Guild Wars 2

I agree there is a way of playing with friends in other regions.

The new GW2 premium membership subscription. Play with your friends anywhere, at any time and no matter the region for the bargain sum of only (using Beta costs) of $35 a month

Don’t miss out on playing with your friends of many years, buy your gems today.

Lol you lot crack me up! I’ve calmed down wit the help of my buddies sure I personally am still not happy.

Isn’t it 100 to 1800 gems ? So… Yea that’s fine… Given how much gems cost, I’m a student I can’t really pay for these things.

Sir Cusfreak:
I can’t agree with your example. When friends want to go to a bar, they may have to pay, yes, but then they don’t have to wait 1 week before going back home.

This is the big problem. Nobody will pay gems for playing with their friends casually because they kept the 1 week cooldown, so if we move to the other region, we won’t be able to play with our regular players before 1 week…

It simply doesn’t make sense, it seems everything possible is made to split up the community in 2…

I had the idea today to buy the game again and make a second account, home-server-ing in NA. Then again, that would be equal to rewarding such a poor decision (that’s what it is: a decision – the problems in place are not insurmountable, otherwise transfers wouldn’t be feasible either, even for a fee) and I don’t want to do this. Of course, I’ll also refrain from buying gems in the near future, regardless of how much I wanted to make a sixth character.

And that’s not counting that I’d have to level characters on two accounts, get stuff on both accounts and so on.

I’m more likely, right now, to spend that money on some other game to play with my friends, even if it means buying half a dozen or more copies and gifting them. Which would be a shame, because GW2 is a good game, and – except for that guesting part – shaping up pretty nicely.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Also remamber you can NOT gest to a FULL sever

You cannot transfer to a Full server, but you can choose to guest in one. The game will let you pick a Full server to guest to according to the announcement. Of course, your chances of ending up in an overflow zone become higher if you do this, but the game will allow it.

Up until now players were able to go to either region… but that won’t be possible in guesting…

Ridiculous.

Its just as possible, Amon…its just not free anymore.

Alright, so:

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=31615&storypage=1

Colin Johanson goes on to say that:

The overarching response has been extremely positive.

and, in response to our disappointment:

We definitely knew that was coming and we knew that is something that people really want to do.

Wow. Just wow. I was disappointed before, but now I’m angry. Why are we even posting here? Are we really just a complaining minority? Where is this extremely positive response, because I’m just not seeing it. On top of that, Colin admits that they knew that EU/US guesting is something we expected and wanted. The implication? They deliberately chose not to tell us it wasn’t going to happen.

I don’t know what to say anymore. ArenaNet isn’t talking to us, they’re talking to ZAM about how awesome they are instead, while simultaneously saying they are trying to get better at communication. What happened between prelaunch and launch that caused all this arrogance? I’m at a complete loss here.

If performance between players in NA and in EU playing on each others servers is so bad and so erratic as to make guesting untenable why even let them roll on other regions servers in the first place.

I agree it does come across as arrogance in the extreme. Perhaps they are so confident that losing some more customers won’t matter because the game is so awesome

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

If performance between players in NA and in EU playing on each others servers is so bad and so erratic as to make guesting untenable why even let them roll on other regions servers in the first place.

I agree it does come across as arrogance in the extreme. Perhaps they are so confident that losing some more customers won’t matter because the game is so awesome

Yeah. I don’t care about performance or laggy connections as long as I get to play with my friends. I played another MMO on US servers for three years (with reasonable performance, I might add) and put up with any service glitches. For a company that claims to care so much about communities, I’m surprised at the lack of understanding of how friendships work.

so i have a question. i have a friend who just bought the game but is unable to roll on blackgate with me because it’s full. now i want to play with him so i figure i’ll transfer to another server, but the 7 day restriction is still in place meaning i won’t be able to transfer back to blackgate before the 28th when the patch comes. will you guys remove the 7 day limit before the 28th so we can transfer back to our home server or do my friend and i just have to wait and hope someone transfers off blackgate?

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

If performance between players in NA and in EU playing on each others servers is so bad and so erratic as to make guesting untenable why even let them roll on other regions servers in the first place.

That was my first reaction exactly..

Let us decide what we find acceptable. If we don’t find it acceptable, we’ll stay at our home region.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

If performance between players in NA and in EU playing on each others servers is so bad and so erratic as to make guesting untenable why even let them roll on other regions servers in the first place.

