Faction Populations

Bramir

I'm getting worried.

Since the end of the last Thornblade campaign, where EP held the lead until the last couple days, and then lost in no small part due to low population at times when AD had plenty of population, there is a marked decrease in the number of players bothering to log in for EP. Since there is no way to prevent this happening for the current campaign, we can pretty much expect the same result, and I think a lot of people are simply giving up to go do something else. I fear we are nearing (or have already experienced) a mass exodus.

We need a solution to the population imbalance for AvAvA to work, and it needs to be implemented before everyone bails.

Since time-locked campaigns don't seem to be an option, I suggest allowing free faction changes for characters from AD to DC and EP until such a time as the populations balance out.

The other option is to just watch Cyrodil become a wasteland...while I have fun just pvping, it gets old when there is no purpose other than more AP. That purpose is normally competition, but there is no competition right now because of population imbalances.

What is the holdup on faction transfers?

Agrippa_Invisus

I, and a lot of others, are no longer going to be exchanging things of RL import to be on late enough to combat the night capping.

No more 5am mornings on weekdays.
No more *kaffkaff* sick days on busy days of the week.
No more over night scroll defenses.
No more spending all day, every day, on the weekends in Cyrodiil.

It's not worth it and it puts too much of a RL strain on us NA players who have families, jobs, pets, and commitments. That Thornblade is a laggy, crashy mess of a campaign makes it all the less interesting to play on.

It is behooven on the AD players to start rerolling until ZOS implements something along the lines of:

a) Character faction transfer service
b) Dynamic population caps to force AD to match the lower factions.
c) Bonuses and buffs for those who reroll.

Preferably all three at once.

Zintair

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

Agrippa_Invisus

Zintair wrote: »

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

Truth is what truth is. That's what they have to do to maintain the game's balance and integrity.

Do I expect them to do it? Not at all.

Why? Because the vast majority are selfish and would rather watch the game burn to the ground than perform an action not in their own best interest. What they don't see is that rerolling is in their best interest as it keeps the game healthy and active.

It will take a major guild ordering their players to reroll to start a wave.

Playing in an underpopulated factions, spending 4 of the 6 live months of this game on servers where EP is the outnumbered faction (Bloodthorn, Thornblade), and dealing with this from a leadership perspective, let me be perfectly clear to AD about this subject -- I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.

It is in your hands, AD, to fix this issue. To balance the populations back out. ZOS has dropped the ball and all that's left is to serve the truth to you as brutally as possible.

If more AD don't start rerolling EP/DC (and soon), then the PVP in this game is going to die.

If you don't like it, I don't care. That's what needs to happen.

If you don't think it's dying now, what happened to the two pop locked campaigns that used to exist? Chillrend/Thornblade and before that Wabbajack/Dawnbreaker. One wasn't locked nearly as long, but at least they were active. Now there's just one, with Chillrend being population imbalanced to death by certain DC guilds. What happened to EHJ? What happened to The Condemned? What happened to Divine Reapers? What happened to all these guilds that are now essentially inactive?

Now there's just Thornblade, with less population than before the campaign reset.

Zintair

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Zintair wrote: »

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

Truth is what truth is. That's what they have to do to maintain the game's balance and integrity.

Do I expect them to do it? Not at all.

Why? Because the vast majority are selfish and would rather watch the game burn to the ground than perform an action not in their own best interest. What they don't see is that rerolling is in their best interest as it keeps the game healthy and active.

It will take a major guild ordering their players to reroll to start a wave.

Playing in an underpopulated factions, spending 4 of the 6 live months of this game on servers where EP is the outnumbered faction (Bloodthorn, Thornblade), and dealing with this from a leadership perspective, let me be perfectly clear to AD about this subject -- I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.

It is in your hands, AD, to fix this issue. To balance the populations back out. ZOS has dropped the ball and all that's left is to serve the truth to you as brutally as possible.

If more AD don't start rerolling EP/DC (and soon), then the PVP in this game is going to die.

If you don't like it, I don't care. That's what needs to happen.

