Idea for server coordination

I was contemplating the future of the SoR Server Leadership team after reading Xivor's post, and I thank you, Scripko, for taking the initiative to put this together.  Your proposal is very similar (and most likely, superior) to a recommendation that I was intending to make.

Disband War Council?  

I would agree, at the very least on a temporary basis.  

Review the original War Council article (http://www.sanctumofrall.com/discussion/sor_wvw/post_44092.html), taking special note of the Duties section. 

1. Determine the direction of server - exactly what this duty means is vague, at best (no offense to the author).  Right now, as we focus on rebuilding the community, I think the direction is quite clear.  Focus inwards to rebuild and reinforce relationships.  Restore the community.  Have fun!


2. Facilitate the public Wvw reset meetings on a rotational basis - this duty is easily accomplished by a moderator.  More to follow.


3. Manage the War Chest - I believe this is a reference to the SoR Community guild vault?  If so, and this guild intends to continue existing, perhaps assigning guild delegates to maintain the chest will be adequate?


4. Recruit and interview potential transfer guilds - Anyone with a heart towards recruitment could fulfill this role.  On the SoR website, we can simply maintain a list of players that can be contacted for more information about joining SoR.  Active recruiting can really be done by anyone who wants to - you don't need a fancy title or a special name badge to do that.


5. Manage the SoR Community guild - again, see #3.  


6. Administrate TeamSpeak (select leaders) - As Scripko mentioned, the TS is his baby - and he should delegate whomever he pleases to assist with the administration.  Just my opinion.


7. Administrate the SoR website (select leaders) - I'm not 100% certain who is responsible for website maintenance, but any trusted/trustworthy individual who knows how to do it and (more importantly) wants to should be considered.  The owner of the site has final say on who gets rights.


8. Representative for SoR members to communicate ideas and issues to - see below

My original thought was to continue holding a weekly meeting, but changing the format.  Each guild would internally have their own discussions, file grievances, provide suggestions or thoughts.  Each guild then sends a single delegate to the meeting for discussing and sharing.  Other members are encouraged to attend, but only the official delegate will have voice privileges.  One delegate is designated the moderator (or the moderator could be appointed separately from the delegates), and is responsible for keeping the discussion on-topic and moving forward.  The purpose of the meeting is to offer up new ideas, announce initiatives (like server events, training opportunities, etc), coordinate reset plans (which guild is going where and with how many), and to voice concerns (specifically stated as such).  The purpose is not to necessarily resolve that concern during that meeting, but to voice that there is one.  The moderator will decide (perhaps based on a vote of the delegates) whether to open the floor for discussion on that concern, or follow-up via forum discussion regarding it.  

The meeting is not a place to air dirty laundry.  It is not a place to start or even continue arguments.  The meeting is an opportunity for the active guilds on the server to come together, build community, and coordinate events.  It's an opportunity to inform other guilds of potential problems that have arisen so that those problems can be resolved amicably in an effort to restore unity in the server.  If there is a problem between two guilds or two players, there's no reason to bring the rest of the server into it.  I point no fingers - almost all of us at one point or another spoken ill (or implied such) of another guild or player.  The time has come to put that all behind us, and look to the future as a server who plays together and has fun together.

Longer discussions can happen via the forums, or on TS at a designated time (delegates may offer up a day/time for continued discussion of an item, opening the floor to anyone with comments at that time - but NOT during the meeting).

Again - this is just my two cents.  I could be wrong.  It's happened before :)

I have read both of the above submissions and while I agree with a lot of it, I will submit my ideas or thoughts...

While I agree at least at the moment that the war council is broken(not communicating between themselves as much as they should), they are a great tool when talking or meeting with potential new transfers.  If a guild is wishing to talk to people on SoR to debate a move, none of our guilds are strong enough on there own to provide a good debate on the merits of such a move.  When a single guild is involved in this then there is a conflict of interest for the new potential members.  In this case maybe we run a rotating council every couple or few months with a new nomination/vote process?  I think the war councils role at this point should be more of a contact and recruiting one.

