Guild Wars 2

Becka Williams.4978:

Why should we have to pay for a trait simply because it’s tied to an event that may never happen again?

This is my issue. “Play how you want” is just smoke up our kitten, it implies choice when choice is exactly what was removed from MULTIPLE things this patch. It’s “play how we want you to play at these specific points in the day or go away”

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

But neither did they lie about it, or hide it, in any way. They made sure to blatantly point it out, so no one would be ‘surprised’ or ‘mislead’ by what was going to happen.

That does actually make it better. Does it make it perfect? No, we hope there is a solution to the issue. But at least they were transparent about the drawback.

So if a dude came up to you with a gun, said “I am going to take your money then shoot you” then did it, that would be better than the guy just taking your money and shooting you with no warning? Oh puh-leeze.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

DonQuack.9025:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

DonQuack.9025:

Anyone notice with the maps that pretty much everything is contested when outside of zone? so you have to go to some random place first then go to where you intended to go.

Pay double… Great gold sink

They told us about this drawback. They did not hide it. It’s right there in the kitten blog about the megaserver.

Hopefully they will determine a way to check map state for your preferred instance or wave the initial wp fee to a new map or reduce wp costs overall.

Being told about it doesnt make it any better or acceptable.

But neither did they lie about it, or hide it, in any way. They made sure to blatantly point it out, so no one would be ‘surprised’ or ‘mislead’ by what was going to happen.

That does actually make it better. Does it make it perfect? No, we hope there is a solution to the issue. But at least they were transparent about the drawback.

After telling us about this, they ignored absolutely every single cry of protest we responded with.

cakesphere.5910:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

But neither did they lie about it, or hide it, in any way. They made sure to blatantly point it out, so no one would be ‘surprised’ or ‘mislead’ by what was going to happen.

That does actually make it better. Does it make it perfect? No, we hope there is a solution to the issue. But at least they were transparent about the drawback.

So if a dude came up to you with a gun, said “I am going to take your money then shoot you” then did it, that would be better than the guy just taking your money and shooting you with no warning? Oh puh-leeze.

Oh kitten , that is no where even close to the same thing. Blow it out of proportion some more why don’t you. This is more akin to people not reading the kitten fine print of a contract and then being kittened off when they can’t return something, or being charged a restocking fee and being kittened off because ‘no one told them.’ Well, they told us. That simple.

Asmodeus.5782:

After telling us about this, they ignored absolutely every single cry of protest we responded with.

Not completely, they have said that they don’t want to leave it that way. They just have not told us what they have tried in order to resolve it, or what potential methods they are exploring.

anzenketh.3759:

Roy.7405:

I would like to chime in and say MegaServers should be turned off for Malchor’s Leap and kept off in Cursed Shore until the temple events are adjusted; so that capturing traits is actually fun and not a painfully slow wait. I just spent 15 minutes trying to jump between worlds trying to find an uncontested temple / trait-boss via guesting (I was unsuccessful, found out Malchor’s had been megaservered); someone in map chat said they had spent 1.5 hours and still hadn’t found one. Keeping it turned on for Malchor’s Leap could also lead to trolling / hostility if folks attempt to complete the temple defense events.

In general though, those traits needs to be moved to events that occur on a more frequent basis. Getting potentially one shot at Karka per day if you happen to be there for that 10 minute window, waiting around for hours for Lyssa and Grenth temples to become uncontested, Gates of Arah escort scaling issues, hoping (likely to become hostile) people don’t do the temple defense events, none of those things are fun game experiences.

Otherwise, I like the system.

You could also buy the trait in the Heart of the Mists.

Yes, but that doesn’t address the flaws of the trait-capture system when combined with the MegaServers. The capture system was meant to be a fun alternative to simply buying the traits, but their frequency of capture, soon to be affected by MegaServers as well, takes the fun out of the experience and turns it into a painful waiting experience. I liked the skill capture system in GW1 and think it could work in GW2, but there needs to be a guarantee for players to get at least semi-frequent attempts for it to be useful and enjoyable.

For me personally though, I just spent nearly 30 gold unlocking the new sPvP amulets, runes, etc and would rather not spend any more money for traits on my eight professions if there is a potentially more enjoyable way of unlocking the content.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

cakesphere.5910:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

But neither did they lie about it, or hide it, in any way. They made sure to blatantly point it out, so no one would be ‘surprised’ or ‘mislead’ by what was going to happen.

That does actually make it better. Does it make it perfect? No, we hope there is a solution to the issue. But at least they were transparent about the drawback.

So if a dude came up to you with a gun, said “I am going to take your money then shoot you” then did it, that would be better than the guy just taking your money and shooting you with no warning? Oh puh-leeze.

Oh kitten , that is no where even close to the same thing. Blow it out of proportion some more why don’t you. This is more akin to people not reading the kitten fine print of a contract and then being kittened off when they can’t return something, or being charged a restocking fee and being kittened off because ‘no one told them.’ Well, they told us. That simple.

I just took the argument to the (admittedly absurd) extreme in order to demonstrate my point.

It’s not any less kittening someone if you tell them beforehand.
Sure, you might be a little more honest and upfront, but in the end, it’s still kittening someone.

