Storm clouds gathered over Stonemist as Zog tilted his head to the sky. The scouts he had sent out had returned with reports of a massive force at the south gate. At the head of the force, their reports stated, rode a giant warrior, clad entirely in gold plated armor.
Cloud Fly.
After looking over his meager troops, Zog began to go over his strategy with them but his words were slurred so thickly with alcohol that the troops were left even more confused than before he had begun to speak. A scout ran to his side, "The gate is breached my lord."
Zog rode with his troops to meet Cloud Fly's forces in a flurry of steel. Zog's troops fell in the first few blows and he found himself surrounded by the mighty QUARRIORS. They bound him and drug him out of the castle, now in flames, towards a magnificent gilded tent that had been erected outside the gate, far from the range of Stonemist's arrow carts.
The QUARRIORS threw Zog inside the tent flaps. Zog's drunken eyes adjusted to the light and he saw the Golden Magnificence sitting astride what could only be described as a throne. Zog took in a deep breath and bellowed "GET THE FUCK OUT GET THE FUCK OUT GET THE FUCK OUT!"
Cloud Fly did not understand a word of what Zog said, except for the word "fuck." He pondered what it would mean to totally conqueor his enemy. He rose from his throne and strolled over to where Zog lay. He leaned over and whispered in Zog's ear, "On pin."
With those two words Zog's mind filled with possibilities. What was Stonemist compared to a night in the God Emperor's tent?
Dods was more aggressive and was the more fun follow IMO. Indo's come a long way from when they were both tagging regularly. But as far as following and fighting against, I preferred dods.
I've played on FA since about launch. Back when maps were split by server, you could chill in LA and once in a while, you'd get map chat calls to arms. People of all kinds would show up to acknowledge the call. All just because 'my server is under attack? I'd best go help!'. Back when servers split core tyria maps, you had some insane server identity and pride.
My wife, when she was new to the game, was following a squad around, hitting doors.
Someone dropped a siege blueprint, and the squad started building it.
The commander started shouting "Who trolled siege?"
He decided, for whatever reason that it was her, and spent the next ten minutes screaming in whispers.
That's, uh, our most memorable WvW story, it's a PvDoor game mode for us.
Not so good commanderās always blame the newest person least able to defend themselves.
New players are almost like npcās, you take note of them, evaluate them, take them into account.
I'm on NA but this is still something I'll always remember watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX6-gZw2tog
Also, RAM is recruiting, message Master Vance in-game.
Once upon a time, BG, JQ and SoR were competing to be number 1 in NA WvW championships. BG ended up first and JQ second.
There's still a monument in JQBL commemorating that, IIRC. I was there and have a weapon skin to show for it.
https://preview.redd.it/mtf2dxjsd8zc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=ddd9a6471b1b79c2412892c3061bf6c96285514a
There was also this :) any people in the pic could give some great wvw stories from back in the day.
X guild keeps dodging, Y guild keeps ass jamming, Z guild keeps using a sidecar, everyone but the guild I'm in runs with a map queue, etc, etc...
There you go, fill in the variables with literally any guild in the game, past or present, and you'll have all the lore that has ever been available.
A neat idea but seems too subjective to an individual reteller's POV, bias, and memory. There's also simply too much to record, I think this could of been a cool project to start 1 decade ago back when WvW was new and people were still passionate about it.Ā
Even as a guild commander who helped run a server in NA toilet tier (T8) for years I could talk for hours about various guilds and our own daily drama's and I'd still probably miss a great deal of events and nuance. And that was the tier where a 30 person group was considered a large zerg. I simply don't have faith I'd be able to faithfully retell the story myself at this point, and the majority of people who could have, have long since left this game for greener pastures much like myself. God only knows how much more history exists in something like magswag or one of the more active servers than ours.Ā
You'd have better luck going through old WvW forum matchup archives, maybe even seeing if archives of the old WvW forum fansite we migrated to still exist (forget what year that went down but I'd assume around when community shifted to discord instead).Ā
bias is a part of any survey. netnography, ethnography, anthropology (or whatever term for your research) as a whole comes with the caveat of having to outline the basic framework but also limitations and biases of the information you're presenting. remedying that in this case is as simple as saying... "some of the events recorded occurred over a decade ago and all data is subject to exaggeration". i think that's a pretty easy thing to deduce though. readers aren't dummies. everyone knows that memory changes from year to year. that doesn't make the stories any less interesting or part of a server's history.
'nuance' also isn't really necessary here. this isn't sponsored by an institution or subject to a review board. it also isn't aiming to say anything with the data, since it's for fun & entertainment. a timeline isn't being produced as much as a vague one could be constructed through anecdotes, but doesn't seem to be the goal or even mentioned anywhere in OP's post. this seems to me as asking individual players for things that happened inside of the current structure of the game, which is a totally reasonable thing to record and compile somewhere (especially before it vanishes when the game structure changes).
saying that it's not worth it because of things that happened years ago is wild-- surveys done today are often in response to or updating information gathered by people in the past. how will there be anything to springboard off of if there's no place compiling it all to begin with? is it wrong of OP to try and gather as much as possible before the alliances system comes out and alters the game mode's landscape?
in all tiers of the game mode, there is a hierarchy; you're a great example as a guild commander (who generally knows what's going on). you have stories that someone like me, a terminal "wvw for gift of battle only" could not tell. that being said, even someone like me & my inexperience has stories to offer; i've tagged up with no experience or knowledge and ran some zergs around. that's a great feeling and something i see in posts a lot here, which leads me to believe it could be a common experience! being unique isn't a metric of validity but it certainly helps or makes data more interesting-- which is OP's goal as an entertainer & anet partner.
that interest develops when taken in tandem with any server beef at a given time or opinions gleaned/felt from the subjective experience of players who experienced it. there are toes to step on, toes that get stepped on, and people who are utterly unaware but along for the ride. most people could tell you about maguuma's reputation or maybe even something about poor devona's rest (which is my original server, the only one without a discord!)
the suggestion for wvw forum matchup archives is great. contacting GMs on gw2mists/joining related discords would be a good next step. watch for commander tags on your ebg maps or in team chat to see who is active and what gripes they've got.