As far as Administrate TeamSpeak. - This one is not as open, Scripko owns it, he can do as he wishes here.  This one is not debatable, we can give him ideas, or our thoughts but it is his call.   My suggestion here is that we break the cliques.  There is no reason to award icons to individuals as participation trophies.  Get rid of the princess, pot leaf,  the lord of war icons and anything else distracting.  I agree with the Commander tags, war council tags, Guild Leader and even the scout tags, but eliminate the not needed ones.  Some people take these things to mean much more then they are.  You can run your own Guild TS's anyway you want, and ultimately Scripko can run this one the way he wants too, just a suggestion as to many of my part time TS users in my guild, it does not look inviting and feels like a clique.  Encourage guilds to get out of there WvW rooms, maybe even eliminate them and disallow them.  People can set up temp ones under the correct WvW rooms in the top section should they want to appear somewhat private, but it is way more inviting then going down into the guilds section and joining in someone elses guild room.  I have a lot of connections with other guilds and usually out of just not caring or actually knowing those guilds somewhat well, I will join in there rooms, but many on the server do not feel that way.

Xivor and a few of us had discussed an idea that someone had a while back, and that was to bring in a Guild Leaders meeting.  All Guilds of say 25+, 50+ or something can send a rep to a meeting where we just BS, organize some PvE, WvW or whatever events together.  It also allows them to get to know one another.  I think it is important no matter what meeting format we go with for this or the reset meetings we need to get a better flow to it.  If we have a single member from Each guild that will do the talking then it should cut off the talking over one another.  Guilds discuss there issues with that member before the meeting and we can just run down the list of these delegates to get there point across.  Maybe we add a time limit for each delegate.   In the event that a person calls out negatively another guild or person by name we can cut them off and disallow them to rep for there guild in future meetings.

I have seen a lot of new guild tags again showing up on the map... We need to encourage them to register here so us other guilds can get to know them.  We only do well when we work together, having some diplomatic relations between guilds at a guild leadership level can be vital to both PvE and WvW.

As far as reset night, have the guilds pick where they are going on this calender here.  Ask them all to put themselves on the calender by a few hours before reset.  Even if we just get the primary guilds to do so, it would end much of the debate at the meeting.  Do this on a first come first serve basis.  If one guild does not want to start in Home BL next week they could already be signed up for a different map next week.

Mistress Collisto|Molly Oakenheart|Lena Andersdotter|Heather Jones
Guild Leader of [JADE] www.Immortalizedin.enjin.com

Seems simple enough. Add a Recruiting Board to handle transfer queries and I think we're set. 

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Karaoke (Loki | Oaky | Pokey | Smokey | Croaky | Cloaky | Soaky | Gnocchi)
Guild Leader - Super Mega Happy Fun Time [MEGA] - supermegahappyfuntime.com

As long as there's cookies....

hello.first sorry  my english. sor wvw is no fun just boring. sor dont wvw ,we doing pvd  pvd and pvd.

we alaways was defeated in open field.its not wvw but pvd. its  really boring.so many people leave battlefield.

we must buy a gold elite good command .wvw is game of leadership.

umm amonain.3596  you have never fought with Johny I take it? He leads lots of good open field fights. Provided people actually follow his tag and his instructions. Thats the biggest problem with this server...not enough people are willing to cooperate effectively. They don't listen to the commanders mostly because a large majority of the players aren't even on TS. Open field fights require that people be on voice coms so they can move fluidly as one singular force. Without it you end up having a tight ball of the people on TS and a very long and strung out tail of people aren't keeping up and get picked off 1 by 1.

I have had the opportunity to do quite a few open field fights while following Johny and I can say we do not always lose. There have been times when 15+ were on voice com and we were destroying  zergs twice our size. A large part of those victories were due to TS and Johny providing clear and timely commands.

