Guild Wars 2

Did I miss something? I don’t see any reaction from ArenaNet and now they rolled out the Megaserver concept to all maps. Without any communication. There own thread about it isn’t updated. I did not see anything in the patch notes. I did not look here the last few days so maybe I missed it. Or I missed their reaction somewhere else. In that case: I am very sorry.

If I didn’t miss it because they did not communicate: BOOOOOOH. The idea was great, the implementation is bad. And you simply don’t listen.

I think you can find the following questions on several places in this thread but I still want to see the answers:

• Did your team got split up? The person responsible for the communication is on holiday and the person responsible for the activation of the Megaserver on all maps just went along? Or do you have a better reason for the total silence of the last days?
• Are you going to official publish a correct list with all the maps where the Meagserver is active?
• Do you think that the algorithms to place someone in a specific map instance work correctly? (I sincerely hope you don’t.)
• Are you going to publish which criteria the algorithm uses for placement? I don’t need a very detailed story, but at the moment it does not work as a lot of people expected based on your information in the blog before the patch went live.

I would be very grateful if you could at least give a sign of live. That you do read this thread. As this is the thread were we have to address our issues. As all other threads are closed if we try it there.

My guild is trying to fit in the same megaserver but it’s impossible. Great…

The Megaserver system was a good concept, but was poorly executed. You rolled out this new system without concern or forethought for the existing infrastructure you’ve built in GW2 for the last 2 years. As a result, many features about this game have been broken.
First off, World events are boring and nothing but a massive multi-instanced zerg from one to the next since there are no windowed spawns, etc. The once living world now is nothing but scheduled monotony. This zerging also causes absolutely crippling lag, fps issues, and many disconnect problems.

Second, as a guild leader I have seen guild missions fail spectacularly due to the megaserver system. Guilds do not have priority to be together on maps, not even when missions are going that have you on the clock. Now we waste precious time playing taxi while we get people to the same instance. Add to this the fact that now Many many guilds across many servers are all doing missions at the same time, making it nearly impossible to coordinate properly or take time preparing.

Third, I dont feel cities need to be in the mega server system at all, since they do not have any real value other than crafting/banking/forging, etc. No bosses spawn, nor events that need more players. Please leave cities of the grid so we can continue to interact with our server mates we have come to know.

And lastly, In my honest opinion, I believe this system should be shelved at the very least. Roll back, turn it off and fix all the issues first before “testing it out”. Megaserver has within one week, made the game so boring and sucked any fun out of PvE. It has given us more players, yes, but you have replaced Quality, with Quantity. Now we are nothing but mere numbers in a zerg. You have unfortunately turned PvE into a WvW zerg.

Please, we ask you, as your loyal players and fans, turn Megaservers off.

lordkrall.7241:

cesmode.4257:

Speaking of guesting…

Guesting was put in place so that players can test the waters of another server without transferring, or play on a server with their friends from another, or to simply complete some content.

Now that its all one server, am I correct in assuming that guesting has completely gone away? Since its one server, who cares about guesting anymore? Was that wasted development time, money, effort? Seems arenanet loves to tinker with crap on live servers for a while before realizing the error of their ways.

Guesting effects (or at least should) which MegaServer you end up on. So it is still relevant.

As for “wasted development time, money and effort”, wouldn’t that basically mean that they should never ever in any way or for ever evolve or change anything in the game? Since that would mean they “wasted” all those stuff when they made the original version of the thing, right?

No one is saying that, and it is very rude to put words in people’s mouths. Of course the game should aim to evolve, but this particular change has many problems that needs to be addressed and fixed. And perhaps Anet should consider doing more extensive testing before letting things like this go live on the player servers, because right now many of us are feeling like they are using us as a test server. That is a very worrisome impression.

TheGreatSims.8047:

Third, I dont feel cities need to be in the mega server system at all, since they do not have any real value other than crafting/banking/forging, etc. No bosses spawn, nor events that need more players. Please leave cities of the grid so we can continue to interact with our server mates we have come to know.

This is probably the most egregious part of the megaserver system for me.
There is really no reason to megaserver the cities other than for Anet to point and say “LOOK! LOOK HOW MANY PEOPLE WE HAVE PLAYING GUISE! ISN’T THIS GREAT?! BUY THINGS FROM THE GEM STORE TO SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION”

Just no, Anet. I don’t enjoy FPS drops while I’m trying to bank and craft. I don’t give two kittens how many people you can cram in DR or Rata Sum, or in Vigil Keep. I don’t care how “alive” they feel because I’d much rather have blissful silence than hear a bunch of kittening trolls trash talking each other. I don’t honestly care how many people are at the crafting station with me, or at looking at everyone all wearing the same Mad King’s outfit.

Ugh.

Combination NC.9813:

No one is saying that, and it is very rude to put words in people’s mouths. Of course the game should aim to evolve, but this particular change has many problems that needs to be addressed and fixed. And perhaps Anet should consider doing more extensive testing before letting things like this go live on the player servers, because right now many of us are feeling like they are using us as a test server. That is a very worrisome impression.

Maybe I’ve been lucky, but all the MMO’s I’ve played with the exception of this one have had a public test server of some kind. It still puzzles me that GW2 does not, since it’s pretty clear that internal testing does NOT catch problems adequately.

cakesphere.5910:

TheGreatSims.8047:

Third, I dont feel cities need to be in the mega server system at all, since they do not have any real value other than crafting/banking/forging, etc. No bosses spawn, nor events that need more players. Please leave cities of the grid so we can continue to interact with our server mates we have come to know.

