Guild Wars 2

I would dearly love it if someone from ANet could explain how the server population system works. What determines if a server is full or not? When/how often is this information updated?

I’m asking because such information may help me determine what is the best time to check if my desired server has become unfull. I’ve noticed that servers tend to become unfull when WvW resets, for example.

Currently we suspect a server’s population is based on how many accounts have made a server their home.

However, this CANNOT be the whole story – because GW2 is a B2P game, noone ever truly “leaves” the game. So as new people buy the game and others quit, their leftover accounts should be filling up the servers until every server is full.

So I’m assuming there is some sort of mechanism that culls inactive players so that they don’t count towards a server’s population. How does this mechanism work? Does it kick in at a specific time of the day or week?

Heck, I wonder if ANet does their bot-bannings at a regular schedule? Since that would also be a moment where many slots are freed up.

Alternatively ANet could implement a way of queueing for server changes, which would save me from having to periodically login to see if I can change to my desired server.

I also hope guesting comes soon.

I would like to know aswell, Blacktide is for some reason always full. Even early morning 5pm.

It’s already been stated by staff that a server’s population is in relation to online population, not accounts on the server.

TimeBomb.3427:

It’s already been stated by staff that a server’s population is in relation to online population, not accounts on the server.

I don’t buy this either, since:

A. We don’t see servers become unfull on a daily basis. (I live in Australia, so I have a good chance to observe the NA off-peak times.)

B. The popular servers would have people constantly migrating to them during offpeak times, such that during peak times the servers will become overloaded.
(well, unless “Full” is considerably lower than a server’s maximum concurrent capacity.)

It feels like the true system takes both activity and accounts into consideration.

Also I’ve seen previous staff posts on this subject, and they were ambiguously worded and didn’t properly explain the details. If you’ve seen a post that properly explains things, please link.

TimeBomb.3427:

It’s already been stated by staff that a server’s population is in relation to online population, not accounts on the server.

No that’s not true, I mean that would be the common sense thing to do. So with anet you already know for a fact its the opposite and a dev posted that its accounts per server not logged in.

I guess there afraid if it was the way you believe it to work the peak amount of players would crash a server so instead they keep track of accounts.

It’s always a matter of definitions.

What is considered online population? Did they actually state this and if so, did they define how they measure online population? For all I know they consider someone online population if they logged in in the last week. Just saying.

Without an actual and precise explanation of what they measure and how they interpret these measurements, we will never know and I seriously doubt Anet are willing to divulge how they do this, simply because it allows manipulation.

Gehenna.3625:

It’s always a matter of definitions.

What is considered online population? Did they actually state this and if so, did they define how they measure online population? For all I know they consider someone online population if they logged in in the last week. Just saying.

Without an actual and precise explanation of what they measure and how they interpret these measurements, we will never know and I seriously doubt Anet are willing to divulge how they do this, simply because it allows manipulation.

Its per account on the server not people currently playing.

CC Eva wrote:
Connor, when you see a server FULL means that the people who’ve chosen that server as theirs, or players who have moved to that particular server, have reached the cap, independently of where did they create their accounts.

Writing on a phone so not going to quote it. They tried to edit there post to make it confusing. However you can find all the quotes by googling for it. It has nothing to do with people playin that’s why you see so many high pop servers where there is no one playing.

I think it’s pretty established that number of accounts per server is a big part of the population value. So let’s not get sidetracked by that.

The important thing I want to know is, when do servers become unfull, and why?

if anet has some sort of regular process they run to cull inactive accounts, if they ban bots at a particular time each week, if wvw resets cause a lot of player movement, I’d like to know when those times are, because that’s the best time to check the server list.

It can only be accounts otherwise a server could actually become over subscribed.. You would end up with permanent overflow

I’d also like to share player observations. For example, the past two occasions I’ve seen servers become unfull, have been on the weekends. so rather than the “servers become free during quiet times” theory, it’s more like “servers become free when people are online and choosing different servers – especially just after wvw reset” theory.

anyone back this up?