That was my first reaction exactly..

Let us decide what we find acceptable. If we don’t find it acceptable, we’ll stay at our home region.

I doubt they even believe that performance is an issue themselves. It’s just PR spin to make it seem like this decision was made for the benefit of us poor, technically unsavvy players who may become flustered as our latency climbs above 200ms.

It’s all just a joke, but unfortunately it’s the kind of joke that lacks a punchline and makes everyone scuff their feet into the ground and look away awkwardly until someone finally, finally breaks the horrible silence.

Just read the Zam interview… Not what I wanted to hear at all :S

As I said on our guild’s forum, It’s a matter not of difficulty, but of priority and management. Those are things that, as outsiders, we have very little understanding.

However, there must be solutions to this problem that don’t involve restructuring their entire network. My hope now, is that ANet at least acknowledge that playing with friends in another region is a problem they recognise and want to solve in the future. If they put their minds to it, I have no doubt that they could make it happen. What worries me, is that they might not see it as a priority, or even a problem at all.

first of all to those blaming anet for being greedy. Yes they are making money on a game thats free to play (buy it one time)with so far plenty of free updates (and a promise of much more), where any other mmo of this caliber and far less is either pay to win, pay to play or in some cases buy to play and pay to play (e.g. woW).

Anet however is no charity and they are here to make a profit. Yes it has nothing to do with performance and it is PR that is saying that, but so what??

Secondly, free server transfer was never planned. It was planned to be a free guesting service with paid world transfer. The reason it wasn’t implemented at the start where technical difficulties, so the initial free server transfer period (that was done for people to find eachother at the start) had to be extended much more then was planned.

Last of all I must say I have missed the guesting service a lot and I’m very very happy it is finally here.

As for the cross continent playing, I have to agree that it would be ideal to get guesting working for eu-players on na servers and vice versa.

With the risk of going technical I would suggest using a system simular to the roaming feature for mobile telephoning. Your personal data is stored on a home register and when playing on your home world/region the data is pulled and added directly to this register. If going to the other region your record is copied to a visitor register at the other datacenter, the record on the home register is getting locked then and the one on the visitor’s register is being edited. As soon as your guesting service is over, and you try to connect regurly to your home register, this register will see that your back and ask the visitors register to give the current file back and delete any trace afterwards.

That Zam article is an eye-opener.

“We definitely knew that was coming and we knew that is something that people really want to do. Unfortunately the way our server architecture is set up and the way our back end data structure is set up, it’s just not something that is feasible for us from a standpoint of providing a top quality experience."

This is despite the fact that a lot of us are already quite happily playing on servers on another continent already. If you’re in New Zealand or Australia, for example, then you can’t help but play on another continents servers and that’s apparently fine, because, you know, that suits them. It’s also quite fine to be in EU playing on NA servers if you transfer to them but guesting from EU to NA servers somehow crosses some kind of imaginary line where it’s no longer the “best possible experience”?

If that’s the case then why allow people from the EU servers to transfer to the NA ones at all? If the problem is that your systems are set up poorly (which is what they’re saying but without actually saying it) then why not fix that? It seems to me that it’s not the problem, it’s the solution that’s at fault here. I’ve been working in a number of sectors through the software industry for almost 20 years now and I have to say that whenever I read an article like this it just sounds like “yeah, we could do it but we don’t want to so we’re going to make it sound like we’re doing you a favour by preventing you from doing it.”

If ArenaNet are really interested in “trying to provide the best possible experiences for people that we can” then they should let people play with their friends as they promised and let those people worry if it’s the best possible experience or not because the best possible experience in an MMO is not purely about network responsiveness it’s about community and playing with your friends. Let us decide if the lag is too much but don’t try to make it sound like you’re doing us a favour by stopping us.

“how the game runs and how the performance works is completely dependent on how close to the data center you are that you’re operating in.”

I’m a european playing in NA servers and I’ve never experienced any lag problems.
Seriously is it all a matter of money? Just keep your promises and let us play with our friends, we’re in 2013!

I’ve bought tons of gems since the beginning of the game but I may just as well stop buying anything till this problem is fixed.

At least you could give us an official answer here!!!

Deihnyx.6318:

At least you could give us an official answer here!!!

