Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone,

Most of us can remember the early days of Gw2, when servers were bustling with activity, transfer costs were non-existent and playing was all around a more enjoyable experience.

Since then the population has taken a hit, but much more so on certain servers. My home server (Kaineng), is lucky to have 20 people in LA at one time. Then I go over and guest on TC and see more people than I can count running around LA. There is clearly a huge population discrepancy and this has a huge affect on the gw2 gaming experience. The fewer people the less fun, plain and simple.

So why is anet punishing us and hurting our gaming experience by charging 1800 gems or ~123 gold, just to be able to switch to an active server? The average player cannot afford that fee. The quick and dirty answer is simply greed. They expect us to go out and spend real money to simply switch servers. What happened to free-to-play? This hardly fits a f2p standard since we literally can’t even do world events, ex jormag, balth, lyssa, teq etc… without switching servers. I understand guesting alleviates this problem, but we shouldn’t have to have multiple guilds between servers, have to wvwvw for a dead server and most of all feel alienated because we chose a ‘bad’ server back when transfers were free.

This problem doesn’t affect the majority of gw2 players because they are on the populated servers, but for many of us this is a major problem. Can we have a reasonable discussion on this? I’m not saying we need to have free server transfers, but we certainly need a more reasonable transfer fee. Somewhere along the lines of 500 gems or less and maybe a time commitment of 3-6 months. That way people are constantly changing servers but we also aren’t imprisoned.

Same problem here, my server (underworld) seems to have stopped doing WvW alltogehter for the past 6 months, when I go to WvW there simply is no-one there, no-one at all.

So I have to move to an active server to be able to experience this part of the game, which costs me 25 euros, half the purchase price of the full game! Crazy!

Oh what was left of my guild left for another server, and since I didn’t want to cough up the money to move with them, they kicked me.

They definitely need to look into server merges before Season 2 is even considered.

If someone wants to transfer a server, they’re gonna have to pay the price. It’s just that simple. You don’t have to like it (anet doesn’t expect you to like it), but you’re gonna have to accept it.

The problem is, the WvW crowd was furious that free server transfers existed at all, and the existence of free server transfers completely undermines the entire WvW experience.

And since anyone can guest to any server for free (you can PvE on TC as much as you want for free), I’m not really sure what the complaint is about.

Are you suggesting implementing something to ruin the game for everyone who WvW’s when it’s clear you can play on any server you want, no matter your home server?

It doesn’t even cost that much…

Try making an ascended light armor chest armor….

Hi

I recently transferred from a low pop server and would like to point out some things with regards to server transfers.

Server transfer service is meant to be a paid for service, the gold to gems method is nearly an option, which I feel is meant for low income people or those that reside outside USA or other countries where the currency exchange rates make these costs prohibitive.

The costs A-Net charges for this service in comparison with other games is extremely low, with an option, to grind for ingame gold and get it entirely for free. I remember the very 1st time I transferred my account in WoW where the costs were $25 per character, not account, character, consequently I paid $125 to transfer my whole account, twice.

The amount of entertainment hours per buck spent in GW2, is absolutely worth it when you think about other entertainment options in comparison, for example cable subs, etc.

$20 + 1 achievement chest, or $30 with leftover gems, is indeed a very low transfer cost, and I do not see any regularly working person having issues with such costs. Honestly, any person having serious issues with these needs to re examine their life altogether and weather they should be spending time on this game at all, unless as stated above, they reside in a country / region where currency exchange rates are extremely unfavorable for them to do so.

They should separate your WvW server of choice from your PvE servers. Keep the same WvW restrictions for your WvW choice and remove them for PvE

There are only two things I am unhappy about.

1. The inability of NA players to guest to EU, and EU players to guest to NA. As it is, if you have an EU friend, someone must pay for a transfer for you to play together. That’s bad policy.

2. The fact that almost every single world costs 1800 gems to transfer to, even worlds that feel relatively dead. I am ok with this server transfer cost for Tarnished Coast, but transferring to a midactive server like CD should not cost that much.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

They should separate your WvW server of choice from your PvE servers. Keep the same WvW restrictions for your WvW choice and remove them for PvE

you mean exactly how guesting works?

anyone looking to PvE can easily guest to wherever they think is better to PvE when ever they want to. The only people who have an issue with server transfers are those who want to ride the coat tails or other servers.