If you don't think it's dying now, what happened to the two pop locked campaigns that used to exist? Chillrend/Thornblade and before that Wabbajack/Dawnbreaker. One wasn't locked nearly as long, but at least they were active. Now there's just one, with Chillrend being population imbalanced to death by certain DC guilds.

Now there's just Thornblade, with less population than before the campaign reset.

What's worse is their egos feed off it and will probably claim they killed the game with their dominance.

I am with you 100%. It would be nice if these players rerolled. But the ONLY thing that would REALLY get this going is your suggestion of a character faction transfer. Keeping ranks gear levels etc.

Agrippa_Invisus

Zintair wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Zintair wrote: »

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

Truth is what truth is. That's what they have to do to maintain the game's balance and integrity.

Do I expect them to do it? Not at all.

Why? Because the vast majority are selfish and would rather watch the game burn to the ground than perform an action not in their own best interest. What they don't see is that rerolling is in their best interest as it keeps the game healthy and active.

It will take a major guild ordering their players to reroll to start a wave.

Playing in an underpopulated factions, spending 4 of the 6 live months of this game on servers where EP is the outnumbered faction (Bloodthorn, Thornblade), and dealing with this from a leadership perspective, let me be perfectly clear to AD about this subject -- I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.

It is in your hands, AD, to fix this issue. To balance the populations back out. ZOS has dropped the ball and all that's left is to serve the truth to you as brutally as possible.

If more AD don't start rerolling EP/DC (and soon), then the PVP in this game is going to die.

If you don't like it, I don't care. That's what needs to happen.

If you don't think it's dying now, what happened to the two pop locked campaigns that used to exist? Chillrend/Thornblade and before that Wabbajack/Dawnbreaker. One wasn't locked nearly as long, but at least they were active. Now there's just one, with Chillrend being population imbalanced to death by certain DC guilds.

Now there's just Thornblade, with less population than before the campaign reset.

What's worse is their egos feed off it and will probably claim they killed the game with their dominance.

I am with you 100%. It would be nice if these players rerolled. But the ONLY thing that would REALLY get this going is your suggestion of a character faction transfer. Keeping ranks gear levels etc.

I hear you.

At this point, I don't feel ZOS is listening anymore.

That leaves the only choice for us, as players, is to have AD players reroll their toons.

Or quit, that works, too. I was trying to avoid bringing that up. If about 1/3rd of the AD faction cancelled their account right now, that would help.

Komma

Trying to make people feel guilty because of the faction they play is kinda childish. Our guild chose ad before the release. Wasn't because of anyone else or knowing the alliance would be populated.

There is a system in place for the one sided campaigns. It is called AvAvA. If 2 lesser populated alliances don't want to work together and combat the more populated alliance then it isn't the system in place that is failing.

There is an issue, however, with the points system. I believe this is why people are running for the door. I think they need to better the bonus for owning the property and scrolls and do away with any points system. Beef up the keeps as you lose them. Maybe have the guards from the defeated keeps relocate to a fallback position at other keeps and let us upgrade the keeps to strengthen the walls.

AvAvA is a great system. The rest needs some rethinking.

Agrippa_Invisus

Komma wrote: »

Trying to make people feel guilty because of the faction they play is kinda childish. Our guild chose ad before the release. Wasn't because of anyone else or knowing the alliance would be populated.

There is a system in place for the one sided campaigns. It is called AvAvA. If 2 lesser populated alliances don't want to work together and combat the more populated alliance then it isn't the system in place that is failing.

There is an issue, however, with the points system. I believe this is why people are running for the door. I think they need to better the bonus for owning the property and scrolls and do away with any points system. Beef up the keeps as you lose them. Maybe have the guards from the defeated keeps relocate to a fallback position at other keeps and let us upgrade the keeps to strengthen the walls.

AvAvA is a great system. The rest needs some rethinking.

Why shouldn't they feel guilty? Their continued participation in the faction is what is driving the PVP in this game towards failure state.

But, frankly, I don't care what they feel. I want them to reroll. For the sake of the game, they need to reroll. If they don't, then this game's PVP dies the death it is starting to progress into.

The AvAvA works so long as the one, populated faction doesn't outnumber the other two factions combined. At this point, AD is able to accomplish that, so it requires little additional effort for them to fight that two front war.