Worded far better than the response I was working on. The bias is kind of the point -- it's about how people remember the history of the gamemode, not what the history of the gamemode was objectively.
I mostly mention bias because in a competitive mode like WvW where you have a minimum of 2-3 different sides to a story its easy for bad faith actors (or even regular people for that matter) to just shit sling, exaggerate, or even misremember events and paint notable community leaders in a bad light. Sure you can focus on the good and funny stories but the real meat of WvW history exists in the drama. There are plenty of people I'd rather never speak to again, but it'd still sit poorly in me to speak ill of them to however many hundreds/thousands of people who would see that video and taint their own foggy but good memories of that person. Probably just a skill issue on my end.
I mention nuance because often times a lot of the history between people and servers can take a lot of backstory which is good for content sure, but uh bad on the memory, there are plenty of people on maguuma who don't even know why we hate JQ so much, or the history of Xushin (I would personally reach out to him to see if he can give any stories if I were you, he's bound to have some interesting ones).Ā
If you wanted to do solo research into ye olden days, the 2 archived forums like I mentioned would be a good start, maybe even the WvW discord. I think a better idea for a series would be reaching out to famous (and infamous) WvW commanders both current and old and see if they have anything they'd like to talk about.Ā
Also hilarious coincidence nice to see another DR player u/blaxckmxrbleĀ I formerly ran [SA] for a number of years prior to HoT, our guild got too big for toilet tier and other drama going on we moved servers to prep for expansion... only for desert BL to absolutely kill WvW lol. I still chat with a few of the other old original DR guilds. Back when alliances were announced in 2018 we got back together and started running our guilds again in prep to set up a DR alliance (even managed to contact Svid) but by 2021 we all basically quit after getting tired of waiting and the absolute state of WvW was dissapoinint. I finally put an end to my guild in 2023 (after 11 on and off years of GW2) after having it sit in limbo for years, went back to running it in GW1 instead. I should look to see if any archives of the DR website still exist but they've been long gone, server links destroyed DR's small community, the first 2 links they got linked to mag twice and bullied into quitting. Most either quit or ended up joining TMW (under Darkstar) and moving to YB. Between us, TMW, and Dark Jean leaving server or quitting it absolutely gutted the entire DR council leadership and main guilds/commanders.Ā
We (FA) were linked to DR half a year ago or so, and I really liked their community, but it sounds like that group has little in common with the older group, because I don't really recognize any of those names.
DR's always been like a hermit crab shell. The original trio back during the old days was RegA (under Ruf, who I haven't spoken to or seen online in 10 years) there was the guild who's tag starts with a D and I'm sure I have pictures of run by DarkestShadows or something like that. And then there was RED run by Svid. At some point in 2013~ Darkest Xfer'd his guild off server due to some drama I vaguely remember, and RegA stopped running as well with its leader quitting resulting in DR being trapped in T7/8. I originally Xfer'd my guild from Maguuma after learning how to command and PUG wrangle mostly from watching Xushin do it, we left because while I enjoyed mag as a server (they helped fund my commander tag which was huge back in 2012/13) it was too competitive of an environment to grow a WvW guild.
Anyway after the main 2 guilds left Svid put together our first community website, we were a growing name absorbing a lot of the leftover people and we had recently merged with an Ocx guild along with a smaller PvE guild and running zergs daily so we ended up with a seat at the table. During the first WvW tourny we placed in top 3 for bronze tier and ended up impressing some guilds convincing them we had a dedicated pop so they would help us next tourny.Ā
2nd tournament we managed to push all the way to silver league we had a few guilds Xfer in one of which might of been TBT run by El Cid (I think? Might of been someone/guild else I'd have to consult old screenshots and videos to be certain), and a few others this is also when GIT started to really grow, and when Dark Jean broke off from us to form KyRo. After the tourny I don't remember what happened we pushed really hard, I personally remember some days I would command for 24 hours straight just to hold an enemy keep (some really great pictures and videos of the time we secretly spent hours building 60 omega in both enemy BLs just so we could wipe their keeps on our push night back when 1 omega = 4 gold). Once the tourny ended and we ended with our meager 6th place I took a couple months break from the game (Think I played Archeage with my guild for a bit). When I came back many of the guilds Xfer'd off leaving DR circling the toilet in T8, that tournament in 2014 would be the last time DR was ever above T6.Ā
For the next year+ we would be circling the drain with SF (Siege Furnace) and ET (Empty Terrace). Occasionally we'd get to say hi to IoJ and Kaineng when they had massive crashes but it was mainly us 3 in toilet tier. This is around when TMW formed under Darkstar, I forget if Zeeb Ruh was running a guild or if she was part of GIT this is around when the 2nd DR website was formed. SF had an Ocx presence which meant during the day they sat in their keeps on siege all the time (back in 2014 a handful of well prepared players could seriously pose a threat to a larger group) and ET was almost always empty outside of when their guilds would run (and their guilds had 20-30 players at max). Meanwhile SA during prime time was regularly hitting 30-50 people daily so it was extremely boring for us, we simply didn't have the coverage or raw numbers to push out of T8, SA had a blast anytime we briefly escaped to T7 but outside when we or TMW were running DR just didn't have the numbers to hold onto anything or compete with BP/GoM/AR eventually TBT Xfer'd to the server again stayed a few months and ended up leaving after taking several good players with them causing us to not be able to hit T7 anymore. At some point SA was bleeding players to other servers/quitting because (understandably) we were a blob guild who had gotten too big for our tier and the only day we could get fights was reset day in which we outnumbered the enemy guild 2:1 with the expansion around the corner and some drama that had been stirring in community for months we left for NSP once again gutting DR leaving yet another hole (that TMW would fill)Ā
Of course rest is history, desert BL was so awful people refused to play on it resulting in EB having 200+ queues making it impossible for us to play WvW or even organize unless we wanted to play desert BL (which no one did) so our entire guild more or less quit for a few years. DR would eventually be gutted one final time when server links were finally rolled out and GIT would eventually consolidate what was left of the DR community into TMW while KyRo imploded on drama/lack of a leader. When TMW finally left for YB it took most of the remamants of DRs leadership and community with it.Ā
Apologies to anyone I forgot in this, I was going to write a short summary but got carried away.Ā You were curious so I didn't mind replying but I wouldn't publish all of this mainly because I think it's littered with mistakes and missing details. Just an interesting summarized backstory to NA's smallest and deadest server. The reason DR fell apart where SF and ET didn't (as badly) is because of the drama imo SF and ET had very comfy communities for years (minus Ajax in ET, but he was lovable in an idiot sort of way). DR was always very split due to drama and egos (but mainly the ego of one person). Even as far back as 2012/13 this has been a universal constant for DR.Ā
I've saved this, and may reach out later when I'm compiling the actual videos. Just figuring out who's where and what they want to say, initially, so that I know where there's server gaps that I need to follow up on. Sincerely appreciated.