I suspect that we will have to go to the prelude thread to get any answers, I think they’ve decided that this thread is ignorable as Colin Johanson has already posted several times in the “official” thread but no one has posted here.

I suspect that any posts there will be rerouted back here or deleted though.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/January-2013-Flame-and-Frost-prelude-Merged-Discussion/page/1

I only hope that the storm grows once this patch hits and people realise that guesting is going to split up their international groups permanently.

Pifil.5193:

Deihnyx.6318:

At least you could give us an official answer here!!!

I suspect that we will have to go to the prelude thread to get any answers, I think they’ve decided that this thread is ignorable as Colin Johanson has already posted several times in the “official” thread but no one has posted here.

I suspect that any posts there will be rerouted back here or deleted though.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/January-2013-Flame-and-Frost-prelude-Merged-Discussion/page/1

I only hope that the storm grows once this patch hits and people realise that guesting is going to split up their international groups permanently.

Well, I wish I could say that I had faith they wouldn’t intentionally ignore us, but I used to have faith that they wouldn’t intentionally mislead us, and that just ended up with me looking like a fool, didn’t it. :P

1st you kill off alliances from GW1, now you are moving to kill off international relations with friends.

GW used to be such a forward thinking franchise but seems to be taking so many steps backwards of late.

So much for promises of playing the game how we want, and gw2 will be a bot and exploit free place.

Roll on GW3 maybe you can revisit what was good about the first game.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

Good morning.

It looks like I had the wrong information about how guild influence works with guesting.

The correct answer is: You still get influence for your home world guild when you are guesting.

Sorry for the wrong information yesterday.

Just want to be clear, does that mean when we do anything only the home world guild instance will receive the benefits?

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Hello, I’m here to crush your dreams.

have a nice day!

Martin Kerstein.3071:

Good morning.

It looks like I had the wrong information about how guild influence works with guesting.

The correct answer is: You still get influence for your home world guild when you are guesting.

Sorry for the wrong information yesterday.

Hey Martin! Thanks for the information update. I do have a question though regarding the Influence gain while guesting.

Just to make sure I understand how this is going to work, if I guest on Henge while representing my guild from my home server (IoJ), my guild on my home server (IoJ) gains the influence right?

Okay so what if I guest on Henge and join my friends guild on Henge, then play on Henge while repping his guild. Does the Influence then also go to my home server’s (IoJ’s) “branch” of his guild? (basically meaning I actually won’t be able to help a friend progress his guild and vice versa?)

^ This is an interesting question. What happens when you change from home world guild to the guest server guild while guesting?

Today ANET made a post that describes some upcoming “features and improvements” but they weren’t specific when letting me know if splitting our guild was considered a feature or an improvement. I was really curious.
Because today I also read a post made by one of our guild’s oldest allies – six years, almost seven now we’ve been playing together, one of the core of our group – about how the choice has been laid before her: choose a server to play with her family, or one to play with her guild/allies. She didn’t say whether she thought it was a feature, but I kinda got the feeling that, like myself and many, many others, she wasn’t looking at it as an improvement.

Much like many others this puts me in a position of playing with my guild or playing with my RL friends.
Being oceanic my RL friends and I went with EU, because of lower populations (we didnt need to clutter up the NA ones), and a slightly lower lag time. We did this expecting that guesting would let us play with the rest of the world, as a chunk of our time is going to be during higher NA population times (we were happy to wait a while for the guesting playing short term in our on small group). Due to holidays and the like a few of us will miss out on the free transfer window (assuming we could all get on the same server anyway).

What I dont get is how this cant be implemented.
Guild chat happily can link 10+ worlds at once across both regions, we can cross region group (abet we cant play with them however), the trading post is completly global, mail can be sent across regions.

This shows there are obvious data links already between the regions. While sure character data is a bit more heavy than some of the others it is also only being shared between the regional data center and a single world at any one time (the data centres themselves dont need to be synchronised with each other).
I can only conclude that it was a concious decision to do so from the outset.

Before the 28th will everyone’s que to change worlds be reset? I’m asking because I moved on the 21st to a EU server called ganadara from TC so I could access the balth temple. My que won’t be up till the day of the patch. I’m basically asking if anyone who moved within a week of the patch is screwed.

