Guild Wars 2

Players on North American home worlds cannot guest on European worlds or vice versa.

While this was an understandable issue at launch, many assumed guesting would fix this. according to the blog post…this won’t be the case.

Shame for multi-region guilds and friends that might be on other regions.

Sweet. Good to see all that network programming has finally paid off.

Not very happy about the fact that I wont be able to guest over to american servers (I’m on Seafarer’s Rest) >:c That is all.

Finally!
Luckily alliances will grow stronger now, and people will be able to PvE with friends, this is one of the things some of my friends have been waiting since launch. Thanks!

@EDIT
And just stop the QQing about gem fee, it was known much BEFORE the game was even launched, just research. Period.

Does the inability to enter WvWvW while guesting mean that one cannot enter the Heart of the Mists at all, even just to use as a means of gating to Lion’s Arch? Or is that considered just an sPvP area?

I couldn’t be more happy. Thank you.

~MRA

Kinda annoying you can’t guest onto different regions, but I can see why. Means people will be forced to buy gems for transfers.

Wait, we can’t guest from NA to European servers? What?

Glad to see guesting finally implemented, very much not glad to see the regional restrictions on it.

Thanks for not telling us about the EU/NA restriction until now.

That was classy.

Question:

If I were to transfer from, say, Maguuma to Tarnished Coast on the 25th, but soon regret it and want to go to Dragonbrand, won’t I be stuck on Tarnished coast since the 7 day limit would close after the 28th?

Or will you implement a one-day limit on the 27th-28th?

Do we know when, exactly, this will be implemented? For example, if a guild is considering moving to another server as a whole (something my guild has discussed but never really decided on), they’ll need to be settled on their new server before fees become a factor.

If my guildies still want this, I’ll need to give ’em a nudge.

While it’s great that it’s coming. There are some IMHO huge limitations with it.

•Because (different from a world transfer) we are not moving your character between data centers, you may only guest on worlds in the same region as your home world. Players on North American home worlds cannot guest on European worlds or vice versa.

Many of us have friends in different regions around the world, many of us have formed communities and groups of friends from the truely global game that was GW1.

Why can’t you do a copy across region for cross region guesting? Sure we might have to wait a few mins, but thats a whole load better than never..

What was the reason for this limitation? If it was ping then let us decide what’s playable or not. We now have an ‘iron curtain’ between what was once world wide communities of players, who loved to meet up and play as and when they felt like it.

For me and I know many others the ability to meet and play with people from any nation in the world was one of the HUGE things I loved about GW1.

For a game that only yesterday said that community was a focal point, I really can’t see how this can possibly help but drive divisions right across the game.

•You’re eligible to guest on only 2 different worlds at a time. Each time you guest on a world, that world becomes one of your eligible guest worlds for the next 24 hours. After 24 hours, you may choose to guest on a different world. You may log in to any world you are eligible to guest on as many times as you wish with no restriction.

Again. I’m failing to see how any of this is good for the community.

Although I was kinda expecting these limitations, it is deeply disapointing that they are made.

Tanith.5264:

Do we know when, exactly, this will be implemented? For example, if a guild is considering moving to another server as a whole (something my guild has discussed but never really decided on), they’ll need to be settled on their new server before fees become a factor.

If my guildies still want this, I’ll need to give ’em a nudge.

January 28th. Right there in the blog post.

Finally!

However, my concern is it may split maps into various servers to farm them. Like everyone who farms Cursed Shore would all gather on one single server.

It might be a bit of a schlep for players unless underflow were implemented.

Great news! I’ve been not-so-patiently waiting for this announcement since the BWE’s, this will be awesome to finally have.

Is there a long-term plan to address the issue of NA and EU players being locked out from each other? To be honest I was expecting this, but in an ideal world we could guest across data centers.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

While it’s great that it’s coming. There are some IMHO huge limitations with it.

Many of us have friends in different regions around the world, many of us have formed communities and groups of friends from the truely global game that was GW1.

What was the reason for this limitation? If it was ping then let us decide what’s playable or not. We now have an ‘iron curtain’ between what was once world wide communities of players, who loved to meet up and play as and when they felt like it.

The problem there is that your ping affects everyone playing with you. If the server has to wait longer to receive information from your client, the other clients have to wait longer for the server to tell them about your client.