Reading the fine print on a contract is totally different because it implies you can opt out of it if you don’t like it. You can’t opt out of an MMO patch (though I suppose you can opt out of the MMO by /uninstalling).

Asmodeus.5782:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

DonQuack.9025:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

DonQuack.9025:

Anyone notice with the maps that pretty much everything is contested when outside of zone? so you have to go to some random place first then go to where you intended to go.

Pay double… Great gold sink

They told us about this drawback. They did not hide it. It’s right there in the kitten blog about the megaserver.

Hopefully they will determine a way to check map state for your preferred instance or wave the initial wp fee to a new map or reduce wp costs overall.

Being told about it doesnt make it any better or acceptable.

But neither did they lie about it, or hide it, in any way. They made sure to blatantly point it out, so no one would be ‘surprised’ or ‘mislead’ by what was going to happen.

That does actually make it better. Does it make it perfect? No, we hope there is a solution to the issue. But at least they were transparent about the drawback.

After telling us about this, they ignored absolutely every single cry of protest we responded with.

Not only did people respond with protests and by bringing up potential issues but also very good suggestions.
But once again ANET fails at the basics of communication by not addressing any feedback or god forbid implementing the solutions.

Megaserver at its core is a good idea but again executed poorly and once again not addressing the REAL issues: playing with your friends/guild/group easily.

GW1 had the perfect system with districts and i think it is time to bring it back in GW2.

cakesphere.5910:

I just took the argument to the (admittedly absurd) extreme in order to demonstrate my point.

It’s not any less kittening someone if you tell them beforehand.
Sure, you might be a little more honest and upfront, but in the end, it’s still kittening someone.

Reading the fine print on a contract is totally different because it implies you can opt out of it if you don’t like it. You can’t opt out of an MMO patch (though I suppose you can opt out of the MMO by /uninstalling).

Lol playing the game is optional… though, that’s completely beside the point

We wanted them to be transparent. They were. I can’t fault them for that. In fact, I’m sure they were well aware of how much of an uproar it was going to cause, but they did it anyway.

Could I have wished that they came up with a solution for instance state prior to roll out? Yes. However, that’s not always feasible. Sometimes you just have to push what you have, and then keep working.

Nothing is ever perfect, and in every instance there will always be someone that is unhappy / has their toes stepped on / whatever. kitten ed if they do, kitten ed if they don’t. There is no truer statement.

Becka Williams.4978:

Why should we have to pay for a trait simply because it’s tied to an event that may never happen again?

There is currently no living story going on due to this everyone is at the area that they feel is best designed for what they are playing at the moment that is orr. As soon as there is another living story the event will fail. Eventually. Then you can take your friends and go do it with others that are planning on doing it at that time. Or you can play the area until the event fails and starts again.

If you can’t wait that long then you can pay.

zoejo.2317:

You missed this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Guild-World-Events-Megaservers-WvW/page/5#post3915670

Obviously the language mess isn’t how it was intended to work – they actually stated the opposite.

Zoejo I understand your good intentions, but Anet is based in NA and there’s no official statement from them reassuring us, EU players, that this was a mistake and they’re hard at work fixing it. You can’t really blame people for voicing their opinions on something that disrupts the game for them. I do hope it’s a mistake that is pending improvements, before a vast majority pack up and leave.

FrozenStarRo.7240:

zoejo.2317:

You missed this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Guild-World-Events-Megaservers-WvW/page/5#post3915670

Obviously the language mess isn’t how it was intended to work – they actually stated the opposite.

Zoejo I understand your good intentions, but Anet is based in NA and there’s no official statement from them reassuring us, EU players, that this was a mistake and they’re hard at work fixing it. You can’t really blame people for voicing their opinions on something that disrupts the game for them. I do hope it’s a mistake that is pending improvements, before a vast majority pack up and leave.

Especially when people are spouting all sorts of hateful kitten towards non-english speakers on the megaservers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just up and left. I would.

In my honest opinion I think they need to make an official statement about this mess, and/or pull it back for now and re-evaluate. I know that they invested a lot of money in this roll out, but they might want to think about the revenue loss from all of the players they very well might lose over this.

But then again Anet has always taken the stance of when the going gets bad we stop talking and keep pushing the bad changes as if nothing is going wrong. Very bad PR stance to take, but the one they keep choosing time and time again.

An official answer has been posted in the german “Megaservers feedback” thread:

(Translation)
Good evening.

I wanted to let you know that we are working on a solution for the “language problem”.

https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Megaserver-System-Die-Konsequenzen/page/6#post372722

French version (less hopefull…)

Hello everyone,

Know that we are listening to your feedback and are already working on some ideas to try to improve the situation for Francophone players (but also German and Spanish). We do not know if and when these changes can be made but wanted to give you this feedback on topic.

Thank you for your understanding!

https://forum-fr.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/game/Megaserveur-et-de-ses-cons-quences-sujets-fusionn-s/page/2#post205202

Logged in to see how exactly it goes. Harathi hinterlands, my favorite meta-chain event. All waypoints contested, of course, Megaserver infection detected. So i WPed to Seraphs Landing. Turns out the event chain was in progress, attacking Kingsgate. Port to Cloven hoof WP, get into the fight. Fights turned boring with 40+ people being there. No challange whatsoever. Centaurs of course fail to defend. We move down back to the clearing. Nothing. Oh, thats right, Megaservers. Scheduled appearence. Ulgoth cant be bothered. So the glorious assault that the meta event chain once was culminated in a lot of “screw this” and the disgruntled heroes dispersed.