Still no word even on how many gems it will cost for each server transfer. I guess they’re pretending to not know yet, or that it’s still subject to change less than a week away from the update. And while they say they’ll charge a sliding fee based on the population of the destination server, they also say they can manipulate how “full” a server is and how that information is displayed.

I’ve gone from being a rabid fanboi to being a completely disgruntled and unhappy customer in 3 short months. It’s kinda sad.

Aye.8392:

I’ve gone from being a rabid fanboi to being a completely disgruntled and unhappy customer in 3 short months. It’s kinda sad.

Their communication on these changes certainly helps foster that kind of feeling. It’s a very dry and apathetic form of communication while avoiding to recognize player concerns. It’s like getting punched in the gut while saying “stay. go. we don’t care. you’re all a bunch of whiners anyway.”

Empathy. The current community managing directive dislikes this. This current approach of communicating with players succeeds in making disgruntled players more disgruntled.

The interesting part is that this company still has, within them, a more charming and pleasant approach. One that expresses “sorry for this. we do care”. There’s a lot that could be learned from Gaile Gray.

All brain, no heart when communicating really sucks. Stop being this dense.

Vergil Huragok.3967:

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.

On the contrary; this was not an issue at launch. I transferred back and forth between EU and US servers on a daily basis to play with two groups of friends before Arena Net had the brilliant idea to introduce a world transfer delay (supposedly to fix some WvW “exploit” – but if that was the case why not simply introduce a WvW cooldown period after transfers?).

Guesting was supposed to restore that, but for some reason they decided to add a limit of two servers and restrict it by zone.

One of the main features advertised during the pre-purchase period ends up being enabled six months after release and in such a neutered way that it’s virtually useless.

I guess it goes into the same bin as the “no number grinding” promise.

I actually asked for a refund when they added the server transfer delay (because when I paid for the game I was told guesting would allow me to “play with my friends on any server at any time”), and was told that guesting would be “enabled soon”, and that I would be able to play with both groups of friends as before. I guess that was just to keep people waiting for 2 months so they can’t legally ask for a refund any more.

CaptainFabulous.8410:

It’s a technical impossibility given the current setup and infrastructure as the datacenters do not communicate in any way that allows it.

Nonsense. I was able to transfer from the US to the EU on a daily basis after release (before Arena Net added the “cooldown period”). It took about 1 minute to copy my player data to the other region, which is faster than some loading screens when you enter a city. With a bit of smart caching it could be made even faster.

Warder.3491:

What happened between prelaunch and launch that caused all this arrogance?

I don’t think it’s (just) arrogance; I think it’s disorganization. With each patch, GW2 seems to move further away from the promises and principles it claimed to follow during development. Instead of a cohesive game world, it’s just becoming a collection of poorly-implemented contradictory ideas.

I get the feeling that whoever was leading GW2’s design was either demoted or left the company altogether (perhaps the guys who left to form Undead Labs?), and there are currently “too many cooks in the kitchen”, each pulling in a different direction.

In addition to that, they seem to have horrible QA and a clueless web coding team (specifically, the ones responsible for the trading post; six months to implement trading post item previewing in a game where looks are such a fundamental part of the “endgame” is ridiculous).

I still think GW2 introduced some very important concepts (namely the large multi-stage dynamic events that make the world feel a lot more alive than simple player-initiated “quests”), but I’ve pretty much given up on waiting for it to become a good MMORPG, or for Arena Net to become a company that I have any trust in. It’s just moving in the wrong direction (becoming more grindy, losing features such as armor preview, turning into a “lobby game”, adding pure number grinding, lying to customers and treating them like children, etc.) .

At this point I think the only thing that could make GW2 live up to the pre-launch expectations would be if someone with a strong global vision was given the power to scrap some of the dumb ideas added since launch. I have no idea who that person would be, though. Mike, Colin and Chris have used up pretty much any credibility they ever had, in my book.

They’ve definitely managed to match (and even surpass) Blizzard, just not in the way I had hoped.

Aye.8392:

while they say they’ll charge a sliding fee based on the population of the destination server, they also say they can manipulate how “full” a server is and how that information is displayed.

A system almost as transparent as GW2’s gem-gold exchange. Clearly Arena Net hired some people from Lehman Brothers.