Add to that, as shown time and again with the Guild Wars 2 scoreboards in 3 way conflicts, it is actually encouraged by the scores for the 2nd/3rd place teams to infight constantly to try to assure themselves second place.

The scoreboard itself works against population imbalance, but it also illustrates it.

LonePirate

Bramir wrote: »

What is the holdup on faction transfers?

Business models and the PVE content are probably the reasons. Let's suppose you started life as Altmer for AD with the Standard Edition of the game. How do you change factions when your game version doesn't support it?

That is probably a simple fix from a coding perspective but it puts a huge dent in the draw of the Imperial Edition and one of its two purposes.

The tougher problem is the actual PVE content. Let's say you are a level 20 AD character or maybe a VR8 character. How does the game handle the leveling content if you have partially completed Grahtwood for the level 20 (or Rivenspire for the VR8) and you now want to play for EP? How does the game handle your completed progression and how does it scale the unfompleted content?

None of these issues would matter though if the game allowed people to choose their faction in Cyrodiil only. When you choose which campaign to join, an option should exist to choose which faction you wish to fight for during that session. If the faction choice doesn't impact the PVE zones, why not implement it? The biggest hurdle would be a player appearing on the leaderboards for all three factions which wouldn't matter to most people, apart from an increase in troll camps (which wouldn't happen if camps were removed).

Dagoth_Rac

Lockout timers for going between campaigns. I don't mean assigning a new home or guest campaign. I mean, literally, no jumping from campaign to campaign every 20 minutes. Once you enter a campaign, you cannot enter a different campaign for 2 hours or something like that. If one faction steals a scroll from another faction's buff server, that faction swarms into the buff server, right? If people could not do that instantly, or not instantly jump back 5 minutes later upon getting back the scroll, it might help. Want to defend your buff server? You will actually have to commit players to that buff campaign. Which means fewer players of that faction in the active campaign.

It would also open some interesting intra-campaign tactics. Faction X steals scroll in Campaign A. Faction Y rushes from Campaign B to Campaign A to get back buff. Now they are stuck in Campaign A for 2 hours while a large force of Faction X was hiding in Campaign B, waiting to attack after the feint in Campaign A trapped the opposing faction over there.

OrangeTheCat

Zintair wrote: »

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

BS! I've been on AD since pre-release. So have a lot of my friends. You're just spewing a bunch of speculation.

Zintair

OrangeTheCat wrote: »

Zintair wrote: »

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

BS! I've been on AD since pre-release. So have a lot of my friends. You're just spewing a bunch of speculation.

Then you obviously never came to the forums back in the AB days when these people were ranting.

About 4 Oceanic guilds who total probably 30 active members all rolled AD. 30 active organized members during off peak hours + PUGs is easy to see why maps turn yellow while everyone else is at work.

I don't fault them for playing when they are active. I fault them for stacking one faction, THE MOST POPULATED ONE.

If you don't think it was done on purpose then keep your head in the sand.

Real PvPers pick underdog.

Lfehova

OrangeTheCat wrote: »

Zintair wrote: »

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

BS! I've been on AD since pre-release. So have a lot of my friends. You're just spewing a bunch of speculation.

To be fair. Everybody and their mother knew AD would be the most populated.

I never played ESO or the beta. But my friends who wanted me to play told me, all the streamers, large guilds, tamriel foundry, etc etc were rolling AD. That AD had the best questing, the fastest to level etc.

They also mentioned EP would have a lot of roleplayers and the second highest population. And that DC would be a severe underdog.

They wanted to play AD.

And I told them ok. I'll play ESO. Quote: "But we're rolling DC. Man the f**k up p**sies"

Agrippa_Invisus

Don't forget Angry Joe bringing that unholy blob of his channel subscribers over as well to AD.

Cody

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Zintair wrote: »

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

Truth is what truth is. That's what they have to do to maintain the game's balance and integrity.

Do I expect them to do it? Not at all.

Why? Because the vast majority are selfish and would rather watch the game burn to the ground than perform an action not in their own best interest. What they don't see is that rerolling is in their best interest as it keeps the game healthy and active.

It will take a major guild ordering their players to reroll to start a wave.