The reason you see a lot of PVD on SoR: Lots of randoms coming into WvW without utilizing TS and commanding via text chat is just not feasible for open field.

Conclusion: We have a number of very good commanders on SoR, unfortunately a majority of our player base can't be bothered to join us on TS and as long as it remains that way SoR WvW is going to suffer.

"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam"

I dont even know what the war council does?

i know johny is so good command.but he cant do everything alone.

I said only one of the sor problems .

I like the idea of a Guild Council, where each guild names a representative (or the guild leader) that is officially on this council.   War Council members were discussing the concept of a Guild Council and we were going to propose it in addition to the War Council before the tournament, but the reason we did not propose it was because we never came to a defining decision of what the criteria would be for a guild that would be represented on it.  For example, would a guild that provides a 5 man havoc team once a week have a member on the council, and a guild that provides 40 members daily also have a member on the council?  Or would only larger guilds with more days of activity qualify?  A middle ground for the criteria of membership never got established, so we placed this idea on hold until after the tournament.

As for meetings, the whole concept of community is that everyone is able to participate and have a say.  By making meetings leader-only or representative-only, I fear we lose some of the community-say in the server.  That being said, meetings would me much more organized (and possibly shorter).  The problem with this is, the people that should be involved in the meetings are the ones doing a lot of the coordinating work out there.  Commanders, main scouts, etc. These people vary by week.  No offense, but I wouldn't want to put the strategy of our server in the hands of the Guild Leaders of a PvX guild, when that said Guild Leader or guild representative doesn't even command on the battlefield. This is where all-inclusive shines.

A moderated meeting is an idea, but it requires a LOT of micro-management each server meeting.  I know Scrripko cannot go to every meeting. This will be taxing on the people that are there to administer.

NOTE: Just because I stepped down as a War Council member does not mean I am no longer here and an engaged part of this community.  I am here, with less responsibility, less requirements and duties, and now when I have an issue with someone, I can say it.  :-)

Combat Medic Barbie | Mist Walker Barbie | Rigor Mortis Barbie

Guild Leader of Chariot of Fire [FIRE]

"No offense, but I wouldn't want to put the strategy of our server in the hands of the Guild Leaders of a PvX guild, when that said Guild Leader or guild representative doesn't even command on the battlefield."

You cut me so deep, Xivor. :-/

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Karaoke (Loki | Oaky | Pokey | Smokey | Croaky | Cloaky | Soaky | Gnocchi)
Guild Leader - Super Mega Happy Fun Time [MEGA] - supermegahappyfuntime.com

Eumm, I have seen you command on the battlefield!

EDIT:  Its probably lesser of a concern than I make it out to be, but I do feel that it is still worth noting.

Combat Medic Barbie | Mist Walker Barbie | Rigor Mortis Barbie

Guild Leader of Chariot of Fire [FIRE]

I do not want to get to a point to where a moderated meeting is needed, it was all just ideas. 

"No offense, but I wouldn't want to put the strategy of our server in the hands of the Guild Leaders of a PvX guild, when that said Guild Leader or guild representative doesn't even command on the battlefield."  This could be more directed to people in my situation... It is true that my tag has rarely been seen lately, part of that is that I have been working uber overtime for the last half a year and that is not supposed to be the norm at my job.  Once that pulls back you might see me more often with a tag.  There where other reasons at the time to have the icon in TS such as at the time I play there is often no one on that can moderate or help our players take care of issues that would come up.  I would like to think I have always taken a neutral position on our server, more of a reference and resource. 

Along with the quote above, we are a server of PvX, at least guilds are all PvX based.  Many of you are on my friends list and I can think of only one person that is only WvW.  Xivor, you have done a great job, I know it has been stressful on you, and even your guild.  Don't feel bad about anything going on.  I have read most of your posts even on the unofficial sites...  I would normally not respond to them because I did not want to debate with some of the people off of other servers and you know of what I speak.  Fog, you have always been very responsive on the website and this is a much needed and well done tool for our people.... That and it is always funny to hear the response of my guildies when we exchange a bow or a "Hi" on Saturday/Sunday when you start the SORC events.  Sscriptko, unfortunately our times are usually opposing, our server would be halted by a lack of voice chat, and that can be no easy task to keep them managed.  You guys are all the obvious choices as leaders on this server, and the only reason I had suggested a rotating/new nomination process was to give some of you a break from the drama that is inevitable. 