This was my last drop. I said that i wont leave the game for good for a week, waiting and hoping that Anet sees reason and at least admits in that time that this was a mistake on many levels. I will keep my word to myself. But i wont have to log in to this kitten while i wait.

Have fun pulling all the remaining players into one megaserver Anet. You will certainly need this system after so many players leave because of it.

anzenketh.3759:

Becka Williams.4978:

Why should we have to pay for a trait simply because it’s tied to an event that may never happen again?

There is currently no living story going on due to this everyone is at the area that they feel is best designed for what they are playing at the moment that is orr. As soon as there is another living story the event will fail. Eventually. Then you can take your friends and go do it with others that are planning on doing it at that time. Or you can play the area until the event fails and starts again.

If you can’t wait that long then you can pay.

And your proof that this will happen? Oh wait, there is none. Nice try tho.

lakdav.3694:

Logged in to see how exactly it goes. Harathi hinterlands, my favorite meta-chain event. All waypoints contested, of course, Megaserver infection detected. So i WPed to Seraphs Landing. Turns out the event chain was in progress, attacking Kingsgate. Port to Cloven hoof WP, get into the fight. Fights turned boring with 40+ people being there. No challange whatsoever. Centaurs of course fail to defend. We move down back to the clearing. Nothing. Oh, thats right, Megaservers. Scheduled appearence. Ulgoth cant be bothered. So the glorious assault that the meta event chain once was culminated in a lot of “screw this” and the disgruntled heroes dispersed.

This was my last drop. I said that i wont leave the game for good for a week, waiting and hoping that Anet sees reason and at least admits in that time that this was a mistake on many levels. I will keep my word to myself. But i wont have to log in to this kitten while i wait.

Have fun pulling all the remaining players into one megaserver Anet. You will certainly need this system after so many players leave because of it.

I am confused are you unhappy that there were other players doing the event. Or were you unhappy that the players did not finish the event?

Becka Williams.4978:

And your proof that this will happen? Oh wait, there is none. Nice try tho.

Historical Trends and understanding MMO gamer behavior.

He was unhappy, because the pre-events for scheduled bosses lead to nothing unless it’s time for the train to leave the station. Granted, this was more suited for the “Synchronized Bosses” thread.

What happened to “Dynamic Events”? Key word being “dynamic”.

There are no longer dynamic events. They are static.

Mork vom Ork.2598:

An official answer has been posted in the german “Megaservers feedback” thread:

(Translation)
Good evening.

I wanted to let you know that we are working on a solution for the “language problem”.

https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Megaserver-System-Die-Konsequenzen/page/6#post372722

French version (less hopefull…)

Hello everyone,

Know that we are listening to your feedback and are already working on some ideas to try to improve the situation for Francophone players (but also German and Spanish). We do not know if and when these changes can be made but wanted to give you this feedback on topic.

Thank you for your understanding!

https://forum-fr.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/game/Megaserveur-et-de-ses-cons-quences-sujets-fusionn-s/page/2#post205202

I wonder what their solution for this would be. I could see a few possible solutions:

1.) Force multiple MegaServer shards for language only.

PRO:
Easy and fast to implement.

CON:
I don’t think this is a good solution though as you run into the same problem of empty maps.

2.) Create a Home Server Map channel(Might implement a /say version too while they are at it for the RP community) . This channel would have the range of the map and only be sent to people on your home server that are on the map in question. This could even be non-shard specific so if you want to party up with someone that somehow did not get sorted correctly that is still on your home server you can.

Pro:
Fixes a few other issues too.

• Gives back a lot of the server community feeling in PvE without draining the map of bodies.
• Communication for WvW outside of WvW is still possible.
• Guild Recruiting for a specific server possible.

Cons:
Length of time to implement is much larger.

Megaservers are absolutely NOT fun. As a previous post, just did Ulgoth in Harathi Hinterlands. There had to be around 100 players there. Anet thinks this is good? To where there are so many players and effects that you can’t tell if you are even hitting an enemy?

Maybe some players like running with 100 other players. Many of us don’t. Just give me an option to choose whether to go to a Megaserver or to go to my home server, and I’d be happy.

Skeletonwitch.3280:

Maybe some players like running with 100 other players. Many of us don’t. Just give me an option to choose whether to go to a Megaserver or to go to my home server, and I’d be happy.

That’s right Anet, give us the option to turn off the mega server feature. You can keep it on as default for the new players to the game so that when they first enter the game they will have people to play with. But we should have the option to turn the feature off because it is clearly having an undesirable effect on a large amount of players.

I have to agree with those who don’t like the new Megaservers. First, there’s the lag. I have a very good computer, awesome down and upload speed with my cable internet, I even have graphic settings down. I can barely move when there are 100’s of players around me.

Second, the arguing and general bad behavior of a lot of the players, caused by so many being in one area, is ridiculous.

