's from players simply leaving the game entirely or returning after a number of years.  We're stuck with a static system right now that is unable to adequately respond to the dynamic fluctuations of population that causes holes in content availability.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Imagine WvW being a House.

When you dont invest time into repairing things, it slowly falls apart. And thats excatly what happend.

We asked Anet to fix the leaking sink.

We asked Anet to fix the broken Door.

Nothing happend.

 

So now, so many problems piled up, that its "easier" to build a new House.

 

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Playmate.8521 said:

- i dont wanna loose them all because some super serious gvg players need more ?!?!content?!?!?in wvwvw

The sad thing is: you don't even realize that this has nothing to do with gvg.

 

GvG exists as it always has and in fact actually flourishes when regular WvW is bad. When guilds have to leave borders and organize fights only to find fun, that's a lot easier when the regular experience is bad. A couple of years ago the GvG scene was something a few guilds would do on the side while not fighting on border. Now it's pretty much the only way to ensure somewhat guaranteed content for many.

 

The sad part here: you claim WvW is your home since 2012, but fail to realize in what a decline the mode has been in for years. Your willfully ignorance of how much the mode has degenerated will hardly save it. Well unless you are happy with 1 sided karma trains for a majority of the week or enjoy just loging in for the occasional reset hoping for some content.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[jul.7602]

Quote

1 hour ago, Chaba.5410 said:

I agree that moving around doesn't always help.  Players have very little transparency into server populations.

But the content issue isn't only a player-created problem caused by players moving around.  It's from players simply leaving the game entirely or returning after a number of years.  We're stuck with a static system right now that is unable to adequately respond to the dynamic fluctuations of population that causes holes in content availability.

 

That bold part is highly questionable. Guild leaders generally have an idea, or at least its very easy to figure out which major guilds are already active on a given server, as well as generally how big their major time zones are. For example, the latest failed bandwagon was Eredon Terrace/IoJ. Indo knew kitten well that that server pairing was already stacked because of the growth of ET, and that IoJ was already a relatively large link server anyway. Didn't stop him from trying to restart the bandwagon by transferring his entire alliance there. People need to come to terms with the truth that the 'dynamic fluctuation' (codename: bandwagon) is entirely driven by player psychology. 

 

Alliances wont stop people from trying to bandwagon, and nor will it allow for better response to population fluctuations relative to the current system. People will find a way to stack the alliances and screw with the matchmaker; that's why we have a tier system, so that in the end the stacked servers only end up fighting other stacked servers. The only sure thing I can see alliances accomplishing is the destruction of 8-9 years of community building that players have made., and probably waste of 1-2 years worth of developer salary and productivity.

[Cyninja.2954]

30 minutes ago, jul.7602 said:

Alliances wont stop people from trying to bandwagon, and nor will it allow for better response to population fluctuations relative to the current system.

This is not only about stacking or preventing of stacking. It's designed to change the system to be more granular instead of big server chunks. It doesn't take much thought to figure out that balancing around smaller components allows for better and more equally balanced sides.

Once that is improved, the developers are free to intervene or improve abuse or other issues, say like rewards.

30 minutes ago, jul.7602 said:

People will find a way to stack the alliances and screw with the matchmaker; that's why we have a tier system, so that in the end the stacked servers only end up fighting other stacked servers. The only sure thing I can see alliances accomplishing is the destruction of 8-9 years of community building that players have made., and probably waste of 1-2 years worth of developer salary and productivity.

Most server communities are already only minor guilds at best. Some are not even that. If your best argument is:"but my server community" then you've already lost because your server community is worth diddly squat when it can't keep the mode alive.

If server communities keep bleeding players or fail to attract new players as is now, besides the band-wagoners which hop around, I fail to see how this is an argument for the status quo.

Well unless as I said earlier: you enjoy the current state of wvw and the karma train and unbalanced mess (population wise) it has become. Basically proving all the non WvW naysayers right that this mode is a glorified circle-jerk of pve. The 5 remaining spvp players will be having a field day.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[One more for the road.8950]

I don't know why it is so hard understand that transferring not might actually mean bandwagoning.

Bandwagoning is when several go together to make one server strong, either by several guilds and individuals moving to one server at the same time or by guilds going to already strong servers with existing good guilds or well working population.

Transferring is something you do because there is no content for you currently on the server you are on, for example lack of guilds or people catering to your interests as a single player, or smaller/medium guilds moving perhaps due to server environment.

