Guild Wars 2

Love the idea. I believe I even posted a suggestion a while back that was very similar!

displacedTitan.6897:

They already said its going to weight what world, guild and you personal friends list together. So really nothing should change for you guys and the fully populated servers probably wont see any change at all.

Why not wait to see all 3 posts and how its implemented before complaining that its going to ruin everything.

This si exactly what I gathered from the post as well. I really think if anything, it will group you all a lil better.

I’m mindblown. Thank you arena net, you almost redeemed yourself from not introducing precursor building.

I think the town clothing changes and the refusal to actually discuss the issue with the player base shows that Anet doesn’t give a kitten about role players. Sorry chronometria

Personally i’m worried about how this will effect events that are organised on servers (like Tequatl or world tours) and don’t see why it needs to be done to Major cities as a lot of interesting conversations about the server/wvw take place in ours (and I presume pretty much every server).

I wonder if adding a “Player Harassment” reportable offense would change anything. But it would have to have a lot of clear guidelines.

Aside from (maybe) Guild Missions, I’m not sure why this really hurts guilds at all. Right now, if we want to get guild members onto a crowed map (e.g. Teq on BG), we need to do the whole party invite dance. That won’t change.

I suppose recruitment might be confusing, but then again, will it matter what home server people have?

I wonder….

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Hot-merge-PvE-serv-inst-to-meet-pop-goals/first#post1035938

Perhaps Anet could give RPers some way of differentiating themselves from non-RP players? Then you could still recognize other RPers and potentially have your spontaneous scenes. It might require you to do it through party chat or whisper vs simply using the say channel, although maybe not. Depends on how many others were around at any given point.

Of course, throwing more non-rpers into the mix might be a boon too. You might find more people willing to give it a try, or be able to ‘educate’ others to your play style and create more respect for it. The megaserver isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I’m not too entirely thrilled with this “feature”. On one hand, yes slow maps/times zones will be better, since there is the possibility of more players.
But on the other hand, when a guild (like TTS) tries to do something (like Teq or Wurms), how are we going to get a new map/instance like we would with an overflow? (and how will this work with the mega guilds (alliances, I guess you could call them), like tts that have 12 different guilds to accommodate all the players in it?)

Yes I read the article, and that you can still right click join, but how are we going to make sure only TTS members get in (and not their friends/others) before we let other players in (like we do with overflows, especially for the Wurms)? At least this is only going to be for the first level zones for now…

I see this as not only a rp problem, but any server that has a really strong sense of community will also feel the sting. TC is pretty big on server pride, not just from rp, but from wvw and other things as well. We are a pretty tight knit bunch, and I know our server cant be the only one.

Things like this can really work to unravel the sense of community we have fostered together. Not to mention its going to make the spy problem on our server mumble even worse (talk about a headache)

I forgot that point, I don’t understand why megaservers would exist in the main cities. I understand the other zones to make it more alive, but the main cities? RPers aside, there’s people who go to say the other cities that are empty to get away from lag. Now they’ll probably be grouped with other players going there and suddenly the other main cities are full.

Sure that is cool, but I thought the reason to have several cities was to give an option incase you lagged.

Easy solution ask Arena-Net to add a filter to the metric so that when you select RP for example you are grouped with more like minded individual/groups and that way individual that attempt to troll or harass role-players are easily identified and perhaps permanently banned from RP maps.

Naevius.3185:

Aside from (maybe) Guild Missions, I’m not sure why this really hurts guilds at all. Right now, if we want to get guild members onto a crowed map (e.g. Teq on BG), we need to do the whole party invite dance. That won’t change.

I suppose recruitment might be confusing, but then again, will it matter what home server people have?

Influence, Guild Buffs and Guild bank are all server tied.

I really feel for the devs of this game, no matter what they do and how many improvements they make, there is ALWAYS someone who finds something to complain about.