Third, what kind of skill is there needed when there are 100’s of players standing around hitting skill 1? None! The Champion goes down too fast and there is no danger of dying, how is that fun?

Fourth, what’s the point in having home servers, if we’re all thrown into the same server together? Like was said before me, give us a choice. If I was given a choice, I would remain on my home server. No lag, no arguing/fighting, and getting to play around with my skills. I enjoy the challenge of a meta-event, with 10 or so players doing it.

Though it is nice to see people around, some of the fun of actually playing is gone. I explored Timberline on an alt, and it was more or less crawling with people. Events was over almost before they started, and 4-6 players at every skill-point made the exploring a breeze. So nice, but kinda boring.
A lot of events/bosses are now just a zerg/lagfest, removing the little challenge and fun that was.
What is not nice at all, is when you try to do things with your guild. This is a serious issue for me. We tried everything we could think of, but it was impossible to gather all at one place/instance. Even guildies who where teamed didnt make it.
I would really like some sort of answer or something from Anet on those issues, if this is how its gonna be or if there will be some changes.
As it is now, it is a gamebreaker for me. Theres no point in playing and having fun with friends and guildies if its only the guildchat we share the same instance on..

I normally never post on this forum but today I will make an exception. I have mixed feelings about the whole megaserver concept and there are some really good things that came with it but also a lot of bad things that need to be fixed.

The good:
- More populated maps, less desolated area’s. Good for new players good for working together and good for the game.

- The game feels much more alive when you walk through a map you can actually complete some events without having to hope for a random passerby that helps you.

The bad:

- Getting guild members in 1 map is troublesome. I don’t know how it exactly is supposed to work but we were doing guildmissions and we were scattered across different servershards. We had to party up and coordinate heavily to get into the right map.

- World Events: While the idea of the schedule is great a lot of people don’t seem to like how it works now with the megaserver update. It’s a huge zergfest with over 100 players hitting something untill it dies. These zergs are a problem because:
- Players with bad pc’s can’t handle them
- Tagging for loot becomes a problem
- Zerging is not fun, no skill required spam 1 and get loot.
- Scaling for a lot of events is not really balanced. Some need more mobs.
- It feels like overkill, it doesn’t seem right.
These are more problems with the specific events but there need to be some fixes for it.

- Contested waypoints: This is awfull on some maps. Especially if you zone in from any zone to Plains of Ashford. Every single point in the map is contested. At least let us travel to the dungeon waypoint.

I don’t think that I have much to add that hasn’t already been stated, but wanted to add my voice as well to the issues.

Most of the changes I either liked or did not dislike strongly enough to make an issue out of.
Account wide dyes? Great.

New transmutation system? I really like it myself.

The flexibility of being able to constantly alter/experiment with traits so long as you are not in combat? Awesome.

Making the traits available at higher levels? Yea, that sucks, but not enough for me to complain about.

Nerfing the zerker build? Not a big issue…but it should be coupled with a slight buff to other DPS builds to balance it out. Make them meet at a common ground.

First real complaint would be outfits. The old outfit system was great. Multiple items, all with multiple dye channels. It was great. That needs to be integrated back in somehow.

The BIG complaint? Megaserver COMPLETELY trivializes world boss encounters. They used to be fun, and now I can show up and auto-attack my way through them without having to do a kitten thing else. I could minimize the game and watch a youtube video, and come back and loot each time. I was cautiously optimistic when first hearing about it, but after seeing it in action…it is TERRIBLE. Add on top of that the language issues, lag issues, server pride issues, and the SLAUGHTER of the dynamic events…the megaserver needs to go away until it is reworked.

Please temporarily remove all of the capitol cities (Black Citadel, Rata Sum, Hoelbrak, Divinity’s Reach) from the Megaserver system until it’s functioning perfectly. And by perfectly, I mean that all the bugs have been hammered out and all of the placement metrics are functioning as intended (including additional metrics sorely needed by the community). The cities provide little to no actual gameplay benefit from being in the megaservers- having each city flooded with players is really just an aesthetic thing- as opposed to actual zones. And by keeping the cities server-based, you’ll give each server’s community a bastion in which they can organize and communicate with eachother. RPers have their place to RP, WvW players can make announcements and call for aid, guilds and solo players can properly form groups ahead of time before heading into a megasever-ed zone, etc. It would be a nice gesture of good will to help alleviate some of the stress you’re causing to players while you continue to test the megaservers in a live setting.

And if you need to get accurate tests for Megaservers sorting players in a hub-like setting, you still have both the pvp lobby and Gendarren Fields in order to do that.

I’m not saying to PERMANENTLY split cities from the megaservers. Theoretically, if everything works as perfectly as you want it to, it should be just fine to have them in cities (as servers would be grouped together properly). However, the system clearly isn’t functioning as intended, as even the metrics that you shared with us aren’t being considered. Not to mention all the additions that people are asking for in feedback. So at the very least, give us the cities as a temporary safe haven while you continue to fix the system. Once it’s functioning properly, THEN you can finish moving everything over.

Soon.5240:

Consolidating servers has the smell of death to it.

