Guild Wars 2

Is there any reason why European and American servers are separated? It’s really not convenient at all, as a player. I’m European and naturally play on the EU servers since most of my playtime happens during the day. I have a guild that I’m attached to, since we’ve been playing together for a year now. However, I’d also like to play with other gamer buddies (that migrated to GW2 as well) I’ve met throughout the years, that happen to be living in the United States. Sadly, there is no way for us to play together, since we both want to stay with our own time-zones’ populations for regular daily gaming, for obvious reasons.

Another reason why this separation is inconvenient, is that there is a limited player activity at certain times of the night. There are of course, persons that regularly play during nighttime but their numbers aren’t noticeably high at all, leaving night lurkers to not being able to enjoy the game in the same way as those active in daylight.

Also, there have been some cool player-run events that I wished to attend but, again, there is no possibility for me to attend them, since they are held on the US dimension.

I can see how the WvW experience could suffer but couldn’t the two continents be separated in that area? Same could be said about dailies/monthlies.

Would merging the two really be so immensely difficult or impossible? There might be things I’m not considering, naturally. That’s why I’m asking about this in the first place. I hope to be enlightened.

Thanks!

Ping i think is the reason.

Hardly. I’m European and play on an NA server, and my ping is excellent. I have met other Europeans, Asians and Australians on the same North American server. None of us felt we wanted or needed to switch to a European server for better lag. As far as the people go that I’ve talked to anyway.

What really bothers me is that we can’t guess between NA and EU servers. I honestly don’t see the purpose of that. I have gamer friends from way back, half of them are US-based and the other half are EU-based, and I can only meet up for dungeon runs with 50% of them.

So far, nobody could explain to me why this degree of separation is necessary.

Different data centers is the reason.

Why have different data centers, is the question….

This ^

Secondly, even if there’s different data centers – I see no reason why character data couldn’t be transferred upon guesting. It’s not THAT much data.

There are technical reasons, afaik

If both data centers have to communicate, you run the risk of both getting bogged down due to latency. Bandwidth plays a big role. If people were to freely guest, the amount of data going back and forth could slow everyone down. Having an individual connect to a server in another database directly, rather than indirectly through a local data center, usually only has an impact on that user.

I’m not entirely familiar with networks and the like but this is my general impression based on what I know and have read over the years. I’m sure there’s at least a few people on the forums that can give a better explanation.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

This ^

Secondly, even if there’s different data centers – I see no reason why character data couldn’t be transferred upon guesting. It’s not THAT much data.

The data is likely transferred only if a server move happens. Which leaves traffic congestion issues between the two data centers.

Neko.6735:

There might be things I’m not considering, naturally. That’s why I’m asking about this in the first place. I hope to be enlightened.

<——EU player on NA server (wont ever join a EU only server)

EU servers….easyier to flick the switch and not hurt your main customers :P

Ayrilana.1396:

If both data centers have to communicate, you run the risk of both getting bogged down due to latency. Bandwidth plays a big role. If people were to freely guest, the amount of data going back and forth could slow everyone down. Having an individual connect to a server in another database directly, rather than indirectly through a local data center, usually only has an impact on that user.

I’m not entirely familiar with networks and the like but this is my general impression based on what I know and have read over the years. I’m sure there’s at least a few people on the forums that can give a better explanation.

With the sheer amount of data getting uploaded and downloaded to/from GW servers every single minute, I still don’t see how one character’s data upon guesting (which as we all know is limited to 2 servers a day) would even leave as much as a dent. It’s not like the data has to ping-pong between original and guest server during playing. It would be transferred when guesting starts and transferred back when the player signs on the original server after.
Some actual numbers would be nice…

So far, to me, it still sounds like “we don’t allow this for… reasons.”

Neko.6735:

Why have different data centers, is the question….

There’s a saying, never place all your eggs in one basket. Data centers are the baskets.

Geotherma.2395:

Neko.6735:

Why have different data centers, is the question….

There’s a saying, never place all your eggs in one basket. Data centers are the baskets.

So if one of the data center burns down, people in the rest in the world can still play?

Please be more specific about how this explains anything.

Morbious.5832:

Neko.6735:

There might be things I’m not considering, naturally. That’s why I’m asking about this in the first place. I hope to be enlightened.

<——EU player on NA server (wont ever join a EU only server)

EU servers….easyier to flick the switch and not hurt your main customers :P

I really hope that’s not the case… :/

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Ayrilana.1396:

If both data centers have to communicate, you run the risk of both getting bogged down due to latency. Bandwidth plays a big role. If people were to freely guest, the amount of data going back and forth could slow everyone down. Having an individual connect to a server in another database directly, rather than indirectly through a local data center, usually only has an impact on that user.

I’m not entirely familiar with networks and the like but this is my general impression based on what I know and have read over the years. I’m sure there’s at least a few people on the forums that can give a better explanation.