This is probably the most egregious part of the megaserver system for me.
There is really no reason to megaserver the cities other than for Anet to point and say “LOOK! LOOK HOW MANY PEOPLE WE HAVE PLAYING GUISE! ISN’T THIS GREAT?! BUY THINGS FROM THE GEM STORE TO SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION”

Just no, Anet. I don’t enjoy FPS drops while I’m trying to bank and craft. I don’t give two kittens how many people you can cram in DR or Rata Sum, or in Vigil Keep. I don’t care how “alive” they feel because I’d much rather have blissful silence than hear a bunch of kittening trolls trash talking each other. I don’t honestly care how many people are at the crafting station with me, or at looking at everyone all wearing the same Mad King’s outfit.

Ugh.

^ THIS ^
OMG this!

Even when trying to discuss this w/ other players on several different maps (and bring up the negatives from my point of view) I was trolled so hard, and told to do some quite vulgar things <.<

I would much rather be the ONLY person on a map if it meant I wouldn’t have to see 1,000,000 other people that aren’t even on my server, and will only troll ANYTHING I say. Adding to which, why are there so many ignorant people out there who consider anything you say (or any ‘complaining’ you do) "QQ"ing. That just makes NO sense at all. As I also tried to point out I’m complaining and trying to have discussion/debate on things, to be trolled that I need to stop "QQ"ing, or to “QQ” somewhere else. How ignorant! I don’t want to be batched in with these trolls EVERYWHERE I go. Every individual server needs their own sanctum! /sigh

Come on Anet, I think its time for a response, no update you have done, has caused such a backlash from your community, yet you allow it to continue, time to send in that PR team and talk to your community about how you are going to handle this going forward, because right now its a disaster on an unseen level in the 9 years ive play GW/GW2.

As for now, everyone else id suggest the only way you can show them how bad you feel about this update is do not use the gem store at all, get your friends and guildies not to use the gem store also, maybe when the $$ stop following in, they might send someone to the forums to find out whats going on.

I really do not understand the choice to include the city maps in this system. There is nothing there that needs a large number of players. All it really does is showcasing how many people are currently not out on the hostile maps doing content besides crafting.

I don’t understand the viewpoint of Anet on this issue at all. They need to publicly comment on their intentions, because right now I can’t enjoy the game in the least.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Come on Anet, I think its time for a response, no update you have done, has caused such a backlash from your community, yet you allow it to continue, time to send in that PR team and talk to your community about how you are going to handle this going forward, because right now its a disaster on an unseen level in the 9 years ive play GW/GW2.

I assume you were not here in November 2012 then?

Ok I Did It.2854:

Come on Anet, I think its time for a response, no update you have done, has caused such a backlash from your community, yet you allow it to continue, time to send in that PR team and talk to your community about how you are going to handle this going forward, because right now its a disaster on an unseen level in the 9 years ive play GW/GW2.

As for now, everyone else id suggest the only way you can show them how bad you feel about this update is do not use the gem store at all, get your friends and guildies not to use the gem store also, maybe when the $$ stop following in, they might send someone to the forums to find out whats going on.

Hit the nail on the head. I’m not buying a single gem until they start working with their players again. We vote with our wallets and our time here. If we first off stop buying gems, and then move on to playing less that is going to reflect in their metrics. Sure they have glorious China as their gold mine, but not sure they really want to lose NA/EU business over it. I think I’m most kittened off over the fact that they are going radio silent and continuing to push more maps into overpopulatyria mode while we are outraged. Not even a “we are looking at your feedback” just utter silence. How hard is it for them to see we hate this change? But of course their excuse will be that the forums represent a minority of players therefore your feedback must be wrong.

Aurra.4971:

I don’t understand the viewpoint of Anet on this issue at all. They need to publicly comment on their intentions, because right now I can’t enjoy the game in the least.

I agree, I can see the usefulness of having world events on a timer as it allows for ultra easy mode show up 200 other ppl show up, press 1 for 15-45 seconds and maybe pick up loot,

Dailies are a pain now also, I don’t know why they changed it other than someone someday at a table said, oh crap sPvP is dying, lets force players into it by making less dailies, there was nothing wrong with the old system,

Again, time to send that PR team in and talk to us, although im fairly certain they will just ignore this until it drops a few pages, and pretend everything is great, I would love to know do they ignore the Chinese players on their forums, the same way we get ignored…..

lordkrall.7241:

Ok I Did It.2854:

Come on Anet, I think its time for a response, no update you have done, has caused such a backlash from your community, yet you allow it to continue, time to send in that PR team and talk to your community about how you are going to handle this going forward, because right now its a disaster on an unseen level in the 9 years ive play GW/GW2.

I assume you were not here in November 2012 then?

Ive been playing since beta pre release

All I can do is to put a big +1 here, as everything have been already told. Just want to voice my opinion as other say that there are tons of people happy with the changes just they don’t come to the forums. Well, I used to do the same – I don’t come here if I’m generally happy, but first time since I started to play with GW1 (I love their games and play with it since early days of that game), I feel like Anet made a huge mistake and acted against the interest and the good of their customers.

