[WvW needs more attention] lost the sense of belonging to the server. It's more like a bunch of mercenaries now. Severe strong and weak polarization.

[guan.1829]

[WvW needs more attention] lost the sense of belonging to the server. It's more like a bunch of mercenaries now. Severe strong and weak polarization.

[Dawdler.8521]

I'm impressed with your deep extensive knowledge of players mental connection to servers considering you joined the forums 25 minutes ago.

 

Also most players are loyal to guilds, not servers. If you think you belong to a server, know that probably 99% of the server have no idea who you or that you belong there.

[guan.1829]

19 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

 

I spend more time playing games than forums. How about you?

If loyal to the guild. Why would the guild move to another server?

I belong to Tyria

Edited August 2, 2021 by guan.1829

[joneirikb.7506]

The whole server loyalty is something WvW was built up around initially. But over the years the player mentality changed, even before the linking system got introduced, large part of the active wvw playerbase had already at least partially abandoned that concept, and went server hopping.

Starting with people wanting to stack servers to win, continuing with servers trying to make rival servers (like NA T1 back with the glicko wall), then to try to make fighting servers (back in NA T2 when they managed to glicko wall off from both t1 and t3), and then the mess when players again tried to stack another server in order to crash those other ones down (NA world YB got stacked to tear through both T2 and T1 breaking both glicko walls).

By the time the linking system got added, the majority of players had already given up on server loyalty, simply because enough critical mass of other players already abandoned it, and thus there wasn't that much to work with. Linking just tore this down further, and soon Alliance is going to remove the last semblance of it.

So, I'd say it's a little bit late go championing for server loyalty now. It had a good run, there was a bunch of good things about it, but they're going to pull the plug on it.

 

It would be more constructive to discuss how to replicate or help re-create the aspects you liked/miss from the server loyalty in guilds or alliances going forward.

[Chaba.5410]

44 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

The whole server loyalty is something WvW was built up around initially. But over the years the player mentality changed, even before the linking system got introduced, large part of the active wvw playerbase had already at least partially abandoned that concept, and went server hopping.

 

Server hopping was a thing at launch too, especially in the months before it cost gems to transfer, right around Jan 2013 IIRC.  I think the analysis has to be a bit more complex.  Many pugmanders I've seen over the years create their own guilds with their following and behaved in many ways no differently from the more organized and formal guilds.  If the pugmander quit playing, their following would move on often.  So I don't think that players had what is usually considered server loyalty and changed their mentality.  I think it's always been loyalty to smaller pockets of community that built up around specific people and sets of people on each server.

[joneirikb.7506]

2 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

 

Server hopping was a thing at launch too, especially in the months before it cost gems to transfer, right around Jan 2013 IIRC.  I think the analysis has to be a bit more complex.  Many pugmanders I've seen over the years create their own guilds with their following and behaved in many ways no differently from the more organized and formal guilds.  If the pugmander quit playing, their following would move on often.  So I don't think that players had what is usually considered server loyalty and changed their mentality.  I think it's always been loyalty to smaller pockets of community that built up around specific people and sets of people on each server.

Wasn't really saying that it wasn't a thing even back then. Just saying the the whole server loyalty has slowly eroded over time. To start with the player-base was still mostly married to the idea of server loyalty, and it took time, and first hand experience watching players from their own servers move away to other servers, to start seeing where it would end. Player-base perspectives always lies a bit behind what actually happens.

But free transfers at launch, was probably the single worst idea ever for WvW. Great for PvE though, but it's probably 50% of the reason for why WvW was such a mess for so many years. It would have happened eventually anyways, just sped up the process.

And yes, groups of players will always follow individuals, commanders, streamers or guild leaders etc. Which is why I wanted the OP to rather focus on what aspect of server loyalty he wanted to preserve, and how a guild/alliance could try to incorporate that.

[Trebuidoi.4701]

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I'm impressed with your deep extensive knowledge of players mental connection to servers considering you joined the forums 25 minutes ago.

 

Also most players are loyal to guilds, not servers. If you think you belong to a server, know that probably 99% of the server have no idea who you or that you belong there.

Some of us have been playing since launch (or any extended period of time) and have only just started to participate on the forums. For any given reason. Should everyone link their API so you can verify whether or not we qualify to give any input here?

[Pacificterror.7805]

With Alliances having been confirmed as coming 'soon', I'm surprised you made this thread. What you hope to maintain will be gone completely. 

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

i mean guan is not wrong, but this problem is known and exists for a very long time yet, i feel.

 

the description of him is completely accurate. if we could reskin a big amount of players on EBG just as ogres and hylek, would be hard to notice 😉