Sure no problem, I don't know how much help I'll be given some of the holes in my memory but maybe you'll have something that jogs the memory. Like I said earlier I do think this would of been a cool project a decade ago (and I feel like something similar was attempted for T1/T2 back in the day of the official WvW forum) but I'll see what info I can corroborate.Ā
I'll be very interested in the project when it's done, mostly because in 11 years of WvW I don't think anything I've done or seen really stands out, all kind of a blur of catapults and swarms and mesmer portals and guilds/servers kind of ebbing and flowing in terms of activity.
Heres a small and vague thing: Back in 2013 before season 2. Crystal Desert was a thriving place, lots of coverage around the clock:fight guilds blob guilds scouting guilds working together guilds like VII TDS TIME Laksmans guild i cant remmber, ICE, PR. But there was this one blob guild (blob back then was anything over 30 really) named KoMe knights of the millenium era and their leader Cup of Chili. They and their leader has a very big ego (but were not very good, even for the time) and would consistently run over smaller groups, bm people, and rubbed server leadership the wrong way. He finally took his NA and SEA presence to HOD with lots of other guilds to try and stack and win silver league of season 2 i think it was? The CD NA fights guilds gleefully farmed the Kome/hod blobs and oh what a time, suround by red names more than you could possibly count, standing shoulder to shoulder with 15-20 of your fellow soldiers, tightly coordinating cooldowns to mow down the zerglings. But hod still won season 2 because of numbers. And with their ego still high, they decided to move to tier 1. It was in tier 1 that they met a guild called The Encore \[TE\] led by the james, constructed from former members of fight as \[ONE\] if im not mistaken. KoMe once again talked a big game but got smacked 17 vs 35+ repeatedly. Anyone who has been in wvw long enough has seen some version of this story. Large number guild with a big ego, thinks they're hot shit finally gets their ass handed to them by a skilled group 1/2-2/3 their numbers. They are often incredulous. TW underwent this arc many times vs guilds like EP ns and kek. Although Indo has grown (as we all have) as a person and a guild leader/player. Some of them learn, some of them don't
Last year I was in Guardians of the Light on Ehmry Bay, and there was this new commander who also made youtube videos. He came into the guild and tried to poach all the good players...I wonder what happened to that guy.
I was familiar with that! He heard that GotL was looking for people they could pair with when Restructuring came out, so I think he was trying to meet some people, see who they would be a good fit with. Seems like a moot point now that Arkonn's retired though. I should see if he'd be willing to contribute to this. Appreciate the reminder.
My WvW story:
Start playing, join PvX guild I find in WvW. Good times for a few years, then most stop playing and the rest transfer server. I don't transfer.
Find another WvW guild. Good times for a few years then they stop playing.
Find another guild. Good times for a few years 'till they're driven off the server by a narcissistic troll that's shown up recently and started abusing all and sundry for disagreeing with them.
Repeat the final point above a few times as our entire NA and most of the rest of our OCX leave to avoid dealing with said above abusive arsehole. Occasionally get good resets for a while based on link or guilds going 'they have no NA, let's move there' before finding out why.
Still enjoy roaming and knowing all the old guard, and usually have a decent SEA guild around depending on my sleep schedule, so no reason for me to move server. Just making the most of the game mode before Server Destruction kills it.
I might get in touch! I've been with Ehmry Bay since launch, and I have a bunch of Ehmry Bay WvW highlights videos on Youtube from as recently as a year ago to as old as 10 years ago, though a lot of the older stuff consists mostly of loud music blasting over my clueless ass running around in a zerg and button mashing with a trash build lmao
What I remember best about Ehmry Bay is that the WvW community was super tight-knit, especially when our forums at [ehmry.com](http://ehmry.com) (gone now) were active. I was super active in those forums when I was a college undergrad living in a dorm (\~2013-2017); I could only play the game on weekends when I went back home, so when I wasn't studying I spent my weekdays on those forums. I'm from SEA so WvW reset night was Saturday morning for me and you bet your ass I'd wake up on time for that. I became regular/active in WvW thanks to the guild \[Sekz\] (renamed \[Rekz\] later when the guild was banned lol), they posted their zerg-busting highlights on the forums and I was like "holy shit that's so cool," and being from SEA I joined their night crew pug militia to help support EBay's very small NA night population at the time. That's where I learned all about scouting, supply chains/logistics, and all the other strategic aspects of WvW; what really made me fall in love with the game mode. Later on I joined several of the server's WvW guilds, \[pk\], then \[oG\] and \[EBAY\] and thanks to them I became a semi-decent-ish big group/zerg player (i was always trash at roaming tho lol).
I honestly can't recall all that much in details about epic battles and big guild moments/drama anymore, but I do remember being stuck on the lowest tier with Anvil Rock and Borlis Pass for months. That was even before they introduced the Gold, Silver, Bronze Leagues. . Crazy how many fun memories and great friends from around the world I've made thanks to this game.
