That only 10% play ought to tell anyone there is a problem here. The GvG idea is great, the requirement to require goods to take land wherever it came from was great, BUT the AA idea you use only medals is a first class ---- up. They should have been added at that level to the goods. Now guild have many millions of useless good in the treasury (last time I counted we were around 15 million on Q), that Sir is idiotic.
Inno said it's only 5%, but either way, it's a problem that's finally being addressed with Battlegrounds. When GvG was designed, FoE hadn't planned to take FoE beyond FE. When AF was released, the GvG code prevented them from adding an AF map, so they created the AA map as a compromise, knowing no future age specific maps would be coming.
I suspect the same issue that kept them from introducing an AF map using AF goods also prevented them from utilizing goods from any age on the kludged together AA map. Hence the "first class ---- up."
It's complex but that's makes it more interesting the fact that it has so many bugs has turned off a lot of players the number of different crashes has gotten better but ... the fixed reset time for all worlds shuts out a lot either you make it at reset or you'll always be a wanna be.
Reset time is the fundamental problem with GvG and why it can't simply be ported to, or opened up to mobile. The lag/bugs everyone complains about all occur around reset, because everyone playing GvG plays GvG during the short span around reset. More players in GvG during that same short time span will just make the lag exponentially worse.
Having one map per age, per world also locks out the vast majority of guilds and players from ever gaining a toe hold to start fighting GvG. The maps have long been locked up by the bigger GvG guilds and allies, leaving the rest of the guilds on the server completely locked out of GvG even if they wanted to play. Works great for the big guilds, but for the rest of the server? Not so much.
Rather than add another major piece of code to maintain fix what you have.
Therein lies the rub. They can't fix the code they have. GvG was broken the day it was released, because of it's fundamental design. Recalc, one map per world, no ability to add maps for AF and beyond. The only solution to fix unfixable code?
Start over with a new concept that fixes the underlying problems of GvG by not repeating them. No defense means no recalc. Eliminate recalc and you eliminate recalc lag. No recalc also means anyone, anywhere can participate in Battlegrounds anytime their playtime allows.
GBG will also have unlimited maps that guarantee a foothold to each and every guild that wants to play. The maps won't be tied to age, meaning for the first time the entire guild, regardless of the age of the individual players, can now work together and contribute equally to a common goal on a common map. No more sitting on the sidelines, or rushing unprepared through the ages to join the rest of your guildmates on the guild's preferred GvG map.
Leagues also eliminates the problem of big guilds, filled with big players, with big boosts, built over many years of play, who can simply overwhelm anyone who attempts to come up against them. That alone leaves too many guilds and too many players locked out. Again, works great for the big guilds, but for the rest of the guilds on the server, not so much.
With Leagues based on performance and match-ups based on Leagues, now every guild, new or old, big or small, will fight guilds from their own League. Winning guilds climb Leagues to fight tougher guilds, under performing guilds can drop a League to have an easier time. Higher Leagues offer higher rewards to the most successful guilds in the Battleground wars, month after month, war after war.
You might consider that flooding the game with % boost items has an impact on the way people play the game. Someone that REALLY plays the game needs to have some serious input into what your doing. I spent a lifetime as a programmer and it can be a real shock to work with the users and see all those great ideas the developers thought would be great ideas.
Having also worked with software users over a long period of time, the biggest issue surrounding new feature acceptance is users inherently resistant to change, not wanting have to have learn a whole new thing that's only going to upset their routine.
Even features specifically built around user requests are often met with complaints simply because the feature is new and different. A simple UI overhaul sends many users into a rant fest lasting several release cycles, and too often, the first thing most users want to know about a new feature is where to go to turn it off. I expect most GvG users will end up disliking GBG simply because it's new and it's not the same GvG they already know, love, and dominate in.
Most of the complaints already have been along those lines. They don't want GBG because it's not GvG, they think it's the wrong direction because it's not an expansion or port of the same GvG. GvG players are already asking if they can opt-out of GBG, or will they be forced to deal with it, like it or not. GvG staying is to satisfy those resistant to change, because it's change.
For the rest it's something new and just like anything new, you'll have early adopters, early majority, late majority, and the laggards. Like any other change of this magnitude, expect those most heavily invested in GvG to be the most resistant to GBG, and likely the laggards in the adoption curve. No one should expect anything different, especially with GvG staying to accommodate their resistance, which is good.
C'mon, there's people who will never switch to HTML5 until Flash literally ceases to exist. When it does, they'll come here to make all the same complaints, "been here since the beginning," "spent a fortune," "greedy dirt bags," "never another dime," you know the drill and all the complaints. You also know the complaints are really about the change, it doesn't matter what the change.
With change come complaints from those simply resistant to change. So, let the laggards lag and the adopters adopt. It'll work itself out in the end, it always does.