Yes, I believe Anet should treat players as their PAYING customers who paid for the game, bought gems in the Black Lion store, and their primary goal should be to make sure these people feel good in the game and enjoy playing it. It feels stupid that I have to explicitly say it but isn’t the primary goal to keep the customer happy? Yes, maybe not all of them would prefer the same changes, but the job here is to find the appropriate solutions that more or less fit everyone.

But to repeat again (in case anyone is reading this from Anet):

- The single thing that still keeps me with GW2 is COMMUNITY that previously you helped to build. My server (WSR) has an awesome community, don’t take this away by kicking us into a babylon of different servers where our direct enemies of WvW are wandering around on the same PvE map. Also this is a nonsense I cannot get to the same map with my server comrades to do a world boss.

- I don’t exactly know what “issue” you wanted to fix with the new trait/leveling system, but I think it’s a nonexistant. Nothing was wrong with leveling, but now it’s just a plain simple boring chore. I won’t purchase new character slots or (re)start any existing character.

- I’m happy that you reworked runes, but did you deliberately ruin the boon duration ones? How exactly you plan to fix this?

- New waypoint rules – don’t understand why this should be better this way. If this is a shortcoming of the megaserver thing, then work on it, solve it. I don’t see the point why all contestable wps should be always contested and why I should therefore pay 2 times to get where I want to. If you cannot fix it, if you cannot come up with a technical solution to work this around, then there’s no reason to keep the megaserver system, roll it back (“regression”, anyone?). A new feature shouldn’t break older features, I believe software developers should keep this in mind.

- The world boss schedule is, I’m sorry, but a joke. People with family, children, work, or healthy social life quite possibly will never see Karka Queen or Tequatl. This includes me. The old schedule was already quite good, I did not feel any issue with those. I know it’s my own problem, but weekdays I get home around 7, even if I don’t have dinner or talk to my partner, only have a chance to MAYBE be there in time for Karka Queen. On weekends, I’m maybe spending time with family. I usually have 1-2 hours (tops) a day to play. This new system seriously decreased my possibilities to play. And I WON’T adjust my real life schedule to a game.

I believe the same concerns were raised before the patch. No reaction. We’re voicing our concerns and issues ever since the patch, no reaction apart of closing down some threads. No communication, no acknowledgement of the issues. Not a single word like “Thank you guys, we see what you’re talking about, we’re trying to understand your points”. Nothing. You’re right, afterall this is only a game. We can just stop playing and uninstall it if we’re not satisfied, afterall we all paid for it 1.5 year ago. It does not make any difference really. Just simply this is (was?) my favorite game, and don’t like to feel it’s being ruined.

Thanks for listening.

My guild did missions last night and they went really smooth – in fact, probably smoother than ever since there were people on the maps to help.

I do think there are a few improvements they could make, specifically:

1. Taxiing. Currently, you have to be partied to taxi people to your map. The “right click to join friend in XYZ map” functionality should be extended to include guild lists and friend’s lists.

2. Multiple guilds doing the same missions is still a little bugged and needs addressing. Ideally, when a guild doing a mission enters a map, it should create a new version of that map and prioritize the guild entering to ensure there is less conflict with other guilds.

Other than those two simple points, I think the megaserver is a huge success – a sentiment I see shared everywhere except on the forums (as is typical of these forums).

Since my original post got deleted, i guess this post is so going to get lost in all the others, and its not that like arenanet will answer on it anyway.

But still going to repost it.

So yeah i wanted to play with friends, do some worl bosses together. We were all thinking, don’t worry megaserver will place us together now, we tried to do five maps, five bosses.
All five bosses we were placed in different maps, with no option to join eachother, if we wanted to join eachother i wasn’t working.

Three out of the five times, the boss was dead in 10 secs, didnt do enough damage to get loot probably, and the other two times, the pre-event of fire elemental said it failed.

Really?? is this the way, to make peoples play together. It all sounds so great on paper, but nothing is working about it. My whole gave up on even trying to do anything after that, it just causes frustration, in a game where you are supposed to have fun.

Yes i know there is a rightclick, but that one doesnt work like half the time.
I just want to play the game with friends, and not trying taxi them over for hours.

eleshazar.6902:

lordkrall.7241:

cesmode.4257:

Speaking of guesting…

Guesting was put in place so that players can test the waters of another server without transferring, or play on a server with their friends from another, or to simply complete some content.

Now that its all one server, am I correct in assuming that guesting has completely gone away? Since its one server, who cares about guesting anymore? Was that wasted development time, money, effort? Seems arenanet loves to tinker with crap on live servers for a while before realizing the error of their ways.

Guesting effects (or at least should) which MegaServer you end up on. So it is still relevant.

As for “wasted development time, money and effort”, wouldn’t that basically mean that they should never ever in any way or for ever evolve or change anything in the game? Since that would mean they “wasted” all those stuff when they made the original version of the thing, right?

After reading so many of this guy’s posts, I’m convinced he is a troll. Or a hambow warrior. Or both….