AerictheBoss.9172:

Gehenna.3625:

It’s always a matter of definitions.

What is considered online population? Did they actually state this and if so, did they define how they measure online population? For all I know they consider someone online population if they logged in in the last week. Just saying.

Without an actual and precise explanation of what they measure and how they interpret these measurements, we will never know and I seriously doubt Anet are willing to divulge how they do this, simply because it allows manipulation.

Its per account on the server not people currently playing.

CC Eva wrote:
Connor, when you see a server FULL means that the people who’ve chosen that server as theirs, or players who have moved to that particular server, have reached the cap, independently of where did they create their accounts.

Writing on a phone so not going to quote it. They tried to edit there post to make it confusing. However you can find all the quotes by googling for it. It has nothing to do with people playin that’s why you see so many high pop servers where there is no one playing.

How come when the population drops from full, its always outside of NA primetime?

Also how would servers ever drop from full in the first place? I doubt they are increasing server size due to their playerbase increasing.

nofo.8469:

How come when the population drops from full, its always outside of NA primetime?

Also how would servers ever drop from full in the first place? I doubt they are increasing server size due to their playerbase increasing.

Just a guess – they remove inactive accounts from the population calculation after a certain number of hours.

So for example if the cut off period is 240 hours and I logged out at 10pm, 240 hours ago, at 10.01pm my account would no longer be included in the calculation, repeat for however many players, most of which play somewhere around peak times and you get the population dropping at off peak.

Sylosi.6503:

nofo.8469:

How come when the population drops from full, its always outside of NA primetime?

Also how would servers ever drop from full in the first place? I doubt they are increasing server size due to their playerbase increasing.

Just a guess – they remove inactive accounts from the population calculation after a certain number of hours.

So for example if the cut off period is 240 hours and I logged out at 10pm, 240 hours ago, at 10.01pm my account would no longer be included in the calculation, repeat for however many players, most of which play somewhere around peak times and you get the population dropping at off peak.

Actually makes a lot of sense.

However if it worked like this all “full” servers would have roughly similar populations, this is not the case.

It is based on currently logged in accounts. I had been watching TC for days at all hours, never seeing it drop. And then another guild mate saw it open up and transferred. Later that day it opened again. It was only open for a matter of minutes both times, so it’s easy to miss when it opens up. And during each open time period, we had multiple members transfer. Telling me it wasn’t bc a lone player had left that server.

I had been checking during non NA peak hours – 12, 2 and 4 am. But when they opened up it was actually during NA peak hours. 10:30 and 5:30pm.

I suspect that that there are three population limits. Soft, Ideal, and Hard. Ideal would be for example, let’s have 10,000 players on at all times. So during a time period if it drops down to, let’s say, 9,900 players, it will tick over to ‘Very High’, allowing more players to let it hit that ideal 10,000. Once it hits 10K it bumps back to ‘Full’. I’m guessing the ideal number is quite below the Hard number. Hard meaning, this is the actual max the server can hold, like 25,000 at once. So during the 1 time events and Friday night WvW reset, when everyone logs in at once from the server, they can all do so.

Also, I agree, anet should add an option to queue for a server. It’s so silly to have to constantly be monitoring it.

Beorn Saxon.4762:

It is based on currently logged in accounts.

It isn’t, I’ve been on at 3 am at times when the server is very empty indeed, yet it is still marked “full”.

Sylosi.6503:

Beorn Saxon.4762:

It is based on currently logged in accounts.

It isn’t, I’ve been on at 3 am at times when the server is very empty indeed, yet it is still marked “full”.

I believe it is, read my full definition. In order for it to actually open up, it must go under a certain soft limit. Like it needs to be 75% or less for it to bump down to ‘Very High’ etc. I could be wrong though, I’m not a dev, but that’s my 2 cents.

Beorn Saxon.4762:

I believe it is, read my full definition. In order for it to actually open up, it must go under a certain soft limit. Like it needs to be 75% or less for it to bump down to ‘Very High’ etc. I could be wrong though, I’m not a dev, but that’s my 2 cents.