It might’ve changed but I remember being able to transfer worlds if I had no characters. So if you really wanted to move to an active world and you really don’t want to use gems then you could delete your characters.

Edit: I checked the wiki and it says that it does on there too. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re not going to play WvW because you can PvE in other worlds for free without deleting your characters.

Tongku.5326:

Server transfer service is meant to be a paid for service, the gold to gems method is nearly an option, which I feel is meant for low income people or those that reside outside USA or other countries where the currency exchange rates make these costs prohibitive.

Gold to Gems doesnt equal free. Someone has to pay for these gems in the first place. So it still costs money.

Tongku.5326:

The costs A-Net charges for this service in comparison with other games is extremely low, with an option, to grind for ingame gold and get it entirely for free. I remember the very 1st time I transferred my account in WoW where the costs were $25 per character, not account, character, consequently I paid $125 to transfer my whole account, twice.

The costs for doing this on other games is just insane. The total value of the game is 50 bucks. So any services should be a fraction of this price.

Tongku.5326:

The amount of entertainment hours per buck spent in GW2, is absolutely worth it when you think about other entertainment options in comparison, for example cable subs, etc.

LOL. For 50 bucks, I could purchase a completely different game, like GTA5, and have at least half a year of entertainment off that.

Tongku.5326:

$20 + 1 achievement chest, or $30 with leftover gems, is indeed a very low transfer cost, and I do not see any regularly working person having issues with such costs. Honestly, any person having serious issues with these needs to re examine their life altogether and weather they should be spending time on this game at all, unless as stated above, they reside in a country / region where currency exchange rates are extremely unfavorable for them to do so.

I earn over 2 times the average income in my country and I still refuse to pay UNREASOABLE fees. Just like I don’t pay 150 bucks for a pair of jeans when I can get nice jeans for 30 that fit just as well and I don’t spend 50 bucks on 10 new plastic warhammer models when I can get the older metal ones off ebay for a third of that price. And I think anyone that is willing to pay such sums for such a small service like character transfers should have their heads examined.

I refuse to pay more than a pay-to-play MMO subscription fee on a free-to-play game. Anything else is insanity.

server ,transfers were free for ages and cause and a lot of grieving in wvw it was not a surprise when they locked servers- they actually always planned to do it.

for PveEyou can still guest for free-

btw this is not a ftp game it is btp :P

I got stuck on Kaineng also long ago, to avoid WvW ques during the first weeks. I don’t pve at all though, just WvW, and it isn’t as bad as you say it is. We do have some time slots that are barren but most of the time we can field 20-40 or even more,at least in EB. I had thought about transferring also, but eh, I kind of like the smaller skirmishes, I started on JQ, I’ll never go back to that zergfest. I don’t see the gem cost as a big deal, if you enjoy the game enough, it’s worth the cost for transfer. 20 bucks isn’t a whole lot of money.

Morrigan.2809:

btw this is not a ftp game it is btp :P

Yes so even less reason to charge money for anything other than full blown expansions. We paid for a full game, but instead it is crippled. Not enough bank slots, not enough char slots, no WvW until you pay up, etc.

I really tried to stick with Gate of Madness because I didn’t want to add to the chaos by transferring to a higher population server. It finally got to the point where I just decided to delete all of my characters and transfer to Tarnished Coast because I could NOT find a single person in GoM ever.

I stuck with GoM for about 4 months because I was really hoping there would be a server merge or something like that, but I finally just transferred to TC and I enjoyed actually seeing people run around. I guess the only answer is to transfer to a high population server and let the other servers rot away and die.

The idea behind the high costs for a transfer to a high-population world is to try and get people to not transfer to those worlds. ArenaNet doesn’t want the entire game population playing on Tarnished Coast (as it currently does, Bob fragging frag the lot of them). The notion was that transfers to lower-population servers would cost less money, thus hopefully encouraging players to consolidate multi-server guilds and such in these lower-population worlds and, eventually, help balance out the population.

Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that Tarnished Coast wins/does absolutely everything, so everyone heads over there instead of consolidating in lower-population worlds. Personally, I’d rather see ArenaNet just flat bar entry into certain worlds at this point, perhaps even put out a rallying cry asking for players/guilds to switch realms. Put together a list of underpopulated worlds, such as Kaineng, and not only make transferring to those worlds free for a time, but offer incentives to make players want to switch over. Long-duration boosters mailed to everyone on a low-pop server after the transfer period, big infusions of influence for any guild who moves the bulk of its players over, things that people actually want.