"Why should someone pay to transfer to Sanctum of Rall?"  Great question, and we should all be working on answering this.  Once we answer this, we will be 1/2 way to our goal.

Great chat guys, lets keep it civil, and on topic, and get more people involved.  Unfortunately it is not a topic we exactly wanted to have, but it needs to be done.

Mistress Collisto|Molly Oakenheart|Lena Andersdotter|Heather Jones
Guild Leader of [JADE] www.Immortalizedin.enjin.com

If people were willing to come on here and use the commander on deck system I feel like that would help a great deal. Maybe just have a calender so guilds can say when they're runs are that may help also.  I know Xivor pretty much played principal in a middle school with all the he said she said drama.  I do like the idea of having maybe 1-2 commanders from each guild get together share strats, and discuss how to get the upper hand.  My only problem with that is you can't have people like Nex just telling the other commanders to shut up and this is how we're doing it or telling people that the meeting is over if it's going to be a kittenfest.  When in reality you're just trying to point out things that need to be strengthened to better the server.  I don't care what guild you're in we're all on the same team and that's Sanctum of Rall.

Council Master of VEX
I didn't choose the VEX life, the VEX life chose me

"I know Xivor pretty much played principal in a middle school with all the he said she said drama."

I'd like to think we're more of a high school.  In my experience, middle school kids are in that transition period when they start to form their own opinions.  High school is where the cliques and drama really take off.  Plus, I just love the sound of "SoR High".  It rolls of the tongue a lot better than "SoR Middle School".  And yes, the pun was most certainly intended.

Humor aside, let me get back on topic...

My personal vision and hope for our server in the coming weeks is to rebuild relationships between guilds.  The whole "United, we stand; divided, we ... turn into bags" mentality.  As such, I envision transforming the "Server Meeting" into more than just WvW discussion.  It's an opportunity for represented guilds to come together to do WvW, PvE, Fractals, whatever.  

One of the many reasons that members of a guild stick together in tough times on the battlefield is because their relationship is not based on their success on the battlefield;  rather, the relationship is built on a foundation built from spending time together, sharing conversations, and generally having fun.  By the same token, member guilds of a server might benefit from reinforcing their relationships through server-wide dungeon runs (races?), Fractals (let's get all those Fractal level 80 masochists together!), or even a "come join us on our weekly bounty/puzzle/rush" event (for instance, one guild running defense for another guild during a rush event).  

Is there any interest in making the Guild Meeting more about uniting the SoR guilds in all aspects of the game, or are we primarily (or solely) interested in using the meeting for discussing WvW strategy?  

Some discussion has also been made about the smaller guilds or even the un-guilded Rallians who choose not to participate in TeamSpeak for whatever reason.  By refocusing the guild meeting towards more than just WvW, we are essentially inviting these smaller groups to join up with the larger, represented, guilds to do a number of activities that they would otherwise not be capable of doing.  FIRE is still working to unlock guild rushes, puzzles, etc.  I had my first experience in a guild puzzle the other day, as I ran Langmar Estate alongside a much larger guild group (sorry, don't remember which one).  That was exciting for me - and I'd love the opportunity to explore other such areas.  Take that further - a small guild of 5 members may have never finished the Obsidian Sanctum JP, or successfully run the Ogre Wars event, or any number of activities that demand a larger force (Teq and Wurm come to mind).  By opening up some of the events that we already do as a guild to the community at large, we invite these smaller groups to be a part of our community - which may lead to more numbers and better communication in future WvW endeavors.  