It isn’t, it is based on accounts that the server is home to – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Server-Populations/first .

Nor from the point of view of controlling server pops would making it based on how many are currently logged in make any sense at all. For example (and yes, this unrealistic, but it is just to show the poitn), if everyone from the No1 WvW server logged off for a day, then it would go to low, a zillion other people move to the server, you then have a server which has just doubled its “full” population.

That quote is really bad english. It could easily mean multiple things.

Plus it is just from a PR person, not from a Dev.

Akiko.2364:

That quote is really bad english. It could easily mean multiple things.

Seems clear enough to me.

Akiko.2364:

Plus it is just from a PR person, not from a Dev.

You don’t have to be a dev to understand if the login system is based on accounts or the number of people logged in.

TimeBomb.3427:

It’s already been stated by staff that a server’s population is in relation to online population, not accounts on the server.

Dont be so nieve.

Sylosi.6503:

You don’t have to be a dev to understand if the login system is based on accounts or the number of people logged in.

We do kinda need a dev or someone well-versed in the system to explain how it works in detail though.

If it’s based on accounts, then given that this is a B2P game, accounts never leave the game unless they are banned. Thus, some method of culling inactive accounts must exist or else all the servers will be forever full.

If the account culling / bot bans occur on some regular schedule, then this is useful information since that’s probably the best time to try to switch servers.

Servers have a ‘Full’ status when there is a certain number of players on that server at a particular time. There can however be much more than that number online at any given time because no one is kept out of their server once they have characters on that server. So even if a bunch of people logged off for the night the number of people on may still be over the number required to display as ‘full’. This will create the illusion for people unaware of how it works that the server always has the maximum number of people online. The truth is that there is no maximum, only that ArenaNet have put up a ‘soft cap’ in an attempt to spread out the population to other servers and not over-stress any single server.

Pretty sure servers were edited because none of them read “full” during first week of full release when this game was at its peak popularity wise…But a lot of players are migrating to other servers to find more people to play with…to stop this they are forcing players to be unable to join some servers…idk their exact math but its kinda annoying =/

TimeBomb.3427:

It’s already been stated by staff that a server’s population is in relation to online population, not accounts on the server.

The opposite has also been stated by ANet devs. Somebody somewhere on the ANet team is speaking on a subject they are clearly have no business speaking about, and it’d be nice if they told us who. But to be honest, it’s kind of obvious that it is at least somewhat dependent on players online, or else it wouldn’t fluctuate open and closed during peak and off hours.

porter.9483:

Dont be so nieve.

Don’t be so snowy?

Bluestone.7106:

Servers have a ‘Full’ status when there is a certain number of players on that server at a particular time.

Do you have any evidence of this? the last two times my friends were able to switch to a full server was during the weekend, which one would assume to be busier than weekdays.

A server will read “Full” or “Very high” when the servers character cap has been reached. What I mean by this is when enough people have transferred over to that server, or enough people have registered that server as there own, it will be shown as “FULL”. All those people who have chosen that server don’t even have to be logged in, but it will still show FULL.

Thats how ArenaNet tricks you. They trick fanboys and other people who do not know the system into believing that the servers are Full. To create the illusion that people are still playing and everything is okay. But in reality we are losing players, fast.

Thats why people are complaining about their server dying. Thats why people are upset about major cities turning into Ghost towns and can’t figure out why. Thats why they hide the truth, to pretend like everything is alright. But we are indeed losing active people and guilds. Sad truth

Mike.9451:

A server will read “Full” or “Very high” when the servers character cap has been reached. What I mean by this is when enough people have transferred over to that server, or enough people have registered that server as there own, it will be shown as “FULL”. All those people who have chosen that server don’t even have to be logged in, but it will still show FULL.

Thats how ArenaNet tricks you. They trick fanboys and other people who do not know the system into believing that the servers are Full. To create the illusion that people are still playing and everything is okay. But in reality we are losing players, fast.

