Server Merge (not list merge)

I knew exactly what the person meant. I just wanted confirmation before I started laughing. Didn't expect to get a page of discussion on it though. I'll look at it as a bonus.

All the ranking does is tell you which group is #1 at earning Prestige.

It doesn't tell you whether they are fun to play with. It doesn't tell you whether they are good people. It doesn't make them the "best" at anything but earning Prestige.

The most efficient way to earn Prestige is not to play the market and dump the influence thus earned into Prestige (the transfer rate makes it fairly inefficient, actually). The most efficient way to earn Prestige is to get as many people in the SG into as many farm teams composed only of SG members as possible and to run those farms over and over.

If that sounds like a group you want to be part of, more power to you. Have fun being #1. I'd much rather play with a group of friendly knowledgeable people running a variety of content and having fun playing the game.

To me, those things make a "good" SG, and that is all I need.

If you NEED to be "the best" at anything, you have other issues that cannot be resolved or cured in a game.

I was hoping there was a language barrier that was confusing me.

There was a barrier, but it was more of a rationality/logical thought barrier.

I see one small problem. "Best" is a value judgment and the prestige ranking does not attempt or claim to measure that. Furthermore, it won't even tell you the largest or most active group. All it tells you is that the group focuses on prestige. In some cases, that's actually a bad sign.

If you want to find the best company to work at, do you just pick the one that's the biggest?

Not even necessarily the biggest company, just the company that has the largest total assets. Hell, it could be a company that acquires other companies and liquidates them for profit. A company that hires new employees to work in their new acquisitions and then cuts them loose when whatever is left of the acquisition is sold off.

Edit: Not that i know of any SGs that pretty much do that, down to requiring inf contributions from members of the satellite SGs to help boost the main SG's prestige total. Nope, such a thing could not possibly happen in this game.

Yeah that particular comment struck me as well since I have all my characters, well the ones I actually play anyway, on Virtue. First of all there has been no indication that COH is going FTP anytime soon if ever. And as the OP mentioned the 2 most populated servers are Freedom and Virtue. So just how stupid do we really think NC Soft is? You are planning to turn the game into a Free to play but tick off every player on your two largest populated servers by telling them.. "Oh that doesn't apply to you. We still want YOUR money!" And then several days later Freedom and Virtue are ghost towns since 90% of their members cancelled their subs. That's not a sounds business practice by any stretch of the imagination.

Originally Posted by PapaSlade Rangle's right....this is fun.

But how did that SG get there?

Did they run TFs and have fun and generally be a bunch of cool people that others enjoyed playing with?

-OR-

Did they spend all their time mindlessly farming as efficiently as possible?

Because I can tell you which one *I* would consider the better SG. (Hint: It doesn't involve farming)

Just because a number on a list is higher than other numbers on a list does NOT mean the people with the the higher number are any better. Especially since you can BUY prestige. All an SG need to hit #1 is have a marketeer or a good farmer as a member who is willing to spend billions buying prestige for the SG.

I see SGs who are up there in the rankings all the time. I've teamed with some of them. You'd be amazed at how many of them are incompetent morons because they got their SG rank by farming with teams of Fire/Kins and have no idea how to actually do anything else.

I'll take the SG that is fun to team with over the SG that has a high prestige number any day of the week.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yes he does. How many times have we encountered SG's proclaiming themselves to be and have the best everything only to find out that they are nothing but prestige puppymills and when new members join they are given threats that they are required to contribute "x" prestige each week by any means necessary or they will be blacklisted by the "SG" community and other BS.

And like I have said all along you have no way of knowing how a SG behaves until you join them, so you have to consider the no.1 SG by prestige until you know otherwise, anything else is hearsay.

Nonsense. Ask people for opinions and recommendations. This will give you a decent chance of finding a good SG *BEFORE* you start joining random ones. You will have better odds of finding one that suits you - particularly since everyone's definition of "best" will vary. Do you want an SG that does a lot of task forces? One that role-plays? One with regularly scheduled events? One that makes a point of mentoring new members? The SG ranking tells you about NONE of those things.

Exactly.

That's why I tend to shake my head at both the "New SG looking for members!" broadcasts, and people randomly saying "I need an sg, anyone have one?" in zones.

Go find some people, play with them, see what they think of their SGs. If you like what you hear, see if you can tag along on an SG event. If it seems like a fit, ask for membership. They may not have the most prestige banked, but if you're having fun with them and fitting in well, who really cares?

You *never* have to consider "the No. 1 by prestige by default" for anything.

See my Guides and Tutorials

/SIGNED


But seriously to sort of answer his question I seem to recall that those ranking are in fact based soley on activity. So number of players logged in a day and number of missions they run.prestige they earn. Or something like that so sadly a lot of those TOP rating are in fact based on part 2.. We farm and require members to earn X amount of prestige a day/week/month etc. Prior to the SSK these were the same sort of SGs that would power level members to get them to a point where they could earn more prestige per mission.

You can even ask if they have a website that you can check out what they are all about.

I just go by Prestige personally, but then again, I play on Virtue, so I know the number prestige sg is the bestest .

Very good point. You can tell a lot about an SG by how they present themselves to the public.

Why do you care where your SG ranks? I doubt any of the ones I belong to are in the top ten thousand of anything anywhere and you know something? SO FREAKING WHAT?

Run around. Play. Have fun! Stop worrying about everyone else.

ROFL
I see what you did there.

This makes sense. Oh goodness someone made sense on the forums! run RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! hehehe

I belong to/run or help run 4 different SG on Virtue, Three of them are 2-3 member SGs that we formed a long time agon and we have just about everything the BIG ones do ..except the possible relentless.. GO HUNT KILL PRESTIGE attitude. okay since base item prices and rents changed maybe that isn't as bad as it used to be but I had friends in top 50 SG that HAD to play X number of hours a week in SG mode, earn X amount of prestige a week, and participate in a minimum of SG events. My little SGs? all I have to do is log on and play when i feel like it. the forth is the Taxibot SG and we get together once a week and hang out, run missions and check to see how everyone is doing RL. We don't worry about prestige, or ranking or anything.. Our base is huge, totally equipped including all the stuff to host a COP and we have close to 1.5 millin in prestige. I PAY the rent and we could all exit SG mode tomorrow and have prestige to pay rent for more than 30 years. LOL

GO RELAX.. PLAY WHAT YOU FEEL LIKE who the heck cares? Only SGs that worry about that top 50 list... are the ones in the TOP 50 that want to stay there so they can use that as a recruiting tool. "Hey we are#2 in all of Virtue!" Hey I am number 28,784.. and I enjoy myself when i am on line

[editors note: The figure 28, 784 is a made up figure to emphasis a joke. It is not an accurate account of the ranking of any of Wendy's SG and the management takes no responsibility for anyone silly enough to take it seriously] DUH what do that thar mean? hehehe