Guild Wars 2

Ah, what a beautiful day to go on an adven—

“There are few players remaining on this map”? Alright, let’s move to a more populated version of the same map.

*Ahem* Ah, what a beautiful day to go on an adventure. Today, my goal is to complete the Island Contr—

“There are few players remaining on this map”? Seriously? I just got here! Fine, whatever. Let’s just go, I suppose. It’s not like I have much of a choice anyway.

So, like I was saying, my goal is to—

“Few players”?! It’s literally been three seconds! Why would you put me on this map copy if you were just about to close it? Urgh.

My goal is to complete the Island Control event in Southsun Cove. It is going to require a lot of coordination, but I’m sure megaservers will help us gather enough players to make it possible. With that said, to Southsun Cove!

Now then, the first thing we— Oookay, few players. New map copy. The first thing we need to do is— Few players. New map copy. We need to help defend— Few players. New map copy. Defend this village against— Few players. New map copy…

Alright, is this supposed to be fun? Honestly, is constantly getting shoved from one empty map copy to the next supposed to be an enjoyable experience? Because it’s not. It’s obnoxious. And not only that; ironically enough, it’s game-breaking.

And before you ask: yes, the story above is my own experience. And no, it is not hyperbolic in the slightest.

Ever since they were implemented back in April 2014, megaservers have been the bane of my existence. Along with the rest of the quality-nosedive features that were introduced in the feature pack, megaservers feel like they were tacked on at the last second. The system is a like an enormous, jarring glitch the developers have been trying to sweep under the carpet ever since it was implemented.

Megaservers ruin my community

What do megaservers do? They shove players onto different map copies at complete random. Don’t you even dare pretend that anything remotely influences the map copy I am put on. On multiple occasions — and very recently —, I have tested it.

In Divinity’s Reach, several dozens of my guild members are on the same map copy, along with a few players on my friends list. They are all from my home world. I am in a party with four guild members. Initially, I am on a different map copy. I relog 100 times. Over 90 times out of 100, I am on the wrong map copy. Simply unfathomable.

But what does it matter, right? You can just right-click on a party member and join their map copy. Well, yes, but how am I to meet other people from my home world?

What if I would like to watch roleplayers, but they are unable to find each other because they are constantly separated by megaservers? Not only are they now required to join guilds in order to find each other again, but how is a new player interested in roleplay even meant to even know that it exists on a game where everything is hidden away?

What if we need reinforcements in the Mist War, and I would like to call my world to arms? I haven’t even a single clue who is in map chat. I may be the only one from my world out there. Or there might be enemies listening!

What if I would simply like to preserve a sense of community in the game, where people are not constantly on their worst behavior, because they know they might never come across those people again? It isn’t too much to ask, is it?

Megaservers ruin my gameplay

From experience, I already know that trying to participate in a large event is nearly impossible because of how counter-intuitive megaservers are. Either players enter an infinite loop of closing map copies, or they are stuck in a map copy with not enough players to complete an event, and incoming players are sent to other, less populated map copies.

If you think that’s fun, here’s better: trying to participate in guild events. Throw a large number of players in a hurry on two or three different copies of the same map.

Not only are parties limited to five players, they are the only way to join another player in a map copy.

When players in the same party are in different map copies, they try to join another player. When that other player is also trying to join someone else, players begin to move around map copies and never quite reaching a destination. Eventually, they all join the same person, and the problem is solved.

But when players in different parties are in different map copies, that’s when the real fun begins. They have to replace a party member with a player from another party that’s in the right map copy, and the party member being replaced has to join the party the former came from. It’s a mess, but it can be done. That is, if you have… two, or three parties at most.

Now, add a guild bounty time limit, and it’s just became an absolute nightmare. No one should have to deal with this, especially not while in a hurry.

Megaservers ruin my interest

Every time I play the game, megaservers continue to haunt me. And since April 2014, none of these issues have even been so much as acknowledged.

New players continue to wander around, confused as to why they cannot see their friends on the map.

Veterans continue to become tired of it all, isolating themselves on closing map copies, never to be seen again.

The volunteer reward icon continues to strangely resemble a sad Lickitung. No, seriously, just look at it. It’s like, two little eyes and a tongue coming out of a big, open mouth.