Thats why people are complaining about their server dying. Thats why people are upset about major cities turning into Ghost towns and can’t figure out why. Thats why they hide the truth, to pretend like everything is alright. But we are indeed losing active people and guilds. Sad truth

Two words

COMMUNITY COORDINATOR

That’s a fancy technical name for an event planner. If anybody at all on the Dev team knows nothing about the technical aspect of the game or is likely to be misinformed about this subject, it would be him/her.

Zeanix.8624:

I would like to know aswell, Blacktide is for some reason always full. Even early morning 5pm.

A friend of mine got onto Blacktide a few days ago in the morning. It goes down from full to high every morning at around 6am CET

Someone is trolling

Bottom line is that a so called full server, doesn’t mean there’s a lot of people online. There could be plenty of people online but the full status doesn’t mean anything in relation to that.

I am sure that with accounts being banned, people moving from one server to another and perhaps accounts that are inactive for over a month or so there would be adjustments made.

The interesting thing thereby is that you could be on a server that could actually have more active people online but are blocked by accounts that are sitting there. This then also blocks transfers to meet friends or new players going on the same server as their friends. Can’t really decide what to think of this system.

AerictheBoss.9172:

TimeBomb.3427:

It’s already been stated by staff that a server’s population is in relation to online population, not accounts on the server.

No that’s not true, I mean that would be the common sense thing to do. So with anet you already know for a fact its the opposite and a dev posted that its accounts per server not logged in.

I guess there afraid if it was the way you believe it to work the peak amount of players would crash a server so instead they keep track of accounts.

I thought it was some weird mix of both, since the servers do show lower population during offpeak hours compared to prime time for that time zone.

It would actually be a good way to do it. Find some middle ground between total accounts and number of players on at any given time, then allow a few more to trickle in during off peak while keeping in mind that during events more people will probably get online than usual. Of course that’s just wild speculation, but it makes sense because I doubt that at 3 am on a Tuesday suddenly a number of players on the highest pop server get an itch to transfer.

It boils down to this.

If the MMO in question is WoW: “Server population is directly correlated to the number of people playing.”

If the MMO in question isn’t WoW: “Server population is a complex conspiracy to make us think people actually play when the game is really dyeing.”

It’s really nothing more than that.

Ok, let’s suppose that server status is current people playing at that time (which it isn’t), what happens if there’s 20 000 accounts registered to that server, but the server only handles 10 000 concurrent players? what happens to the rest? it tells them sorry you can’t connect?

How does server full relating to currently online players make any sense?

The overflow is created when an AREA has reached a certain cap of players, but it has no direct relation to SERVER capacity.

The FULL status that you see if registered accounts on that server, any other way doesn’t make any technical sense.

The reason of the fluctuation, as explained, is that people MOVE SERVERS.

Yes, this does mean that servers are full of people who aren’t playing. Did you think all servers were always full of active players? Unfortunately not, those are full of idle accounts.

Why are we still arguing?

Vasham.2408:

It boils down to this.

If the MMO in question is WoW: “Server population is directly correlated to the number of people playing.”

If the MMO in question isn’t WoW: “Server population is a complex conspiracy to make us think people actually play when the game is really dyeing.”

It’s really nothing more than that.

Pretty much this.

Tinfoil hat brigade is around.

xiv.7136:

Vasham.2408:

It boils down to this.

If the MMO in question is WoW: “Server population is directly correlated to the number of people playing.”

If the MMO in question isn’t WoW: “Server population is a complex conspiracy to make us think people actually play when the game is really dyeing.”

It’s really nothing more than that.

Pretty much this.

Tinfoil hat brigade is around.

Indeed. It’s an interesting combination of paranoia, cynicism, and misanthropy that makes threads like this. You never see them on the WoW forums because WoW is secure in it’s (dwindling) popularity. But every MMO that’s not WoW have these “population numbers conspiracy” threads. It’s kind of sad really but it’s an interesting glimpse into the minds of gamers in large groups.

