Guild Wars 2

I had a little thought this morning to help the current ‘empty world’ problem Guild Wars is having. At the moment Guild Wars has this huge, vast world and with very many players, yet in PvE, leveling up the world seems empty. The leveling process now from 1-80 feels very much like a single player game, where as on launch day and a couple weeks after, the game was alive with activity!

That is what made the PvE fun! Loads of players all contributing to dynamic events.

My suggestion is to merge all servers together (obviously US with US servers and EU with EU servers) for PvE, so players constantly have people to play with while leveling up. Playing with other players IS Guild Wars 2 and currently I feel the game has already walked away from this.

When moving to a new area a window will pop up asking which sub-server you would like to join for that specific area. Each sub-server will indicate how full it is, and only new sub-servers will become available once the others are full enough.

Guilds and friends can communicate before hand as to which sub-server to join in order to play with each other in a specific area. If a sub-server you are moving to is completely FULL, then you enter a waiting list to join (just like WvWvW)

PvP would not change, You would still only be able to play WvWvW with your specific server you chose from the start.

Same with guilds. You can only join Guilds that originate from YOUR server.

I think this would greatly help the PvE aspect of this game and put some life back into it!

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.

It might just be the server that you’re on. On Tarnished Coast, I see players in every single zone all the way from 1-80. Also, what hours do you play? Playing off-hours, the world is sometimes not as heaving – but on TC I see people all the time and rarely feel alone.

I play at peak times on Whiteside Ridge EU. I now have to skip many group events and pretty much do everything alone. Very boring.

They should do more like they did in GW1 with districts. Your home server can be your default district and then they can add in international/interworld/whatever districts.

This has been suggested on the servers before. I would absolutely love it if they did something like this.

Some servers seem to be fine, but I know there are some (like mine) where many events remain undoable throughout the day (or across multiple days) due to a lack of players in the zone.

There are many upsides to something like this – more epic feel for new players, all players (regardless of server) have access to the same level of fun gameplay, players can build new relationships/bonds (eg, reasons to stay in the game) with more people, etc.

I really hope this is something they are working on. The game is more fun when there are more people around.

Agreed, overflows should be default. Given that every map is separated by a portal, and overflows already exist, I don’t see any serious technical hurdles here.

Why not just invert the weights used for overflow vs normal server zone? it would work perfectly.

/signed

My guild left the upper tier servers to get away from the WvW zerg and that was a huge success. WvW is great now. But the PvE suffered. Most zones are empty, especially the lower level and mid tier zones. Events can’t be done and nothing feels epic like it did when the game was released.

PvE is boring now because nobody is around. The WvW is good but that isn’t enough.

ANET has the tech in place to link all the pve zones, they should do it immediately.

I agree, I have 2 accounts, 1 account is on a low-pop PVE server and another on a server with quite high WvW activity, both have dead PVE zones. it’s a litttle depressing to see zones that Anet put so much work into to make amazing like Fields of Ruin and Bloodtide Coast completely empty. A simple solution would be to allow us to elect to go to overflow.

Truearrow.3527:

I agree, I have 2 accounts, 1 account is on a low-pop PVE server and another on a server with quite high WvW activity, both have dead PVE zones. it’s a litttle depressing to see zones that Anet put so much work into to make amazing like Fields of Ruin and Bloodtide Coast completely empty. A simple solution would be to allow us to elect to go to overflow.

History has shown us that gaming devs go out of their way to avoid the simple solution that works. But they will instead drive a game into the grave while pushing their pet project that nobody cares about.

Truearrow.3527:

I agree, I have 2 accounts, 1 account is on a low-pop PVE server and another on a server with quite high WvW activity, both have dead PVE zones. it’s a litttle depressing to see zones that Anet put so much work into to make amazing like Fields of Ruin and Bloodtide Coast completely empty. A simple solution would be to allow us to elect to go to overflow.

This is why I camped out until 5 am one weeknight and transferred my toons to a high-pop, low wvwvw server. The difference is night and day.

plasmacutter.2709:

Truearrow.3527:

I agree, I have 2 accounts, 1 account is on a low-pop PVE server and another on a server with quite high WvW activity, both have dead PVE zones. it’s a litttle depressing to see zones that Anet put so much work into to make amazing like Fields of Ruin and Bloodtide Coast completely empty. A simple solution would be to allow us to elect to go to overflow.