If you are on a server with a somewhat ok environment -maybe even with server pride since I see this being brought up - and mix of guilds and content to offer, good to be you and there is no reason to move anywhere. For those that do not, transferring is a way to get away from current state, be it conflicts, disagreements, needing fresh recruiting grounds or just to get away from dead server. But it's costly to wander from server to server to find a community or guild that fits you, so having a system like the alliance system will help those unfortunate to not have that. NOT implementing this or not do any changes at all, just means that the servers those that finds themselves in a well populated one fitting them like a glove will get less and less activity from enemy servers and will in turn see a loss of activity on theirs.

A server turning "dead" doesn't mean everyone just transferred from it either, it can mean people just stopped playing. Left the game. Are having a break. Is playing something else. May or may not come back. Gave up on WvW and is just doing PvE.

And GvG doesn't have jack all to do with this as long as it's done in EotM - as you don't even have to be on the same server to be on the same team in GvG.

[jul.7602]

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

This is not only about stacking or preventing of stacking. It's designed to change the system to be more granular instead of big server chunks. It doesn't take much thought to figure out that balancing around smaller components allows for better and more equally balanced sides.

Once that is improved, the developers are free to intervene or improve abuse or other issues, say like rewards.

Most server communities are already only minor guilds at best. Some are not even that. If your best argument is:"but my server community" then you've already lost because your server community is worth diddly squat when it can't keep the mode alive.

If server communities keep bleeding players or fail to attract new players as is now, besides the band-wagoners which hop around, I fail to see how this is an argument for the status quo.

Well unless as I said earlier: you enjoy the current state of wvw and the karma train and unbalanced mess (population wise) it has become. Basically proving all the non WvW naysayers right that this mode is a glorified circle-jerk of pve. The 5 remaining spvp players will be having a field day.

A 'balanced' match up requires much more than roughly equal numbers across time-zones. Server organization, guilds and skill play a massive role as well, which isn't going to be addressed with alliances either. As an example, there are currently 6 servers rated as "full" which means that most of the T2 and T1 servers already have approximately equal populations. However, only two (maybe 3 if we count SOS) of these servers (Maguuma and Blackgate) are seen as T1 servers.  Even though alliances will have smaller chunks, you'll still have vast differences in organization capability, number of commanders, coverage, guilds and number of skilled players. A shard that consists of say two mega alliances (500 active players) with carefully selected off-time guilds, commanders ect. will still end up destroying a shard that consists of say 7 100 man alliances +300 freelancers. My point is that in both systems, major parameters are not ever going to be meaningfully controlled for, and that the only realistic way to achieve 'balanced' match ups is by using the same tier structure we have now; where stronger/larger/whatever servers naturally float to T1 to fight similarly capable servers.  

 

Developers can work/revamp rewards whenever they feel like; I don't see any convincing reason why they can't work on rewards or other areas before improving match-up balance. In fact, compared to the beginning of the game rewards in WvW have improved exponentially every 2-3 years, so they worked on and improved rewards (and other areas) independently of match-up balance; it's merely a labor/return on investment issue. Speaking of that; in the likely 3 or more years Anet spent developing alliances, we probably could have had like 7-8 mega patches that could have easily revitalized WvW. Instead they are wasting years of development on a system that wont meaningfully change match up balance, and will destroy server communities.

 

How are you empirically gauging the size of the server community, let alone the utility/importance of said server community? Everyone just keeps asserting that without giving any proof or even close to objective measurements.  Most of these host servers have communities that have persisted 6+ years, or in some cases almost a decade. Many of those server have guilds/players that have settled on those servers just as long. The empirical evidence strongly suggests that there actually is some form of server community. This is after all a social MMO, not too surprising. 

Edited October 16, 2022 by jul.7602

[Chaba.5410]

2 hours ago, jul.7602 said:

That bold part is highly questionable. Guild leaders generally have an idea, or at least its very easy to figure out which major guilds are already active on a given server, as well as generally how big their major time zones are.

Highly questionable on what grounds?  "Generally have an idea" isn't an accurate view at all and the implication that players' one dimensional view of population is proof of the full picture is absurd.  If you want the truth about population, you'd work with actual live data from the view of the entire system, not spreadsheets people use to keep track of where guilds are located and what timezones they play in.  Players do not have the transparency you pretend they do to make good informed decisions about servers they move to.  A number of years ago I knew a few players who moved to a lower tier server because they wanted to get away from blobs.  They ended up picking a server that got bandwagoned to just days after they transferred.  Had they known at the time, they wouldn't have transferred.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Chaba.5410

[jul.7602]

7 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Highly questionable on what grounds?  "Generally have an idea" isn't an accurate view at all and the implication that players' one dimensional view of population is proof of the full picture is absurd.  If you want the truth about population, you'd work with actual live data from the view of the entire system, not spreadsheets people use to keep track of where guilds are located and what timezones they play in.