Since you mention there will no longer be overflows will zones be distinguished by numbers or servers?

Will there be Queues in this new structure? That is to say will you be automatically queued with your “aggregated group data”?

These changes are much needed and a step forward I just hope additional unforseen issues don’t arise.

P.S. The more versatility you provide to this “MegaServer” system the better!

Let Ppl know and Q for a specific map instance!

please make with this patch NPC somewhere for selling obsis for karma – Balthasar will be a Pain

bri.2359:

Forgotten Legend.9281:

TEQ and the WURM might finally be accessable to the average and / or casual player now.

Wrong!
These events, particularly Wurm, requires a very high level of organisation that the average and / or casual player are simple incapable of or not willing to do.

I am in a guild that specialises in doing these events on a daily basis. We go to great lengths to keep away from the casuals because 10 players not on teamspeak and not knowing what to do when will fail the event for the other 120 players.

Believe me, the megaserver change will cause these events to fail for everyone …

EXACTLY. It is crucial to have an organised group of people using a voice comm and being familiar with their roles and teamwork. Random AFKers / poor.build people etc have been the issue for the megaboss events, not overflows per se. And now it seems it will be even more random to organise a good map.
Instead of a much asked for instance, we get more randomness. slow clap

Wubdor.5190:

What if I want to play with the people from my homeserver only, though? There are a lot of people I know, who aren’t on my friendslist, who aren’t in my guild, yet have the same interests as me. Will I just have to be lucky to be put in the same world as them? Will I have to deal with people from other servers I quite literally couldn’t care less about?
I’m not trying to be the partypooper here, and I’ll wait for more updates and until I’ve seen it in action, but this could very well mean the end of roleplaying in Guild Wars 2, and thus, the end for a lot of players.

This. +1 Wubdor. This change is a disaster to servers with a good community. It is tailoring to the very casual population and their easier Queensdale farming and it will hinder established communities, organised Megaboss runners and RPers.
Also, what about the IN GAME EVENTS that were happening on some selected servers? Where should we go now?

Srsly, Anet, this is NOT something to introduce in a game over a year since release when we have established communities!
Will give it a shot, but I’m on the verge of quitting the game at this very moment.

The only solace I can find in this announcement is that it will start with the city and lvl 1-15 maps and not touch the other maps for awhile yet. So Bloodtide and Sparky Fly are safe for now.

Hopefully this will prove to be technical headache to implement and will be abandoned …

Faux.1937:

Naevius.3185:

Aside from (maybe) Guild Missions, I’m not sure why this really hurts guilds at all. Right now, if we want to get guild members onto a crowed map (e.g. Teq on BG), we need to do the whole party invite dance. That won’t change.

I suppose recruitment might be confusing, but then again, will it matter what home server people have?

Influence, Guild Buffs and Guild bank are all server tied.

True. For now. The interview with OBrien (China guilds are not server bound) and the line the blog (That system has not changed (for now).) gives me some hope that we will see changes to this pitfall with multi-server guilds.

I must agree this is very concerning, indeed. As an active RPer, myself, I’d like to see a solution to this so that I don’t lose half of the community I roleplay with.

I’m not an RPer, but when I read the blog, my first thought was how this would affect the RP community

I’m on TC and we have a good RP community, while I don’t RP I do enjoy seeing them around and eves dropping

In all honesty I’m sure anet is concerned too, but no one, not even anet, will know the the extent of the ramifications, if any, this change will bring. We just have to try it to find out. It sounds like they’ve worked hard to develope a system that is intuitive, so I say let’s try it out. Who knows, you may end up with even more RPers than before!

I’m also curious about waypoints. Currently if you’re in an overflow you can see certain waypoints contested on a different map even though your home server’s map doesn’t have those contested. The reverse is also true, you can waypoint to an uncontested waypoint and suddenly it’s contested when you load in the map.

It’s a minor detail, but I can see this becoming quite a nuisance.