I have a question. If I guest on another server does that mean that for the next 24 hours, I can no longer interact with people on my home server? Am I now stuck on the guested server for 24 hours?

Seriously? We still won’t be able to play with EU if we’re on American and vice versa? Really not impressed at all.

Scarn.6810:

January 28th. Right there in the blog post.

So it is. Guess it’s time to make an eye appointment for myself.

This is…a few steps more complicated than I was expecting. It’s not terrible, but when you have the fantastic “Join in [zone]” interface for getting to a specific overflow, why can’t they use that same interface to let me play with my friends in Yaks Bend? That’s all I ever really wanted out of guesting…

How will Guild Storage/Influence work in the new system? Will Influence/Guild Banks still be locked to a single World or will you be able to generate Influence and access Guild Banks while guesting?

Can’t wait. 9/10 anet! one point deducted for no cross-region guesting >:l

Really love the idea of making low server pops cheaper to transfer to! Very sweet, and I hope this fixes some of the WvW problems.

I guess it’ll still be possible to do dungeons and such between NA and EU.

Xavi.6591:

I have a question. If I guest on another server does that mean that for the next 24 hours, I can no longer interact with people on my home server? Am I now stuck on the guested server for 24 hours?

Good question to get confirmation on, but what I got from it was that your home world is always available. I’m assuming that every time you log on, you have to select guesting from the world list, so if you just click log on, it’ll be to your home world.

Valento.9852:

I guess it’ll still be possible to do dungeons and such between NA and EU.

Haven’t been able to since launch, and as indicated in the guesting blog post it self, it does not appear that it’s being looked into at all.

Thala.2801:

This is…a few steps more complicated than I was expecting. It’s not terrible, but when you have the fantastic “Join in [zone]” interface for getting to a specific overflow, why can’t they use that same interface to let me play with my friends in Yaks Bend? That’s all I ever really wanted out of guesting…

What they have for us now is the foundation. What you described seems like it could be built on top of the foundation without much issue. Does the friends list work across all worlds? I play solo mostly so I haven’t really tested that.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Seriously? We still won’t be able to play with EU if we’re on American and vice versa? Really not impressed at all.

I’m impressed. Very POORLY impressed. One more time. I don’t understand how A-Net can say on one day that they understand how important community is and on the next say that we can’t guest cross-server? What is the point?? We could already, team, guild, dungeon, Fractal and sPvP cross-server, and since we still won’t be able to WvW while guesting how is this any different? Seriously, what exactly is the point??

How the hell could this company allow us to play with people from all over the globe in GW1 and not be able to do the same now. Giant steps backwards. Over and over again, giant steps backwards.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

•You’re eligible to guest on only 2 different worlds at a time. Each time you guest on a world, that world becomes one of your eligible guest worlds for the next 24 hours. After 24 hours, you may choose to guest on a different world. You may log in to any world you are eligible to guest on as many times as you wish with no restriction.

Again. I’m failing to see how any of this is good for the community.

I can give you at least one good reason for this right off the bat (I was actually trying to think of how they’d handle the problem) – just think of how much orichalcum and ancient wood you could gather on a single character if you could jump through every single server in your region in one day. And what’d happen if everyone, or even a good portion, started doing this daily. At least I don’t believe the devs have managed to remove ori/etc. nodes from appearing to you on overflow maps/maps you guest to if you have already gathered them once on another map.

I would say this is a fair balance where you can play with friends in two different servers during one day, while still trying to minimize the impacts on game economy.

Was the opening of the blog post a reference to this guy?

This is great, thanks! I would definitely love to see the “overflow joining” functionality in the longrun though. What people really expected was to be able to right click on a party member and say “Join in X” the way it works for overflows right now.

I mean this respectfully, but I’m a little bit baffled why you went the route you did instead of something that we’re all used to, and already know works.

Not being able to do regional is a bummer. Otherwise it’s all pretty straight forward

While this is great news, my old GW1 alliance was counting on cross-region guesting with roughly half of our alliance being Euros and the rest being Oceanic/NA. The schism this has caused with us being on two different regional servers has been painful and we’ve been quietly waiting for the day when we would finally get to play together again.

Is there any plan to change this in future?