And yet, the solution is so simple. It has been suggested thousands upon thousands of times, inspired by the original Guild Wars and its flawless implementation. And I am suggesting it again, after 9 months of suffering with no relief in sight:

Show us the list of open map copies. Tell us which map copy we are on. Allow us to select which map copy we want to go to.

You already have drop-down lists. You already have queues. You already have everything you need to make it happen. For the sake of Tyria, please, stop ignoring this outrageous problem. This is simply insane.

Remember when you could go to Lions Arch to ask for help from your servermates in WvW? That’s dead and gone too thanks to megaservers.

I’m in two guilds. One is my own and I am the only member, the other is a basically dead guild. I have never had trouble finding the people I’m looking for, nor been kicked from a mega server more than twice for population, and that is typically due to major events ending.

There always have to be outliers in any experience. Congratulations, you’re the one with the consistently bad experience.

All of that aside, of course it would be nice to not only have a window that shows us where we are and what else exists, but also told us how many people were currently there with us and allowed us to jump to another instance at a moments notice.

Rangelost.4857:

And yet, the solution is so simple. It has been suggested thousands upon thousands of times, inspired by the original Guild Wars and its flawless implementation. And I am suggesting it again, after 9 months of suffering with no relief in sight:

Show us the list of open map copies. Tell us which map copy we are on. Allow us to select which map copy we want to go to.

You already have drop-down lists. You already have queues. You already have everything you need to make it happen. For the sake of Tyria, please, stop ignoring this outrageous problem. This is simply insane.

Yup, thats really all that needs to be said about this. It worked well in Guild Wars 1, theres no reason not to do it like that again.

Kal Spiro.9745:

There always have to be outliers in any experience. Congratulations, you’re the one with the consistently bad experience.

Are you inside some kind of fantasy land where the game actually functions or are you just shilling hardcore? This kitten has never worked. the only way it does work is if you and your friends are the only people in a zone in the first place. (And even then it’s flaky)

You can join party member’s megaserver map instance by right clicking their party icon and joining them.

I think the megaserver issue is more prominent in EU than NA due to language barriers, but I haven’t had any real problems so far. Most of my logins are with people eclusively from my own server and I’ve had few issues trying to get to my party. Of course that’s why you can also use the join option.

I would rather be on a map that’s 70% full of players from all servers than on a deserted map for my server because they are all doing some boss event. My server is JQ and I often see many guildmates during my playing session even though we aren’t teaming so MS is smart enough to toss me onto maps with guild mates

It’s not all roses and sunshine because doing a mega event like teq is still a pain to organize with server and guild mates and require a lot of exiting and reentering and checking the IP of the map to see if you are on the right instance.

So it’s not perfect but if I call out a Group Event on map chat I know I’ll get a crowd to show up to help.

Omap.8530:

Kal Spiro.9745:

There always have to be outliers in any experience. Congratulations, you’re the one with the consistently bad experience.

Are you inside some kind of fantasy land where the game actually functions or are you just shilling hardcore? This kitten has never worked. the only way it does work is if you and your friends are the only people in a zone in the first place. (And even then it’s flaky)

Never had a problem with it, nor have my friends, so I don’t know what to tell you.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Omap.8530:

Kal Spiro.9745:

There always have to be outliers in any experience. Congratulations, you’re the one with the consistently bad experience.

Are you inside some kind of fantasy land where the game actually functions or are you just shilling hardcore? This kitten has never worked. the only way it does work is if you and your friends are the only people in a zone in the first place. (And even then it’s flaky)

Never had a problem with it, nor have my friends, so I don’t know what to tell you.

I, also, have never had a problem with it nor have any of the friends I play with.

Behellagh.1468:

I would rather be on a map that’s 70% full of players from all servers than on a deserted map for my server because they are all doing some boss event. My server is JQ and I often see many guildmates during my playing session even though we aren’t teaming so MS is smart enough to toss me onto maps with guild mates

It’s not all roses and sunshine because doing a mega event like teq is still a pain to organize with server and guild mates and require a lot of exiting and reentering and checking the IP of the map to see if you are on the right instance.

So it’s not perfect but if I call out a Group Event on map chat I know I’ll get a crowd to show up to help.