The amount of ungrateful whining in this thread is starting to give me a headache… there are some constructive posts, but there are others who seem to just want to get a dig in at ArenaNet and spew out whatever their latest conspiracy theory is.

I do think ArenaNet needs to get the server transfer pricing information out as soon as possible, even if it’s just confirming the rates that were publicised earlier (pre-launch, beta?), but to suggest that they’ll lower server population caps in order to milk gems from people when history shows that they have been generally raising these caps is bordering on the absurd.

When transfers were unlimited, they were exploited in both WvW and PVE… spying on or sabotaging “enemy” servers as well as realm hopping to gather at ori nodes were both common. Because of this there needs to be some limit, and two guest worlds per 24 hour period seems to me a good compromise.

Now I understand how people are frustrated that they will be forced to choose between friends/family in different regions, but I doubt that ArenaNet are implementing it this way just to annoy a portion of their player base. Those who have more technical expertise that I do are better able to comment on why they may be limited in implementing guesting on an international scale, but I think it’s safe to assume that if there was an easy solution, then ArenaNet would have implemented it.

If there really are technical limitations on guesting – then don’t add it. The current form of guesting is damaging to a decent sized portion of the player base they built over the years. The current build of the game is better right now than it will be post-patch. It’s a bad addition. If they can’t guest cross-region, then they shouldn’t region-lock. Period. If you are one of the people who will benefit from this “feature” then great, but you will not benefit enough to justify the damage international guilds will take. What they are doing to every guild with cross region members is just plain horrible. They should either rescind the guesting feature entirely, or make cross region transfers stay free like they are, and only charge for inter-region transfers, or otherwise come up with a solution that doesn’t do this to guilds who are using cross-region transfers to play together occasionally now. It’s wrong. This isn’t something they should be doing to guilds.

Cross-region transfers do not affect WvW. The guesting in inter-region servers is the intended use of the feature, and also wouldn’t be affected by a free cross-region transfer. The only real purpose of cross-region transfers is people playing with their friends and guildmates – no one is playing alone or manipulating WvW cross region. They shouldn’t charge for that.

Weak, Arenanet. Weak.

Too bad i can’t use guesting to visit the American RP server..

/sigh

Majestic Matthew.7132:

AcFiBu.9624:

While guesting, I assume that means you only … have access to your home world guild bank as well. Am I correct in this assumption?

If i stay in the other world, will i be able to access the bank and guild upgrades/buffs while im guested to my Guilds Server?.

+1 I NEED to know this before I decide if I’m moving with my guild or staying put. 250 build bank slots is a lot to lose!
If we can access it (even if it’s a bother) via guesting to the old server, it makes all the difference in the world.

Astraea.6075:

Now I understand how people are frustrated that they will be forced to choose between friends/family in different regions, but I doubt that ArenaNet are implementing it this way just to annoy a portion of their player base. Those who have more technical expertise that I do are better able to comment on why they may be limited in implementing guesting on an international scale, but I think it’s safe to assume that if there was an easy solution, then ArenaNet would have implemented it.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that AN is doing this to annoy any of their players. I do believe, however, that promises and facts were presented and then either disregarded or discarded. We were told that we would be able to guest on ANY WORLD WHERE WE HAD FRIENDS. We would never have structured our international guild the way we did if we had any notion that this would not be happening. Now guesting will be a pale and sad version of what was promised and those of us waiting with great anticipation are left perplexed and even angry.

There is a true international community that was fostered by ArenaNet in GW1 with promises of its continuation in GW2. Part of the joy I had in playing the game was to make friends from all over the world through my guild. GW1 bred that international feel and cooperation and now it is being ripped away. Until this point, we were freely able to play on different worlds, knowing that actual free world transfers would end but be solved by guesting. Now it isn’t happening. And if world transfers are so horribly difficult and bad, why were we allowed to do it for free for over five months?

None of us hate Anet. None of us do not appreciate the wonderful creation of GW2. None of us are whining because we didn’t get our way. We ARE, however, expressing the loss of something we held dear. The loss of our community isn’t funny or irrelevant. It is sad and all the more hurtful, because we truly believed things would be better for us in GW2, not worse.

Astraea.6075:

realm hopping to gather at ori nodes […] Because of this there needs to be some limit,

Because it’s impossible to make the harvested nodes’ status part of the player account, and make them stay “harvested” even if the player switches server, eh…?