To which poster are you referring?

tried to do teq..failed
tried to do triple wurm..megaserver where the community do it were ful lwith people who dont even know how the events works..
thx anet…thnx very much

Snow.2048:

This is Zerg Wars 2.
You need not communicate with other players here, we auto block players of different languages for you.
You need not form communities with other players. We will form temporary ones for you.
You need not recruit for your guilds, for you shall not know if other players are from the same server as you.
You need not ask for new things in the gem store, we will provide an ample amount of skins while changing existing items in order to refresh you and alleviate you of your soul destroying cash.
You need not look for players, for we will place you with as many as possible.
You need not learn to play, the zergs will kill for you.
You need not think, you will zerg.
Zerg now.
Please submit credit card information

And always “Hace A Nice Day!”

OMG! The “Hace a Nice Day!” killed me. I’m laughing so hard at this. You win good sir.

As an aside note I do want to bring up a good post that someone made in feedback on the NGE failure that killed Star Wars Galaxies. Honestly I think it couldn’t apply more aptly here: (This comes from Scott Jennings in response to a developer that defended SWG’s decision to go with NGE):

“At some point someone – your producer, probably, that being his job and all – should have sat everyone down and said “you. can’t. do. that.” Those 200,000 customers – customers – you blithely dismiss as “dregs” and “weirdos” – are paying your salary. You can’t just blow them off for the mythical millions of people looking for a better game."

My megaserver suggestions:

• Don’t automatically assign quite so many people to every map instance. Boss events are extremely crowded and there often isn’t enough room left for guild and party members to join. With less people automatically assigned the events would be a little less crowded if a guild didn’t bring a bunch of people in, and would have more room to accommodate it if they did.

• Place higher priority on keeping parties together, guilds together, servers together, and then languages together in that order.

• Add a low population preference option for people who like to be a little more alone. Use those people first when the megaserver opens a new map instance so they have a higher chance of getting a low population map instance. Some people have to be the first players on a new map instance, so why not make them players who like it?

• Add a “Move to a different instance of this map” option. If a player is being griefed, or can’t get their guild onto the current map, or whatever, why not let them move to another map instance and see if that helps them resolve the issue?

Perhaps other players will refine these suggestions to something even better.

Has there been any word if megaservers are the result of some CDI discussion or suggestion?

DavidH.7380:

My megasterver suggestions:

• Don’t automatically assign quite so many people to every map instance. Boss events are extremely crowded and there often isn’t enough room left for guild and party members to join. With less people automatically assigned the events would be a little less crowded if a guild didn’t bring a bunch of people in, and would have more room to accommodate it if they did.

• Place higher priority on keeping parties together, guilds together, servers together, and then languages together in that order.

• Add a low population preference option for people who like to be a little more alone. Use those people first when the megaserver opens a new map instance so they have a higher chance of getting a low population map instance. Some people have to be the first players on a new map instance, so why not make them players who like it?

• Add a “Move to a different instance of this map” option. If a player is being griefed, or can’t get their guild onto the current map, or whatever, why not let them move to another map instance and see if that helps them resolve the issue?

Perhaps other players will refine these suggestions to something even better.

Problem is, you can’t cram people together with an algorithm. If 100 people join a map and the cap is 50, groups are going to get split up, no matter how you slice it, unless you queue everything. Then parties can wait till an instance has space to accommodate their group. Timing is a BIG, HUGE problem with any tech like this, if one person can’t join a map when the rest of the group does, how is a server going to realize that other member of the group, party or guild are even trying to get in the same map together? Unless anet has developed some sort of mind reading tech, no algorithm is going to fix that. I will admit though, my loading times (especially in party) has almost doubled, that’s always fun too.

As stated time and time again in this post. Megaservers were a good idea in theory and theory alone. I can understand the megaserver in some of the zones. But please, please allow our towns (including vigil keep atm) to stay server based or at least have the option. I’ve loaded into the vigil zone multiple times now. Not once have I seen a guild from my server or players that I know. Even my own guildies get in different instances. Megaservers are just overflows under a new name. Except now they aren’t overflows because you are forced into them no matter the population of the zone would have been on your own server.

I transferred down to get away from the high populations. Now I’m forced into them.

munkiman.3068:

DavidH.7380:

My megasterver suggestions:

• Don’t automatically assign quite so many people to every map instance. Boss events are extremely crowded and there often isn’t enough room left for guild and party members to join. With less people automatically assigned the events would be a little less crowded if a guild didn’t bring a bunch of people in, and would have more room to accommodate it if they did.

• Place higher priority on keeping parties together, guilds together, servers together, and then languages together in that order.

• Add a low population preference option for people who like to be a little more alone. Use those people first when the megaserver opens a new map instance so they have a higher chance of getting a low population map instance. Some people have to be the first players on a new map instance, so why not make them players who like it?

• Add a “Move to a different instance of this map” option. If a player is being griefed, or can’t get their guild onto the current map, or whatever, why not let them move to another map instance and see if that helps them resolve the issue?

Perhaps other players will refine these suggestions to something even better.

Problem is, you can’t cram people together with an algorithm. If 100 people join a map and the cap is 50, groups are going to get split up, no matter how you slice it, unless you queue everything. Then parties can wait till an instance has space to accommodate their group. Timing is a BIG, HUGE problem with any tech like this, if one person can’t join a map when the rest of the group does, how is a server going to realize that other member of the group, party or guild are even trying to get in the same map together? Unless anet has developed some sort of mind reading tech, no algorithm is going to fix that. I will admit though, my loading times (especially in party) has almost doubled, that’s always fun too.