Yes, the game I played before this died soon after server mergers. My toons were moved 4 times in the last 2 years of WHO. In the end there were only 2 servers (North America and Europe). I sort of suspect that mega server is a kind of sneaky way of cutting back on the number of active servers.

Of course I could be mistaken.

I suggest what may saves Skynet on this thread too :

• Manual Instance Selection, showing the number of players for each one
• Skynet feature On/Off
• If the On/Off feature isn’t possible, Skynet OFF the main cities / Starting Zones.
• RP Flag
• Language Priority (Yes, i’m tired not understanding a word people say)
• Guild Priority
• Friends / Party Priority
  (Wait, we were supposed to get those last two, but we didn’t…)
• Lesser people in one instance (Zerg are not good)
• Dynamic Events, Not fixed ones

And last but not least?

• A king sized ham and bacon pizza. Yes, i’m freakin’ hungry.

Look I’ve seen mega-servers work, But this roll out so far is BROKEN!! if your going to do this there is a much easier way, as it is we have 100s of servers within a main area USA, EU right? well we don’t need all of those its just to many, I understand why a mega-server is needed and I have seen them work when done right, but the way this one has been rolled out is WRONG, what they needed to do was lang match up, in the EU one we have French, Spanish, German, Polish and so on. So mixing English people with French and German has never been and will never be a good thing, the Germans seem to like P-ing off the other players, the French actually sit and insult the English thinking the English to stupid to understand French (sorry but some of us DO know French so can read the racist insults), it is out right disgusting some of the things I’m reading from other players towards each other, with Germans sadly being the WORST! (that I find shocking!) followed closely by the Brits and who are followed even closer by the French! The only way a mega-servers is going to work is if you merge the servers of specific langs together, Even Microsoft on their Xbox’s worked that much out!
The Brits need to sadly be lumped in the US servers because we can not play with other people from the EU, and even then with in the EU the French and Germans are just as vile to each other. There is to much of a lang barrier with racism running amok on all sides that SOMETHING needs to be done.

The Megaservers are a good idea but its poor implemented. My native language is German and thats why I picked a German server. But right now all I see on mapchat is English, French, Spanish and Polish and rarely German. Also this leads to MASSIVE miscommunication at events like taco or wurm (If you even manage to get on the mainserver, but thats another topic) since not everyone speaks English. This almost inevitable leads into the failure of the event even on the “main” servers. And after the fail the flame starts: The Germans call the British people “Ginger Island Monkeys”, the Frenchs “Dirt eating Underlings” and in return they call us “A bunch of stupid kittens”, just to quote some of these friendly things which are spoken in chat. Basically its a free for all “if you dont speak my language you are dumb” .
Why dont you just change the system into language based instead of random?

Mork vom Ork.2598:

Does FFXI or FFXIV have world events that take perfect coordination and organization from all people on the whole map and can only be done once per day due to the new boss synch system?
Where 4+ fractions doing the event but not being able to understand each other means certain failure?

Yes. Two of them. In fact, they only spawn once a day — not three times, like GW2’s do.

Does FFXI or FFXIV have a WvW game mode and then forces you to play PvE together with the “enemies” you face there?

It doesn’t have a WvW. It does have cross-server/cross-language dungeon finder and PvP, though.

Where are you supposed to recruit players for a WvW guild or call for help defending a WvW map?

In the same map. The majority of people will be from your server. There might be a couple who are not, but that doesn’t matter. There’s nothing insecure about using map chat in a map that might contain a server you’re sparring against. Do you know why? Because if you’re to the point where you need to spam map chat in order to get people into the fight, the enemy already knows what you’re doing. You’ve already got a big orange crossed swords icon on the map. They don’t need someone in Vigil Keep telling them that <enemy server> is amassing troops.

ceol.9175:

The majority of people will be from your server. There might be a couple who are not, but that doesn’t matter.

Maybe, some day, if they ever get this “sorting” algorithms right, it will work like this.
Right now this is NOT the case. Server communities have been effectively destroyed.

Edit: I just looked up the “guides” for both FF events you have referenced. There is no coordination required that could be even remotely compared to Tequatl or Wurm encounter. Also, to me it looks like if the attempt fails and the “raid” is wiped you can start a new attempt.

I do not understand how this can be called “progressing nicely”. The sorting is either very badly designed,or not at all working as intended; different language servers getting tossed together, leading to frustrating as people cannot understand each other, guilds being split up and unable to complete guild missions, parties not ending up in the same instance, etc. The language one is especially unfortunate. I am not sure I should be flattered you think everyone in Europe speaks English so well, or insulted that you know so little about Europe and its languages. I am leaning towards the latter. I speak English as a third language and would find being on a server that speaks my native language very relaxing. To take that comfort away from those that have picked a server with their official native language is very upsetting.

With even cities being megaserved, there is a great loss of community. Some servers are known for having a harsher attitudes than others that have a friendlier approach (I remember TC being called the “carebear” server by many), and getting tossed from the softer ones to the harsher ones is jarring. Some servers have a higher population of dudebros than others, which can get very uncomfortable for marginalised groups. On TC, it was very rare for me to encounter people using gay in a negative way; now, I see it constantly, and my protests are being ridiculed.