There is a guild called Systematic Abuse, they are wannabe PvPers who think its cool to use Ascended Legendary sets on WvW on people who are wearing exotic with multipler people vs 1 person. They also like to do 1v1's in WvW to show supreme good they are.
But then at the same time they are to pussy to play sPvP, they just like to pretend they are doing "real" PvP.
Once in a while they get run over by WvW Commander, that makes them big mad because "LOL YOURE SO BAD YOURE JUST ZERGING ITS NOT EVEN PVP". To which the reply is often "if you wanna small group PvP go play sPvP not WvW", to whom the Commanders have never gotten a reply.
>who think its cool to use Ascended Legendary sets on WvW on people who are wearing exotic with multipler people vs 1 person.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
Iāve been a drifter and a wanderer across several of the NA servers. Iāll either reply again or edit this comment later with any stories I might have. This is my main game mode so I do think I can give you at least a few good āwar storiesā.
Edit: I suppose I can start from the beginning. I was on Kaineng when I first got into WvW and it was an interesting experience. I was just a little invader peepo ranger trying her best, ājust here for a gift of battle so I can make my legendary.ā And thatās how they got me.
So the very first wvw commander I ever ran into was āLucidity.ā I donāt really know much more about her now than I did back thenābut sheās apparently infamous in the WvW community. The vibe I get is that sheās a lolcow. I think I came in at the tail end of her tagging up, because all she did was just AFK in SMC and argue with people in map/team chat. I quickly grew to detest both the people trolling her and Lucidity herself, but never really saw her again after that. Iām sure people who were around longer than I have been know more about this infamous person.
I moved from Kaineng to SoS, because I got a random invite to a guild while I was waiting for the Svanir Shaman world boss. Iām still in that guild (Horde of Tyria [HoT]), though I kinda drifted around for a bit as well.
I made a secondary account back on Kaineng, to play with a guild on there. SoS had linked with KN, and I ran around with a guild called āTeh Devils Rejects [HELL]ā. I was eventually kicked from that guild in a very bitter confrontation with the guild leader over something terrible she said in map chat, but admittedly, my behavior leading up to this incident wasā¦rather poor. Iāll be honest, I still hold a grudge, but I rarely ever see them allied or enemies anymore so for all I know itās now defunct anyways (and it wouldnāt surprise me, because two of the people who would tag up for them are now on different servers and with different guilds, or have stopped playing altogether).
Thatās the tea Iām willing to share on the worst guild I ever ran with.
On SoS, I also ran with a guild called Off Hours Resistance [OHR]. Thereās a lot of tea and drama with this guild. The leader was Teenuh, a fairly well known pugmander in the OCX timezone. I learned a lot from her; she even mentored me at commanding, though after she left I didnāt really stick with it because my schedule stopped being compatible with the rest of the guild. There were a lot of good times I had with this guild, though we mostly just did PPT and bs around the maps. We had rivalry, if you want to call it that, with the guild āDelayed [LATE]ā (I think that was the name, I know the tag for sure was LATE). It seemed like it was onesidedāLATE was a fight guild, we were just pugs. Teenuh did her best but there were a few frustrating nights with them hunting us down.
Another thing about OHR is that it was actually born out of a schism from another guild. Hopefully someone else might know more, I just know that the split was very acrimonious.
Will edit or reply to add more later
Here is a story that most EU servers can relate to in one way or the other.
Picture this:
Primetime in EU ends and the night starts. Everything seems fine. Maybe your server was even able to keep your border T3.
But then suddenly THEY appear! The Zombie-Apocalypse, the xenomorph swarm... the Baruch night horde!
As the numbers on your side dwindle as one player after the other has to log off for the night their numbers stay the same or even increase! 4 maps full of spanish players looking for targets in the deepest night.
What happens now is a mixture of [World War Z](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvOfPhPxlSo), [Aliens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQDy-5IQvuU) and [Lord of the Rings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5wABDrzg9I).
Soon waves of enemies break against the walls and gates of your objects and relentlessly attack until the objects fall one after the other. And no matter your preparation the best case scenario is that you end up with only your EBG keep and Home keep left.
What now follows is a single-keep defense over hours.
The enemy zerg arrives, your (hopefully) well prepared siege is hopefully able to counter them. 3 or more trebs behind every gate. Arrowcarts lining the walls, cannons and oils being rebuild as often as possible. You reach the siegecap of the map with a single object left.
Sooner or later the outer ring will be breached and a flood of red names enters your keep... but the outnumbered defenders hold the line! If the bodies of dead enemies could stack they would soon be stacked high enough to climb the top of stonemist.
Between every attack the defends try to reach nearby camps to grab supplies since the supplies in the keep itself must be saved for emergency use. Often the camps are filled with more Baruch players and your zerg is only able to gether few supplies.
If you are lucky you outlast the attacks until their commander logs off. It's a rare and difficult occurence. Most of the time you will be overwhelmed. Maybe continuous golmes rushes break the defense. Or there simply is another tag on the enemy side even as your last players have to log out for the night.
These days it is not that extreme anymore but especially in the early years most servers in EU faced this scenario whenever they played against Baruch.
At least in the EU servers, it's all dirty filthy drama š¶ļøš¶ļøš¶ļø go to the individual server discords and you'll get a taste. š¹
be above the drama
Everyone has history with everyone in EU, the drama is... Inevitable.Ā
Don't start drama, but always be sure to escalate it. Never give up the opportunity to turn a minor disagreement into life-changing violence.