Playing in an underpopulated factions, spending 4 of the 6 live months of this game on servers where EP is the outnumbered faction (Bloodthorn, Thornblade), and dealing with this from a leadership perspective, let me be perfectly clear to AD about this subject -- I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.

It is in your hands, AD, to fix this issue. To balance the populations back out. ZOS has dropped the ball and all that's left is to serve the truth to you as brutally as possible.

If more AD don't start rerolling EP/DC (and soon), then the PVP in this game is going to die.

If you don't like it, I don't care. That's what needs to happen.

If you don't think it's dying now, what happened to the two pop locked campaigns that used to exist? Chillrend/Thornblade and before that Wabbajack/Dawnbreaker. One wasn't locked nearly as long, but at least they were active. Now there's just one, with Chillrend being population imbalanced to death by certain DC guilds. What happened to EHJ? What happened to The Condemned? What happened to Divine Reapers? What happened to all these guilds that are now essentially inactive?

Now there's just Thornblade, with less population than before the campaign reset.

you cant possibly expect them to do so

Thudunblundur

We seem to have more balanced populations on the EU servers. What's killing the game here - I see the same population drops as you do - is lag and crashes. I've been driven out of Cyrodiil the last two days because when I pressed the key to fire a skill nothing happens about 50% of the time. I've been zooming through AD groups of Vampires dropping Turn Undead several times and coming out the other side alive, while my mates kill the fleeing Vampires. Doesn't work now. I often still come out the other side unnoticed, but with nothing having happened when I pressed the appropriate key. And then I'll suddenly Turn Undead twice in a totally inappropriate spot as the game catches up.
-
At present the (PvP) game feels unplayable to me. After leaving Cyrodiil this afternoon I went and did some more of Cadwell's Gold. Crashed running through Shadowfen and the game lagged so much even fighting normal mobs was awful, since my standard rotations often just didn't happen. Didn't notice it before to anything like the extent it is there now.

Are we sure the Devs aren't actually working for a rival company? They seem to be doing a brilliant job of sabotaging the game. (joke...)

Agrippa_Invisus

Cody wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Zintair wrote: »

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

Truth is what truth is. That's what they have to do to maintain the game's balance and integrity.

Do I expect them to do it? Not at all.

Why? Because the vast majority are selfish and would rather watch the game burn to the ground than perform an action not in their own best interest. What they don't see is that rerolling is in their best interest as it keeps the game healthy and active.

It will take a major guild ordering their players to reroll to start a wave.

Playing in an underpopulated factions, spending 4 of the 6 live months of this game on servers where EP is the outnumbered faction (Bloodthorn, Thornblade), and dealing with this from a leadership perspective, let me be perfectly clear to AD about this subject -- I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.

It is in your hands, AD, to fix this issue. To balance the populations back out. ZOS has dropped the ball and all that's left is to serve the truth to you as brutally as possible.

If more AD don't start rerolling EP/DC (and soon), then the PVP in this game is going to die.

If you don't like it, I don't care. That's what needs to happen.

If you don't think it's dying now, what happened to the two pop locked campaigns that used to exist? Chillrend/Thornblade and before that Wabbajack/Dawnbreaker. One wasn't locked nearly as long, but at least they were active. Now there's just one, with Chillrend being population imbalanced to death by certain DC guilds. What happened to EHJ? What happened to The Condemned? What happened to Divine Reapers? What happened to all these guilds that are now essentially inactive?

Now there's just Thornblade, with less population than before the campaign reset.

you cant possibly expect them to do so

I don't actively expect them to do so.

I expecting whining, prevarication, outright lying, some chest thumping, a lot of name calling, a fair amount of derision, and overall just a lot of scorn.

At the same time, it has to be pointed out. Maybe, just maybe, there's a chance that some will switch.

I'm at the state I feel the game is in a downward spiral. I'll be playing still, eeking what fun out of it I can with my guild.

And if, by some miracle, my words are heeded -- then this game can become amazingly fun -- and ESO will keep on going on for far longer than I feel the game will currently stay active and playable.

