110026-call-to-action-we-must-act

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The time for talking is over! Let's act, now!
Let's stop waiting for Carbine to fix our problems, and get to the bottom of this!
Revolt! Take to the streets! Yes, you! We need to get up, move, and organize!
 
What are we going to do?! ...We're going to find solutions! 
 
*crickets chirping*
 
I can hear your thoughts. "What? I thought we were going to boycott playing the game so they make it Free-to-play??" 
 
Well, I'm sorry, no. 
 
We can mourn for our departed, cry out over injustices, and pray to the gaming gods to fix all of our problems, but, just as in this 'other' world we are forced to live in, wishful thinking alone will not solve our problems. At the very least, that's not how I decide to live my life. 
 
My question is: Can we, as the Wildstar-loving community, do anything to fix the game's issues? 
 
And that brings me to my main topic today: Server Population. 
 
The issue? They're low. 
 
If Wildstar had full servers all day, every day, it will be much easier to be find guilds with large active populations. It doesn't, though, and we all know it. Wildstar is a game designed for large communities, and without a steady number of active players within a guild, there aren't enough players to share for running dungeons, raiding, creating PvP teams, and helping newer members.
 
As an example, if seven players are on, and five are running an adventure, the two left have to figure something out on their own. If a hundred people are on at a given time, however, forty could be attempting a raid, twenty could be out doing group quests while picking fights with the other faction, and there would still be forty left that could be running smaller content, hanging out at a housing plot, or training for ranked arena fights, and so on. There are probably a few guilds per server that can manage this right now.
 
So, do we just roll over and die?
 
I'm going to open a can of strain-infected worms here and make a proposal (and this is up to the guilds and the guild leaders): 
We need to actively consolidate our player pool to create a more visible community presence. In other words, guild merges before server merges.
 
Even if we only have a few guilds of 500 people each on a server, it would be a great start--especially if they create a stable environment for players to have fun. On the other hand, if we have fifty guilds of ten active members each, everybody loses. People can't do the things they want, become discouraged, and either break up the guild, leave the game, or leave the server. And I say that we need to consolidate the existing communities first, before we try and merge servers.
 
I propose that guild leaders get together among themselves and talk about how they can either combine, or create active "alliances" which can effectively grow the number of players guild members can interact with every time they log on. This is already happening on our server through the use of a circle. 
 
Guild leaders have a tremendous responsibility in providing their members with a great community, and they also have great power to do something about it. I urge guild leaders to put their heads together to create guild vs guild events and competitions--even across factions. Be active in interacting with one another. Join in numbers and play together. Once there is a healthy community and existing guilds fill up, more guilds will naturally emerge and grow. 
 
Right now, we are fragmenting ourselves by fighting over the small population that is trickling in. It may not be easy to give your name up, but it is still possible to move your group of twenty close friends and join with other like-minded folks. If your server only has a hundred active players...well, maybe you need to form just one guild.
 
Guilds have the power to provide social experiences. And that is where the casual crowd will flock to. Guilds can provide the numbers that allows raiders to organize more effectively. Maybe some servers truly are dead and one faction has victoriously stamped out the other. I don't quite have an answer for that, except to gather whatever people there are left and create a tight-knit community with your comrades of war.
 
Now, is Carbine responsible to fix the population problem? Yes, they are. Is there more they need to do to put down the unrest of the citizens of Nexus? Yes, there is. Maybe they need give us better tools to facilitate communication between guilds, within and across factions. Maybe they need to give us more options for organized PvP matches, within and across factions. We can throw around ideas all day, and I hope they listen to them, but in the meantime, -we- have to do something that Carbine can't do for us, that no amount of code can give us. And that is to create a -real- community.	
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Even if we only have a few guilds of 500 people each on a server, it would be a great start--especially if they create a stable environment for players to have fun. On the other hand, if we have fifty guilds of ten active members each, everybody loses. People can't do the things they want, become discouraged, and either break up the guild, leave the game, or leave the server. And I say that we need to consolidate the existing communities first, before we try and merge servers.
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			On Thunderfoot, a few exile guilds have gotten together to form <Small Guild Alliance> circle. It's been a great thing. The only downside is the 100 person cap on a circle. I'm not sure how we are going to handle that once we hit cap. But for the moment I think it's saved some guilds from going under and really put new life into the game. At least for the folks in my guild it has.	
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So you working on this for your High School paper?
 
Lot's of rhetoric with no achievable solution presented.
 
"Take to the streets", really over a VIDEO GAME?  Hyperbole aside ... trying to invoke the 1% meme and "take wall street crap" is so yesterday.
 
YOU don't have any control but to vote with your wallet.  If you THINK you want to make a difference ... just unsub and get people of like mind to do the same.  It won't work.  Been done before for YEARS in other MMORPGs.
 
Carbine is solid in their stance.  It's NCSoft you have to worry about.  I do hope Carbine is noble in as much as they will shut the game down rather than NCSoft dictate to them terms ( e.g. going F2P or some other rather drastic thing ).
 
Look you don't have any control.  You don't .. other than voting with your wallet.
 
I am sure you thought what your wrote was "clever" and "imaginative" but, trust me ... this has been posted before on "a thousand other gaming forums for a thousand other games" ( hyperbole on purpose ). 
 
So basically... TLDR, Quit or bear with it like the rest of us. ;)	
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His "achievable solution" was alliances and guild merges.
 
Which I agree is the right answer for the moment. Or the best we can do.
 
Unsubbing will not fix anything.	
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Creative, but no, big guilds like that crash and burn quickly. 
Perhaps a more viable solution would be to actually use the circle function correctly.	
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On Thunderfoot, a few exile guilds have gotten together to form <Small Guild Alliance> circle. It's been a great thing. The only downside is the 100 person cap on a circle. I'm not sure how we are going to handle that once we hit cap. But for the moment I think it's saved some guilds from going under and really put new life into the game. At least for the folks in my guild it has.
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			Guild merges next to never work.  Politics.  Favoritism. Human foibles. If that were to work everyone just transfer to Elvindra.  We have a guild on each side for you.  Again, this is a "wallet" situation. Either pay for a transfer to a more popular server and convince all your friends, re-roll on a more popular server ( and convince all your friends ), OR just wait it out like the rest of us ... SINCE THE GAME IS STILL RELATIVELY NEW. :P	
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On Thunderfoot, a few exile guilds have gotten together to form <Small Guild Alliance> circle. It's been a great thing. The only downside is the 100 person cap on a circle. I'm not sure how we are going to handle that once we hit cap. But for the moment I think it's saved some guilds from going under and really put new life into the game. At least for the folks in my guild it has.
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Just keep "guild reps" in there. People you know who are online a lot to shout to guilds when you see someone doing something.
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In the interest of helping you to actively consolidate the player pool to create a more visible community presence, I'm going to lock this thread and ask you to please join your fellow players here.
 
Thanks,Team WildStar	
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