I would add here: This feature should have an impact on the ranking of guilds and on interaction with other guilds in general. And here we have a key point: if CM had been more frank and less diplomatic, he could have asked: what should be done to kill the GVG completely, and pull this thorn out of the sore spot of the developers?
Then we could answer briefly and simply: untie the guild ranking from GVG, and GVG will die soon enough. And if it doesn't die at all, it will cease to be a thorn in the fifth point
While yes, the point is probably more how to get rid of it than how to change it, the context was "without pissing off the remaining devotees to GvG" - which *does* essentially come down to "there needs to be something almost exactly like GvG, or they're going to be pissed".
Most remaining devotees to GvG I talk to *hate* GBG. So while Inno's view is probably "what would it take for GBG to fully supplant GvG in the hearts of the devoted GvG players", that's frankly impossible. GBG was probably their try at replacing GvG and in their heart of hearts, perhaps by now they were hoping noone would care about GvG anymore and they could just turn it off - but there's many big players who still turn up for GvG who don't for GBG.
GBG did attempt to modernize many of the aspects of GvG people would point to as hopelessly out of date
- attrition as a system to allow both the little player and big player to contribute while putting a range where both are challenged
- moving away from only 1 time of day that not everyone can meet
- including mobile players
- including those who would rather negotiate more directly than mere treasury support
- encouraging wider participation through having an individual reward system
But it failed on many counts as well in the hearts of many GvG guilds, some of which the objections are diametrically opposed to what it was trying to do:
- moving away from 1 important time a day instead forced people to be on at many different times of day killing the "one big social gathering when the whole guild gets on" aspect. Being on around the clock is not sustainable for most players (and for some players even if they could, they won't).
- not directly interacting with any guild you want to but only the guilds in your grouping essentially removes the best-vs-best conflict for the top guilds
- no real difference between 1st and 4th in top groups discourages competition
- little means to distinguish between top guilds makes it poor for ranking purposes
- individual reward system in contrast to impact on guild rewards or ranking was overdone to the extent that it became the main point, rather than competition.
- a close-to-complete-work-around for attrition for the guilds in control destroyed the "modernization" aspect of making sure everyone's "challenged" sufficiently and the whole guild is desired to participate.
While they *could* just delete GvG or disable its impact on ranking, it is their game after all and they can do whatever they want, the people who love it would probably just quit in response. And I think the point of the discussion is "if you're one of those people for whom GvG is still why you play the game, what would it take for you to *not* quit if they turned GvG off?". Seeing as they *are* overhauling GBG in some way now (evident from the spoilers), I would guess he's trying to form a position for meetings on that topic before the changes hit beta and it's too late to really change much. Without saying as much, because he doesn't want to provide false hope of *anything* suggested here actually making it into the changes
