RIP Server Identity and RP

[mindcircus.1506]

Servers are absolutely meaningless. The OP is continuing a proud tradition of "Anet doesn't care about my playstyle" posts the RP community has been posting for years now.
Your needs are absolutely not impacted by this WvW change. This is a non-issue.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Tolmos.8395 said:Considering it still affects your placement in channels on the megaserver, yea. Yea it does.

They say it affects your placement while in my experience it doesn't. I was randomly shoot around different maps even though I was not only on same server and guild but even in same parties with my friends. So I highly doubt megaserver takes anything into consideration at all. It just fills up maps at random.

It was stated it to be one of the factors when they talked about the launch of megaserver, but it is not the deciding factor so often you will not see a difference - too many other factors are often involved

I know what was stated, that's what I said. However, my experience with megaservers is different than their claims.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

The change doesn't really bother me but I think them working on this is taking time away from stuff we've been asking for like build templates and player housing. I'd much rather see them introduce those before doing all the changes on WvW.

[Holykitten.3064]

@Tekoneiric.6817 said:The change doesn't really bother me but I think them working on this is taking time away from stuff we've been asking for like build templates and player housing. I'd much rather see them introduce those before doing all the changes on WvW.

WvW players have also been asking for years for a lot of changes to deter/stop population imbalance and transfer band wagonning.Now, we all know there’s different teams that work on different things for the game, so you can jump off your PvE high horse.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Tekoneiric.6817 said:The change doesn't really bother me but I think them working on this is taking time away from stuff we've been asking for like build templates and player housing. I'd much rather see them introduce those before doing all the changes on WvW.

WvW players have also been asking for years for a lot of changes to deter/stop population imbalance and transfer band wagonning.Now, we all know there’s different teams that work on different things for the game, so you can jump off your PvE high horse.

Players across the different game modes have been asking for those from day 1 especially build templates. They keep getting put on the back burner for everything.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Servers has to go thats it it wont matter in pve at all and now no more elitist wvw on full servers

[dbill.7483]

I believe the Alliance concept will improve the RP community within the game because it allows players to control how the play together. World Servers are controlled by ANET with the locking / unlocking of transfers. Tarnished Coast was recently locked for quite a while, so you couldn't get in if you wanted too. If this new concept goes in, RP'ers will be able to build guilds and alliances around their style of play without the artificial gates created by ANET.

I would even suggest better play can happen. For example, you could create RP Alliance rivalries (thinking of something like the old American Hatfield's & McCoy feuds). That fight (GvG?) on the battlefield. What if the these Alliances somehow get matched up on the same side? Well, the the feud has to work together to fight a new enemy.

I admire the RP'ers within the game because of their creativity, use of some of that and imagine new ways to play.

edit: grammar

[Turin.6921]

@Zhohan.3859 said:I'm a big believer in server identity and a proud Tarnished Coast player. People need to feel like they are apart of something. I'm afraid in an attempt to fix WvW, they're fundamentally changing the game up too much.

Over 90% of the Guild Wars 1 fanbase no longer plays this game. You know why? Guild Wars 2 was too much of a change from the original. If you change your game too much from its original conception, you can promise yourself to lose your current audience. You better pray for a new one.

Citation needed. Many GW1 players still enjoy GW2 (me included), albeit for different reasons. If anything alliances actually trigger GW1 nostalgia for me.

I don't speak for everyone, but the two things I do the most is casual WvW with friends and public RP on Tarnished Coast. Removing servers entirely will kill this for me. It's the last thing keeping left to this game, and I know I'm just baby-raging on the internet, but I promise if the patch comes out in its current conception, I will uninstall the day of the patch.

A bit over-dramatic there.I do get that this is an issue for RPers. But what stops you from using squads to get yourselves into the same mega-servers or making 1-2 big alliances of RP guilds to make sure you are always grouped together. Is the RP community on TC much more than 1000-2000 people for this to be an issue? Also i am almost sure that the grouping in megaservers should take into account alliances the same way it takes worlds into account today.

I know I don't speak for a majority of the community, but what's the value if there is no server to identify under? Where's your pride? In your alliance? I can understand this for WvW, but why should this destroy server communities outside WvW?

For WvW server identity was already gone along time ago. Most guild transfer like crazy, most care about fights and not matchups and very few cling to server loyalty. Alliance and guild loyalty can create a much more tight community and such communities will definitely be much more sustainable under changes in the game mode.

And while the changes do sound positive for WvW, this could possibly bring its own problems with it. What if all the best guilds ally together and imbalance the system? Will they then remove alliances and just leave us with guilds? What's left at that point?

The caps will not allow for a single world to be dominated by all the big alliances. The selection systems is not expected allow many of the more higher rated alliances to group together. It was quite clearly stated in the post. This should need some tweaking i suppose but definitely sounds less exploitable that what is happening today.

[Menadena.7482]

No more people yelling that others should be RPing on a specific server. :)

[Magnus Godrik.5841]

Love the wvw changes that will happen. Kinda wish they made it NA vs EU. But I guess that would be terribly unfair.

[Ardid.7203]

The point, IMO, is that people today are using the TC server as a replacement for the RP toggle we truly need.I'm not in TC. I tried MANY times to get in there. But it was always full, so in the end I just gave up. THERE ARE TONS OF ISOLATED RPers OUTSIDE TC AND PS.The "server identity" doesn't work. It just leave people out. You FEEL the "server identity" helps RP. But it only helps people who already have things solved.RPers needs a bigger and more official home: Alliances AND and RP toggle may make it possible. Keeping the servers will not do anything.