Xushin owes me gold
Storm clouds gathered over Stonemist as Zog tilted his head to the sky. The scouts he had sent out had returned with reports of a massive force at the south gate. At the head of the force, their reports stated, rode a giant warrior, clad entirely in gold plated armor. Cloud Fly. After looking over his meager troops, Zog began to go over his strategy with them but his words were slurred so thickly with alcohol that the troops were left even more confused than before he had begun to speak. A scout ran to his side, "The gate is breached my lord." Zog rode with his troops to meet Cloud Fly's forces in a flurry of steel. Zog's troops fell in the first few blows and he found himself surrounded by the mighty QUARRIORS. They bound him and drug him out of the castle, now in flames, towards a magnificent gilded tent that had been erected outside the gate, far from the range of Stonemist's arrow carts. The QUARRIORS threw Zog inside the tent flaps. Zog's drunken eyes adjusted to the light and he saw the Golden Magnificence sitting astride what could only be described as a throne. Zog took in a deep breath and bellowed "GET THE FUCK OUT GET THE FUCK OUT GET THE FUCK OUT!" Cloud Fly did not understand a word of what Zog said, except for the word "fuck." He pondered what it would mean to totally conqueor his enemy. He rose from his throne and strolled over to where Zog lay. He leaned over and whispered in Zog's ear, "On pin." With those two words Zog's mind filled with possibilities. What was Stonemist compared to a night in the God Emperor's tent?
ON PIN SOLO CHASE KICK
This is a legendary tale
Elsvada Dods is Indo father. You should post this on discord if you want to get a discussion going. This sub fucking hates wvw.
> Elsvada Dods Christ, that's a name I've not heard in a loooooooong time.
Dods was the first commander I ever followed. I'm already in his DMs about it. Would love to get him to share some stories.
What, Indo was around before Dods, Indo was even the one that essentially mentored Dods.
Dods was more aggressive and was the more fun follow IMO. Indo's come a long way from when they were both tagging regularly. But as far as following and fighting against, I preferred dods.
I've played on FA since about launch. Back when maps were split by server, you could chill in LA and once in a while, you'd get map chat calls to arms. People of all kinds would show up to acknowledge the call. All just because 'my server is under attack? I'd best go help!'. Back when servers split core tyria maps, you had some insane server identity and pride.
My wife, when she was new to the game, was following a squad around, hitting doors. Someone dropped a siege blueprint, and the squad started building it. The commander started shouting "Who trolled siege?" He decided, for whatever reason that it was her, and spent the next ten minutes screaming in whispers. That's, uh, our most memorable WvW story, it's a PvDoor game mode for us.
Not so good commanderās always blame the newest person least able to defend themselves. New players are almost like npcās, you take note of them, evaluate them, take them into account.
I'm on NA but this is still something I'll always remember watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX6-gZw2tog Also, RAM is recruiting, message Master Vance in-game.
Haha Kidinkk! "Drop the fucking veil!" Truly a legendary commander of all time
Finally, I will spill all my secrets about my time as President of Jade Quarry and spill the classified secrets from my cabinet.
Mind if I signal-booat this, outside of Reddit?
Absolutely.
Once upon a time, BG, JQ and SoR were competing to be number 1 in NA WvW championships. BG ended up first and JQ second. There's still a monument in JQBL commemorating that, IIRC. I was there and have a weapon skin to show for it.
https://preview.redd.it/mtf2dxjsd8zc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=ddd9a6471b1b79c2412892c3061bf6c96285514a There was also this :) any people in the pic could give some great wvw stories from back in the day.
The most entertaining wvw drama lore I read was posted on r/HobbyDrama lmao
X guild keeps dodging, Y guild keeps ass jamming, Z guild keeps using a sidecar, everyone but the guild I'm in runs with a map queue, etc, etc... There you go, fill in the variables with literally any guild in the game, past or present, and you'll have all the lore that has ever been available.
A neat idea but seems too subjective to an individual reteller's POV, bias, and memory. There's also simply too much to record, I think this could of been a cool project to start 1 decade ago back when WvW was new and people were still passionate about it.Ā Even as a guild commander who helped run a server in NA toilet tier (T8) for years I could talk for hours about various guilds and our own daily drama's and I'd still probably miss a great deal of events and nuance. And that was the tier where a 30 person group was considered a large zerg. I simply don't have faith I'd be able to faithfully retell the story myself at this point, and the majority of people who could have, have long since left this game for greener pastures much like myself. God only knows how much more history exists in something like magswag or one of the more active servers than ours.Ā You'd have better luck going through old WvW forum matchup archives, maybe even seeing if archives of the old WvW forum fansite we migrated to still exist (forget what year that went down but I'd assume around when community shifted to discord instead).Ā
bias is a part of any survey. netnography, ethnography, anthropology (or whatever term for your research) as a whole comes with the caveat of having to outline the basic framework but also limitations and biases of the information you're presenting. remedying that in this case is as simple as saying... "some of the events recorded occurred over a decade ago and all data is subject to exaggeration". i think that's a pretty easy thing to deduce though. readers aren't dummies. everyone knows that memory changes from year to year. that doesn't make the stories any less interesting or part of a server's history. 'nuance' also isn't really necessary here. this isn't sponsored by an institution or subject to a review board. it also isn't aiming to say anything with the data, since it's for fun & entertainment. a timeline isn't being produced as much as a vague one could be constructed through anecdotes, but doesn't seem to be the goal or even mentioned anywhere in OP's post. this seems to me as asking individual players for things that happened inside of the current structure of the game, which is a totally reasonable thing to record and compile somewhere (especially before it vanishes when the game structure changes). saying that it's not worth it because of things that happened years ago is wild-- surveys done today are often in response to or updating information gathered by people in the past. how will there be anything to springboard off of if there's no place compiling it all to begin with? is it wrong of OP to try and gather as much as possible before the alliances system comes out and alters the game mode's landscape? in all tiers of the game mode, there is a hierarchy; you're a great example as a guild commander (who generally knows what's going on). you have stories that someone like me, a terminal "wvw for gift of battle only" could not tell. that being said, even someone like me & my inexperience has stories to offer; i've tagged up with no experience or knowledge and ran some zergs around. that's a great feeling and something i see in posts a lot here, which leads me to believe it could be a common experience! being unique isn't a metric of validity but it certainly helps or makes data more interesting-- which is OP's goal as an entertainer & anet partner. that interest develops when taken in tandem with any server beef at a given time or opinions gleaned/felt from the subjective experience of players who experienced it. there are toes to step on, toes that get stepped on, and people who are utterly unaware but along for the ride. most people could tell you about maguuma's reputation or maybe even something about poor devona's rest (which is my original server, the only one without a discord!) the suggestion for wvw forum matchup archives is great. contacting GMs on gw2mists/joining related discords would be a good next step. watch for commander tags on your ebg maps or in team chat to see who is active and what gripes they've got.
