Are we becoming the new Northern Shiverpeaks?

I hope Im not being too negative but I can't lie that Im worried. At launch I sadly joined the Northern Shiverpeaks server which was supposed to be one of the "top" servers for WVW guilds. For a bunch of reasons those guilds started abandoning the server soon after launch which sent NS hurtling to near bottom. To this day the server remains a bottom dweller. 

I'm trying to get back into WVW on Sanctum but Im worried our server is sinking to the bottom like NS. Do you think we will stabilize once we sink to the silver leagues? What shape do you think we will be by the spring league? I love SOR for our guild  and the PVE community and plan to stick around for the foreseeable future. And Im also not trying to take anything away from the WVW leaders who are doing their best. Im just trying to temper my expectations for the foreseeable future.

We're going to be in the top league for Season 2. We are going to fight our butts off, but the reality is that we likely won't be able to compete in the Swiss tournament and will end up last unless we get some more coverage. But that doesn't reflect on how good the people that are out there fighting are. We can easily take on these guys with equal and even mostly with slightly lesser numbers, but the problem is that we don't always have those numbers. We have very little out there at any given time, likely never breaking 160 players (that's two full maps) even during our busiest times. We've got a great core right now, we just need a few more people to show up and join the fray and we'll start to take off again.

Short answer: No.  

WvW presence is about to become highly volatile at the end of the month, for every server.  Accurate speculation about our fate is not feasible right now, so trying to guess what's going to happen would serve no positive purpose.

I'm personally waiting for about 2 months before I totally give up on hope that we'll rebound.  That will give us time to see what ESO does to our server, and give some folks time to return if they decide that ESO isn't really what they were hoping for.  I don't really anticipate any stabilization before then, as our main problem now is that we don't have enough WvW presence.  We still cost the same amount of gems to transfer to as the top tiers, so people on the lower end seeking better times probably won't be looking at us twice. 

We do have a good thing going for us, however.  We do have a strong and well-known PvE entity here, and if we fall as far as NS, transfers here might be heavily discounted using the new transfer cost system Anet are switching to.  That may be enough to draw people here.

That's sorta how I have my view on things.  I don't look for things to get better rank-wise in the short term scheme of things.  But there is still a lot of fun to be had in the battlefield.

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful replies. I at least look forward to helping out during the spring season and probably need to join back up with a beginner WVW group since its been awhile. Once again, not trying to be Debbie Downer - the NS debacle left such a bad taste in my mouth that I almost quit WVW permanently.

For the random play session life is not going to be easy out there. Right now we have windows of coverage and if you can't play during that window your facing unsurpassable odds. I doubt this is going to change any time soon. I don't blame people for being discouraged. 

But this is not all darkness. When we step onto that field we have nothing but opportunity. The battlefield is ripe for memory making right now. If you aren't the leader type try to get in ts.sanctumofrall.com and find one. If you are the leader type promote what your doing in the highly populated PvE zones before you setout. I've been managing to get my numbers in the 40 by doing that. The big thing is to spread the word that a leader is on the field and there is fun to be had.

When ESO launches it will likely change the face of wvw forever. Servers with the most competitive wvw are likely to be hit the most. So the blackgate and jade quarry of the world may quickly find themselves in our shoes. If this game follows suit with Warhammer soon it won't be a zerg on every map we face it will be a zerg across all maps traveling form bl to bl trying to stop you. In that situation I can teach you all to shine very brightly and send a zerg 5 it's knees.

» Edited on: 2014-03-09 12:48:15

I jumped on last week to have a look at the oceanic timeslot and we managed to take back our borderland and our corner of EB.  We started with just three of us roaming about and ended up with about 15 players by the time we were done in EB.  The nightshift coverage is almost totally depleted, with almost all of our oceanic/SEA wvw community transferred to Tarnished Coast.  That doesn't mean that SOR is dead in the water though, all it takes is one or two people to start a snowball and it will turn into an avalanche.  I would love to get out there more but between selling/buying house, work and testing, I just can't make any more time.

There is a leadership vacuum in OCX/SEA Timeslot waiting to be filled, we lost some great commanders to TC, but there are still plenty of people willing to follow the first person to step up to the plate.

Can I ask then what's the best time for coverage these days? I usually play later on pacific time and was on way late last night only to get my butt royally kicked. 

I run:

Tues 6-9PM PST / Server Time

Sun 12-2AM PST / Server Time

both events tend to be a ton of fun :)

Well, since we're on this topic, here's my prediction: (keeping it short and brief)

Competitive WvWvW, aka PPT WvW (EB + 3 BL maps) will be re-designed into a multi-server groupings and overflow instancing, much like the Edge of the Mists.  It is the only way to bring all of the servers into consistent match-ups on an equal footing and the best way to nullify the server hopping issue.

The problem with WvW guilds jumping servers, is that it not only negatively affects the morale of the WvW community of the abandoned server, it also backlashes onto the PvE community.  This is bad business for ArenaNet, because that negativity and low morale causes players to decide that maybe its time to take a break from playing GW2, therefore they're not going to be playing as much/at all and enticed into buying Gems for goodies, etc.

I fully expect to see a change by the end of the summer.  IMO, this is a change that ArenaNet will have to make and will be encouraged to do so, by the current success of EotM's design.

I agree Sekk.  They'd be mad not to do it.

Even though it puts a bad taste in people's mouth when it happens, do you realize how much money it makes Anet when a server collapses like that?  Even more now that they've raised the price to transfer to a server in the top third of the world ranking ?  Then they introduce the shiny rewards for the next season and dangle them in front of everyone.  I think they simply make too much money with the system they've created (possibly by design) to change it to something that would cut the majority of that income.

To be honest, lets face it.  They're in the business to make money and that's part of the model.  They know that people will eventually come back to GW2 because of its free to play/cash shop model.  

That's just my take on that, though.

Guilds buy gems with game gold, not RL cash, when they transfer, so Anet makes less money from server collapses than one would assume.  There might be some players that buy RL gems to stay with their guild, but I doubt its enough to make up the negative consequences of a collapsing server.  Its not beneficial to anyone.

Its just a guess, but its what I would be giving serious consideration to, if I was the decision maker for the WvW dev team.

edit: There are a couple of glaring technical snags that I've thought of, but I'm sure that a little team brainstorming would find solutions.

I agree with Sekk. I have been saying for months that a change from a server v server system will eventually give way to an alliance v alliance system. Not sure if the EotM system lumping 8 servers together is the best system, but we'll see. My biggest disappointment with wvw has really got to be the low level of support from anet. Every 2 weeks there is something new in PVE land, but aside from getting rid of the lake and adding EotM, wvw has been largely ignored.

Here is my teeny bit serious/ totally cynical idea for Anet

My proposal to spread the population out, a ‘population co-efficient’ could be assigned to each server. The score is multiplied/divided by this number to determine the actual match outcome.

The math behind this number should be very complex and completely opaque, maybe even changing over time. This will keep the min/maxers and the spreadsheet wizards quite busy. Also, Anet could rake in huge amounts of money as people transfer all over the place trying to figure out which co-efficient number leads to the easiest wins.

We are currently at rank 20, 5 ranks below Northern Shiverpeaks right now on https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/na/wvw

If you're here for rankings your on the wrong server. If you're here for fun, family, laughs, great times, fun memories, to be part of an awesome inclusive friendly community, or the memory of a man who gave everything he had to everyone else and wanted nothing in return, then you're in the right place.