EG and TTS have successfully done just such a thing with their daily Teq runs, and those guilds are pretty well known for doing this event.  With MegaServer, any events we do as an SoR community (and advertise as such in the map chat) will aid to reinforce that SoR is about community, and make our server a desirable place to be.

Jeduthun, I like your way of thinking.  I am Dark Sorcerer, GL Of The Paladines [PROT].   Also, have run commander twice since Sanctum has given me equal opporturnity to run it as Havock commander and everyone has been very supportive of my role even when we are outnumbered 3-4-5/1.    On this note, I agree with Jeduthun, we can get Sanctum of Rall server to be more interactive with guilds and strengthen our relationships with each other. 

On that note, I have asked for some assistance on Guild Bounties.    I have not gotten much back and hope that there are guilds out there like mine that can use the support to get these things done and enjoy the rewards when it is completed.   Also, I have asked guilds if they ever want to do dungeons with my guildies.   I have a guild of 414 members who would love to do dungeons some being veterans and some being totally new to dungeons.   There are just little things that can cement and make our community stronger and help each other out.      Of course then, we can get more people to do TEQ runs or those other Group Events that are just so frustrating that our server could help our Guild complete them.        I hope to see Sanctum of Rall server help those less fortunate guilds get things done quicker that all of us are struggling on! <GriN> 

Dark, let me give you an example. You just said you have a guild of 414 members. I have a guild of 200, though 60% of them haven't logged in since March or earlier. About half the remaining group are allies of ours we invite to guild missions with us. The remainder are what I'd consider our members, probably about 50-60 people.

We ran guild missions last night and did ALL of them with 11 people. That's the majority of what I'd consider our "core group" of about 12 along with a few friends from FX who run missions with us.

If I can only turn out 11 people to my own guild's missions, it's going to be hard for me to get people to join for another guild's missions. 

It's not that I don't want to be helpful. I just have a limited amount of time and energy I can spend trying to push people to show up for missions and I use that time/energy to get people to come to my guild's missions.

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Karaoke (Loki | Oaky | Pokey | Smokey | Croaky | Cloaky | Soaky | Gnocchi)
Guild Leader - Super Mega Happy Fun Time [MEGA] - supermegahappyfuntime.com

... On the other hand, I have a "helper" personality.  I get a huge rush out of helping others achieve their goals.  I'm also a big fan of guild bounties and rushes - maybe it's because I haven't run them every week for the past two years (so ennui hasn't set in), or maybe the thrill of the hunt is just exciting to me.  Whatever the reason, if there's nothing going on with my guild one night, and I hear another guild on the server needs a few people for 15 minutes to assist with a bounty, I'll put a call out to my guildmates to see if anyone is interested in lending an assist.  

FIRE is not even close to being a 200-400 person guild - we run 10-15 active people on good days, sometimes more, sometimes less.  But this core group is tightly knit and we will pretty much follow each other into the depths of Orr to rescue someone from a risen chicken.  We enjoy doing a variety of activities together, and you will often hear someone say "Anyone want to come help me finish the last few hearts in Diessa?", and we make an event out of it.

The point is, there are going to be guilds at both extremes - those that will go out of their way to help another guild farm the grubs in Caledon, and those that will only come if every participant is guaranteed a Legendary as payment (note to karaoke: I'm not implying that MEGA is the latter - just making a blanket statement - I recall many good times with MEGA, and I've never even seen a legendary in my inventory, given or received!).  

I'll admit that I haven't been as faithful in checking the SoR website calendar for opportunities for our guild to partner with other guilds.  That's an area that I want to improve on personally.  Likewise, I haven't been utilizing that same calendar to publish events that FIRE does that we open to the public - another item I can work on.  I hope others will join with me in working towards creating memorable moments in multi-guild events to bolster the SoR community.

For the website administrator - is there a calendar view that shows an agenda layout?  To clarify, my gaming time is limited to the 8pm-12am timeframe.  It would be awesome to be able to have a view of the calendar that allows me to quickly see what events fall in that time slice across the entire week. 