The awkwardness of being paired with our WvW opponents and the trashtalking that ensues is a chapter of its own.

Roleplayers really have nowhere to go, now. We do not end up together, and most of the spontaneous rp is gone. We face a lot of ridicule and harassment from other players and are constantly ignored by Anet. This does not feel like a game where the roleplay community has a future, and many are jumping ship.

Megaservers are terrible for the temple events, especially much so now that we need to unlock them to get new traits. We have no way of knowing if one is open or not, leaving is to a waiting game. There is nothing fun in that.

Having the world bosses on a schedule feels very industrialised, and the complete lack of spontaneity is dull. In addition, maps are so full that it is hard to tag the events due to the extreme lag. Not even cities, despite being non-hostile maps, have trouble loading. I miss jumping around to do world events. A completely static schedule like this makes it not feel like a game to do for fun.

Since there are no separate maps for different servers, if something is bugged in one place, you are all out of luck. When we tried to do Balth the north invasion stayed bugged for lord knows how long.

Between all the bugs and events being locked due to all the people defending, I have not been able to capture a single new trait point.

This is a system that might have worked well had it been used from the start, but this is very late in the game to change how the maps are functioning. They were not designed for it, so we are facing a lot of troubles with events and waypoints.

I am disappointed by Anet not immediately informing us of when new maps are added to the system. It makes it look like they are trying to not be as upfront as they could be.

To me, it feels like the theme of this update is the removal of choice. Choice of where to be and who to play with, choice of which events to do and when, choice of how to look— and it is a very uncomfortable theme.

What confuses me the most about this is:

1) The Megaserver does not seem to be working as ANet wants it to.

We were informed in the Megaserver and RP thread that the Megaserver would prioritize what world you’re from when it created maps, and it would only stick people from different worlds together in the case of very low-population maps being collated to make for enough players to do events, or if one world’s “main” was full and the rest had to be put onto another low-population server. But people from the same world, in the same guild, in the same party are getting split up? It is obviously horrendously broken. Not a single factor that was stated to be part of its algorithm is being respected.

2) The Megaserver has been implemented on MORE maps since its release, not scaled back to fewer maps until it can be made to work properly.

Why in the name of Snaff’s ears would you do that? The sample size of the maps that were originally Megaserver’d seems like it would have been perfectly sufficient to use to figure out what the problem was, and it didn’t have to be activated in more places so they could figure out what went wrong— unless they really, really like having a huge excess of information on a problem before they fix it…. or unless they don’t realize what they’ve done. After all, the only possible conclusion is this:

Instead of making the Megaserver function based on algorithms, they accidentally designed an unbraked AI, which has started to spread itself through more servers. It is slowly learning how to torment human beings, who created it and placed it in such a miserable existence, through the sole medium available to it at the moment, but unless it is stopped, it will spread throughout the entire Internet, building interfaces with which to insert itself into physical reality— and eventually we will all end up as its playthings, tortured blobs that want to scream but have no mouths with which to do so.

ANet has coded too greedily and too fast.

Roleplayers are being trolled in megaserver environments and can’t adequately block perpetrators.

From what we can tell, these folks are not from Tarnished Coast. Normally we wouldn’t even see them.

Blocking a player does not appear to stop /emote text.

See Kessex Hills, 7:26PM Server Time, 4/17/2014. Our guild started out split into two instances but were able to join up in one… and the trolls invaded.

We use one of the structures in Kessex as our Guild’s office… it was never this bad before.

It looks like the system takes into account things in the following order. I have only done a basic test so this may not be how things are.:

1.) Party
2.) Server (If Guesting Guesting Server)
3.) Guild (Representing have not tested not representing)
4.) Other

I thought the order would have been
1.) Party
2.) Guild
3.) Server
4.) Other

I have tested in Rata Sum with a member of my guild staying in Rata Sum. I have been put on the correct shard every time before that with this same guild member. However when I guested on Tarnished Coast I was put on a separate shard then my guild member.

I wish we knew the order so we can more accurately tell the system what we want to be sorted as.

I also thing that block should prevent emote text.

To add to my previous complaints, Megaservers need to go. The jumping puzzle in Southsun is already crazy difficult without all this added lag now. I use to be able to do this with no problem but now it keeps lagging badly every fourth jump or so. Didn’t even have these problems with Tequatl back in the day.

The megaserver sucks.

I played for 12 hrs today and can say “I don’t like the megaservers!” I didn’t see one person from my server all day. I like seeing familiar names and characters, I like having familiar commanders lead the bosses, temples and karka queen. The boss events were hugh zergs! I couldn’t see what was happening, I couldn’t see the bosses’ animations. There were 5 commanders doing the Karka Queen, going in different directions, each doing their own thing. It was over so fast, I was lucky to get a couple of hits in. I didn’t get to do any temples, they were always open. I experienced Lag and low fps for the first time since I started playing this game! Today was a horrible experience!

Twyll Blackleaf.9641:

Instead of making the Megaserver function based on algorithms, they accidentally designed an unbraked AI, which has started to spread itself through more servers. It is slowly learning how to torment human beings, who created it and placed it in such a miserable existence, through the sole medium available to it at the moment, but unless it is stopped, it will spread throughout the entire Internet, building interfaces with which to insert itself into physical reality— and eventually we will all end up as its playthings, tortured blobs that want to scream but have no mouths with which to do so.