That’s not a problem that requires megaservers. It’s a problem that requires server mergers. The big deal with that is anything that even remotely looks like the playercount is declining is ultra taboo because NCSoft will give them the belt or something. So “Megaservers” is a cool hip way of saying “we totally don’t have as many players as before but don’t want to say it so now you can just play with everyone!” but it’s broken and it has never worked.

to be fair it’s not like anet has had a good track record of “getting things to work” because there’s still kitten in this game that’s been bugged and broken since beta 2. And on top of that they’re probably a skeleton team working on whatever other MMO NCsoft is trying to push out next to get their money in.

Rather sounds like the game was transferring people around to other low population maps, rather than condensing them all into one map.

If that’s what is happening, if it’s not putting them on one map, it will keep transferring people around because because each time it moves someone, they are still on a low population map. Sort of like a shell game where people are shuffled from map to map instead of placed into one.

That hasn’t been a common experience for me. Maybe there is a bug that pops up sometimes.

Rangelost.4857:

And yet, the solution is so simple. It has been suggested thousands upon thousands of times, inspired by the original Guild Wars and its flawless implementation. And I am suggesting it again, after 9 months of suffering with no relief in sight:

Show us the list of open map copies. Tell us which map copy we are on. Allow us to select which map copy we want to go to.

You already have drop-down lists. You already have queues. You already have everything you need to make it happen. For the sake of Tyria, please, stop ignoring this outrageous problem. This is simply insane.

+1.

I’ve never seen any kind of reason why this solution isn’t feasible.

Keep everything else about megaservers the same as it is now. Just add an optional UI window that I can see how many other map instances are open, and be able to move to another without requiring that I party with someone in it. Simple.

The concept of megaservers is great. Having to maintain empty maps on all servers is definitely a drag on server performance. So Im all for the concept.

The implementantion is totally lackluster.

As said before, we need to be able to switch to a different map simply to avoid bugged events that hamper our progress (Ogre Wars…….).

Trying to get a big guild grp onto the same servermap is still way too complicated, why not just add “join in map bla” option to guild and friends list? It really shouldnt be that difficult to implement.

You know you don’t actually have to change maps. There is a “No” button…

I like the current system.
Let’s go to the next thread :0

+1 for the select district/server option. It worked before, so why not now???

Tron.3471:

You know you don’t actually have to change maps. There is a “No” button…

It forces you to change map in 1 hour.

If you are not old enough to follow old Megaserver thread, developers said that with their current server infrastructure they can’t provide a map selection option.

+

Vayne argued that if developers let people to have choices, megaservers wont be a better system.

Phoenixlin.8624:

Tron.3471:

You know you don’t actually have to change maps. There is a “No” button…

It forces you to change map in 1 hour.

Not always. If you ignore it, sometimes the map will start filling up again and the notification will disappear.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Remember when you could go to Lions Arch to ask for help from your servermates in WvW? That’s dead and gone too thanks to megaservers.

not true, especially in places like Loins Arch, most of the players in that instance will be from your server…

So are you guys are saying it was better before? With the desolate maps and such. Maybe I am not fully understanding but I always thought megaservers were a good thing, to keep more people on the same map. Honestly its hard to read through the OPs post because he is so negative.

Phoenixlin.8624:

developers said that with their current server infrastructure they can’t provide a map selection option.

I think you’re taking that statement very much out of the context it was answered in.

There’s just no way that is possible. To assume that it is, you must assume that ArenaNet has no way to tell how many instances of map X are running. You must also assume that the infrastructure doesn’t have any way to tell how many people are connected to each of those instances. Both of those assumptions are absurd.

The entire megaserver system depends on those facts being known. Without that, there is no way to tell whether to add a player coming into a map into an existing instance or to start a new one. There is also no way to tell what low populated instance to shut down – or whether not to shut it down at all (since it may be the only one).

I agree server selection is the ideal solution, however, I also have never experienced this problem, and I think you’re being a little melodramatic.

Tamasan.6457:

Phoenixlin.8624:

developers said that with their current server infrastructure they can’t provide a map selection option.

