Guild Wars 2

I suppose I’ll start off by saying that I am an rper on Tarnished Coast, so I might be a little biased. But let me throw you a curve ball here, by saying that I think a Megaserver -is- a good idea! It’s no secret that Anet is afraid of their zones being barren and empty, after all. Who wants to log into their favorite mmo, go out into the world and find that they’re the only one there? It’s kind of a wierd feeling, playing a game that calls itself “Massively Multiplayer”, and yet you’re the only one there.

The Megaserver solves this issue, and I had a pretty big grin when I saw how populated Rata Sum was. There were people everywhere, it hadn’t looked so alive since the game first came out! Once the hype wore off and everyone seemed to calm down, I was still able to find my rp and didn’t have any trouble finding my friends. The automated system had done it’s job that a lot of us feared it couldn’t. The single time I was pushed into the wrong version, it was easy to get back to where my friends were. All in all, the system does work well.

However, I still don’t like the Megaserver, and I’m going to be using World of Warcraft’s “Megaserver-ish” system as an example of one that works well. (Again, in my opinion.)

I understand that Guild Wars 2’s engine is a lot different than World of Warcraft’s, and that comparing Guild Wars 2’s answer to World of Warcraft’s isn’t exactly fair. After all, Blizzard’s had all the time in the world to configure their MMO properly. Guild Wars 2 on the other hand, it hasn’t been out as long and I doubt A-net has the resources Blizzard has. However, Guild Wars 2 has etched out a name for itself. This MMO’s a big boy now, and it doesn’t need to be defended.
(Skim reading defenders of Anet, this is the paragraph you want to quote when you call me a WoW loving bundle of sticks rper who cant just deal with it. ^ ^ ^ )

1.) Identity
In World of Warcraft, you can always tell who came from where, and have an idea of where you are in relation to everyone else. If you encounter someone from another server, you hover your name over them and the tool tip tells you if they’re from another server. If you’re seeing a lot of foreign tooltips, it’s a pretty easy guess that you’re on another server! In Guild Wars 2 however, you don’t get any of that. It almost feels like the information of where you are is purposefully hidden. It’s hard to find out where your friends might be, if you’re not even sure where -you- are.

2.) Minimal Control
This stems off the issue of Identity in most respects, but I feel like it’s enough to merit it’s own section. So you’ve realized that you’re on another version of the zone than your friends are on, so how do you get to where they are? You invite them to their party or vice versa, right click a portrait and select the option to transport to their version. A three step process isn’t bad, but it’s 3 whole steps more complex than World of Warcraft’s system. When you’re roaming around with your guildies and half of them got moved to the wrong map, you take this three step process, and you multiply it by the amount of players got misplaced. That’s a lot of time spent when parties can only have 5 players, time that could be spent playing the actual game.

3.) Overpopulation.
Two is nice, three is a party and anything more than that is just akward. Guild Wars 2’s Hearts and Events have no player caps, and can always be completed in a group. This is a far cry from World of Warcraft’s questing, where the majority of them can and are completed solo. This puts a limit on World of Warcraft’s system, as there simply cannot be too many people in more than one place. You’d have queues built up for questlines, and nobody loves waiting around. Guild Wars 2 has no upper limit however,
and that means that the maps can have far more people in a smaller, condensed area. While Overpopulation certainly isn’t bad, it’s not really that good either. Unless the events have a built in timer, the zerg can wipe them out with minimal effort with the bat of an eye. That means if you really want to do an event to get that last bit of experience, your best bet may be sitting around waiting for a specific event. If you’re too far away, you may not reach it in time to get the full benefit of participating.

4.) Overhype.
I’m not the only person who’s said that this update was over hyped. But there is comedy in repetition, so it’s going on the list as well. The fact that this is the defining feature in an update that’s got this much exposure doesn’t shelter much confidence on the behalf of A-net. For all the blog posts and all the excitement, all we got was a cross-realming feature that feels untested and unstable. I get the feeling that this system would’ve been a lot better if A-net had more time to work on it, but the developers had to do the best they could before a hard deadline. While everyone likes seeing updates happen exactly according to schedule, there isn’t any shame in pushing back a release date to make sure the product is the best it can be.

5.) Necessity
I still think that once the Megaserver’s kinks are smoothed out and the devs have had more time with it, it will add something to the game. But was this system needed as badly as A-net wanted it? Whenever I found myself without anyone to level with, the system to fix that couldn’t be much simpler. I’d just log out and pick another realm to guest on, one I know that has peak hours at the time I’m playing, and then my problems would be mostly over. Guesting may not have been the most elegant or easygoing procedure, but I never felt like anything was wrong with it. That may just be my experience, maybe I’m really lucky to have never had issues with guesting. I personally don’t like fixing anything when it’s not broken. (Because I’m a klutz and don’t know my own strength) While this system may be a better system when it is working, I’d prefer the clunkier old system that works all the time.

6:) I’m a roleplayer
You don’t need me to explain these points to you, there’s plenty of other posts out there that explain this point. Apply yourself if you want to know more!

Summary

The best I can really say about Overflows is that it’s not bad. It’s not the best, far from it really. But could it be done worse? it certainly could. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t like, and stuff that’s done much better elsewhere. But the system does work for the most part, but I doubt “Works for the most part” would be a slogan A-net would ever use to advertise a new feature. For that matter, I couldn’t imagine another MMO making such a basic and unreliable system for choosing which version of a map you spawn into and play on. Guild Wars 2 however, knows that it can get away with systems like this. They’re not the MMO contender they used to be, so a drop in the quality of their releases really should be expected. Certainly unwelcome, but unexpected.

(Serious TL:DR)
It could have been done better.

(TL:DR)

this sukz can’t rp wit my ubddies whr my town cloths go? ;^(