Tyragon.2496:

What you people miss, is that NEW RPers, who only factors in with the homeworld, might end up lost. This is the main concern, and do note, it’s a concern, not what we’re judging already. We’re still waiting to see, but it’s only natural we’ll have our concerns.

How do you guys find each other currently? Presumably a new player asks what is a RP guild and then asks to join? Because you can’t just start randomly roleplaying on the average server, no one will respond at all.

So in the new system they join the RP guild, and boom, now they’re playing with their RP friends.

this system is ganna destroy our tequatl organisation. since you released the new version of tequatl we did our best to slay him every day. the best way to make that possible was to join other servers that provided all of the people. sometimes we needed up to 3(!) guest servers. if you plan on giving us an alternative let us know before you actualy let this go live for the maps other than lvl 1-15 areas.

we realy enjoy the raids every day but i am seriously concerned.

In my recent moment of extended panic, as roleplay is the only thing that keeps me playing GuildWars2 and is something I keep closely to my heart, I came up with a simple solution to this matter.

Apply the option of adding filters to this system. I’d honestly be very relieved to see the option of a Role-players Only button to keep PvE’ers and role-players apart. This would severely drop the possibility of interruption in Roleplay from members of other servers. This could also be applied to language filters, or whatever could be seen fit for the PvE players.

Levetty.1279:

I think the town clothing changes and the refusal to actually discuss the issue with the player base shows that Anet doesn’t give a kitten about role players. Sorry chronometria

Personally i’m worried about how this will effect events that are organised on servers (like Tequatl or world tours) and don’t see why it needs to be done to Major cities as a lot of interesting conversations about the server/wvw take place in ours (and I presume pretty much every server).

TTS is the big guild that does Teq. on a regular basis. If you rep them, you will all get in the same place. I feel like people aren’t reading the same blog I was reading. If you RP with a guild of people, it is more likely you will all be in the same place. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Its just the first of 3 parts ..

Who knows what Anet maybe has up their minds for exactly the RP’ers…
Who knows, maybe they announce with one of the next 2 blogposts tomorrow or the day after official RP-Servers that will get an official [RP] Flag which will be excluded from all those Megaserver-Changes.

Just a wild guess, but it could happen as it is something, that really alot of people are also wishing for as it is also something thats considered being standard.
Other games like LotRO or FF14 for example also have official RP servers.
So I see no reason, why GW2 shouldn’t have also some for the EU and the US

Its obvious from the description of the Megaserver technology that its a revised district system from the original game, GW1.

However, what I am curious about is if there is going to be an option to manually select in which “instance” of the Megaserver we are going to be or is the whole system completely automated?

I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard to add a check box for RPing. All players that have it checked will be put up together, the others won’t.

I like the amount of people that don’t RP saying that having a bunch of non-RPers populating a map, more so than there are already, isn’t a bad thing. Trolling is a very real, and veeeeeeeeeeery annoying thing. Imagine, if you will, trying to go to sleep after a long day, but as soon as you shut your eyes over, someone comes along and slams a book on your face. And this happens for upwards or an hour before their arm gets tired and they go away. And imagine further that this happens on an almost daily basis, to the point where you question the life choices of that person doing so. I mean, sure, we’re not playing a game in the most traditional sense, but someone who only has the objective to annoy other people who choose to follow this route for several hours a week has something seriously wrong with them.

That aside, we all know that ANet doesn’t really care much about us Roleplayers. Do you really expect them to factor into their Megaserver system the people that sit and RP all day? How does that even work? On top of that, not every RPer is ALWAYS on that home server. Many guest, so they can have the benefits of a better WvW server, for example. Will it take that into consideration? I’m just saying that this Megaservers stuff is only going to make the lives of RPers more of a hassle, but nobody really gives a kitten because we’re largely a minority.