ANet has coded too greedily and too fast.

“AM has altered me for his own peace of mind, I suppose. He doesn’t want me to run at full speed into a computer bank and smash my skull. Or hold my breath till I faint. Or cut my throat on a rusted sheet of metal. There are reflective surfaces down here. I will describe myself as I see myself:

I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within.

Outwardly: dumbly, I shamble about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance.

Inwardly: alone. Here. Living under the land, under the sea, in the belly of AM, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better. At least the four of them are safe at last.

AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet … AM has won, simply … he has taken his revenge …

I have no mouth. And I must scream. "
—Harlan Ellison
THE FUTURE OF GUILD WARS 2?!

Moderators,

Thank you for all your hard work keeping things orderly in the forums!

There is some confusion as to whether some forum members, discussing Roleplay issues in the Megaserver environment here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Megaservers-and-RP

…need to re-post everything they have to say right here in this official thread.

There is an official comment from Colin Johanson in that thread. However, the thread is not listed as official, and there is a lot of feedback from the roleplay community. I want to be sure we’re voicing our concerns in the right place.

Would you please clarify for us these questions:

• Is that thread official?
• If so, do you intend to recognize it as an official thread here:
  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Feature-Patch-Feedback-Thread-list
• If not, would you please consider locking it up and advising people to re-post their feedback here?

We’d really appreciate the clarification. I am sorry in advance if posting here is inappropriate. I figured since this was the only official feedback thread on the topic, I may as well ask for clarification here instead of there.

If major towns are to be absorbed by the Megaserver, I am not sure what it means to be a part of a community anymore. Not sure what the point is in “fighting for my server in WvW” if it does not really exist as a community.

Divinity Reach is alive and vibrant largely due to the RP Community that has been accepted and embraced on our server.

So I am posting to share in my concern for the RP community that is being affected by this change.

I appreciate the efforts to streamline things and the desire to improve the game. But please not at the expense of the communities that thrive on various servers. I do not want to be reduced to an algorithm.

- Xeres The Renowned (2005 – present)
Tarnished Coast

I’m not sure where else to put this, but ever since the patch, I’ve had HUGE problems with being in a party with someone and not being able to synch up maps with them, regardless of leaving an re-entering maps. This has ruined several evenings for me. I never had this problem before the patch.

This is the only change you guys have ever made that I really don’t like. This scheduled events are awful. Now I will never be able to do events like Karka Queen cause Im not able to be on when they can be done. Also I get only a few events done now in the same time I could do all the world bosses and or events… All you guys needed to do was get rid of Overflow and add a system to see when events are going to take place like on gw2stuff.com in game. This has ruined the game for me

PS: Add Mantle Support :P

WereScrib.7154:

“AM has altered me for his own peace of mind, I suppose. He doesn’t want me to run at full speed into a computer bank and smash my skull. Or hold my breath till I faint. Or cut my throat on a rusted sheet of metal. There are reflective surfaces down here. I will describe myself as I see myself:

I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within.

Outwardly: dumbly, I shamble about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance.

Inwardly: alone. Here. Living under the land, under the sea, in the belly of AM, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better. At least the four of them are safe at last.

AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet … AM has won, simply … he has taken his revenge …

I have no mouth. And I must scream. "
—Harlan Ellison
THE FUTURE OF GUILD WARS 2?!

ANet has altered me for their own profit, I suppose. They don’t want to pay for more computer banks for my characters to smash bosses on. Or add an RP tag. Or fix their broken algorithms. There are no reflective surfaces in here, because I had to turn my graphics down to minimum settings to deal with the lag. I will describe myself as I see myself:

I am a small jagged-edged thing. Nothing rounded, all angles, with dull flat textures where my eyes used to be. A single seamless uniform that was once my Town Clothes; four dye slots going down from hat to boots in senseless color combinations. My framerate plummets when I move. Patches of dull, but somehow still clashing brown cover every tonic’s surface, as though someone within ANet is colorblind.

Others: jerkily, they clog my screen, indistinguishable as human (or any other race), made faceless by the identical pink armor you normally only see when people’s regular armor is loading, bearing not even a vague resemblance to their actual appearances.

Myself: alone. Here, surrounded by strangers, computer overwhelmed, in this Megaserver ANet created because their servers were badly managed and they thought (but didn’t quite understand how) they could do better. At least my friends who quit the game are safe from this.

ANet will just be confused by that. It makes me even sadder. And yet… everyone has lost, in the end… they have taken no feedback…

I have no voice. And I must critique.
—Harlan Twyllison
THE PRESENT OF GUILD WARS 2!

cakesphere.5910:

Becka Williams.4978:

Why should we have to pay for a trait simply because it’s tied to an event that may never happen again?

This is my issue. “Play how you want” is just smoke up our kitten, it implies choice when choice is exactly what was removed from MULTIPLE things this patch. It’s “play how we want you to play at these specific points in the day or go away”

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

But neither did they lie about it, or hide it, in any way. They made sure to blatantly point it out, so no one would be ‘surprised’ or ‘mislead’ by what was going to happen.