Is the restriction on guesting between NA and Euro servers a temporary stage as you sort out the issues?

If it’s a stepping stone, I’ll be happy and patient. If it’s the way the future looks, I admit that I’d be disappointed, since that was most for the point of guesting for me (and as an Oceanic I have occasional ping weirdness either way).

Happy to see this implemented! I recently switched world, but left some friends behind doing so. Good to know I’ll be able to play with them again soon outside dungeons and spvp!

It is a great progress. Of course it would be better not to have the divide between NA and EU, but it is better than it is now.

Personally I don’t care about that division but I can imagine how it hurts others – and I remember that I actually did have NA friends in another MMO I played (I am European). I hope ArenaNet will solve this remaining problem eventually.

I have been really expecting to be finally able to run dungeons with friends from NA servers while my EU friends are asleep, but nah..

At this point I couldn’t care less if the guesting system exists or not.

Why couldn’t you just have ONE SINGLE PVE server divided in multiple channels (overfow servers, districts, you name it) which could be “joined” at anytime no matter what region they are in??
Why did you ruin the gameplay of PVEers for some stupid WvW pride?
Do you think a PvE player cares if his/her Home Server is winning or loosing in WvW? I think not.

I know a lot of people in the RP community are and will be greatly saddened by this news. Many people were eagerly anticipating guesting to play with friends on either side of the Atlantic, assuming that this would be included since GW1 allowed it.

The community already struggles somewhat with a lack of official recognition, and it’s a shame that we are still going to be fractured by this when outside the game it is relatively close knit, with players switching between servers at the moment on free transfers.

I love that you can select the world to visit instead of having the requirement of having a friend already on that world… well done indeed, that’s a nice design change.

Although… can this be abused to double up on the rich orichalcum node? Something to consider.

Where’s a Quaggan? I need to /hug them.

Also I guess that guesting will be okay too.

But Quaggan hugging! ZOMG!

Sadly the regional restriction will force me to choose between my different groups of friends rather than a solution for knowing people on both EU and NA.

Thanks for the heads up and the choice at all though, its more than other games allow. Cheers<3

The server jumping harvesting nodes is easy to fix. Just dont allow gathering on an non home server.

As for the ping issue. Thats easily solved. Just copy the character. Sure we’d have to wait a bit, but thats better than never.

Did the huge community events such as people sponsoring districts in CNY, all the give away events, birthday parties open for all and all the tens of thousands of player who routinely joined in to game and team all over the world not even register as important?

Community is so much more than people you bump into open world..

Awww yeah!!! I can’t wait to send one of my toons to Tarnished Coast for RP! Save me some space please!

This makes me very happy.

Not only will it allow people to play with a wider group of friends, but it should make it easier for those of us who WvW on smaller servers (and love it) to still find adequately populated PVE zones to play in as well. It basically eliminates the need for server merges. I was worried that guesting would be restricted to only those other realms where you had friends. I’m glad they decided to go this way instead.

It really feels like a win-win scenario.

And, Im sure cross region guesting is something ArenaNet would love to implement. There are surely technical reasons they do not at this time. You never know what the future holds, though. If its something enough people want, Im sure its something they will look in to.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

The server jumping harvesting nodes is easy to fix. Just dont allow gathering on an non home server.

As for the ping issue. Thats easily solved. Just copy the character. Sure we’d have to wait a bit, but thats better than never.

Did the huge community events such as people sponsoring districts in CNY, all the give away events, birthday parties open for all and all the tens of thousands of player who routinely joined in to game and team all over the world not even register as important?

Community is so much more than people you bump into open world..

You could, I suppose, prevent harvesting on guested worlds… but then you punish people that legitimately go to guest with a friend.

I am really stunned by this announcement. ArenaNet was always so supportive of international communities and guilds before in their previous game. There were so many people waiting on guesting to be able to reunite their cross-ocean groups.

And I’ll echo TottWriter from above – the roleplay community was also hanging on for guesting on the promise that our two servers – one NA, one EU – would finally be able to operate a single community again with guesting back and forth. I can’t tell you how sad you’ve made that group, though you can get a glimpse of it here if you like.

I hope that this is just a temporary technical restriction that you all are committed to overcoming in time.

I was expecting this to be out on release, with a bunch more mini games :/