Semper Dius

Hello everyone.

I am interested in gathering mature and somewhat WvW-oriented guilds in a form of 'meta-alliance'. To repeat myself from my own forum...

The basic premise is that since we have to be allied with other players and guilds for WvW anyway, it's much better to choose who you want to ally with and know them, at least a bit, beforehand. It's not really about forming a structured alliance as seen in GW1 - it's about getting like-minded, mature guilds, especially interested in dominating the Mists, and amassing them in one homeworld, cooperating since the beginning.
We don't have to be complete strangers if we start talking about it that early. It's simply much better for us to start out in a homeworld full of guilds interested in WvW, maximizing our performance.

I don't see it becoming formalised in any way, unless we choose so later on - we don't have to be in the same alliance, or follow any chain of command - just cooperate together. Since we won't be able to gather all the, for lack of a better word, strong WvW guilds, there still will be a challenge in our quest to dominate the Mists. What we can eliminate, however, is having completely random people around us in the chosen server.
With several guilds visible in the Mists from our homeworld, we might also be able to - kind of - control the otherwise chaotic tide of people who get there alone, or in very small groups. People stick to more people, especially during massive PvP.

As i mentioned earlier, i don't perceive it as an alliance with any strict chain of command, more like a cooperative union of mature guilds. It might, of course, turn out that it doesn't give any edge over homeworlds that haven't organised that way, but i doubt so, and i believe that forging such a union early will not only prove better in terms of WvW performance, but also more convenient and simply more enjoyable, as is seeing more familiar guild tags around.

The only thing we'd need to discuss and choose together is the homeworld, but there's still time for that.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here - i'll visit this place from time to time.

If you are interested, please visit my guild's forum where i'm gathering people who would like to try and take part in this project. If you are already planning your GW2 alliance and have some guilds interested in playing together with you, we'd be more than happy to greet them in the project, as well.

Kind regards,
drkn

Hello Drkn,

Welcome to our forums and thanks for showing interest in our Guild.

As you probably saw we've experienced many MMO releases over the past years. So we are familiar with the pros and cons of stepping in a project like the one you are suggesting.

We discussed our stance towards Alliances several weeks ago. The result of this was that we agreed it was too early to forge alliances. We believe it's better to wait until the coming Beta events to gain a better feel and idea about what is needed in WvWvW but also to meet some potentially interesting Guilds in game, rather than only looking at their website and recruitment post. I must stress however that this doesn't mean we aren't interested in finding contacts early.

Secondly, by weighting up the pros and cons, we realized that we are more interested in forging a small Alliance with strong Guilds that closely work together rather then stepping in a big "let's all go to the same server" project. We decided this because an over populated sever is never a good thing, even knowing that Arenanet is implementing a great queuing system.

Since your post suggests you are taking the opposite way with your Alliance then we are planning to take, it's perhaps best for us to pass on your offer. We do however wish you the best of luck in your project.

Good luck in the Mists,
Haldir
Community Manager

I understand your take and would gladly follow it, except for i don't believe it's possible - or viable - in GW2.
Even if you create a small, well organised alliance in your server, you still will have random people forcibly allied with you in WvW. My intention is to eliminate this randomness - to gather guilds that are somewhat interested in WvW, somewhat organised within themselves already, so that we don't end up having random players trying to run solo in WvW - or, at least, not so many of them.
It's doubtful that a small alliance, even if perfectly organised, will take up all the spots available in WvW from a given homeworld. We still will be forced to play with other people from our server, who are neither part of our guilds nor alliances; simply complete strangers. I am afraid most of those strangers will come from tiny guilds (five friends, for example) or will try to stroll the Mists alone, with no level of organisation whatsoever. Even if it's only the dedicated guilds that get to play WvW, still it's much better to know guilds from your homeworld beforehand.
The possible problem of overpopulation is a valid concern only if ANet creates too many homeworlds in the beginning. I don't think it will be the issue - not being able to choose the same world with all the other interested guilds might be an issue, though, as the homeworld cap (not talking about WvW now) might be relatively low.

