Can you please explain how you chose the GvG provinces?

It looks like you looked at each continent and said "Which of these are worth fighting over?"

The problem is, that leaves little incentive for the politics side of your political system.

Let's look at the options:
Arun:

GvG is the two highest level zones, including Ostgarath with Fane of Kaprima and Val A with Cultist Refuge.

Elections get the two zones that auto-open most services, Isle of Dawn and Arcardia, plus Poporia.

N Shara:
GvG gets both of the Nexus zones.
Election gets 2 leveling zones and a nearly dead zone with some dailies (Tirkai)

S Shara:
GvG again gets the best zone, with Balder's Temple, plus Val P.
Elections gets....three leveling zones.

Look, I understand you want to have incentive to fight, but the 2nd place prize shouldn't be better than the first place prize for elections. Instead of giving the best two zones of every continent to GvG, give the best and the worst. Ostgarath and Isle of Dawn, Veritas and Essenia, A Nexus zone and Tirkai.

I don't know about other servers, but on Freeholds Ostgarath pays about 1250g per election cycle in taxes. That's less than half the registration price. There is very little incentive to do Vanarch for any reason except as a public service and because we like having the shops open so we might as well make sure they stay open. Now you come in and take all of the zones worth competing over through our preferred method and make them GvG only, leaving only zones that are mostly backwaters or short leveling zones for those who prefer Elections.

This particular forum has always been very, very quiet. During Open Beta Freeholds was one of the most crowded servers, but leading up to OBT and Launch we were by far the least used server forum. I personally only really pop in here every couple of weeks to see if there is anything interesting going on, and I usually see most of the same threads on the front page.

You should drop Caprica an app in game.

I know what you might immediately be thinking: "Aren't they known as one of the largest guilds on the server?"

Well, yes and no.

Early on Caprica and Lethality were the largest, and member capped, juggernauts of the server.

As the population of Freeholds has declined, with many people jumping servers to Dragonfall in particular, such as the majority of the large guilds Lethality and Fairy Tail, everyone has noticed some measure of decline in activity among members.

After the first election we went through a Great Purge and removed inactive accounts from the guild, and allowed people to add up to two actively played alts, which allows easier hunting of mid-level Vanarch BAMs plus the benefit of a level 1 mount.

Along with this decision was a move towards tighter community. Caprica has always had a good reputation on the server and done a great job of avoiding trolls and drama. We have always managed to keep all of our shops open, so we feel no pressure to attempt and regain our old numbers. Instead of focusing on recruiting we are focusing on internal relationships and maintaining a reputation as a guild that takes care of business and maintains a great atmosphere.

We are mature and laid back, with the only real restrictions being no tolerance for trolls and drama.

The end of the elections are here, and with them we also reach the end of the first 30 days of game time that came with the initial purchases.

Between final exams, holidays, and D3's release, we have been reluctant to remove inactive accounts from our membership rolls. Now that the free period is over, and there is a larger need for active accounts to maintain Policy Points and run guild events, we will be purging those accounts who haven't logged in in a while.

The upside is, there is now room for new players to join!

Caprica has a solid reputation as a friendly, helpful, and mature guild with high quality people. We pride ourselves on being drama-free, troll-free, getting things done while remembering that games are supposed to be fun. We do a good job of maintaining quality relationships despite our numbers.

Caprica is also tightly allied with a number of other guilds (most notably Tempest and Fairy Tail), to assist in group formation when there aren't enough people in Caprica at your level on at the moment.

If you are a Mature (behavior > age), Fun, and Active player, please apply using the in-game system and mention this thread.

The only stipulations are "running for Vanarch" and "40+ active accounts."

Curious why you would omit Caprica, or even many of the smaller of the 14 soon-to-be Vanarchs. Most of them have more than 120 characters, and odds are good that most of those guilds have more than 40 accounts and not huge numbers of alts. Almost certainly 40 actual people in Divinity, Pirates, Regis Bellatores, Origins, and Burning Rose, and those are just the ones I can think off of the top of my head.

[edited]

Wow, it really is. Custom sites are lovely compared to the stock guild hosting most of us use (our site included).

If you want to know why all of the guilds are generally campaigning on a platform of shiny happy helpfulness, look at the nature of the system. It highly incentivizes working together once elected, and it incentivizes having two allies for the election itself, plus a network of non-running affiliated guilds.