We suggested that Dark put it on the calendar here. I don't think he has.

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Karaoke (Loki | Oaky | Pokey | Smokey | Croaky | Cloaky | Soaky | Gnocchi)
Guild Leader - Super Mega Happy Fun Time [MEGA] - supermegahappyfuntime.com

Last night, FIRE did Guild Bounties.  FIRE has gotten good with pairing multiple events together.  So, what we did was have our weekly Guild Meeting, an impromptu Karka Queen run, Guild Bounties, and then an impromptu Tequatl run with EG.  We had 15 people participating at the start.  We had about 8-9 participate in our Guild Bounties, with a successful completion.  We had 6-7 at the end participating in Tequatl.

If our 73 person guild can figure out how to get Guild Bounties together for our members, I am sure your 414 person guild can. We JUST started doing bounties within the past month, and have had successful runs each week.  The key for us is to accompany them with something like our Guild Meeting, which pulls the numbers.  We then just move into Bounties for that last 15 minutes when completed.

You have to realize...guilds that are already doing weekly Many people are not necessarily going to go out of their way to do bounties again if they know they already have or will be completing them that week.  But, again, advertising is everything.  Not everyone reads every thread in the forums.  But a simple calendar event will be very useful for that. Its a Guild Event at a glance with very little reading of the forums for those that visit the website.

Combat Medic Barbie | Mist Walker Barbie | Rigor Mortis Barbie

Guild Leader of Chariot of Fire [FIRE]

I'm glad that someone else suggested disbanding the War Council.  I had worked on a thread the other day, for about an hour, but deleted it because I felt that my suggesting it was not appropriate.

I'll give the TL;DR of what I was writing:

I think it should be disbanded.  Fog was dead-on when he said that you can not run a server like a guild, and that's exactly what a "Server Council" attempts to do.  Good intentions aside, they never work and usually end up causing more drama and problems than they were originally created to bridge/fix. 

Just in this game alone, I can list several servers that tried and imploded after just a few months.  The simple fact that this server managed to make one work as long as it did, says volumes about the quality of our community on SoR.

So, IMO, ditch it, the server community will be much better for it.

OK folks.  I have it on my event on calendar now :)

You do realize that you posted your event for 12am server time, which is 3am eastern time on a Thursday into Friday overnight.  Most of our server tends to be more active in the NA/EU times. My guild will almost entirely be asleep at that time.  This is literally 2 hours before I wake up for work. I was considering trying to help, but I definitely cannot make that time.

Combat Medic Barbie | Mist Walker Barbie | Rigor Mortis Barbie

Guild Leader of Chariot of Fire [FIRE]

SScripto, I like the ideas for the server meetings. One rep for each guild in TS, others can text in the TS. 

*Xeero Cool-Mez,Admiral Wiggin-Engi,Arya Sinfelle-Teef,Dirtyfilthyrotten-Necro,Ender Tha Xenocide-Rev
Filthydirtyrotten-Warrior

I've recently returned to SoR so here are a few thoughts in no particular order based on comments throughout this thread.

First I'm assuming that no one is terribly happy about the state of wvw on SoR. I'm also assuming that no one is actually happy about being down in t6. That might be wishful thinking on my part though?

War council is a tricky thing. On the one hand it can be helpful in coordinating wvw efforts. On the other hand absolutely no person or guild is beholden to do anything they say. On a server that is wvw focused they seem to work well but on a server that is more pve oriented they cause problems. With that in mind if SoR wants to become a serious wvw contender again keep the war council. If not then get rid of it.

It's not a good idea to mix a wvw reset meeting with pve. They are two entirely separate things. A wvw reset meeting should be about coordinating wvw not about discussing pve events. Have a separate meeting for that on a different day.

I agree with getting rid of the TS icons. Keep commander, guild leader, admin/moderator icons and trash the rest. They're pointless distracting fluff.