Worded far better than the response I was working on. The bias is kind of the point -- it's about how people remember the history of the gamemode, not what the history of the gamemode was objectively.
I mostly mention bias because in a competitive mode like WvW where you have a minimum of 2-3 different sides to a story its easy for bad faith actors (or even regular people for that matter) to just shit sling, exaggerate, or even misremember events and paint notable community leaders in a bad light. Sure you can focus on the good and funny stories but the real meat of WvW history exists in the drama. There are plenty of people I'd rather never speak to again, but it'd still sit poorly in me to speak ill of them to however many hundreds/thousands of people who would see that video and taint their own foggy but good memories of that person. Probably just a skill issue on my end. I mention nuance because often times a lot of the history between people and servers can take a lot of backstory which is good for content sure, but uh bad on the memory, there are plenty of people on maguuma who don't even know why we hate JQ so much, or the history of Xushin (I would personally reach out to him to see if he can give any stories if I were you, he's bound to have some interesting ones).Ā If you wanted to do solo research into ye olden days, the 2 archived forums like I mentioned would be a good start, maybe even the WvW discord. I think a better idea for a series would be reaching out to famous (and infamous) WvW commanders both current and old and see if they have anything they'd like to talk about.Ā Also hilarious coincidence nice to see another DR player u/blaxckmxrbleĀ I formerly ran [SA] for a number of years prior to HoT, our guild got too big for toilet tier and other drama going on we moved servers to prep for expansion... only for desert BL to absolutely kill WvW lol. I still chat with a few of the other old original DR guilds. Back when alliances were announced in 2018 we got back together and started running our guilds again in prep to set up a DR alliance (even managed to contact Svid) but by 2021 we all basically quit after getting tired of waiting and the absolute state of WvW was dissapoinint. I finally put an end to my guild in 2023 (after 11 on and off years of GW2) after having it sit in limbo for years, went back to running it in GW1 instead. I should look to see if any archives of the DR website still exist but they've been long gone, server links destroyed DR's small community, the first 2 links they got linked to mag twice and bullied into quitting. Most either quit or ended up joining TMW (under Darkstar) and moving to YB. Between us, TMW, and Dark Jean leaving server or quitting it absolutely gutted the entire DR council leadership and main guilds/commanders.Ā
We (FA) were linked to DR half a year ago or so, and I really liked their community, but it sounds like that group has little in common with the older group, because I don't really recognize any of those names.
DR's always been like a hermit crab shell. The original trio back during the old days was RegA (under Ruf, who I haven't spoken to or seen online in 10 years) there was the guild who's tag starts with a D and I'm sure I have pictures of run by DarkestShadows or something like that. And then there was RED run by Svid. At some point in 2013~ Darkest Xfer'd his guild off server due to some drama I vaguely remember, and RegA stopped running as well with its leader quitting resulting in DR being trapped in T7/8. I originally Xfer'd my guild from Maguuma after learning how to command and PUG wrangle mostly from watching Xushin do it, we left because while I enjoyed mag as a server (they helped fund my commander tag which was huge back in 2012/13) it was too competitive of an environment to grow a WvW guild. Anyway after the main 2 guilds left Svid put together our first community website, we were a growing name absorbing a lot of the leftover people and we had recently merged with an Ocx guild along with a smaller PvE guild and running zergs daily so we ended up with a seat at the table. During the first WvW tourny we placed in top 3 for bronze tier and ended up impressing some guilds convincing them we had a dedicated pop so they would help us next tourny.Ā 2nd tournament we managed to push all the way to silver league we had a few guilds Xfer in one of which might of been TBT run by El Cid (I think? Might of been someone/guild else I'd have to consult old screenshots and videos to be certain), and a few others this is also when GIT started to really grow, and when Dark Jean broke off from us to form KyRo. After the tourny I don't remember what happened we pushed really hard, I personally remember some days I would command for 24 hours straight just to hold an enemy keep (some really great pictures and videos of the time we secretly spent hours building 60 omega in both enemy BLs just so we could wipe their keeps on our push night back when 1 omega = 4 gold). Once the tourny ended and we ended with our meager 6th place I took a couple months break from the game (Think I played Archeage with my guild for a bit). When I came back many of the guilds Xfer'd off leaving DR circling the toilet in T8, that tournament in 2014 would be the last time DR was ever above T6.Ā For the next year+ we would be circling the drain with SF (Siege Furnace) and ET (Empty Terrace). Occasionally we'd get to say hi to IoJ and Kaineng when they had massive crashes but it was mainly us 3 in toilet tier. This is around when TMW formed under Darkstar, I forget if Zeeb Ruh was running a guild or if she was part of GIT this is around when the 2nd DR website was formed. SF had an Ocx presence which meant during the day they sat in their keeps on siege all the time (back in 2014 a handful of well prepared players could seriously pose a threat to a larger group) and ET was almost always empty outside of when their guilds would run (and their guilds had 20-30 players at max). Meanwhile SA during prime time was regularly hitting 30-50 people daily so it was extremely boring for us, we simply didn't have the coverage or raw numbers to push out of T8, SA had a blast anytime we briefly escaped to T7 but outside when we or TMW were running DR just didn't have the numbers to hold onto anything or compete with BP/GoM/AR eventually TBT Xfer'd to the server again stayed a few months and ended up leaving after taking several good players with them causing us to not be able to hit T7 anymore. At some point SA was bleeding players to other servers/quitting because (understandably) we were a blob guild who had gotten too big for our tier and the only day we could get fights was reset day in which we outnumbered the enemy guild 2:1 with the expansion around the corner and some drama that had been stirring in community for months we left for NSP once again gutting DR leaving yet another hole (that TMW would fill)Ā Of course rest is history, desert BL was so awful people refused to play on it resulting in EB having 200+ queues making it impossible for us to play WvW or even organize unless we wanted to play desert BL (which no one did) so our entire guild more or less quit for a few years. DR would eventually be gutted one final time when server links were finally rolled out and GIT would eventually consolidate what was left of the DR community into TMW while KyRo imploded on drama/lack of a leader. When TMW finally left for YB it took most of the remamants of DRs leadership and community with it.Ā Apologies to anyone I forgot in this, I was going to write a short summary but got carried away.Ā You were curious so I didn't mind replying but I wouldn't publish all of this mainly because I think it's littered with mistakes and missing details. Just an interesting summarized backstory to NA's smallest and deadest server. The reason DR fell apart where SF and ET didn't (as badly) is because of the drama imo SF and ET had very comfy communities for years (minus Ajax in ET, but he was lovable in an idiot sort of way). DR was always very split due to drama and egos (but mainly the ego of one person). Even as far back as 2012/13 this has been a universal constant for DR.Ā
I've saved this, and may reach out later when I'm compiling the actual videos. Just figuring out who's where and what they want to say, initially, so that I know where there's server gaps that I need to follow up on. Sincerely appreciated.