This is why I camped out until 5 am one weeknight and transferred my toons to a high-pop, low wvwvw server. The difference is night and day.

Unfortunately, this is the solution that many people are taking – and you cannot blame them.

It does, however, just make a bad issue worse.

Things like raising the cap (freeing up the already full worlds for transfers and new players) and issues in WvW are bleeding players away from servers like mine – making zones feel that much emptier most of the time. And we cannot even count on getting the new players because of the raise in the world population cap. Even Lion’s Arch – during the holiday events – feels empty much of the time. We saw overflows when the event first started, but almost none since.

I cant leave the server Im on – because of my guild and the connections weve made with the greater server community. At the same time, that server is struggling and needs help.

We need some kind of change to fix this – either the idea postulated in this thread (which I support) or server merges. The game isnt as much fun when there are few people to play alongside.

In short default people to the overflow in areas where everyone across all servers can play with one another and when the overflow is full make them default back to their original servers. Then people can do things solo while waiting for their spot to transfer to the overflow.

Basically make the overflow the default and switch the rolls of the two.

Great Idea and needs to be done very soon.

At some point I would like to see MMOs simply have one server.

defrule.7236:

At some point I would like to see MMOs simply have one server.

Elder Scrolls online is going to do it. They call it a mega server.

From what I understand it’s essentially a ton of overflows.

http://www.gamersbook.com/community/groups/elder-scrolls-online/blog/elder-scrolls-online-mega-server/

Not trying to troll, or be too much of a devil’s advocate, but I remember the common comment closer to launch: “Events are no fun, mindless zerg with too many people….”

I dunno…. just strikes me that we’ve had it both ways now and the real solution is Guesting and world transfers costing gems like a-net described in the beginning, but it feels like that’s still a ways off.

I do notice that I tend to do dungeons w/ 2-3 people from other servers most times when I PUG dungeons, and I feel like the overflow LA is definately a handy resource for making that happen. It works for being able to group for instanced content, but it would be nice to be able to pull people from other servers in for…. oh, say the event chains to clear a contested dungeon

defrule.7236:

At some point I would like to see MMOs simply have one server.

Eve Online has done it from Day One.

Rukia.4802:

defrule.7236:

At some point I would like to see MMOs simply have one server.

Elder Scrolls online is going to do it. They call it a mega server.

From what I understand it’s essentially a ton of overflows.

http://www.gamersbook.com/community/groups/elder-scrolls-online/blog/elder-scrolls-online-mega-server/

It’s one of those obvious solutions that should have been in the industry from day one. The fact that ANET has the tech to do it and still hangs on to the old “server community” dinosaur, doesn’t bode well for the future of Guild Wars.

Yes, please, this is an MMO and I want to see ppl in the game world!

Nayru.3947:

Fiennes.9568:

It might just be the server that you’re on. On Tarnished Coast, I see players in every single zone all the way from 1-80. Also, what hours do you play? Playing off-hours, the world is sometimes not as heaving – but on TC I see people all the time and rarely feel alone.

It’s all servers.

No, it’s not.

I’ve had overflow on TC even before the holiday event in areas I was leveling in ranging from 1-15 to the 40-60 range (61 is my highest level character).

I never have a problem with group events. “<enter boss name> is up <link closest way point>” and people start showing up. Sometimes 5 or so, sometimes 10+ but people always show and the /m chat is always active.

So, no it’s not all servers.

edit

That is not to say that there shouldn’t be a way to make lower pop servers more active for lower level areas, they most definitely should.

its a lame that I get enough ppl to do event but I still feel like im playing alone cause none of them ever talks.

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

defrule.7236:

At some point I would like to see MMOs simply have one server.

Eve Online has done it from Day One.

“podding noobs” from day one.

In CD, I sometimes have the same feeling as the OP. I’ve mapped out all the PVE zones and now to do dailies I actually wp from zone to zone. Sometimes I come across people in the low level zones but usually they feel empty. Map chat except for that infrequent lfg dungeon, is basically dead. WvW is full but PvE somehow seems a bit dead.

P.S.: Orr seems to be ok, with groups running around. And the winters day dungeon is now full of people.

Add token rewards similar to FotM and dungeons to events,champions and Veterans, remove DR and stop limiting drop rates on crafting supplies and you will see Open World flourish again..

I approve this.

WoW did this and there are no reasons why GW2 should not.

Just auto merge the zones if population is low, like you separate them if population is high.

Running away from events is not very fun.