My project is aimed towards pre-organising a sort of meta-alliance across all (or, at least, considerably most) the guilds that shall play in the same homeworld as mine. The basis of cooperation and organisation will still be in the guilds themselves, then organised into guild alliances to their liking - still, those guilds and alliances will be forcibly allied with all other WvW-interested players from their homeworld, and bringing some level of cooperation into it might pay off much more than being allied with strangers.

Well our views differ heavily then. So good luck in your journey to find like minded Guilds.

So, in other words, you prefer to risk ending up in a server with 90% of population not even remotely interested in WvW, and even if that doesn't happen, you'll only limit your cooperation to 2-3 guilds rather than communicate with the whole server, as far as the Mists are concerned?
Avoiding such a situation is all my project is about; nothing more

Good morning DRKN, we appreciate your continued enthusiasm for this project.

To build upon what Haldir has mentioned, we have received many invites from various groups, publically and privately, all wishing for us to become part of an alliance or to partake in a collective agreement to join a specific server.

Having followed this path in previous games and as Haldir rightly points out, there are both pro’s and con’s to such pre-planning. It is simply impossible to gauge, at this stage, what the potential popularity of WvW will be. However, from my significant hands on time with it in the closed Guild Wars 2 beta phases, even those who shy away from traditional PvP have been revelling in the participation of such large scale, open encounters.

As we draw nearer to launch we will be reviewing our stance and intentions, though we still stand by our choice of forging smaller alliances with strong guilds. Yes this may appear isolationist but we are a close group of well skilled players; a server and it’s players are free to follow us in WvW, but we intend to lead.

Lewis B

post #5988747:

ending up in a server with 90% of population not even remotely interested in WvW,

Its highly unlikey for a situation like this to occur. The servers will natuarally balance themselves out based on interest due to the free choice of changing server.

#5988920 Dalsie wrote:

post #5988747:

ending up in a server with 90% of population not even remotely interested in WvW,

Its highly unlikey for a situation like this to occur. The servers will natuarally balance themselves out based on interest due to the free choice of changing server.

You can only fight for your home server in WvW... just saying bro

#5989024 Kalran wrote:

#5988920 Dalsie wrote:

post #5988747:

ending up in a server with 90% of population not even remotely interested in WvW,

Its highly unlikey for a situation like this to occur. The servers will natuarally balance themselves out based on interest due to the free choice of changing server.

You can only fight for your home server in WvW... just saying bro

Then I stand corrected... as you will notice im not on the GW2 roster, so forgive my ignorance.

#5989318 Dalsie wrote:

#5989024 Kalran wrote:

#5988920 Dalsie wrote:

post #5988747:

ending up in a server with 90% of population not even remotely interested in WvW,

Its highly unlikey for a situation like this to occur. The servers will natuarally balance themselves out based on interest due to the free choice of changing server.

You can only fight for your home server in WvW... just saying bro

Then I stand corrected... as you will notice im not on the GW2 roster, so forgive my ignorance.

How could I be mad at you Dalsie... we Gambit fans stick together

As we draw nearer to launch we will be reviewing our stance and intentions, though we still stand by our choice of forging smaller alliances with strong guilds. Yes this may appear isolationist but we are a close group of well skilled players; a server and it’s players are free to follow us in WvW, but we intend to lead.

Oh, i completely understand the attitude - i'd prefer to keep my guild to its own, possibly allying with one or two other groups, if the mass PvP looked like in Lineage 2; that is, if i wasn't enforced to have allies in WvW, whether i like it or not. I understand that you want to cooperate closely with two or three other, strong guilds - it's not isolationist at all, it's something commendable.
The thing is, unless you flood the whole WvW capacity with your own people, so to speak, from those three formally allied guilds, you'll end up with complete strangers who are on your side. To reiterate - if WvW's capacity limit per server per map is, in the end, 200 people (examplatory number), and you provide 120 people from the three guilds combined at any given time, you are still forced to play with 80 complete strangers - on your side, allied with you.

This is the situation i want to avoid. My goal is not to create strong bonds among the whole server, or force anyone to strictly cooperate with others within a huge alliance; the game's mechanics itself enforces that. I only want to choose my future 'forced allies' rather than end up with people i haven't spoken with.
Sure, in the end you'll stick to the two other guilds you'll be formally allied with, and such a trinity would probably make for the major force of the server if you really focus on WvW, but you wouldn't be in the Mists alone, and i'm talking only about your own homeworld.