While we’re on this topic, by the way, kitten ANet, fix the sitting, kneeling and sleeping emotes so we’re not just clipping through stuff like mad. Oh, and more emotes, please. That would also be nice. And for the love of all that is holy, sittable chairs. Oh! And allow us to report people for interrupting RP. Seriously, you might not think it’s a problem, but we do, as stated above.

I’ll add my voice to the concerns already stated.

Also, non-roleplayers here don’t seem to understand exactly what the issue is here. You’ve got to keep in mind that a huge amount of roleplayers who have enjoy roleplaying in this game for a long time are not the kind of players who join guilds, add lots of people to their friends lists and so on. Rather, they take RP as it comes, randomly, without guilds or friends lists being relevant, and that’s how they like it, which really makes sense seeing as they are trying to roleplay a character in a living city with many other characters and guilds all around. The unofficial roleplaying servers Piken Square and Tarnished Coast are our attempt to create two common grounds for all roleplayers in this game (in fact, they are so well-established that I knew about them well before I even bought the game, otherwise I would not have bothered), two worlds that depict Tyria as it would be if were the setting of a story bustling with characters and guilds and substories.

I feel that the megaserver system nullifies this completely, as roleplayers will no longer be bound together by server but solely by friends list and guilds, which will eventually cause roleplay to stagnate.

Just like a real world social group needs outside stimuli to survive, so do roleplaying groups and guilds. Roleplay will not last if guilds and groups of friends are isolated from one another. Roleplay guilds need other roleplay guilds. Groups of RP friends need other groups. Random roleplayers need other random roleplayers. To continue on the social group analogy: Megaservers would be like taking half the groups of friends and various clubs in London, then scattering them about at random in other cities across Europe where they don’t know the people and don’t speak the language. Sure, they still have their group of friends, but how long will that group really last when they only have themselves to interact with?

I’m not sure I can explain it any better for non-roleplayers to understand, but the gist of it all is: Roleplayers desperately need the roleplaying opportunities on Piken Square and Tarnished Coast to remain as they are. We -need- Divinity’s Reach to stay server-bound, same with Hoelbrak, the Grove, Rata Sum and the Black Citadel.

I really wish they make it like in Champions Online (that has a Megaserver since years), where you simply can open a window and select one of the available instances of a zone from a list.

That also worked in games that had no megaservers, but opend up more instances of a zone when there were too much players, like Everquest 2 or Age of Conan. In the end it was like overflows, but you had control of it on which overflow you wanted to play.

Chase.8415:

This entire feature is better for Guild Wars 2 community as whole,

How? The only advantage this has is if you go to some back water map where nothing happens and you can probably solo everything with ease you may see a few extra people. You can already gain the same benefit by making a party.

The disadvantages are a lot bigger.

Fluffball.8307:

How do you guys find each other currently? Presumably a new player asks what is a RP guild and then asks to join? Because you can’t just start randomly roleplaying on the average server, no one will respond at all.

So in the new system they join the RP guild, and boom, now they’re playing with their RP friends.

Right now you can easily find RP in the hub city, Divinity’s Reach. If you ask /m there about other areas, people can direct you. You can also find guilds. Other than that we have an official RP website but not every new RPer will know of it.

Either way, right now it’s usually easy to find RP. Whilst the maps are empty, you can spot who are the RPers.

I don’t mind the megaserver underflowing in all other zones in the name for the game, but I don’t see the point to do the same for main cities.

Orpheal.8263:

Its just the first of 3 parts ..

Who knows what Anet maybe has up their minds for exactly the RP’ers…
Who knows, maybe they announce with one of the next 2 blogposts tomorrow or the day after official RP-Servers that will get an official [RP] Flag which will be excluded from all those Megaserver-Changes.