Vasham.2408:

Indeed. It’s an interesting combination of paranoia, cynicism, and misanthropy that makes threads like this. You never see them on the WoW forums because WoW is secure in it’s (dwindling) popularity. But every MMO that’s not WoW have these “population numbers conspiracy” threads. It’s kind of sad really but it’s an interesting glimpse into the minds of gamers in large groups.

I would really like people not to derail my thread with this sort of stuff.

All I’m asking for is more guidance on what is the best time to check when I can switch to the server my friends are playing on.

Like I said, the two previous times I have seen the change have been around WvW reset times on the weekend. I would like more people to report when they have seen servers become non-full or when they have successfully changed to a full server.

Rieselle.5079:

Vasham.2408:

Indeed. It’s an interesting combination of paranoia, cynicism, and misanthropy that makes threads like this. You never see them on the WoW forums because WoW is secure in it’s (dwindling) popularity. But every MMO that’s not WoW have these “population numbers conspiracy” threads. It’s kind of sad really but it’s an interesting glimpse into the minds of gamers in large groups.

I would really like people not to derail my thread with this sort of stuff.

All I’m asking for is more guidance on what is the best time to check when I can switch to the server my friends are playing on.

Like I said, the two previous times I have seen the change have been around WvW reset times on the weekend. I would like more people to report when they have seen servers become non-full or when they have successfully changed to a full server.

It’s not derailing the thread to call these theories out on what they are: baseless accusations born of nothing but conjecture and hyperbole. You can’t silence people who disagree with you, especially those who argue from logic. Ultimately the burden of proof is on those who argue these conspiracy theories, and proof is something they sorely lack if they have any at all.

Vasham.2408:

Rieselle.5079:

Vasham.2408:

Indeed. It’s an interesting combination of paranoia, cynicism, and misanthropy that makes threads like this. You never see them on the WoW forums because WoW is secure in it’s (dwindling) popularity. But every MMO that’s not WoW have these “population numbers conspiracy” threads. It’s kind of sad really but it’s an interesting glimpse into the minds of gamers in large groups.

I would really like people not to derail my thread with this sort of stuff.

All I’m asking for is more guidance on what is the best time to check when I can switch to the server my friends are playing on.

Like I said, the two previous times I have seen the change have been around WvW reset times on the weekend. I would like more people to report when they have seen servers become non-full or when they have successfully changed to a full server.

It’s not derailing the thread to call these theories out on what they are: baseless accusations born of nothing but conjecture and hyperbole. You can’t silence people who disagree with you, especially those who argue from logic. Ultimately the burden of proof is on those who argue these conspiracy theories, and proof is something they sorely lack if they have any at all.

Yeah, but Rieselledoesn’t really want to argue about the validity of either side. Rieselle just wanted to know when the best time was to try to transfer. Unfortunatley the thread was jacked on post 1. My suggestion would be that if you don’t want to get into the debate of the month, best to avoid General Discussion and post in Players helping Players. But, since you’ll risk a dupe post if you post again there, I will tell you what I know here:

I’ve seen a few threads about this in that forum or the account forum. It might be worth your while to do a forum search for “transfer.” If I recall for US servers, the best time was somewhere between 4-6 AM. That “I don’t want to get up that early just for a game” feeling you’re getting? That’s why it works.

I don’t know how Anet tags severs full, when they are clearly not (go to WvW and take a look, even on a FULL server you may not see anyone in game for miles), but they better fix what’s broken, because my GF just bought the game so she could play with me, and she cannot get on my serve because it’s stuck at “full” in the server list. This really pisses me off.

It is based on active accounts on the server. Don’t know exactly how many. However I’ll give you the following and you can draw your own conclusion.

At the end of TA when we were moving our and other guilds to other servers. We would have friendly guilds on the server we were moving too do entire guild log outs on Teamspeak. With all the TA members that were wanting to go to that server ready to login. The log out would be called and then 10 seconds later the in coming guild would login. This was usually enough to create a minute or two window to transfer.