There’s just no way that is possible. To assume that it is, you must assume that ArenaNet has no way to tell how many instances of map X are running. You must also assume that the infrastructure doesn’t have any way to tell how many people are connected to each of those instances. Both of those assumptions are absurd.

Do tell more about how you know the design of the system and have access to all the code. Maybe you’d like to add the functionality in yourself, since you clearly have a handle on how it all works at a base level.

I like being asked to volunteer on a Heart of the Mists map.

Would it be possible to have a single World, one giant Mega Server?

I have no idea of the GW2 population at any given time, but EVE online, has the main server “Tranquility”, and the Chinese-based “Serenity”, with some test servers they used for new content or developer testing. And according to Wikipedia On May 5, 2013, Eve Online claimed a new record for the maximum number of simultaneous pilots online with 65,303.

Could GW2 Therefore be split into three worlds? Tyria America, Tyria Europe/Africa, and then Tyria China.

Or is the GW2 population loads higher than EVE’s and it would not be possible with one region based world, and lag would be insane.

Tspatula.9086:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Remember when you could go to Lions Arch to ask for help from your servermates in WvW? That’s dead and gone too thanks to megaservers.

not true, especially in places like Loins Arch, most of the players in that instance will be from your server…

Actually, this is not true. I’ve been in Lion’s Arch and DR instances where the seeming majority of the map were from the server we were facing in the WvW matchup. As you can imagine, this would be a huge problem if someone called out that we needed help somewhere, as the other server would know.

I think the problem with megaservers are two-fold.
1) City maps should not be megaservered. Or if they are, at least put in the logic that the servers in the same wvw matchup don’t ever get megaservered together. The former is the better option since it allows more chance to get reinforcements for WvW, but I guess the latter would be good if they didn’t want to remove it from the cities at all.

2) It seems like the open world zones try and put you in the lowest population map. Maybe this works for random zones, but it causes the issue the OP mentioned with closing instances. it also just makes zones like Silverwaste require taxing to get to functional zones. If they changed it around so you entered more populated zones first, I think it would work better, since then you’d be in a Silverwaste instance that was progressing. If they didn’t want to do it that way for EVERY zone, I think there should be some sort of flag for the megaserver process where it is an option. That way zones like SW would get sorted differently when you zone to it.

Tron.3471:

So are you guys are saying it was better before? With the desolate maps and such. Maybe I am not fully understanding but I always thought megaservers were a good thing, to keep more people on the same map. Honestly its hard to read through the OPs post because he is so negative.

There are a number of things that megaservers are good for – one of the big ones is what you mentioned about empty maps.

But there are some cases where dealing with the megaserver system is a nightmare.
-Organizing large groups for world bosses
-Finding and developing communities (roleplayers among others)
-Seeing the same people regularly and getting to know them
-Calling in help for WvW from populated PvE areas
-Bugged event chains

There have been some small improvements on number 3 in the year or so we’ve had megaservers. None of the others have been addressed at all. We keep getting larger and more zone-wide events – just look at Silverwastes. We’ve been promised more of these in HoT. But we lack any kind of tools to actually organize more than 5 people at a time.

Rangelost.4857:

“Few players”?! It’s literally been three seconds! Why would you put be on this map copy if you were just about to close it? Urgh.

If you waited ~10 minutes before clicking the button, you wouldn’t have that problem. Continuously getting the message is the result of overflows collapsing due to everyone leaving, such as when a world boss is complete.

Rangelost.4857:

From experience, I already know that trying to participate in a large event is nearly impossible because of how counter-intuitive megaservers are. Either players enter an infinite loop of closing map copies, or they are stuck in a map copy with not enough players to complete an event, and incoming players are sent to other, less populated map copies.

Don’t show up late? The first few instances have already killed the boss and started to leave.

Tamasan.6457:

There’s just no way that is possible.

It’s possible. The software controlling the instances would likely know how many there are but the game doesn’t need to know that information, so it might not be accessible. In order to provide that functionality, they would have to update their server software.

Healix.5819:

Tamasan.6457:

There’s just no way that is possible.

It’s possible. The software controlling the instances would likely know how many there are but the game doesn’t need to know that information, so it might not be accessible. In order to provide that functionality, they would have to update their server software.