Just a wild guess, but it could happen as it is something, that really alot of people are also wishing for as it is also something thats considered being standard.
Other games like LotRO or FF14 for example also have official RP servers.
So I see no reason, why GW2 shouldn’t have also some for the EU and the US

Don’t get me wrong – I’m optimistic (blindly so according to some) that Anet won’t shaft a sizeable chunk of its community. And as there are two more parts to this update to be revealed, plus the “beta test” in a few weeks’ time in the city hubs, I’m not panicking or throwing my toys out of the pram yet.

But based on what we’ve been told so far, I’d say my concerns are still valid. The thread’s purpose is to raise our concerns, in the hope that – if Anet hasn’t already got a solution up their sleeves – they start considering one.

This matter is already being discussed in a different thread, please merge it to here. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Megaservers-Questions-and-Concerns/first#post3847530

They won’t make special RP servers that are separated. What they could do is like ESO is doing. Make an “RP” option you can switch that puts you into an instance with other people who have switched this on first, and only then with people who have not.

Simple way to resolve a problem.

If i look at the current overflow system i fear they make it automated

For different reasons i really wish they would make it like in Champions Online (that has a Megaserver since years), where you simply can open a window and select one of the available instances of a zone from a list.

That also worked in games that had no megaservers, but opend up more instances of a zone when there were too much players, like Everquest 2 or Age of Conan. In the end it was like overflows, but you had control of it on which overflow you wanted to play.

“For players in guilds, the world your account uses as its home world is the same world that will receive your guild influence. That system has not changed (for now).”

Alliances.

X The Manimal.5293:

I don’t understand, so do RP’ers want to be completely isolated from non RP’ers? I mean, all this does is make each map fuller with people from other home worlds who are on the same map at the time (at least that’s what I understood from the blog). Your RP pals will still be there and if they aren’t… wouldn’t the map be completely empty? Why not have it bustling with other adventurers?

If you went to a LARP yes they want you to Play the way every one else is playing, They dont want you in 2014 town clothes in a medieval larp event, you would look out of place and even feel out of place.

Now Imagine 500 Larp players, then something like 100-120 non members came in and started “Playing”, making fun of you, how you talk, how you play the game, and just trolling all day and all night.

Yes those 500 Larp player will “still be there” and still trying to play the game how they feel is fun, but you will still have that outside element.

IT IS A FANTASY GAME there SHOULD be come level of RP in it, many players forgot that and only think about “SHINY” and will troll everyone else in the way.

Im not a RP player, Im not on a RP server, but I do not like this for the RP community.

I am waiting to see more blog posts on exactly how this will work, how it will effect World Bosses, WvW etc. But in general, I’m quite excited. I’m certainly excited at the prospect of seeing full maps … having joined the game a year into it’s release more or less, I have never seen full maps outside of events like Marionette.

From the info I’ve seen this seems like a step forward and another one back.
I think implementing channels and the ability to switch whenever would be a more user-friendly option than relying on these ‘metrics’.

Levetty.1279:

Chase.8415:

This entire feature is better for Guild Wars 2 community as whole,

How? The only advantage this has is if you go to some back water map where nothing happens and you can probably solo everything with ease you may see a few extra people. You can already gain the same benefit by making a party.

The disadvantages are a lot bigger.

Please give me a list of the disadvantages rather than just “a lot bigger”

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

snide chuckle

“We don’t like the overflow system”
“The overflow system sucks and needs to go”
“We need a better way to make sure we can play with our friends”
“Guesting isn’t good enough”
“The maps are dead, fix it!”

Anet: Introducing the ’MegaServer!" To help pull our scattered population together in a more meaningful way.

“Omg no! This won’t work”
“This screws with playing on my home world”
“I don’t want to play with people I don’t know!”
“How can I make sure I’m not in a ‘noob’ map now?”

kitten ed if they do. kitten ed it they don’t.

Because now the people who wanted these changes are happy and by and large not posting. Instead you have the people who liked the old way, were silent, and only now are coming to voice their concerns.

People who are content say nothing.

People who are dissatisfied complain… usually very loudly.

