Guild Wars 2

I play a handful of MMO games, in particular WoW, TERA, and of course Guild Wars 2. One of the main things I love about games in this genre is simple: players are everywhere. With one of the most recent patches to Guild Wars 2, players in the open world are now invisible until you get within a very tight range of them (and if you or they leave this range, they vanish again). While I realize this was likely implemented to help with lag and tune down video processing for some people, seeing Lion’s Arch effectively empty leaves me feeling empty.

I play these games to see cities bustling with players, fields full of battling heroes, and taverns filled to the brim with roleplayers. Now everywhere I go these places are bare; monsters are fighting the air because I’m not close enough to see the player dueling it, cities are barren until you literally barge into someone, and it’s ruining the feel of the MMO – not just for myself but a lot of the players I socialize with.

Yes, the players may still be there and you can still communicate with them when you want to, and it’s not hurting the game whatsoever, but the feel of the game is different now. Imagine a massive city like Chicago or New York being empty except for people within five yards of you – it’s just strange.

I’m coming not only from a roleplaying standpoint, but just a fan of MMOs in general: the notion that I can’t see everyone around me is too strange, and it’s making me uncomfortable. Arena Net, please make a way for me to see all of my fellow players far and wide again – make the player hiding optional for the entire world of Tyria. I’m a huge fan of the game but I’m not sure I can play in a world that feels so empty

Consider it done. Go to the option window and scale the settings.

Since the last update, culling in PvE seems to have gotten worse. In Divinity’s Reach, for example, players will flicker in and out of existence over distances greater than say ten yards (metres), or just materialise right in front of my toon, even though they’ve probably been stood there for minutes. In the open world, it’s worse: I’ve battled a few bosses around Queensdale, wondering where the additional damage I’m taking is coming from, only to see a skale or two (or even the odd veteran) pop into existence for a split second right next to my toon before vanishing again.

It has nothing to do with graphics settings (draw distances and everything else other than reflections are set to high or ultra in my game) and everything to do with overzealous server-side culling.

marnick.4305:

Consider it done. Go to the option window and scale the settings.

Sadly this only works for WvW PvP at the moment unless I totally missed something.

Yeah, this player vanishing thing really sucks away the experience. It’s not that glorious fighting a huge dragon and only being able to see 10 people withikittenfoot radius of yourself.