Of course they would need to update software, probably write up some interface and something to parse it to the game client. That all is relatively simple, because all of the needed information is already there – or somewhere – since all the systems that exist need it. This really bugs me about this topic. We’re not asking for the entire server infrastructure to be rewritten. We’re not asking for megaservers to go away. You can learn a heck of a lot from an outside perspective on how a system works and what is possible. We’re not asking for something that is from a technical standard very difficult.

Omap.8530:

Behellagh.1468:

I would rather be on a map that’s 70% full of players from all servers than on a deserted map for my server because they are all doing some boss event. My server is JQ and I often see many guildmates during my playing session even though we aren’t teaming so MS is smart enough to toss me onto maps with guild mates

It’s not all roses and sunshine because doing a mega event like teq is still a pain to organize with server and guild mates and require a lot of exiting and reentering and checking the IP of the map to see if you are on the right instance.

So it’s not perfect but if I call out a Group Event on map chat I know I’ll get a crowd to show up to help.

That’s not a problem that requires megaservers. It’s a problem that requires server mergers. The big deal with that is anything that even remotely looks like the playercount is declining is ultra taboo because NCSoft will give them the belt or something. So “Megaservers” is a cool hip way of saying “we totally don’t have as many players as before but don’t want to say it so now you can just play with everyone!” but it’s broken and it has never worked.

to be fair it’s not like anet has had a good track record of “getting things to work” because there’s still kitten in this game that’s been bugged and broken since beta 2. And on top of that they’re probably a skeleton team working on whatever other MMO NCsoft is trying to push out next to get their money in.

Jade Quary is one of the three largest NA servers. The problem was maps that didn’t have boss events were empty nearly all the time while maps with boss events had multiple copies. Megaservers simply “merge” the less populated maps rather than entire servers.

Tamasan.6457:

Tron.3471:

So are you guys are saying it was better before? With the desolate maps and such. Maybe I am not fully understanding but I always thought megaservers were a good thing, to keep more people on the same map. Honestly its hard to read through the OPs post because he is so negative.

There are a number of things that megaservers are good for – one of the big ones is what you mentioned about empty maps.

But there are some cases where dealing with the megaserver system is a nightmare.
-Organizing large groups for world bosses
-Finding and developing communities (roleplayers among others)
-Seeing the same people regularly and getting to know them
-Calling in help for WvW from populated PvE areas
-Bugged event chains

There have been some small improvements on number 3 in the year or so we’ve had megaservers. None of the others have been addressed at all. We keep getting larger and more zone-wide events – just look at Silverwastes. We’ve been promised more of these in HoT. But we lack any kind of tools to actually organize more than 5 people at a time.

Understood, thanks a lot. Yea I can for sure see the issues now.

I think I’ve had one instance of getting the “Please move to another map” dialog multiple times close together in the months since it’s been in place.

I’m pretty well convinced that since I don’t ever think about the Megaserver system (much less post an Eternal Wall of Text about it), it’s working fairly well for me.

Healix.5819:

If you waited ~10 minutes before clicking the button, you wouldn’t have that problem. Continuously getting the message is the result of overflows collapsing due to everyone leaving, such as when a world boss is complete.

[…]

Don’t show up late? The first few instances have already killed the boss and started to leave.

It’s not just because of events. It happens very frequently in cities, Black Citadel in particular.

Get on a map about the time world boss spawns there, stay on that map after world boss is dead.

Have fun porting through a chain of maps to the last few “remaining” ones ^^

To avoid this, just stay on that map you are currently on and volunteer about 20 minutes after it first asked you to volunteer. Of course that results in playing on a virtually empty map for 20 minutes first. Not flawed at all that system.

Yasi.9065:

Get on a map about the time world boss spawns there, stay on that map after world boss is dead.

Have fun porting through a chain of maps to the last few “remaining” ones ^^

To avoid this, just stay on that map you are currently on and volunteer about 20 minutes after it first asked you to volunteer. Of course that results in playing on a virtually empty map for 20 minutes first. Not flawed at all that system.

I forgot about that event.

I bet that’s what happened to the OP. If he got there right as the Karka Queen was ending then as all those people left, the map would shut down. The people remaining would be shuffled off to other maps with the Karka Queen just ending but still a good population, which would then also close down as those people leave.