Oh, wait, it isn’t. In fact, the nodes’ status already is part of the player’s account (if it was a property of the server, then nodes harvested by one player would appear as empty to other players).

In other words, if that’s the excuse they’re using, it makes no technical sense. If the player has harvested node X in zone Y at time Z, guesting on another server won’t make any difference; his account will still list that node as “harvested” until the server time is >Z+RT (last gathering time plus node respawn timer).

The only potential problem with this would be transferring between servers on different time zones, but GW2’s servers are synced worldwide, so that’s not an issue. It would be fairly easy to deal with anyway (just adjust Z when transferring between zones).

Sir Cusfreak.5971:

no one is playing alone or manipulating WvW cross region. They shouldn’t charge for that.

Then everyone would simply transfer from the US to the EU and then back to the US (to a different server), thus avoiding any fees.

There’s no need to make a distinction between the zones; in fact, that is precisely the problem. Guesting should work regardless of where you are, and transfers should be paid regardless of where you are.

If guesting on a EU server when your main server is in the US takes a bit longer (because your data needs to be copied to the EU data center), so be it. GW2 has insanely long loading screens as it is; I’m sure no one would mind waiting an extra minute or five when joining a different server; it’s not something that people are likely to do more than a couple of times a day anyway. Display a warning (saying it will take some time and might increase your latency slightly) and, if people click “ok”, just do it™.

Account.9832:

Astraea.6075:

realm hopping to gather at ori nodes […] Because of this there needs to be some limit,

Because it’s impossible to make the harvested nodes’ status part of the player account, and make them stay “harvested” even if the player switches server, eh…?

Oh, wait, it isn’t. In fact, the nodes’ status already is part of the player’s account (if it was a property of the server, then nodes harvested by one player would appear as empty to other players).

In other words, if that’s the excuse they’re using, it makes no technical sense. If the player has harvested node X in zone Y at time Z, guesting on another server won’t make any difference; his account will still list that node as “harvested” until the server time is >Z+RT (last gathering time plus node respawn timer).

The only potential problem with this would be transferring between servers on different time zones, but GW2’s servers are synced worldwide, so that’s not an issue. It would be fairly easy to deal with anyway (just adjust Z when transferring between zones).

A reasonable suggestion, except for the fact that it seems that generally this type of information isn’t transferred with the rest of your character data when you are not actually on your home server (e.g. being able to “discover” more JPs by switching between overflows in LA, etc.), so now you’re also talking about changing what data is transferred when someone is “away from home”.

My point was that there were both PVE and WvW reasons for putting time limits on transfers. Whether they could have been handled separately and in a different manner is a slightly different issue.

Will guesting on another server in wvwvwvwvw allow for map completion or does that not count? Further to that, can you guest yourself on another server or do you need an invite?

Ema.4953:

Will guesting on another server in wvwvwvwvw allow for map completion or does that not count? Further to that, can you guest yourself on another server or do you need an invite?

Both questions are answered here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guesting-is-coming/

Jinx.7945:

Ema.4953:

Will guesting on another server in wvwvwvwvw allow for map completion or does that not count? Further to that, can you guest yourself on another server or do you need an invite?

Both questions are answered here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guesting-is-coming/

Oops. Thanks for that

jheryn.8390:

…

There is a true international community that was fostered by ArenaNet in GW1 with promises of its continuation in GW2. Part of the joy I had in playing the game was to make friends from all over the world through my guild. GW1 bred that international feel and cooperation and now it is being ripped away. Until this point, we were freely able to play on different worlds, knowing that actual free world transfers would end but be solved by guesting. Now it isn’t happening. And if world transfers are so horribly difficult and bad, why were we allowed to do it for free for over five months?

None of us hate Anet. None of us do not appreciate the wonderful creation of GW2. None of us are whining because we didn’t get our way. We ARE, however, expressing the loss of something we held dear. The loss of our community isn’t funny or irrelevant. It is sad and all the more hurtful, because we truly believed things would be better for us in GW2, not worse.

For truth.

There are many reasons I purchased GW2. One was being able to play with international friends, as was the case in Guildwars. As was promised.

But I find I am being screwed over by a game company that simply does not give a kitten about it’s player community. This I never would have expected from Arenanet.