I think this is missing the point. The objective is not to compute the exact population a potential server. Indo's been playing this game for over a decade, and leading one of the largest communities for almost as long, with possibly a dozen+ officers/secondary leaders. I'm fairly certain that however he selects his servers; he has a relatively informed view on the number of active wvw guilds on that server. In spite of this, people generally don't think too much about the balance of WvW when they decide to transfer. As I said before, people can, and will stack alliances the same way we stack links, and there is nothing anet can do about it. 

Edited October 16, 2022 by jul.7602

[Chaba.5410]

29 minutes ago, jul.7602 said:

where stronger/larger/whatever servers naturally float to T1 to fight similarly capable servers. 

Where do you get this idea that some servers are supposed to be larger than others?  Everything advertised about world restructuring, and even back when server links were made, talk about reducing the disparity in sizes between servers.

[Chaba.5410]

11 minutes ago, jul.7602 said:

I think this is missing the point. The objective is not to compute the exact population a potential server. Indo's been playing this game for over a decade, and leading one of the largest communities for almost as long, with possibly a dozen+ officers/secondary leaders. I'm fairly certain that however he selects his servers; he has a relatively informed view on the number of active wvw guilds on that server. In spite of this, people generally don't think too much about the balance of WvW when they decide to transfer. As I said before, people can, and will stack alliances the same way we stack links, and there is nothing anet can do about it. 

And I think you were missing the point about transparency into server populations.  Indo may do some due diligence in deciding on where he moves, but his view is still one-sided.  He has zero clue as to whether the server he picks is the same one some other group that doesn't care about Indo nor talks with him also decides to move to.  He also doesn't know if players on that server move off it when he moves to it.  Players all make decisions without the full picture.

The world restructuring system does consider the exact population.  That is the main objective, especially if we're talking on-topic to answer the question of why we need "alliances".

[jul.7602]

31 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Where do you get this idea that some servers are supposed to be larger than others?  Everything advertised about world restructuring, and even back when server links were made, talk about reducing the disparity in sizes between servers.

It is mathematically impossible for all servers to be the same size, and stay at the same size for a 2-month period because player activity is not fixed, and likely impossible to perfectly forecast over a period of 2months. Anet obviously knows this, and as far as I am aware, their priority was never to strictly enforce that all servers be exactly the same size. The only thing we know about server sizes is that Anet sets an upper range for how populated a server can be ("full status"), and likely a lower range for how small a server can be before they are discontinued/merged. Server populations, by definition all fall within the acceptable server range determined by Anet thus implying that they expect server populations to have some variation in them. 

 

Anet's stated goals for alliances are (1) for players to have more flexibility in playing with whom they want and (2) to have more balanced match ups. That means a lot of things need to be taken into account such as coverage and individual player activity, and much more.

 

 

 

 

[Dawdler.8521]

4 hours ago, jul.7602 said:

 and (2) to have more balanced match ups. That means a lot of things need to be taken into account such as coverage and individual player activity, and much more.

They dont have to take that into account, really.

If a matchup today is 4000 vs 3000 vs 2000 players and under world restructure it would be 3000 vs 3000 vs 3000, is it not more balanced? You put the emphasis on the wrong word.

[Widebody.5071]

Same thing said many years ago, no content, no one to fight, servers are empty. But I hear the actual PVP servers are dead too, IDK... Maybe the hardcore can move over to PVP and bring it back to life, that'll be a good way to contribute to the community and maybe take some of the stress off of the developers.

Retail can be such a demanding industry. 

 

[TheGrimm.5624]

8 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

If your best argument is:"but my server community" then you've already lost because your server community is worth diddly squat when it can't keep the mode alive.

 

Actually your wrong. Server communities is the only thing that has keep the population in place. Why else would people have stuck with a game mode that receives no changes. Some of us are waiting on Alliances not for the Alliance bit at all but so we can get to some development that has backlogged behind the scapecoat that Alliances have become. Know a lot of people that play the game for the people and not for the game. ArenaNet needs to understand its got WvW players because the people that play it are for the people that play it. That's what the Server pride side is about and has keep people. So if they do Alliances and call for another break they will end up losing more people afterwards if additional change isn't seen to refresh the sandbox. Alliances will happen at this point and people need to prepare for them, but don't discount the amount of people that play to see familiar faces, WvW is that waterhole that you may go to see familiar faces even if they aren't in the same guild. 