Verminious.3492:

This matter is already being discussed in a different thread, please merge it to here. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Megaservers-Questions-and-Concerns/first#post3847530

This Topic was open 1st and is larger why dont you merge that top here?

Iason Evan.3806:

Levetty.1279:

I think the town clothing changes and the refusal to actually discuss the issue with the player base shows that Anet doesn’t give a kitten about role players. Sorry chronometria

Personally i’m worried about how this will effect events that are organised on servers (like Tequatl or world tours) and don’t see why it needs to be done to Major cities as a lot of interesting conversations about the server/wvw take place in ours (and I presume pretty much every server).

TTS is the big guild that does Teq. on a regular basis. If you rep them, you will all get in the same place. I feel like people aren’t reading the same blog I was reading. If you RP with a guild of people, it is more likely you will all be in the same place. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

Sorry I forgot that if I want to do Teq I had to do it with guild that you had deemed the only ones worthy of doing it instead of doing the runs my server puts together.

Maybe you should read my post before you start accusing me of not reading.

If every map is, in effect, an overflow map, then my guess is that guilds will be de-coupled from home worlds.

Really, homeworlds can just be WvW teams.

Im curious to see how this will affect World Bosses etc, it seems like its going to be the same system as GW1, but what if you end up in a World that is low on pop and you want to do a world boss, etc, this seems like it could be great for those who play at peak times, and its going to ruin the game for those who don’t, because as it stands all someone has to do is run up to a wall press R and it will never kick them from the server, so they can camp a world all day long…….

Anet need to get this 1 right, and get it right first time.

@Chase,
Thank you for your reply and I do understand that. I don’t expect them to not go forward with the patch. I see the benefits and acknowledge what they’re trying to do. The RP community isn’t as small as you think, though, and I just ask that you recognize that when reading the rest of this post. We’re all trying to enjoy a game we paid for.

Here are the concerns I’m seeing from the RP community at large:

1. TC and PS are the unofficial RP servers. If they get thrown together there becomes a problem of historical continuity between the servers. That is something we will have to fix on our own and not ANet’s problem, however, we would like to know if this is something we should be concerned with.

2. Harassment has always been an issue whether a game marked their server as RP or not. Up to this point, by declaring the servers unofficially as RP hubs we’ve managed to sidestep a lot of that harassment. If we’re going to see an increase in population we have every right to ask how the game is going to protect it’s customers and players against future harassment. This may mean addressing the report feature and how it can be improved to discourage the physical harassment I described above. I understand from a non-rper point of view this may be a minimal concern, something we should just be advised to ignore and move on, but think of it like this. Imagine you’re trying to complete a really annoying and stupidly difficult jumping puzzle. You’re literally one jump away from the end and getting that chest, and someone just one shots you out of no where just because they think it’s funny. Now imagine them doing that over and over, even when you relocate. That is essentially the frustration RPers feel when being physically trolled and neither of those things are reportable.

3. You can only have 500 people in a guild. There are ~9214 role players that I can vouch for based on the membership numbers of the role play dedicated forums. That does not account for all of them, just those who signed up to the website. How do you suggest we ensure the same people we’ve RPed with since launch are going to be in our map? Making a massive RP guild wont work. Even multiple guilds won’t work as we have a limit of 2500 due to the limit on guild membership.

So yes, not implementing this change isn’t an option and that I acknowledge but we still have a reason for concern.

Yeah you will get some people but on the other hand, most people arn’t gonna come into DR with “lol rp noobs” because most people arn’t that mean. Besides you can filter your chat to not include map chat so you don’t hear them if they talk because most people use map chat in towns. You can even create separate filters so one chat has map chat, and one doesn’t.

Though the filter to choose what kind of map you want to join is a good idea, you can choose to join an RP and the server just makes a map and puts the people in that selected RP. Hell make a farming category on the filters so farmers can have their own map for people that want to do actual events. That would fix my problems with loot farmers.