Guild Wars 2

I’m trying to play GW2 with my brother, and I don’t see his character in the game, even though we’re supposedly standing right next to each other. His character portrait is blacked out, too. We’re both on the same server, both on the Mount Maelstrom map, we both have completely updated the game, we both own Heart of Thorns, and there’s no option to click his face to “Join in Mount Maelstrom” or whatever.

What am I not thinking of? Why can’t we see each other?

Does he have his status set to invisible?

You are on the same server but are you on the same megaserver shard?

Right click avatar, join in <map>?

Ashen.2907:

You are on the same server but are you on the same megaserver shard?

This is the likely scenario. Mouse over to his portrait, right click, and hit “Join in Mount Maelstorm” or something similar to that. You will end up joining the same megaserver map.

Being on the same server in GW2 doesn’t really matter a whole lot (except for World versus World). Even if you were on different servers you could still play with each other. It’s all about the megaserver system (google it if you’re interested in what it is).

DiscipleofLaw.3796:

I’m trying to play GW2 with my brother, and I don’t see his character in the game, even though we’re supposedly standing right next to each other. His character portrait is blacked out, too. We’re both on the same server, both on the Mount Maelstrom map, we both have completely updated the game, we both own Heart of Thorns, and there’s no option to click his face to “Join in Mount Maelstrom” or whatever.

What am I not thinking of? Why can’t we see each other?

Should not be possible. There’s only two possible scenarios why you wouldn’t be able to see the join-in option. One is if you were playing in different zones (one in EU, another in US) – that obviously is not the case, if you’re on the same server. Another option is if you both were on different game version instances – that would mean one of you would not have his game fully patched though.

I’m guessing that the cause is likely the latter (even though you seem to think you’re both fully updated). There was a patch today, so it’s possible one of you logged before it happened, and one logged after. Both of you would be fully updated at the moment of logging in, but one would still be on earlier game version.

You guys all have really good suggestions. Thanks for getting back to me.

As for the megaserver thing, “This new system takes your party, guild, language, home world, and other factors into account to match you to a version of the map you’re entering.” I’m guessing it takes my party members into account, allowing us to see each other, right?

When I right-click his avatar, there isn’t an option to join in his map.

I texted him and asked if his status was maybe set to invisible. Maybe that’s it. We’ll see.

I also told him to see if his game needs updating/patching, too. That could be it.

It doesn’t always take party members into consideration. Many times my party partner and I have ended up on different instances of a map. And we belong to the same Guild, have the same Home Server, same language, etc. One just never can be sure with MegaServer.

Another (long shot) possibility. There are a couple of points where, even though you feel like you’re in the open world, you’re in a special copy of the zone copy reserved for players doing particular portions of their story. But, confusingly, you may well be able to see the relative position of players you’re partied with, who’re in the normal version of the zone – I’m pretty sure I’ve experienced that at least once (Edit: or possibly not. Just tried it with a new character, and neither has a location dot for the other.) If that’s the case for one of you but not the other, you simply won’t be able to join up (or not in that zone, anyway) until you’re done.

One obvious place this happens is the very first zone your new character first emerges into (Queensdale, Caledon Forest and so on), for the steps of your first story episode. You’ll quite likely see other new player characters running around along side you, but what you won’t see there are higher-level ones. I think that you stay in that version of the zone until the end of your first episode, but I can’t swear to it. (edit: No, you don’t. The human storyline moves you into the normal zone before the final cut scene of your introductory story step, just before you level up; I assume the other races will be the same.) . And another case is when you first start the HoT story-line – the Silverwastes in “Prologue: Rally to Maguuma” isn’t unique to you, but it IS specific to characters running that portion of the story. In both cases part of the map is hatched out, but if you were new to the game you might not notice that (or give it any thought if you did). And it’s possible there are others that I’ve not noticed, or forgotten.

(The stinger on “Prologue”: If you want to go into Verdant Brink together to do the next step, “Torn from the Sky” , and only one of you is in the “Prologue” copy, DON’T use the story marker star in the copy once you’ve completed “Prologue”. WP back to Camp Resolve – which is actually outside the copy, so will trigger a “Do you want to…?” Message. Then get your team together, run across to the story marker again, and use THAT one.)