Only way to convince players who otherwise lucked out/paid the price to move already to go and try to address world imbalances. Telling me I’m only charged ten bucks instead of twenty-five if I decide to move to Kaineng is pretty much the worst possible way in the entirety of the Internet to get me to switch to Kaineng.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Put together a list of underpopulated worlds, such as Kaineng, and not only make transferring to those worlds free for a time, but offer incentives to make players want to switch over. Long-duration boosters mailed to everyone on a low-pop server after the transfer period, big infusions of influence for any guild who moves the bulk of its players over, things that people actually want.

Only way to convince players who otherwise lucked out/paid the price to move already to go and try to address world imbalances. Telling me I’m only charged ten bucks instead of twenty-five if I decide to move to Kaineng is pretty much the worst possible way in the entirety of the Internet to get me to switch to Kaineng.

Best thing I’ve read all day. Now if Anet would read and implement it…

Shakkara.2641:

Morrigan.2809:

btw this is not a ftp game it is btp :P

Yes so even less reason to charge money for anything other than full blown expansions. We paid for a full game, but instead it is crippled. Not enough bank slots, not enough char slots, no WvW until you pay up, etc.

Not sure if you forgot how people completely abused wvw when server transfers were free- it is because of wvw we now have a lock- and it is not exactly news either.
It was supposed to be like that since the game launched.

five character slot for free is not enough?
and omg they charge money for fluff?
hehehheeeeee, I think you are really spoilt by GW2

they should ditch the server system, bring back districts and change WvW to a god based war where you choose what god to fight for instead of a world

I started on Henge of Denravi and rarely saw a single person out in the world while exploring. I thought the game was dead until I tried guesting, then eventually transferred to Tarnished Coast. I’m happy to lag occasionally if it means not playing an sRPG.

When starting the game, it’s safe to say that most people would see the population indicator beside the server name representative of “active players”, not “accounts tied to this server”. Transfer fees are understandable (though a bit high) but when combined with the inability to make an informed decision when choosing your first home server, it feels more like a trap.

What would be cool is if each account received one free transfer (not including the free transfers after deleting all your characters). That way, new players who have invested a lot of time in their characters before realising they really want to switch servers have one chance to get it right – the chance that should have been given at the creation of their account.

I feel sorry for the bunch of new players GW2 has had recently, with every server listed as “Very High”.

They need to merge servers, but they won’t because that is the final sign of a sinking ship and it will make everyone that is left leave. It’s a catch 22 with no real solution.

Same thing happened to SWTOR. People starting leaving, they merged servers, people started to panic that the game was failing, almost everyone left jumped ship, and the game was forced to go P2W cash shop to stay afloat.

Personally I think server merges are the best option at this point, there are just too many servers and not enough people. It doesn’t help that they hide this fact and display every server as “very high” population, all that does is leave any new players they have in a dead world.

I think there have been a lot of great points here and the main argument for the current system seems to be to keep wvwvw running in proper form. But, if anet were to change the system, I’m not saying that the transfer fee would simply become cheaper, but that it would become cheaper and a sort of “cooldown” would be enacted.

This cooldown would only allow players to switch servers once every six months, or even only once a year. The point isn’t to hurt wvw and enable servers to send spies everywhere, but to help players who are missing some of the most fun elements of the game. So, i think the cheaper transfer price along with the ‘cooldown’ would effectively provide a solution for all parties.

Merge PvE and SPvP into GW1-style districts, leave WvW for the meanwhile.

Ben K.7329:

Merge PvE and SPvP into GW1-style districts, leave WvW for the meanwhile.

This is exactly what they should have done from the beginning.

Hedger.9261:

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

They should separate your WvW server of choice from your PvE servers. Keep the same WvW restrictions for your WvW choice and remove them for PvE

you mean exactly how guesting works?

anyone looking to PvE can easily guest to wherever they think is better to PvE when ever they want to. The only people who have an issue with server transfers are those who want to ride the coat tails or other servers.

Nope. Guesting has a number of significant drawbacks:
- Can’t play with friends across different regions.
- If you find a guild you enjoy on another server you can’t make use of their buffs, guild banks nor can you contribute by gaining influence
- You can only guest to two servers per 24h
- You can’t join the proper guested server’s region from overflow (network error)

And yes, WvW server choice should have been separate from PvE from the start.