How about "Underflow" Servers?
Im not quite sure I fully understand this suggestion. With overflow servers, there is an excess of players in one map, so this excess is moved to a copy of the world to avoid over population.
What you are suggesting is moving players from the world, to some copy that has people in? but where do these people come from? The only feasible option I could possibly see there would be shipping people from a variety of servers into one shared underflow, but this would then make a lot of the regular copies of the world even more empty.
I would say this issue is more a problem which is prominent in a lot of MMOs, once the population starts to accumulate at level cap, lower level zones get neglected. Beyond going back to help friends there generally isn’t too much incentive to go back to zones in terms of reward at this time, however with changes being made to the reward system I think its safe to assume ANet are trying to address this issue by getting other people to come to these empty zones rather than move what little people are still there out to somewhere more populated.
I think what he means is if server A has 20 people on orr and server B has 20 people on orr combine them into an underflow map that has 40 people on it.
Good idea, but then how do you ever get that server’s regular map back? You’d need to wait until at least 100 of server A is on the underflow, then kick them all off or give them the option of being kicked of – and then it’s server B’s 20 people on the underflow while server A’s 100 is on their regular map and the problem persists.
But it may work if ANet can keep track of people well.
If underpopulation was an issue a server merger would be a valid option. Take the lowest pop servers in pairs and condense them into one new server to increase the playerbase.
Feed them and they multiply.
Please do not feed them.
Well what I am getting at is if my home server in a select zone has no one in it, then allow me the option to transfer to a different server of some sort (it can be another world server or an “underflow” server) where the zone is flourishing with people.
I don’t like that I cannot do group events or DE’s because select zones are empty. Not only that but I want to be able to play with people not by myself. I guarantee I am not the only person who is seeing a issue with a lot of the mid range leveling zones being empty.
That’s why I believe ANet needs to make some sort of server that players can transfer to when select zones are empty.
I think this is a great suggestion. Now that the initial launch has passed, I find myself leveling alts in a desolated world =(. I would love to see some sort of underflow so that the world feels alive again. +1 to this suggestion.
Well what I am getting at is if my home server in a select zone has no one in it, then allow me the option to transfer to a different server of some sort (it can be another world server or an “underflow” server) where the zone is flourishing with people.
You can kind of do that with guesting, however presently there’s no way of knowing how many people are in that zone on another server.
+1’d
It would improve chances of finding others to play with (not zerg with)
With the number of active players dropping (our guild has like 2/3 of its members not playing anymore), we could certainly merge with another server to get reasonable activity.
+1
This is actually a great idea. Hopefully ANet can implement this somehow.
finally people like minded like me. i noticed this about 3 weeks in
the mad rush to level 80 satisfied so many wow noobs that think being level 80 is the best then gear grind. they all left and as much as i hate to say it i miss them and wish they werent allowed to level so quickly.
I don’t understand why they went to the standard MMO separated servers rather then the “Channel System” from GW1.
It would make it a lot easier on players to team up if they could just switch channels, and they could decrease and increase them when population changed.
But then they would have to figure out a new way of doing WvWvW, but I never understood why they focused so much on that and left out the “Guild Wars” when the name is in the title.
They would also not be able to charge you for switching server. =P
It seems like they got a good idea and ran with it without considering the overall impact on the original design.
+100 yes please. It would bring life back to the game for new players and alt leveling.
Bumping this due to another “low population” thread I have seen.
I just came here to create a somewhat related thread.
I finally have enough karma to get some of the Cathedral/temple armor but I can’t actually buy any of them because my server is low pop so we never actually have the cathedrals open.
there is no underflow. it doesn’t exist.
Its a cool idea, but once guesting is in place you should have a much easier time finding a server with med-high population zones. I want to say 1+ but its pretty much the same as guesting. So I say 1/2+ which effectively rounds up to 1 : )
What is guesting?
Guesting is a planned feature that will allow you to jump to other servers pve zones without transferring. It hasn’t been talked about much so I expect it won’t be in place until early next year or late this year.
Knowing Anet might read this, do please give us an estimate on this, rough or not, the community loves to hear from you.
(edited by Lord Aargadon.4135)
+1, like guesting, but you don’t have to have friends already playing to do it!
Guesting is a planned feature that will allow you to jump to other servers pve zones without transferring. It hasn’t been talked about much so I expect it won’t be in place until early or late this year.
Knowing Anet might read this, do please give us an estimate on this, rough or not, the community loves to hear from you.
An underflow server would work better IMHO. We wouldn’t have to guess which server to go to that has people in it, instead the system says “hi, I have 40 people in this zone, would you like to join in the fun”.
It would also say that in a robotic voice.
If you think that population would be a problem, it’d be easy for Anet to add a tally for each zones population of the respected server.
An underflow server would work better IMHO. We wouldn’t have to guess which server to go to that has people in it, instead the system says “hi, I have 40 people in this zone, would you like to join in the fun”.
It would also say that in a robotic voice.
epic and TRUE! please Anet, do it. I mean, underflow… maybe it hurts your heart that the game is desolated in pve, but do it, thanks.
First time i have posted on the forums; that is a fantastic idea and I really hope they implement this system into the game I would definatly play more. +10000
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OP is suggesting what WoW recently implemented – to merge specific zones that are underpopulated between servers. So, for example, join a level 20 zone that would normally be deserted and instead see players from across several different worlds; not just your own.
Yes except this will be dynamic and optional. Basically the reverse of the already in place overflow server system.
A great idea, and I think most of the mechanics to implement this are already in place.