Agreed. The big guild groups are the biggest challenge. Perhaps a guild map queue might be a possible solution to their problem. Guild members select a map, send a invite to the guild, and if a minimum number of players accept they get ported together to a new instance of that map. Not a perfect solution, but probably the only way you are going to get 100+ people on the same map.

Don’t worry guys, Lawless Helm and Shoulders now in the Gem Store!

Skeletonwitch.3280:

Don’t worry guys, Lawless Helm and Shoulders now in the Gem Store!

Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
<in the voice and hiss that we all used to use when we heard school was cancelled because of snow or something>/

Am I the only one that feels like this is just a containment thread to keep the forums clean of all the complaints?

They don’t respond, they don’t care. I doubt they even read these threads.

Most likely the problems are here to stay and the usual answer applies, as always, “Deal with it!”.

allstarpro.4610:

As stated time and time again in this post. Megaservers were a good idea in theory and theory alone. I can understand the megaserver in some of the zones. But please, please allow our towns (including vigil keep atm) to stay server based or at least have the option. I’ve loaded into the vigil zone multiple times now. Not once have I seen a guild from my server or players that I know. Even my own guildies get in different instances. Megaservers are just overflows under a new name. Except now they aren’t overflows because you are forced into them no matter the population of the zone would have been on your own server.

I transferred down to get away from the high populations. Now I’m forced into them.

^ THIS ^ x999999999999999

Luckily I didn’t have to x-fer to get to a lower pop server, as I rolled AR at launch and have never ever transferred off. Though I too actually prefer being on a smaller server, so I know exactly where you’re coming from. I don’t like being forced into crowded places like this.

I too understand there are always two sides to any fence (or story), and I can see that there may be positives from and of the #megaSTUPIDserver, BUT, there are more negatives at this point than anything. Also, those ‘positives’ appeared to be positives ON PAPER, not in implementation!

If anything they do at the very least need to leave TOWNS/CITIES individual server sanctums, as every server needs it’s own little ‘private’ areas (besides just WvW)!

So while some other players, and ANet may think having more populated maps is the best, no, it’s not, not for everyone. Such as yourself, and myself, and I’m sure plenty of other people.

Please ANet, take a look at our side of the fence too! Not all of your players are the same either. I understand not any one type of player can be catered to either, so forcefully mashing all of us (players) together is surely not a good idea!

I gotta say, I love the megaservers so far. LOVE, LOVE LOVE. Maps don’t feel empty anymore, there are always people around, mapchat even in low-population maps is buzzing, and the world feels more alive to me. Downside is having to specify which server your guild is recruiting for, but that’s just a minor inconvenience. So far I love it.

Ramiel.4931:

Am I the only one that feels like this is just a containment thread to keep the forums clean of all the complaints?

They don’t respond, they don’t care. I doubt they even read these threads.

Most likely the problems are here to stay and the usual answer applies, as always, “Deal with it!”.

I’m starting to wonder this myself. This is an issue serious enough to me that I began researching a phone number for them, and it’s not to my surprise I cannot find one. Maybe that’s because when they direct us to the forums, that is something they can EASILY ignore. As where their phone lines ringing off the hooks from discontent customers would be MUCH harder to avoid… … …

Ramiel.4931:

Am I the only one that feels like this is just a containment thread to keep the forums clean of all the complaints?

They don’t respond, they don’t care. I doubt they even read these threads.

Most likely the problems are here to stay and the usual answer applies, as always, “Deal with it!”.

I have to agree. I don’t think they care or will ever care, unless they lost all their players. It’s a shame we can’t have a walk-out or a protest line.

Vol.7601:

Megaservers is the # patch that has ruined this game. Worst patch ever. I don’t think Anet even realizes this, but then again this patch was designed for only casual players. They don’t care about organized guilds like TTS or players who like to play with people they know.

Good job Anet. Are you ever going to admit you made a mistake?

Well, you did predict that they’d nerf it as soon as you released your farming guide … and this does nerf it. <rueful smile>

The thing that makes me sad about this is that it’ll get me to stop doing node farming. I don’t think node farming was ever very effective, but using gw2nodes I could often find an efficient way to do it … and I found the harvesting tools frustrating enough that I paid about $320 for infinite tools (across toons and accounts). But now I have little use for them, as I’m not willing to search across the maps for the T6 node locations …

I mean, I can pin to a single map using multiboxing, but it’s still slower and there’s currently no way to use a resource like gw2nodes. :-(

Ah well — it was fun while it lasted; I never expected it to last forever, but I figured I’d get a little more use out of them.

I think that they implemented megaservers to stem the bleeding from lower- and mid-tier worlds to the top-tier worlds — there were lots of people transferring into Blackgate, Tarnished Coast, etc — presumably because many people wanted fuller maps. (I guested when I wanted fuller maps.)

It is nice to see people in the open world (I enjoy solo’ing champs, but I still have fun if someone joins me at half way and speeds things up) … OTOH megazergs make events boring, and this design seems sure to ensure that there’s usually enough for a zerg on any given map.

Ramiel.4931:

Am I the only one that feels like this is just a containment thread to keep the forums clean of all the complaints?

They don’t respond, they don’t care. I doubt they even read these threads.

Most likely the problems are here to stay and the usual answer applies, as always, “Deal with it!”.