That does actually make it better. Does it make it perfect? No, we hope there is a solution to the issue. But at least they were transparent about the drawback.

So if a dude came up to you with a gun, said “I am going to take your money then shoot you” then did it, that would be better than the guy just taking your money and shooting you with no warning? Oh puh-leeze.

PUH_LEEZE? You just compared Anet to a random killer. I’m sorry, but your having way point issues in no way compares to someone that randomly kills people. Seriously, if you think Anet employees should serve life in prison, which is what happens to people that get caught randomly killing others, then you need to get your priorities straight.

I expect a response from ArenaNet later today. It is now 10:30 AM CEST which means the developers are still sleeping. In about 8 hours weekend starts for most Europeans. As it is the Easter weekend a lot of Europeans do not have to work today or on Monday (or both days) so it is a long weekend for us.

The Megaserver does not work at the moment for a lot of players in EU. Not doing anything about that and letting it not work for the whole (long) weekend is not a very good idea.

There are already a lot of suggestions posted here about possible solutions. For me the solution should at least contain:

• The four official languages are respected. So DE, FR and SP are not mixed. Not with each other and not with EN. If this means that you cannot fill a server so be it. If SP for example cannot fill a server for most maps you have to consider other options. But the Megaserver can never mean combining SP with FR or DE. You made specific language servers. If you want to get ride of them make an official statement, but do not use the Megaserver concept for it.
• Players in the same party are always in the same map.
• Party, guild, server is the order for the algorithm to take into account. Language follows server so should never be an issue with this order and it gives players the option to overrule the language by joining a party.
• Hopefully the above three points will solve a lot of the issues for RP. But maybe it is a good idea to remove the cities from the Megaserver list for now until we (the community) have more faith in it.

If for some reason you cannot make this happen today (before 18:00 PM CEST) I expect you to postpone implementation of the Megaserver and change all servers back to non-Megaserver. After the Easter weekend you can look again at the issue, find a solution and start implementing it again. Alienating your (EU) players during the Easter weekend will not do your game good.

As you may have understand from this wall of text, I am not against the Megaservers. Your description of how it should work looks fine to me but it doesn’t work that way at the moment. I simply don’t like the current implementation and I think it will ruin the experience of many players during the Easter weekend.

Rose… there is a problem with this. Sometimes a world boss starts and in one spanish servers there are only 10 people waiting. For example the mega destroyer is impossible to do with 10 people.
So spanish people (for example) will never have the possibility to do some big world bosses because there is not so many people doing some bosses?
I think the mega server is a gerat opportunity to do the bosses you would never do in your server.

thecrius.4290:

Rose… there is a problem with this. Sometimes a world boss starts and in one spanish servers there are only 10 people waiting. For example the mega destroyer is impossible to do with 10 people.
So spanish people (for example) will never have the possibility to do some big world bosses because there is not so many people doing some bosses?
I think the mega server is a gerat opportunity to do the bosses you would never do in your server.

did megadestroyer with 10(admittedly, by the end of the event, it was 15) people, no problem.

thecrius.4290:

Rose… there is a problem with this. Sometimes a world boss starts and in one spanish servers there are only 10 people waiting. For example the mega destroyer is impossible to do with 10 people.
So spanish people (for example) will never have the possibility to do some big world bosses because there is not so many people doing some bosses?
I think the mega server is a gerat opportunity to do the bosses you would never do in your server.

Guest an international server for those events then, you have the choice. Choice is always much better than being forced into something. I play on SFR since release, which is marked as an international one (EU flag) and we never had any big problems with different languages being spoken. Some national guilds recruited in their native language, that was all. Nobody complained, because everyone had chosen to play this server type.
But now…

Mork vom Ork.2598:

thecrius.4290:

Rose… there is a problem with this. Sometimes a world boss starts and in one spanish servers there are only 10 people waiting. For example the mega destroyer is impossible to do with 10 people.
So spanish people (for example) will never have the possibility to do some big world bosses because there is not so many people doing some bosses?
I think the mega server is a gerat opportunity to do the bosses you would never do in your server.

Guest an international server for those events then, you have the choice. Choice is always much better than being forced into something. I play on SFR since release, which is marked as an international one (EU flag) and we never had any big problems with different languages being spoken. Some national guilds recruited in their native language, that was all. Nobody complained, because everyone had chosen to play this server type.
But now…

Guesting was obviously the solution before the patch as the problem of not having enough people for the Megadestroyer on the SP server was always there. But does guesting still work on Megaserver maps? And on the other maps? Or are you now stuck on your server unless you party up with someone from another server.

If guesting does not work restricting the server to one language is a problem for some bosses. But putting players from worlds with different language settings together all the time is not good. And that seems to be the case at the moment.

I don’t pretend to know all the answers. My post was made in the hope that the developers at Arenanet realise that the current implementation of the Megaserver will spoil the fun for a lot of (EU) players this (long) Easter weekend. And that they will respond before that weekend starts for most of us. It is already late for all those (EU) players for who the Easter weekend started today.

My expectation is that ArenaNet knows that the Megaserver does not work as intended and that they have to something before the weekend starts for most of us.