Astral Projections.7320:

I bet that’s what happened to the OP. If he got there right as the Karka Queen was ending then as all those people left, the map would shut down. The people remaining would be shuffled off to other maps with the Karka Queen just ending but still a good population, which would then also close down as those people leave.

If that’s what had happened, it would have been fine since all I was trying to do was access the post-event vendors. What was happening was actually the opposite: we were unable to complete the event. In every map copy, we’d have just a few players trying to secure settlements, but we not nearly enough to secure all four and lure out the Karka Queen. And being random players, we couldn’t communicate with other map copies to try and figure it out.

Man I remember when I never saw a Teq or Marrionette downed on my server. So yeah, I understand the cons of megaserver, but I’d rather have them than not.

Rangelost.4857:

Astral Projections.7320:

I bet that’s what happened to the OP. If he got there right as the Karka Queen was ending then as all those people left, the map would shut down. The people remaining would be shuffled off to other maps with the Karka Queen just ending but still a good population, which would then also close down as those people leave.

If that’s what had happened, it would have been fine since all I was trying to do was access the post-event vendors. What was happening was actually the opposite: we were unable to complete the event. In every map copy, we’d have just a few players trying to secure settlements, but we not nearly enough to secure all four and lure out the Karka Queen. And being random players, we couldn’t communicate with other map copies to try and figure it out.

Every time I’ve done that event, there’s been a horde of people. The map was completely full and no one could get in.

One possibility, you got there after the majority did. Those maps filled up and you landed on an overflow map with only a few people. Those people gave up and started leaving, starting the transfer off process. Then everytime you transferred, it was to a map that was done with the event and people were leaving from there, causing that map to also try to close.

Astral Projections.7320:

One possibility, you got there after the majority did. Those maps filled up and you landed on an overflow map with only a few people. Those people gave up and started leaving, starting the transfer off process. Then everytime you transferred, it was to a map that was done with the event and people were leaving from there, causing that map to also try to close.

Like I said, if those other map copies had been done with the event, I would have been able to access the post-event vendors. As it stood, no map copy out of the dozen I was shoved into had the 4/4 settlements secured, which is what allows the event to be done.

And that’s just one example amongst many others. The last straw, if you will.

Hmmm. From what I’ve read, that vendor doesn’t stay long. I remember complaints on the forum about how someone would be trying to buy right after doing the karka Queen event and the chance to do so would disappear before they could finish.

Phoenixlin.8624:

Inb4 a wild Vayne or lordkrall post appears.

Your wall of texts are for blind eyes and deaf ears. Don’t bother. People are, somehow, happy with all those random, intelligent, different language talker mobs.

Seems like more people like it besides just Vayne or lordkrall. Maybe you should stop singling people out, considering most people probably do prefer the megaserver.

There are definitely issues with it, but some posts here are just silly.

For example when you get a LOT of transfer requests in a row, it means there was a mega event on that map, there were a bunch of maps and they’re all going away because everyone has left all of them. If you’re not going to be on the map for more than an hour, which is the case most of the time for most people, transfer once to get the buff and minimize it. It’s not rocket science.

I end up with my guildies more often than not on servers and often run into them randomly. I have a community thanks.

The megaservers saved this game for a whole lot of people.

Rangelost.4857:

Astral Projections.7320:

One possibility, you got there after the majority did. Those maps filled up and you landed on an overflow map with only a few people. Those people gave up and started leaving, starting the transfer off process. Then everytime you transferred, it was to a map that was done with the event and people were leaving from there, causing that map to also try to close.

Like I said, if those other map copies had been done with the event, I would have been able to access the post-event vendors.

Quite often, one of the settlements goes into contested stage just after the Queen appears. And, of course, since everyone is in a hurry to kill the queen, noone defends that settlement or try to reclaim it. It’s entirely possible for the vendor to get disabled while queen is still alive.

And the only way you can get chain “move to more populated” notifications is after big events that take place on many instances at the same time (world bosses). The move itself will never transfer you to an instance that is already in process of closing, which means you get transfered to instances where lot of people are in a process of leaving. In most other cases there aren’t likely even more than 2-3 instances up (or, in case of some areas, only one).