Anet didn’t respond to the huge Watchwork Pick thread and then closed it a time after, and left the other watchwork pick thread hidden away in the BLTC subforums.

I doubt think we’ll see it here. I just hope all of those that hate it will continue to persist and post their complaints.

Ramiel.4931:

Am I the only one that feels like this is just a containment thread to keep the forums clean of all the complaints?

They don’t respond, they don’t care. I doubt they even read these threads.

Most likely the problems are here to stay and the usual answer applies, as always, “Deal with it!”.

You are definitely not alone in that feeling. This isn’t a feedback thread, it’s a quarantine zone.

Also, I’m unsure why everyone’s bought into their marketing buzzword. Server Merge is Server Merge, no matter what they want to call it. It’s just that the server they merged us all with was the kittening Overflow.

CessCJ.4059:

Ramiel.4931:

Am I the only one that feels like this is just a containment thread to keep the forums clean of all the complaints?

They don’t respond, they don’t care. I doubt they even read these threads.

Most likely the problems are here to stay and the usual answer applies, as always, “Deal with it!”.

I have to agree. I don’t think they care or will ever care, unless they lost all their players. It’s a shame we can’t have a walk-out or a protest line.

Technically we could, if we were willing to travel to Bellevue, WA. Somehow, I cannot seem to find a phone number for the company, but I was able to find their street address with little to no problems.

However, I am not willing to travel to WA state to protest =\

Maybe the mega servers were designed to make 80% of the playerbase quit. If only 20% of the players are left then they would all fit nicely into 1 server. This would save Anet a ton of money on server costs.

It seems they are consolidating this game to make room for wildstar’s launch next month. The popularity of that game is growing fast and I hear they use similar servers. They probably needed the extra servers for Wildstar.

I was reading the MegaServer and RP thread. and I came across this. I felt it warranted further discussion on the thread that has to do with the MegaServers as a whole.

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

Wasbunny.6531:

So I just spent a couple hours in Divinity’s Reach (TC) to test the waters of the megaserver there. I have to say if it is in fact part of the megaserver now and they are trying out a more accurate sorting system prioritizing home servers it seems to be working.

I recognized most of the guild names, I saw no emote spamming/trolling, and map chat was well…very TC. Only one person was spamming spells but quickly got bored, and there’s always going to be that one anyway. Asked for a show of hands in /m for people from TC and a lot responded, no one said they weren’t.

If DR is any indication of how the megaserver will ultimately work we might not need a specific RP flag at all. The Grove on the other hand was a trollfest last night but I’ve been hearing only DR is giving server priority at the moment.

I can’t find any official word about DR being on the megaserver, so if anyone has a link it would be much appreciated.

Edit: Just logged out and back into DR and was so relieved to see the same people from TC still there, as well as three of my guildies (who weren’t there when I logged out). So this is actually very encouraging.

fingers crossed

I’ve still yet to find myself paired with a guild mate when I warp into a new zone. Not even once since the system was introduced. And I was in Divinity’s Reach last night during what some could consider “prime time” hours, and it was a verbal (so to speak) clusterkitten in map chat. It’s been said before, but I think that even if the Megaserver sorting metrics are functioning, it starts to fall apart when larger populations start to gather in a map. If you JUST spent a couple of hours, as in: at the time of your posting, then you’re looking at it during off-hours. So maybe that’s an accurate look at how ArenaNet WANTS the system to work, but things get shaken up fast around evening/night times.

TL;DR the system is working as designed and as expected by players. Except…… During prime time hours on High Population maps maps on Vary High to Full populated servers and during World Boss events or times of a large influx of players on a particular map. The system is then throwing the members onto a new shard splitting up the players just like the overflow system. Only better then overflow as the system tries to find you the next best shard according to it’s calculation instead of throwing you on something random.

So really the largest problem as I see is in situations like above how would you improve getting a large group of players together with each other in a efficient matter that does not take 5-10 minutes.

What other items should the MegaServer take into calculation. When should it decide that a semi-filled shard would not be the best place to put a group. I think it should take the Guild and if it is running a Guild Event and if a bunch of players are in a squad into account. (That would require actual use of the squad function however.)

Megaserver and the other related changes, such as the rigid scheduling and rotation of world events are dead giveaways – Anet has projections for the future player base and future income that do not look good.

Similarly, I think the Anet team ducks and deflects talk about expansions and new, permanent world areas opening up because they know the numbers. And the numbers tell them that this grand, (and it really is grand and lovely) open world they designed has not captured enough sustaining players or enough new ones.

They positioned this update as giving players a better game experience. For low population server, off-peak players, megaserver may provide a temporary benefit. For those of us with lively guilds and great servers, not so much. As many on this forum have said, showing up to a sort of dental appointment to spike down a champ with a horde of players I’ll never get to know, never chat with and certainly never game with in any real way is so underwhelming, words fail me.

Anet is laying the groundwork now to automate much of the game maintenance and content, and of course, consolidate the declining player base. This is akin to papering over the cracks in a wall – looks okay for a while but just hides the fact of it needing serious repairs.

Orr (especially Malchor’s Leap) is a mess right now under megaserver precisely because the zone and its major events are still dynamic and alive. Unlike the world events in the rest of Tyria, what the players do matters, even if the outcome is negative in terms of spawning the climactic boss or failing the event. This was always part the intended shape of the game, but it won’t be around much longer.

