Guild Wars 2

what’s happened multiple times today: happily partied up with guildies/server mates for wurm and marionette. waypointed to map. ended up in separate overflows. tried to join same overflow: “server is full”. many calls for taxi, pleas on teamspeak, etc. tried to join each other for a few minutes, event starts on overflow, we break up in order to do event. players don’t speak/understand same language, cannot coordinate, events fail. repeat each hour.

sort of defeats the concept of having an open world where people could join and leave as they please.

i’ve had so much fun i’m practically crying tears of frustration. thanks muchly, anet.

what i would like to have happened: happily partied up with guildies/server mates for wurm and marionette. waypointed to map.

1) ideal situation: get onto actual home server. win. rejoice.

2) not-so-ideal situation: home server full. a message pops up: “home server is full. join the overflow?” yes. still with party. win. rejoice.

3) less-ideal-than-not-so-ideal situation: home server full. a message pops up: “home server is full, but more than one overflow. pick from list of overflows?” quick check on teamspeak, server 4. yes. still with party. win. rejoice.

what might have happened in an alternate universe, where things were thought through properly and implemented well:

crusader vimo runs up to you. he’s out of breath, but manages to blurt out, “help us, mighty hero. gasp my vigil comrades are scouting for.. pant information on the energy probes in bloodtide coast. will you help?”

you round up your guild in the magical guild whatsapp and march out to the vigil camp the crusader mentioned. after a few minutes of showing off the latest un-nerfed celestial ascended gear and discussing general strategies, you notice asuran triplets exit their tent, right on the hour.

you speak to one of them and are teleported to what 21st-century gamers call an “instanced zone”. this.. instance.. would normally be limited to your home-world, but happens to connect to other alternate realities some call “the other servers” if there were too many heroes. soon, many other heroes who spoke to the asurans join you, informed by an “instance list”, which some compare to “the server list” in the heart of the mists (i.e. pvp). this list showed them the number of active instances and the number of people already in them, so that intelligent choices could be made.

parties and guilds intact, you prepare for the expedition. after a brief argument, the brave midgets decide to cover more ground by splitting up. you and your coordinated, still-together, still-partied, still-bros guild set off and beat various things up.

after a long and bloody battle, you rejoice as you’ve manage to obtain [21 Great Wurm Egg Batters] and [42 Great Wurm Larva Pulps], a good haul for the effort. you’re looking forward to your [Wurm Meat Pasty]. thanking your still-together, still-partied, still-bros guild, you return to lion’s arch to plan an attack on scarlet’s experiment in lornar’s pass, which would be an enjoyable experience too, unlike what heroes in a certain alternate universe have to endure.

/wall of text

tl;dr (your loss) overflows are annoying and cause global famine and armed conflicts.

Wish this game had the GW1 system of selectable districts instead of random overflows.

It used to be WAY easier to meet up with friends and guildies for large events.

Now it’s either camp the main server map for an hour beforehand, or try and meet up in a specific overflow and hope for the best

i never played gw1, so i don’t know, but that was the gist of my unnecessarily long post. selectable instances. i had assumed anet would have learned from the karka LS in 2012, but noooOOOOooo…

root.9415:

Wish this game had the GW1 system of selectable districts instead of random overflows.

It used to be WAY easier to meet up with friends and guildies for large events.

Now it’s either camp the main server map for an hour beforehand, or try and meet up in a specific overflow and hope for the best

That doesn’t solve anything.

Sure you could say to your guild to meet up in District 10…but at that point you don’t have enough people to complete the event.

Overflows suck, I agree. But it’s the ‘best’ alternative or solution out there.

Vol.7601:

Sure you could say to your guild to meet up in District 10…but at that point you don’t have enough people to complete the event.

not if that overflow list had the number of players/max number of players displayed on it, like how server lists work in pvp.

the way it works now, you have to guest on another server if yours doesn’t do pve or has a small population. mine’s a very high pop one, so people guest to mine and make large queues and we end up with so many overflows during big events like what is going on now.

since the overflows are “shared” by the servers anyway, why not make it all a bit more transparent and let players pick which one to join?