I know I already asked it somewhere on these forums but would you please reconcider to allow guesting on both US and EU server(or allow to have 1 home server on both fronts)
Used to play guildwars1 on a US channel and also joined the same US guild in gw2.But since my in real friends started playing they wanted to be on a EU server
so I switched but now I can’t play with the friends I used to play with in gw1 since they are on US server Stormbluff isle in gw2
Change it pretty please with a cherry on top

So… I’m a bit confused @ the people saying they can’t play with friends outside of the US or vice versa. Why not have those friends join you in your server, or you join them in their server? Previously, server transfers are open once every week, so either way, you’re not able to be at two continents at once, right? Or are you rotating every week, playing with your US friends, and then ditching them to play with your European friends, and rinse and repeat? (Please don’t say you do that… I’d feel sorry for your friends who see you for a week and then have to wait a week to see you again lol).

If you guys are friends, pick a server and play together lol. Free Transfers were bound to go away because that wasn’t available when I first started GW2. And with guesting, I can jump servers for dungeoning/world events or just play with other friends in PvE. Guesting is an extra in this case. Maybe one day guesting will have more features, but as it currently is, I’m having trouble understanding what people are so angry at.

Do you think people like “ditching” their friends?and even pay for it now?You can call it whatever but people don’t choose this.They all want to play together but it looks like the guesting won’t allow it after all.The system doesnt allow it
In gw1 you could switch channel from Us to EU and back just like that within seconds
And they pretty much promised you would be able to play with just anyone in gw2
People have build up friendships and communities in gw1 and hoped to continue playing with those friends in gw2
As Anet never mentioned something about the US/EU restriction until now though people joined their beloved guild of gw1(US in my case)
and then I joined friends I know in real on a Eu server because they didnt want to play on a US server,I knew guesting was coming…(as i dont want to abandon my friends from gw1 either,and perhaps i trusted too much in play the game how you want with who you want)
So I settled on the EU server Piken Square where my in real friends wanted to be(isnt it logical to choose the home server your in real friends are on?)
But I did this with in mind that guesting was coming,so I thought this wouldn’t matter at all(as they never mentioned the US/EU restriction before)
Now that all players kinda have chosen their home server they would all need to rearrange and swap server to be on the same one (someone has to give up everything they have been doing on one end,and all getting on same server is impossible sometimes,take my situation)
You should feel sorry for all the gw1 communities that are lost in gw2 because of this restriction
And anger is a big word but very understandable I think(very sad and disappointed on the matter is more accurate I think)
Isnt it odd either?them allowing you to have joined your guild of gw1 in gw2 on whatever US/EU server,talk with them and all
while they mention a fix called guesting,now going like “nope sorry,cant play with them unless you give up everthing and switch to US”

Also earning influence for the guild on the other server ,while you are on your home server, is pointless if you dont have the rights to use up the influence in that guild and when they will never be on the server you are earning influence for them
Blocked influence, down the drain

so I’m just wondering…and hopefully someone from ANet will answer this…

Cross Region Guesting is not impossible right? It’s just harder to code?

And is ANet working on making Cross Region Guesting a reality? I don’t really care if I have to wait a few more months, though I wish it would be sooner than that, but if ANet is going to do that, I’m willing to wait.

kenshinakh.3672:

So… I’m a bit confused @ the people saying they can’t play with friends outside of the US or vice versa. Why not have those friends join you in your server, or you join them in their server? Previously, server transfers are open once every week,

Let me stop you right there. Previously, before free server transfers were once a week (before November 1st, 2012, to be precise), they weren’t limited by that, because they were just a workaround for the still missing feature “guesting” that supposedly was to allow us to play with ANYONE at will.

And with that in mind, you’re basically answering your own question.

Or are you rotating every week, playing with your US friends, and then ditching them to play with your European friends, and rinse and repeat? (Please don’t say you do that… I’d feel sorry for your friends who see you for a week and then have to wait a week to see you again lol).

Even if server transfers were staying free, that’d be the decision we’d have to make, and as you see yourself, it’s not a good one. A few of us came by that way, because we hoped that guesting, once it was implemented, would finally solve that.

kenshinakh.3672:

If you guys are friends, pick a server and play together lol. Free Transfers were bound to go away because that wasn’t available when I first started GW2. And with guesting, I can jump servers for dungeoning/world events or just play with other friends in PvE. Guesting is an extra in this case. Maybe one day guesting will have more features, but as it currently is, I’m having trouble understanding what people are so angry at.