Worked more then well enough to get every who wanted to transfer moved to whatever servers they wanted.

Interesting… so how many people would have to log out in order to allow my GF to log in?

A nice feature down the line would be to allow players to “invite” friends onto the server they are on regardless of the status, maybe allow 1 invite a week or something. The random new player might not care which server they are on, but people joining to play with others that usually prefer to be on the same server as their friends, without having to monitor server populations for an open transfer window.

Regarding the logic of server status. I believe the caps are controlled dynamically to ensure that new players or people transferring don’t create population imbalances at that given time, since most first timers are probably attempting to log in during what might be their standard play time.

In other words, let’s say server A has 10 people on it, server B has 7 and Server C has 3 people. Server A would show “full” and B and C would be available.

If they all had 10 people online, then they would all be available to log in to.

If servers A and B had 10 people and C had 9 then A and B would show full and C would show available.

Well I don’t see the logic in that since WvW populations have nothing to do with Full status. My server (Fort Aspenwood) is perpetually “full”, yet there are NO que times for any border land. Something is broken.

It’s baffling why server status is based on the number of accounts on the server in a B2P game. It makes perfect sense in a subscription game, because players would be stupid to consider paying for a subscription when they are not playing the game at least some of the time. But in a B2P game, there could be tons and tons of accounts that have absolutely no activity at all. And these accounts are preventing people getting on the server who would actively play.

It makes no sense at all.

Cheers.

Maybe everyone is in Fractals, grinding for Ascended gear…. That’s why WvW is dead, and the servers are “Full”… If that’s the case I will be even more annoyed.

Lankybrit.4598:

It’s baffling why server status is based on the number of accounts on the server in a B2P game. It makes perfect sense in a subscription game, because players would be stupid to consider paying for a subscription when they are not playing the game at least some of the time. But in a B2P game, there could be tons and tons of accounts that have absolutely no activity at all. And these accounts are preventing people getting on the server who would actively play.

It makes no sense at all.

Cheers.

It actually does make sense, in the same sort of approach that gives principled procedures to know how big a 911 switchboard should be, or how to configure telecommunications switches. The load is determined by concurrent and potential users. There actually is a mathematics & science behind this stuff.

For what it’s worth, there’s one fewer open servers today than there was yesterday when I looked. The sky is falling.

mulch.2586:

Lankybrit.4598:

It’s baffling why server status is based on the number of accounts on the server in a B2P game. It makes perfect sense in a subscription game, because players would be stupid to consider paying for a subscription when they are not playing the game at least some of the time. But in a B2P game, there could be tons and tons of accounts that have absolutely no activity at all. And these accounts are preventing people getting on the server who would actively play.

It makes no sense at all.

Cheers.

It actually does make sense, in the same sort of approach that gives principled procedures to know how big a 911 switchboard should be, or how to configure telecommunications switches. The load is determined by concurrent and potential users. There actually is a mathematics & science behind this stuff.

For what it’s worth, there’s one fewer open servers today than there was yesterday when I looked. The sky is falling.

That analogy falls down because it’s the subscription model. People pay for telecommunications access and they know how many of them there are. Also, the maths and science that you’re talking about is basically looking at averages and adding headroom. That’s the maths, not anything else.

A better analogy would be capacity planning by Amazon.com. You need an account to buy something, but they don’t base server capacity on number of accounts, they base it on average load for the time of year, plus some headroom. Because they know that not everyone who has an account will all log on at once, and that they need to allow for new accounts also.

All I’m suggesting is for ArenaNet to do the same thing. Take a look at average usage and add some headroom and use that for server status.

Let’s say there are 10,000, 7,500, 5,000 accounts on a server are Full, High, Medium. Let’s say a server is full with 10,000 accounts, but only 3,000 is the average usage. Then they could add some headroom and say it’s a Medium server equivalent to 5,000.

Cheers.