If we want to recruit wvw players and guilds we'll need to show a concerted focused effort to climb up out of t6. No one who is passionate about wvw wants to languish at t6. Once SoR starts gaining upward momentum the guilds and players will come. Right now there's no reason for them to be here. A nice community is nice... and nothing more.

At this point in the game a server can be pve focused or it can be wvw focused. Two entirely different mindsets. Nothing wrong with doing the casual wvw thing just don't expect to climb in the rankings. If SoR isn't climbing in the rankings don't expect to attract wvw players and guilds.

Just my half cent.

Daemon

Hey Kane-

If I could pick a tier for us (in which we were magically competitive), it'd probably be T3. T6 is our current ceiling based on population, and even in T6, we can only hang if we have folks pulling all-nighters.

I think the goal over the next 3-6 months should be building our guilds, working on fights, havoc, and strategies, and strengthening the bonds between our guilds. If we can build a strong core group, it will be easier to start to incorporate more guilds into our server community.

That said, we have a few major problems that (I think) need to be solved before we can seriously consider making a move up. For example:

• Not all WvW guilds participate in our server meetings - we don't need the whole guild, but any serious WvW guild should send at least a single representative


• Not all guilds run in our shared Teamspeak when doing WvW events


• Not all map-tagged commanders are in Teamspeak when commanding


• Not all WvW guilds use this website as a method of non-realtime communication, idea-sharing, and strategizing

There's a variety of reasons for all of the above, some of them "good" and some of them not-so-good. In the end, losers make excuses, winners find a way to make it work.

I'm beyond frustrated with the attitude that we "can't" do these things. If our GUILDS can't get their act together, how can we possibly hope to get random Rallians to do the same?

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Karaoke (Loki | Oaky | Pokey | Smokey | Croaky | Cloaky | Soaky | Gnocchi)
Guild Leader - Super Mega Happy Fun Time [MEGA] - supermegahappyfuntime.com

I've not been back long enough to make an educated guess on which tier SoR should be at. I'm sure t6 is appropriate for the moment. But does anyone want to stay at t6?

Your points are all valid and were many of the same complaints I remember hearing/reading before. But at some point you have to work with what you have. And those things aren't issues that can't be worked with. SoR was in t1 for a long time dealing with those same things. The job can still get done. Maybe I'm being nostalgic but I remember a unified SoR that was determined to work its way up through the ranks and then to stay at t1. I also remember the SoR that just gave up and caused an exodus of guilds and players. And let's not forget the guilds that became too elitist for anyone to stomach.

I don't believe a server can be competitive at wvw if it's core wvw efforts are being led by pvx guilds. At one time that was good enough but those days are long gone. It takes 24/7 coverage. It takes strong presence in all time zones. It takes multiple guilds that get out there 5-7 days per week in the borderlands and run 20-30 strong with rallians tagging along. It takes exceptional battlefield commanders. 

Solutions and ideas? I have a few :

• Open up the war chest. Don't have one or it's too small? Build it up. Then start recruiting wvw focused guilds. Don't know if SoR is still bound and determined not to pay for guilds? If so that's just insane.


• Recruit commanders who know how to rally a force of random players. If you want the rallians to grow into a fighting force you need a commander who knows how to win. I know a lot of people couldn't stand him but do you remember Eldsvada Dod? That guy can run randoms like no one's business.


• Make the wvw experience fun and exciting again. There was a time when someone would pop into LA say "We're losing Bay!" in map chat and people would be tripping over themselves to get into the map and help defend. It wasn't just a sense of community where you felt like you had an obligation to help but also a sense of excitement for the battle itself. And if you win so much the better.


• Squash any elitist attitudes. My first foray into wvw was to defend garrison. Didn't know anything about it but saw the call out in map chat while running around in harathi. I jumped in and followed the commander around for about 4 hours that night.  Never once did some clown tell me to "get off ur uplevel you nub" or "if you don't have all exotic gear gtfo!!!" Is it any wonder the casual player isn't interested in wvw? 

Daemon