During the election, you can only run in one region, but you can vote in 3. Having an ally running in the other two, with agreements to exchange votes, maximizes internal electoral power. Caprica and Fairy Tail were looking for a smaller guild that shared some of our ideals to support in Arun, and found Tempest, though they have grown rapidly since those negotiations started and are now with Caprica and Fairy Tail in the top 5 (as of last night).

After the election, there are multiple incentives to cooperate. Completing Policy Point quests together gives everyone working on it the PP for their guild, so 5 Vanarchs working together is the most efficient mechanism. Anti-social or hostile Vanarchs will soon find themselves doing content on their own, and falling behind in what services they can provide.

Many people like alts, so even once most of our guild is at or near the cap, there will always be incentive to keep the lower level regions well maintained with trainers, specialty vendors, etc. As such, it is in the best interest of my guild to help the Vanarch of those territories to keep the services flowing.

Contrast that with the incentives for competing between guilds....which are none. The competition is to get elected, after that all of the incentives are in support of cooperation. Some of us are just naturally helpful people, but even the most self-centered will be working together, because that is where all of the rewards are.

I think this is one of those things that is almost impossible to determine from LFG tools. I have only used it once, since most of the time I can find a group within my guild. I know some of our members use it more often, generally those who were leveling faster than everyone else, but even that may decrease as the rest of us catch up.

Statistically, most people are average (by definition). In the absence of any sorting pressures, players are distributed randomly across the servers, so we should expect that the servers are also, on average, average, with no "good" servers and "bad" servers.

There are, however, a few sorting pressures present which could skew the results.

Pre-formed guilds could have a non-average skill level. The largest pre-formed guild on our server is Lethality, with the other major guilds all freshly formed in TERA or a pre-formed core/leadership with a mostly fresh membership. From what I hear, Lethality is no better or worse than any other guild in terms of overall skill distribution (some good, some bad, most average), so this suggests that pre-formation is unlikely to have been a significant factor in skill distribution, although one guild is mere anecdote, not data.

The other major factor is OBT population. Valley of Titans (PvP) was extremely crowded. This crowding could potentially attract people who are highly competitive, while driving away people who prefer less competition and, therefore, greater odds of success. What level of effect this has on skill distribution is unknown.

Finally, there is total population size. Assuming the same distribution shape, a higher population server will have a higher number of great players (and terrible players), which could allow them to find each other and organize, where they might be lone wolves or exemplary members of otherwise average guilds on a smaller population server. I am not sure what the population distribution is right now, but I do know Freeholds was one of the higher population servers during Head Start and early Launch. Raw population size and/or the greater level of contact with people on your home server may account for any anecdotal experiences of Freeholds skill superiority.

Caprica formed from scratch during the Open Beta Test on Freeholds, and has grown rapidly since. We are now one of the only capped guilds, and we only have mains in Caprica, with our alts in our alt guild of Aerilon.

We grew as fast as we did for a number of reasons, which are relevant to the upcoming Vanarch elections.
1) Quality people. Many of our members joined because of great experiences they have had in groups with members of Caprica. If you haven't had the opportunity to run with us yet, hopefully you soon will.
2) Leadership for the good of the group, not the glory of the leader. Like our allies in Tempest, my background is military, as a Commissioned Officer. As such, I strongly believe that leaders exist to ensure the best outcomes for the group as a whole, the group does not exist for the personal benefit of the leadership.
3) Reputation. Those who have run with us, those who joined and moved on for various reasons, those who have just talked with us...we strive to ensure everyone walks away from us with a positive experience. Our reputation is the product of the combined actions of all the members of Caprica, and we are proud to have built such a strong one.

After we win a Vanarchy in Northern Shara, we will use our numbers to generate the necessary Policy Points to maximize the value of our territory. Where possible we will assist other Vanarchies in optimizing their own territories, and we will assist non-Vanarch guilds in hosting events within our borders. We are firmly committed to creating the best experience possible for all the players of Freeholds, regardless of affiliation.

Join us in this goal by voting for Caprica and our political allies in the upcoming elections.

Northern Shara: Caprica
Southern Shara: Fairy Tail
Arun: Tempest