Anet is abandoning its original, creative vision of the game, quite early in its planned life cycle. I find this regrettable and well, I am sad. I had hoped I would have a longer time to enjoy the game and see it grow.

Vol.7601:

I’m starting to dig the speculation that megaservers were never really about populating lower level areas and having people to play with.

It was about shutting down servers and saving a ton of money.

So instead of it being a feature, it was a cost-saving measure.

There are what, <= 50 maps, and <= 60 worlds? The product is only 300 — assuming each map is held by a single server, it seems likely that this takes on the order of 300 machines — and the actual hardware savings will be less, as some would still be used. Assume we could save 50% — that seems a generous estimate once you include overflows. (I’d guess it’s more like 25%, but it’s possible that they were wasting more server resources on unpopulated worlds.)

The cost of running machines is IIRC roughly equivalent to the capital costs over their lifetime … the cost of machines should probably be on the order of $5k/each (could be more or less). So — very rough ballpark — I’d assume that they’d save ~ $1.5m over ~2-3y (assuming amortization over that timeframe) — say about $500k / year. The run rate for the gem store is more than that — I don’t think they’d have a business justification for this unless they thought it would ultimately be popular.

Astraea.2981:

Ramiel.4931:

Am I the only one that feels like this is just a containment thread to keep the forums clean of all the complaints?

They don’t respond, they don’t care. I doubt they even read these threads.

Most likely the problems are here to stay and the usual answer applies, as always, “Deal with it!”.

You are definitely not alone in that feeling. This isn’t a feedback thread, it’s a quarantine zone.

Also, I’m unsure why everyone’s bought into their marketing buzzword. Server Merge is Server Merge, no matter what they want to call it. It’s just that the server they merged us all with was the kittening Overflow.

100% this. For all intents they have pulled off the largest Server merger in MMO history, to my knowledge, and avoided the bad press of doing so.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Astraea.2981:

Ramiel.4931:

Am I the only one that feels like this is just a containment thread to keep the forums clean of all the complaints?

They don’t respond, they don’t care. I doubt they even read these threads.

Most likely the problems are here to stay and the usual answer applies, as always, “Deal with it!”.

You are definitely not alone in that feeling. This isn’t a feedback thread, it’s a quarantine zone.

Also, I’m unsure why everyone’s bought into their marketing buzzword. Server Merge is Server Merge, no matter what they want to call it. It’s just that the server they merged us all with was the kittening Overflow.

100% this. For all intents they have pulled off the largest Server merger in MMO history, to my knowledge, and avoided the bad press of doing so.

I can understand where you guys come from and why you think that but no I do not. It is a lot easier to read feedback in one thread then it is to find all feedback in all threads and combine it. They do not merge the other threads unless it is one or two posts as it would distroy the discussion.

sparc.3649:

If anything they do at the very least need to leave TOWNS/CITIES individual server sanctums, as every server needs it’s own little ‘private’ areas (besides just WvW)!

This. I left certain servers because of troll-ish communities and guilds, toxic attitudes, etc… and finally found a nice server with a great community. Now, I login right back beside the guilds and people I’ve spent my whole GW life carefully creating a nicely organized block list of. Mapchat spammed with recruitment messages that are 2 or 3 paragraphs long because guilds need to specify what world they are from, gold sellers spamming me 5 times more than usual. When we need help in a specific borderland, there’s no way to do a map-call in towns because I’m on a map with one person from my own server who I don’t even know.

I agree it’s great for low levels, random maps, etc.. Dungeons and temples like CoE, CoF , Lyssa, etc… are always open because people are around to do the events, it’s easier to take down champs that no one would do otherwise. That part is great. I don’t PVE often, so when I do, I can tolerate and ignore the spamming, obnoxious map chat that has come with this system for the hour or two that I must. But they really should have left towns alone. They’ve destroyed communities that were built up since day one, separated small groups of friends from one another, and I don’t even want to start on guild missions when my mission guild is in SF and I am on IoJ. I haven’t seen a single one of my friends since the update, we’re never on the same shard when we’re in Gendarran or DR. My guild is at a point where we really need to recruit, and being a WvW guild, this is now only possible via forums- and a surprising percentage of the GW2 community doesn’t look at or use the forums, or even read patch notes for that matter.

What if they are currently setting up the system to automate like Guild Wars 1? Maybe this is a sign of the end of the game. I guess with all of these changes it wouldn’t be hard to interpret this as them quietly putting the family dog down.

Megaserver => Automate the game to run itself => No more game. This would explain their lack of communication, and also the staff that keep disappearing. We miss Allie our champion.

Maybe NCSoft is pulling the string on the money purse. RIP GW2. You died a horrible death.

The issue is not if it’s a server merger or not. Completely irrelevant.

It just doesn’t work as it should. It splits up the big communities that are keeping the game alive. It hinders group play.

Megaserver is a fantastic idea but steps need to be put in place to ensure the communities that are big enough to make a difference are given the power to actually make that difference.

Thee best solution I can think of is giving guilds the option to create their own instance of a zone. Complete with name/password, just like custom arenas.

That way, the big communities can play with whoever they want to play and not be hindered by low levels capping maps and making bosses impossible due to low numbers/weird scaling.