Braidas

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Don't forget Angry Joe bringing that unholy blob of his channel subscribers over as well to AD.

omg i played chrysamere for the first campaigns which had at most like 50 people on any given side, and then one day i'm like, "guys, why is AD at 2 bars"?? so we all get to the closest dc keep to ad (ash), and sure enough, 100+ people roll up and just *** steamroll the place hahaha. I will always remember Fangledor as "the Angry Joe Emperor".

MormondPayne_EP

As much as I enjoy this game despite the crashes, the terrible performance, the ridiculous design decisions, I can hear this game dying and can see it in its death throes.

This unfortunate and up until now I have been on positive thinking that it'll take time, I just need to be patient... That was 2 months ago, now we are 6+ Post release and things have actually gotten worse.

How do you take a thing, a game or whatever, and after months of working on it "test and adjust, test and adjust" making incremental changes, slowly but surely in the interests of refining the product but instead make it WORSE with each incremental change.

I love this game but I am hanging by the skin of my teeth... And my patience has run low.

Address our concerns. Acknowledge our grievances. I for one, am tired of being f***ed around.

Agrippa_Invisus

Braidas wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Don't forget Angry Joe bringing that unholy blob of his channel subscribers over as well to AD.

omg i played chrysamere for the first campaigns which had at most like 50 people on any given side, and then one day i'm like, "guys, why is AD at 2 bars"?? so we all get to the closest dc keep to ad (ash), and sure enough, 100+ people roll up and just *** steamroll the place hahaha. I will always remember Fangledor as "the Angry Joe Emperor".

I remember his videos. Him screaming into TS incoherently while AD plowed over opposition with little difficulty.

Great fun, that, really.

serenenightmare

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Zintair wrote: »

But then AD would actually have to fight people, without buffs no less.

How will they be able to make such a change?

It isn't coincidence they all decided to roll AD. They have done this before in other games. They do it on purpose to feed their egos. Expecting them to reroll is lunacy.

These people ACTIVELY chose the most populated faction. It was no secret. Then they come to the forums and claim they want competition. It's all very amusing.

Sift back through the Auriels Bow days. They are a disgrace to PvP gaming. Any PvPer worth half what they talk on the forums would at least go to the under populated side for the competition.

If ZoS doesn't do something we will continue the whirlpool down the tub.

Truth is what truth is. That's what they have to do to maintain the game's balance and integrity.

Do I expect them to do it? Not at all.

Why? Because the vast majority are selfish and would rather watch the game burn to the ground than perform an action not in their own best interest. What they don't see is that rerolling is in their best interest as it keeps the game healthy and active.

It will take a major guild ordering their players to reroll to start a wave.

Playing in an underpopulated factions, spending 4 of the 6 live months of this game on servers where EP is the outnumbered faction (Bloodthorn, Thornblade), and dealing with this from a leadership perspective, let me be perfectly clear to AD about this subject -- I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.

It is in your hands, AD, to fix this issue. To balance the populations back out. ZOS has dropped the ball and all that's left is to serve the truth to you as brutally as possible.

If more AD don't start rerolling EP/DC (and soon), then the PVP in this game is going to die.

If you don't like it, I don't care. That's what needs to happen.

If you don't think it's dying now, what happened to the two pop locked campaigns that used to exist? Chillrend/Thornblade and before that Wabbajack/Dawnbreaker. One wasn't locked nearly as long, but at least they were active. Now there's just one, with Chillrend being population imbalanced to death by certain DC guilds. What happened to EHJ? What happened to The Condemned? What happened to Divine Reapers? What happened to all these guilds that are now essentially inactive?

Now there's just Thornblade, with less population than before the campaign reset.

you cant possibly expect them to do so

I don't actively expect them to do so.

I expecting whining, prevarication, outright lying, some chest thumping, a lot of name calling, a fair amount of derision, and overall just a lot of scorn.

At the same time, it has to be pointed out. Maybe, just maybe, there's a chance that some will switch.

I'm at the state I feel the game is in a downward spiral. I'll be playing still, eeking what fun out of it I can with my guild.

And if, by some miracle, my words are heeded -- then this game can become amazingly fun -- and ESO will keep on going on for far longer than I feel the game will currently stay active and playable.

You mean, LOTS of chest thumping. Epeen's are strong with those ones...