[Donari.5237]

@Threather.9354 said:Umm, isnt the alliance system perfect for the RP players then?

You meet RP players/guilds in PvE or new alliance server and invite them to your RP guild and you will end in same WvW server?

I don't think most of the RP players give a flying fig about ending up in the same WvW server (or if they do, yes, they will join alliances to make that happen). As has been stressed by me and others in thread after thread on this, the bolded part of the quote is what is getting to people: the chances of encountering other RP players in game and without prior connections with them has been influenced by being on a server frequented by RPers and now that factor is proposed to be removed from megaserver assignment.

If the design team working on this figures out how to let people flag as RP for megaserver assignment (with party/guild/squad/friends list taking priority, I'm sure), then the concerns will evaporate.

[Tolmos.8395]

For those who don’t frequent the WvW forum, here is a good update reply from that ongoing chat

@Raymond Lukes.6305 said:

@glass.3245 said:

@Raymond Lukes.6305 said:

@"Tolmos.8395" said:I would like to reiterate the previous questions posed, and not yet answered, about how this will affect Roleplayers.This is something we hadn’t fully considered and we’ll start looking into possible solutions.

It would be nice if you roleplayers could enter WvW in "guest mode" and be seen as NPCs by the other players. More than once I've gone into a group full burst before noticing say chat and trying to disengage. The tone of frustration suggested that this was pretty common.This goes beyond players in WvW. World is used as one of the considerations when picking what instances of a map someone will go on. Removing the ability for the RP community to pick a single world reduces the chance for them to matched in a map instance with each other in the game at large without already being in the same guild or in a squad. We'd like to find a way to fix this if we can.

[Kal Spiro.9745]

If you want to celebrate Toast, put it in your sig and move on. It was over a long time ago already.

[Tyson.5160]

As someone had previously stated it’s not server wars, but Guild Wars. I think this is definitely a step in the right direction.

[MadLass.3821]

@Haleydawn.3764 said:If you read the main thread for this discussion you would have come across this post, which is meaningful, respectful and in complete agreement with Anets proposed changes for the better;

@"Foghladha.2506" said:Greetings,I felt it was important that I comment on this. Many of you know me as the Leader of Gaiscioch, the community that campaigned for several months to have a server named after a member who loved this game deeply and never had the chance to play it. Roger "Oldroar" Rall is the reason Gaiscioch came to Guild Wars 2 in the first place. His passion for this game and the development team behind it inspired many of us to fall in love with it as well. ArenaNet answered by naming a server Sanctum of Rall in his memory and we turned a common man into a legend.

This wasn't the only place ArenaNet paid tribute to him. They knew servers may not last forever and in the email exchange we shared even mentioned that servers are not permanent and may be removed in the future. We knew this going in. They did however surprise us with the Historian GoshKia in the Black Citadel who shares the legend of Oldroar.

Now I know some of you love us and some of you would sooner pour salt on anything I say. The fact is Guild Wars 2 needs this. It's long overdue and even Sanctum of Rall will benefit from this system in the long run. We've had "Alliances" come to our server and "Drag us kicking and screaming to T1" and as quickly as they came, they left taking with them a good chunk of the community. What didn't fall out then would leave over the next year. Sanctum of Rall has been small and tight nit for a few years now and all of us Rallians still band together week after week. It doesn't matter if our server is no more. WE are the legend of Rall and will form a Sanctum of Rall Alliance with the guilds that remain. I suspect other server loyalist communities will do the same for their server.

This game has always been about Alliances. There are circles of Guilds that band together and transfer from server to server over and over again. It's always been that way. What this system does is match Alliances, Guilds, and Players up with others that compliment their weaknesses. Gaiscioch for example can rally a giant pugzerg full of random people who might be great and might be learning. Pair us with a composition group and you find total destruction. We draw attention, they kill everything. It's a perfect balance that ArenaNet sees the potential to create.

I for one Support this idea 200% and believe ArenaNet is heading the right direction. Our time on Sanctum of Rall has been filled with epic moments we wont ever forget and it will live on in us. A memory is not bound to a server. It's bound to people. Those people will still be there by my side when this battlefield changes.

That said, Gaiscioch will be forming up the Sanctum of Rall Alliance and will be looking to rally up the rest of our server community to form a tight nit alliance.

Couldn't have said it better myself, this is server pride.

Agreed. I am proud to say I'm in TC, the player dubbed "Roleplay Server", and can't forget the epic battles and funny commanders.(Shout out to one of the best, Commander Commander.) But as they [GSCH] has said, the time has come for servers to go. They had a good run but the legacy will carry on. As a long time fan of this game (almost 4 years now) I have experienced everything from the rise of the Mad King to the wallets introduction to Mordremoths incursions to this day. I joined shortly after LA got destroyed and missed lots of it, but enjoyed it nonetheless. I have been in TC for my entire experience and made several friends in server and out. I can say I'm proud to have been a long time TC member, but won't be sad to see it go. Servers aren't about a name to yourself, it was simply a way for WvWvW players to get together and become friends. Keep this in mind and heart before saying how bad new servers would be and just remember all the friends you have made over the years, the guilds you are in, and the amazing Anet crew. When you think about it, GW2 isn't just and MMORPG, its a community to make friends in. When servers eventually go, you won't have to say goodbye to your friends, only hello to new ones.

[Daishi.6027]

You can RP wherever you want. People might just engage your RP in interesting ways.It's like improve you just gotta respond to it with "yes, and..."