I'm facing the same situation, and i see three ways to deal with it.
I can ignore all the strangers met in WvW altogether, keeping only to my guild and, possibly, some allies i'll make in the meantime.
I can let the blind fate decide what WvW-interested guilds will play in the server i chose and try to cooperate with them then. Even if not going for a full-fledged alliance, it'd be silly not to communicate with people from other guilds while in the WvW, especially that they could support the main forces present.
Or i can try to talk with people beforehand, pre-release, try to find several worthy guilds and make sure they're in the same homeworld as i am, so that we can somewhat cooperate - or at the very least, be at the same side - since the very beginning.

The third way is the premise of my project - it's so much better to see familiar tags and names, and know what to expect from the whole server, WvW-wise, rather than only a portion of it comprised in my chosen close alliance.

More so, since there are quotas on how many people can be in the WvW maps at the same time, i'm not worried about attracting too many guilds, as in having too many people into the project.
The only downside is that after amassing ~10 WvW-interested guilds, we might have problems with queues to WvW from our common homeworld, but i don't think it's that much of an issue, especially that we can end up with that problem even without gathering together.



I hope i made myself more clear than earlier, as i'm afraid i'm not really fully understood here. To recap - the basic premise of the project is that, whether we like it or not, we'll be able with our whole server for WvW. I don't want to create a strictly cooperating alliance, but why not be forcibly allied with people you have some idea about rather than strangers?

whether we like it or not, we'll be able with our whole server for WvW

'allied', of course, 'allied'

post #5989639:

[quote]
I hope i made myself more clear than earlier, as i'm afraid i'm not really fully understood here. To recap - the basic premise of the project is that, whether we like it or not, we'll be able with our whole server for WvW. I don't want to create a strictly cooperating alliance, but why not be forcibly allied with people you have some idea about rather than strangers?

We understood your original posts just fine, the simple fact is we disagree with you. We have discussed this to death within our community, what you are offering is not what we are looking for, it's simple as that.

We believe in the idea of 3 large, strong, mature guilds that get along being a strong enough base to create a WvW community on whatever server we call home. It secures us the safety of not having an uninterested WvW server without the pssibly horrendous down sides of the extremes of both sides.

We want to make the server we choose to play on a better place for everyone. Not lock everyone not in a pre-release alliance out of WvW for the sole purpose of our own/our servers epeen. We don't view "strangers" as a bad thing, you might care so much about winning that you do but you need to come to terms with not everyone does if you want your alliance to work.

@Kaerdhin

This was the answer i was looking for - so far, i had an impression that all you're against is a big alliance that would be somewhat enforced to cooperate together, while not addressing the fact that, well, you will be enforced to cooperate with people outside of your three-guild-alliance anyway.

Also, i love it when people jump to personal assumptions in a conversation with, more or less, a stranger. Thank you for providing a small laugh, dear sir!

post #5989723:

@Kaerdhin

This was the answer i was looking for - so far, i had an impression that all you're against is a big alliance that would be somewhat enforced to cooperate together, while not addressing the fact that, well, you will be enforced to cooperate with people outside of your three-guild-alliance anyway.

Also, i love it when people jump to personal assumptions in a conversation with, more or less, a stranger. Thank you for providing a small laugh, dear sir!

I'm sorry but what "personal assumption" did I make exactly?

The only assumption made was your desire and focus to win WvW being greater than that of community within your server. That's not a personal assumption, it's a deduction from your posts. Your wish to flood WvW with guilds you know, your wish to avoid "strangers" and your general attitude here has all been very much focused around the ideal situation to win.

If you think that your alliance will be a positive force on your server with a desire to eliminate any strangers and "eliminate the randomness" then, again, we disagree. The servers overall community to us is more important than that.

I'm locking this thread for I'm satisfied it has come to an reasonable conclusion. DKRN, should we wish to revisit this issue, I shall PM you over on GW2Guru.

Best,

Lewis