I don’t know how you make friends, but I find friends whatever I do. And sometimes, they happen to be gamers, and into games that I like as well. Thing is: Just because I’m friends with one person, I’m not automatically a friend of that persons friends, or their friends down along the line.

To make an example out of my life: I have a circle of friends that I know from various places, and have known for years, and that’s the usual clique, the people I know best and play with most. The people I picked my server with, to play together like every day or every other day. Since we’re German, and a few of us are more comfortable with a German environment, we picked a EU DE server.
I have other friends that do not belong to that circle, let me name them N and S, just as two examples.
N I met ages ago in a browser game. Our contact was not as close due to time zones alone, so we mostly mailed for the time, exchanging a mail ever other week or so, chatting when we had the chance. She started playing GW2 with a group of her (more) local friends with whom she joined a US server, since she lives in the US, and most of her friends, and her friends’ friends do, too!
S is someone I know from work. Our contact is about as sporadic as is mine with N, but we do chat more, instead of writing emails. She had been with a gaming clan/guild way before GW2 was out, way before we met each other, and probably even before she started to work at our company (she started before me). These friends are mostly (if not all) German, so they started on a EU DE server – but another one than my group of people.

Now I’d like to play with my group most times, but every now and then, when I have the chance, like a weekend a month, or a day when none of my group or her group is around, I’d like to play with N or S.
Before Nov. 1st, 2012: Possible, by free server transfer.
From there until next monday: Only if I leave my main group of friends alone for a week, by free weekly server transfer.
After next monday:
With S: Possible, by guesting.
With N: Only if I pay for two server transfers AND leave my other friends for a week.

That is not even considering contacts we made on our home servers since we started playing – some of us, including me, since release.

But what really makes me angry is that, through this announcement, it was the first time I heard that the regions would be kept strictly separate, that since before release, from when they announced that instead of a global server with different districts we’d have actual fixed “homeworld” servers on, they made the impression that we wouldn’t have to worry about playing with friends, no matter what homeworlds we or them pick, the separation would be important only for WvW, and doing dungeons or general questing would be possible with anyone, regardless of which server we picked, just like in GW1 at the end. And that includes NA and EU servers together.

(Since it doesn’t take me editing my previous post…)

wulfheart.8206:

so I’m just wondering…and hopefully someone from ANet will answer this…

Cross Region Guesting is not impossible right? It’s just harder to code?

And is ANet working on making Cross Region Guesting a reality? I don’t really care if I have to wait a few more months, though I wish it would be sooner than that, but if ANet is going to do that, I’m willing to wait.

I’d like an answer on this one as well. Currently, it sounds as if they are not working on it at all, as they don’t want to divert any resources to fix that problem, or that they don’t even see it as a problem or don’t care enough about the impact.
Granted, I’d still be slightly disappointed for the delay, but at least knowing that they’re working on it would make it believable that it is indeed mainly a technical problem. Currently I’m in doubt about that.

Well now i have a little over 24hrs to decide my Euro friends or my NA ones.. whichever it is, will always feel like i made the wrong decision. This really has just emphasized instead of going forward into GW2 we really went backwards in so many ways. District changing to build templates, all advances in GW1 to be left out in GW2, funny how we took all those for granted.

/madsadandfedup

Then shouldn’t a civil/non-flame petition or topic be made on getting guesting to work cross NA and EU? Originally when they put in free server transfers, with limit one a day, it caused huge complaining from WvW and it had to be removed. The one week limit still caused massive complaining because it was free and easy to do so people jumped servers when WvW week is up. This guesting system in a way does address the issue of WvW jumpers, but people are focused only on not be able to play with friends in another country. And to be honest, I read a couple of pages and had trouble seeing past people just angrily ranting at Anet… The smarter thing would be to start a nice thread simply asking for guesting to work with NA and EU servers instead of whining that there’s no free transfers (and keep in mind, free transfers had issues of their own that are much bigger than not being able to play with friends in NA and EU on a weekly transfer). (And for all we know, guesting cross NA and EU could be planned but will just take development time. At least having it up as it is now will lower the complains in WvW and offer a nice alternative for those who play on the same continent).