[Cyninja.2954]

58 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

 

Actually your wrong. Server communities is the only thing that has keep the population in place. Why else would people have stuck with a game mode that receives no changes. Some of us are waiting on Alliances not for the Alliance bit at all but so we can get to some development that has backlogged behind the scapecoat that Alliances have become. Know a lot of people that play the game for the people and not for the game. ArenaNet needs to understand its got WvW players because the people that play it are for the people that play it. That's what the Server pride side is about and has keep people. So if they do Alliances and call for another break they will end up losing more people afterwards if additional change isn't seen to refresh the sandbox. Alliances will happen at this point and people need to prepare for them, but don't discount the amount of people that play to see familiar faces, WvW is that waterhole that you may go to see familiar faces even if they aren't in the same guild. 

and I disagree.

I didn't say server communities prevented players from staying. On the contrary, I absolutely agree that they are a factor which benefits the game mode. I said they are not the primary reason players join or stay with the mode at this point.

I'd make the argument that guilds and friends have a far larger impact on player retention by now and those are not server community only.

While uneven or one-sided teams as well as general lack of players especially in lower brackets have a far greater impact on players than either.

In an ideal world we would have the olden times again and a system where server communities can flourish and exist. Unfortunately with the current trajectory of the modes population, which has known basically only 2 directions: stagnation or decline, the current system in place doesn't work.

The argument is often brought up: well alliances won't solve the issue either. That might very well be true. It might be that if alliances and the new player redistribution do arrive, the mode becomes worse (especially since some creative and design elements are placed in player hands, aka guild and alliances). The main problem though is: while the former is a gamble, we know that the current system definitely won't work long-term(depends on defining what "work" means, sure one could continue linking more and more server and that would allow for the current WvW mode to continue existing for a few years).

The question is: is that the extent of effort players want for the mode? Are players, especially the ones who have been around for many years, really happy with where we are at now? It used to be that at least during prime time borders were full. Guilds would run or public commanders would open tag not only on reset. Some leads would be leading for hours on end to fight and interact with the other side, not only run circles to capture undefended objectives. The current WvW mode is a meager shadow of its former self, in part due to neglect from a developers standpoints, in part do to balance changes and in part simply because the player base has gotten to small.

I can understand and sympathize with players not wanting change, but I can't agree with it. The mode has declined to much at this point imo as that I personally would be happy with a "let's merrily keep riding into the sunset until no one is left" approach.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Zok.4956]

1 hour ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Server communities is the only thing that has keep the population in place.

Sure, in general: Social communities are a main reason for players staying in a MMORPG even if they are "done" with that game or a game mode. So, I agree that communities are a big reason why WvW still has (some) players. But it's not just server communities.

In WvW you do not only have server communities, you have also (internal) guild communities. In the past, in the good old days, guild communities were also a part of the community of a server. But with more and more guilds doing server hopping, those guilds (and their members) are not really a part of the server community anymore, like they were in the past. For those the server community or loyalty to a server is of little or no importance, compared to their guild community.

With alliances, the server communities (even the few that still exist) will be gone and the only remaining communities will be guild communities (an alliance is a guild of guilds) and the players that will not be member of an alliance/guild (for different reasons) will become the randoms/homeless of WvW and some of them will leave the game mode completely.

Anet stated that they don't want Alliances/Guilds dominate a server. But how they want to achieve this is still unclear. Maybe they don't know it yet and have no idea how all this will work out in the end and how this will change the game mode. Maybe the reason why Anet continued (with low priority and low assigned ressources) working on Alliances after they dumped it for a long time, is because they have no other/better ideas for the game mode.

Or maybe Anet hopes that player retention will increase in the future if they move from server based communities to guild/alliance based comunities and the players Anet loses because of this transition is an acceptable loss.

 

1 hour ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Some of us are waiting on Alliances not for the Alliance bit at all but so we can get to some development that has backlogged behind the scapecoat that Alliances have become.

I can agree to that. But seeing the progress (or lack of) from wvw-beta to wvw-beta this will probably still be in the far future.

 

19 hours ago, Playmate.8521 said:

In fact this beta now is just changing Servernames to other Servernames and mixing Players (guilds) and thats it.

It is only one week, this is way to short that those temporary servers could become stable. Some players like this chaotic week as a distraction from normal WvW, some just take a week off and don't play WvW at all.

My guess is Anet made this WvW beta as some proof of work because there is not much progress in their work they could show players as proof that they don't have abandoned it, again.