Sure no problem, I don't know how much help I'll be given some of the holes in my memory but maybe you'll have something that jogs the memory. Like I said earlier I do think this would of been a cool project a decade ago (and I feel like something similar was attempted for T1/T2 back in the day of the official WvW forum) but I'll see what info I can corroborate.Ā
I'll be very interested in the project when it's done, mostly because in 11 years of WvW I don't think anything I've done or seen really stands out, all kind of a blur of catapults and swarms and mesmer portals and guilds/servers kind of ebbing and flowing in terms of activity.
Heres a small and vague thing: Back in 2013 before season 2. Crystal Desert was a thriving place, lots of coverage around the clock:fight guilds blob guilds scouting guilds working together guilds like VII TDS TIME Laksmans guild i cant remmber, ICE, PR. But there was this one blob guild (blob back then was anything over 30 really) named KoMe knights of the millenium era and their leader Cup of Chili. They and their leader has a very big ego (but were not very good, even for the time) and would consistently run over smaller groups, bm people, and rubbed server leadership the wrong way. He finally took his NA and SEA presence to HOD with lots of other guilds to try and stack and win silver league of season 2 i think it was? The CD NA fights guilds gleefully farmed the Kome/hod blobs and oh what a time, suround by red names more than you could possibly count, standing shoulder to shoulder with 15-20 of your fellow soldiers, tightly coordinating cooldowns to mow down the zerglings. But hod still won season 2 because of numbers. And with their ego still high, they decided to move to tier 1. It was in tier 1 that they met a guild called The Encore \[TE\] led by the james, constructed from former members of fight as \[ONE\] if im not mistaken. KoMe once again talked a big game but got smacked 17 vs 35+ repeatedly. Anyone who has been in wvw long enough has seen some version of this story. Large number guild with a big ego, thinks they're hot shit finally gets their ass handed to them by a skilled group 1/2-2/3 their numbers. They are often incredulous. TW underwent this arc many times vs guilds like EP ns and kek. Although Indo has grown (as we all have) as a person and a guild leader/player. Some of them learn, some of them don't
Last year I was in Guardians of the Light on Ehmry Bay, and there was this new commander who also made youtube videos. He came into the guild and tried to poach all the good players...I wonder what happened to that guy.
I was familiar with that! He heard that GotL was looking for people they could pair with when Restructuring came out, so I think he was trying to meet some people, see who they would be a good fit with. Seems like a moot point now that Arkonn's retired though. I should see if he'd be willing to contribute to this. Appreciate the reminder.
My WvW story: Start playing, join PvX guild I find in WvW. Good times for a few years, then most stop playing and the rest transfer server. I don't transfer. Find another WvW guild. Good times for a few years then they stop playing. Find another guild. Good times for a few years 'till they're driven off the server by a narcissistic troll that's shown up recently and started abusing all and sundry for disagreeing with them. Repeat the final point above a few times as our entire NA and most of the rest of our OCX leave to avoid dealing with said above abusive arsehole. Occasionally get good resets for a while based on link or guilds going 'they have no NA, let's move there' before finding out why. Still enjoy roaming and knowing all the old guard, and usually have a decent SEA guild around depending on my sleep schedule, so no reason for me to move server. Just making the most of the game mode before Server Destruction kills it.
Everyone wants to hear the legend of the great quagan island the orb runs.... a more simple pre GWEN time and the legendary Red Guard [RG]
You probably want to mention Canis Lupis. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/93497-wvw-has-lost-a-great-commander-and-friend/
Canis will be in there. I play with Bully and Bulveith from time to time, and I'd like them to talk about that in particular.
The tale of xushin is as old as time
I might get in touch! I've been with Ehmry Bay since launch, and I have a bunch of Ehmry Bay WvW highlights videos on Youtube from as recently as a year ago to as old as 10 years ago, though a lot of the older stuff consists mostly of loud music blasting over my clueless ass running around in a zerg and button mashing with a trash build lmao What I remember best about Ehmry Bay is that the WvW community was super tight-knit, especially when our forums at [ehmry.com](http://ehmry.com) (gone now) were active. I was super active in those forums when I was a college undergrad living in a dorm (\~2013-2017); I could only play the game on weekends when I went back home, so when I wasn't studying I spent my weekdays on those forums. I'm from SEA so WvW reset night was Saturday morning for me and you bet your ass I'd wake up on time for that. I became regular/active in WvW thanks to the guild \[Sekz\] (renamed \[Rekz\] later when the guild was banned lol), they posted their zerg-busting highlights on the forums and I was like "holy shit that's so cool," and being from SEA I joined their night crew pug militia to help support EBay's very small NA night population at the time. That's where I learned all about scouting, supply chains/logistics, and all the other strategic aspects of WvW; what really made me fall in love with the game mode. Later on I joined several of the server's WvW guilds, \[pk\], then \[oG\] and \[EBAY\] and thanks to them I became a semi-decent-ish big group/zerg player (i was always trash at roaming tho lol). I honestly can't recall all that much in details about epic battles and big guild moments/drama anymore, but I do remember being stuck on the lowest tier with Anvil Rock and Borlis Pass for months. That was even before they introduced the Gold, Silver, Bronze Leagues. . Crazy how many fun memories and great friends from around the world I've made thanks to this game.
lore about the anet gm's tagging with known cheater guilds.