Snow.2048:

This is Zerg Wars 2.
You need not communicate with other players here, we auto block players of different languages for you.
You need not form communities with other players. We will form temporary ones for you.
You need not recruit for your guilds, for you shall not know if other players are from the same server as you.
You need not ask for new things in the gem store, we will provide an ample amount of skins while changing existing items in order to refresh you and alleviate you of your soul destroying cash.
You need not look for players, for we will place you with as many as possible.
You need not learn to play, the zergs will kill for you.
You need not think, you will zerg.
Zerg now.
Please submit credit card information

And always “Hace A Nice Day!”

+1

Vol.7601:

Ramiel.4931:

Am I the only one that feels like this is just a containment thread to keep the forums clean of all the complaints?

They don’t respond, they don’t care. I doubt they even read these threads.

Most likely the problems are here to stay and the usual answer applies, as always, “Deal with it!”.

Anet didn’t respond to the huge Watchwork Pick thread and then closed it a time after, and left the other watchwork pick thread hidden away in the BLTC subforums.

I doubt think we’ll see it here. I just hope all of those that hate it will continue to persist and post their complaints.

For something like that you need to dig deep into the depths of trolldom and negativity. Something I do not think many of you are qualified for.

You will call upon unlikely allies such as myself to carry out this dark task.

Normally, I would gladly take on the heavy burden of keeping this issue present and hot, but I do have a job myself

I’ll start off by saying that I pretty much hate the current system. Got that out of the way.
Now the Megaservers are a great idea in concept, but could be greatly improved upon. First off to address the issue of WvW recruiting or WvW announcements: They could change PvE’s Team Chat option to be a Server wide chat for that zone. So if you in Gendarran Fields, you could talk to everyone using map chat, and talk to only your server using Team Chat.
Secondly, bring back the GW1 system of districts. They wouldn’t need to be called districts, but basically the same idea. Allow us to choose which Megaserver we are in. So that way you could call out in guild chat or team chat to hop into “Megaserver 3” for that zone and play with your server or guild.
Just my two sense. Hope some changes similar to the above mentioned get implemented soon, because I miss talking to my server in Gendarran Fields.
-Ace

Apparently they have no problem locking other threads and explaining that they want to read our feedback here, yet they can’t take 2 minutes to post a response in the “feedback” threads that they started.

What’s the point?

storiessave.3807:

Apparently they have no problem locking other threads and explaining that they want to read our feedback here, yet they can’t take 2 minutes to post a response in the “feedback” threads that they started.

What’s the point?

Yup happened to me.

MEGA-SERVERS: Good and bad.
The Good: I’m getting a lot more events done now, since even in a lower populated zone
there always seems to be a couple of people around that jump in and the event gets done. That’s great.

The Bad: However what this sometimes means is there are just too many people around. For instance, helping the Seraph in Harathi Hinterlands camps is fun and challenging with 6 or 7 other people, but over the weekend there were huge groups of 40 people which renders the event a non-event. No challenge, no fun. Extremely efficient sure, but defeats the purpose of it being a fun event. I can sight several more examples of there being just way too many people farming events or champ trains, but I think you get the point.

Not sure what you can do about it. On the one hand mega servers accomplish what I think you set out to do. That’s wonderful. But there is that downside..and its a big one. Hope you can address the huge amounts of people doing these events…zerging it is not that much fun..thanks.

TheGreatSims.8047:

The Megaserver system was a good concept, but was poorly executed. You rolled out this new system without concern or forethought for the existing infrastructure you’ve built in GW2 for the last 2 years. As a result, many features about this game have been broken.
First off, World events are boring and nothing but a massive multi-instanced zerg from one to the next since there are no windowed spawns, etc. The once living world now is nothing but scheduled monotony. This zerging also causes absolutely crippling lag, fps issues, and many disconnect problems.

Second, as a guild leader I have seen guild missions fail spectacularly due to the megaserver system. Guilds do not have priority to be together on maps, not even when missions are going that have you on the clock. Now we waste precious time playing taxi while we get people to the same instance. Add to this the fact that now Many many guilds across many servers are all doing missions at the same time, making it nearly impossible to coordinate properly or take time preparing.

Third, I dont feel cities need to be in the mega server system at all, since they do not have any real value other than crafting/banking/forging, etc. No bosses spawn, nor events that need more players. Please leave cities of the grid so we can continue to interact with our server mates we have come to know.

And lastly, In my honest opinion, I believe this system should be shelved at the very least. Roll back, turn it off and fix all the issues first before “testing it out”. Megaserver has within one week, made the game so boring and sucked any fun out of PvE. It has given us more players, yes, but you have replaced Quality, with Quantity. Now we are nothing but mere numbers in a zerg. You have unfortunately turned PvE into a WvW zerg.

Please, we ask you, as your loyal players and fans, turn Megaservers off.

Fantastic post, 100% agree with it.

I feel completely lost in a sea of players. Everything which I loved about this game (speaking as a pver) has been stripped away. I tried hard to go with the flow, but 1 week on I feel incredibly disheartened and lacking in motivation to play.

Please turn it off anet, gw2 wasn’t made for this. Give us back what made gw2 unique and special, stop scheduling us for dynamic events. I want my poor but acceptable fps back. It was a good idea in theory, but it went from under populated…to nicely populated…to so-many-people-please-kitten-make-it-stoooop.