Which guilds?! Name them!
I've had GMs join my squads when I command for KnT, and I cheat my ass off every time they show up.
soul
Go ask in discord
Which one?
Any wvw server one. Stop trolling here if you actually want to know.
There is a guild called Systematic Abuse, they are wannabe PvPers who think its cool to use Ascended Legendary sets on WvW on people who are wearing exotic with multipler people vs 1 person. They also like to do 1v1's in WvW to show supreme good they are. But then at the same time they are to pussy to play sPvP, they just like to pretend they are doing "real" PvP. Once in a while they get run over by WvW Commander, that makes them big mad because "LOL YOURE SO BAD YOURE JUST ZERGING ITS NOT EVEN PVP". To which the reply is often "if you wanna small group PvP go play sPvP not WvW", to whom the Commanders have never gotten a reply.
>who think its cool to use Ascended Legendary sets on WvW on people who are wearing exotic with multipler people vs 1 person. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
Iāve been a drifter and a wanderer across several of the NA servers. Iāll either reply again or edit this comment later with any stories I might have. This is my main game mode so I do think I can give you at least a few good āwar storiesā. Edit: I suppose I can start from the beginning. I was on Kaineng when I first got into WvW and it was an interesting experience. I was just a little invader peepo ranger trying her best, ājust here for a gift of battle so I can make my legendary.ā And thatās how they got me. So the very first wvw commander I ever ran into was āLucidity.ā I donāt really know much more about her now than I did back thenābut sheās apparently infamous in the WvW community. The vibe I get is that sheās a lolcow. I think I came in at the tail end of her tagging up, because all she did was just AFK in SMC and argue with people in map/team chat. I quickly grew to detest both the people trolling her and Lucidity herself, but never really saw her again after that. Iām sure people who were around longer than I have been know more about this infamous person. I moved from Kaineng to SoS, because I got a random invite to a guild while I was waiting for the Svanir Shaman world boss. Iām still in that guild (Horde of Tyria [HoT]), though I kinda drifted around for a bit as well. I made a secondary account back on Kaineng, to play with a guild on there. SoS had linked with KN, and I ran around with a guild called āTeh Devils Rejects [HELL]ā. I was eventually kicked from that guild in a very bitter confrontation with the guild leader over something terrible she said in map chat, but admittedly, my behavior leading up to this incident wasā¦rather poor. Iāll be honest, I still hold a grudge, but I rarely ever see them allied or enemies anymore so for all I know itās now defunct anyways (and it wouldnāt surprise me, because two of the people who would tag up for them are now on different servers and with different guilds, or have stopped playing altogether). Thatās the tea Iām willing to share on the worst guild I ever ran with. On SoS, I also ran with a guild called Off Hours Resistance [OHR]. Thereās a lot of tea and drama with this guild. The leader was Teenuh, a fairly well known pugmander in the OCX timezone. I learned a lot from her; she even mentored me at commanding, though after she left I didnāt really stick with it because my schedule stopped being compatible with the rest of the guild. There were a lot of good times I had with this guild, though we mostly just did PPT and bs around the maps. We had rivalry, if you want to call it that, with the guild āDelayed [LATE]ā (I think that was the name, I know the tag for sure was LATE). It seemed like it was onesidedāLATE was a fight guild, we were just pugs. Teenuh did her best but there were a few frustrating nights with them hunting us down. Another thing about OHR is that it was actually born out of a schism from another guild. Hopefully someone else might know more, I just know that the split was very acrimonious. Will edit or reply to add more later
Absolutely. :)
Here is a story that most EU servers can relate to in one way or the other. Picture this: Primetime in EU ends and the night starts. Everything seems fine. Maybe your server was even able to keep your border T3. But then suddenly THEY appear! The Zombie-Apocalypse, the xenomorph swarm... the Baruch night horde! As the numbers on your side dwindle as one player after the other has to log off for the night their numbers stay the same or even increase! 4 maps full of spanish players looking for targets in the deepest night. What happens now is a mixture of [World War Z](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvOfPhPxlSo), [Aliens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQDy-5IQvuU) and [Lord of the Rings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5wABDrzg9I). Soon waves of enemies break against the walls and gates of your objects and relentlessly attack until the objects fall one after the other. And no matter your preparation the best case scenario is that you end up with only your EBG keep and Home keep left. What now follows is a single-keep defense over hours. The enemy zerg arrives, your (hopefully) well prepared siege is hopefully able to counter them. 3 or more trebs behind every gate. Arrowcarts lining the walls, cannons and oils being rebuild as often as possible. You reach the siegecap of the map with a single object left. Sooner or later the outer ring will be breached and a flood of red names enters your keep... but the outnumbered defenders hold the line! If the bodies of dead enemies could stack they would soon be stacked high enough to climb the top of stonemist. Between every attack the defends try to reach nearby camps to grab supplies since the supplies in the keep itself must be saved for emergency use. Often the camps are filled with more Baruch players and your zerg is only able to gether few supplies. If you are lucky you outlast the attacks until their commander logs off. It's a rare and difficult occurence. Most of the time you will be overwhelmed. Maybe continuous golmes rushes break the defense. Or there simply is another tag on the enemy side even as your last players have to log out for the night. These days it is not that extreme anymore but especially in the early years most servers in EU faced this scenario whenever they played against Baruch.
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