With the sheer amount of data getting uploaded and downloaded to/from GW servers every single minute, I still don’t see how one character’s data upon guesting (which as we all know is limited to 2 servers a day) would even leave as much as a dent. It’s not like the data has to ping-pong between original and guest server during playing. It would be transferred when guesting starts and transferred back when the player signs on the original server after.
Some actual numbers would be nice…

So far, to me, it still sounds like “we don’t allow this for… reasons.”

One person won’t have much of an impact. You’re forgetting the bandwidth of the connection between data servers across the ocean. If there’s bandwidth issues, and the connection usage is high, you run the risk of losing packets. For a game like this, that’s normally not a good thing.

There’s more to it than I’m letting on.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Geotherma.2395:

Neko.6735:

Why have different data centers, is the question….

There’s a saying, never place all your eggs in one basket. Data centers are the baskets.

So if one of the data center burns down, people in the rest in the world can still play?

Please be more specific about how this explains anything.

8 Trillion gold and items and characters on data center 1.
Data center 2, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 all have the same.
Data center one corrupts and loses all information and for some ungodly reason they have no backups. You just lost 30,000-300,000+ people from game who probably won’t come back. But you have 9 others working in the meantime.

1 data center fries, everything is on it, backups cannot fix the problem, you have no game.

Last I could see (and this was looong ago) even wow had 10+ data centers. It is far easier to manage issues, bugs, glitches, if they are isolated to one center. It is like being in charge of a company. Your computers go down in store 1 of 400. You can get to that store and fix it or attempt to. You have 399 other stores functioning fine because it is isolated from the rest. That’s the least technically explanation I can give.

http://www.cio.com/article/508551/Data_Center_Lessons_from_the_Online_Gaming_World

Geotherma.2395:

8 Trillion gold and items and characters on data center 1.
Data center 2, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 all have the same.
Data center one corrupts and loses all information and for some ungodly reason they have no backups. You just lost 30,000-300,000+ people from game who probably won’t come back. But you have 9 others working in the meantime.

If this is the reason, then why divide it into 2 zones only – in this worst case scenario they would still lose half the world as playerbase. Just as unforgivable as 100%. It would be a disaster either way.

For GW2, it is 1 in 2, not 1 in 400. So this makes little sense to me.

Geotherma.2395:

Last I could see (and this was looong ago) even wow had 10+ data centers. It is far easier to manage issues, bugs, glitches, if they are isolated to one center. It is like being in charge of a company. Your computers go down in store 1 of 400. You can get to that store and fix it or attempt to. You have 399 other stores functioning fine because it is isolated from the rest. That’s the least technically explanation I can give.

The same code is rolled out to all servers simultaneously, so why would bugs/glitches only affect a single data center?

Sorry to be a pain but I am trying to get to the bottom of this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Characters-on-BOTH-regions

Suggestion to fix things https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1634448

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Suggestion to fix things https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1634448

The problem is that you have data on two data centers and its difficult to keep both current. Transferring it back and forth is not as simple as you may think. It’s not like moving a file from one folder on your computer to another. There’s more to it.

Ayrilana.1396:

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Suggestion to fix things https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1634448

The problem is that you have data on two data centers and its difficult to keep both current. Transferring it back and forth is not as simple as you may think. It’s not like moving a file from one folder on your computer to another. There’s more to it.

Then how does the exsting server transfer mechanism work? My suggestion is to use the same server change mechanic that’s in place now with various safeguards to ensure WvW and nodes are protected.

Remember we could change server at will at launch(even to different regions) as much as we liked. If it was possible then, why is’nt it now?

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Ayrilana.1396:

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Suggestion to fix things https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1634448

The problem is that you have data on two data centers and its difficult to keep both current. Transferring it back and forth is not as simple as you may think. It’s not like moving a file from one folder on your computer to another. There’s more to it.

Then how does the exsting server transfer mechanism work? My suggestion is to use the same server change mechanic that’s in place now with various safeguards to ensure WvW and nodes are protected.

Remember we could change server at will at launch(even to different regions) as much as we liked. If it was possible then, why is’nt it now?

Yeah, that didn’t seem to create issues. The player base was insanely high, though I’m not sure if many players migrated between the two data centres. I think it was mostly between their region’s servers.

That is not how guesting is set up in this game. When you go to the character screen, you can go to your home server or another. It’s difficult to keep data updated on two data centers.

I’ve stated several reasons why it would not work and a link to a thread was posted giving more reasons. Please read those if you want to know why not. It had to do with the volume of requests.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

If this is the reason, then why divide it into 2 zones only – in this worst case scenario they would still lose half the world as playerbase. Just as unforgivable as 100%. It would be a disaster either way.

For GW2, it is 1 in 2, not 1 in 400. So this makes little sense to me.

This.

Ayrilana.1396:

That is not how guesting is set up in this game. When you go to the character screen, you can go to your home server or another. It’s difficult to keep data updated on two data centers.

I’ve stated several reasons why it would not work and a link to a thread was posted giving more reasons. Please read those if you want to know why not. It had to do with the volume of requests.

I’m not talking about guesting, i’m talking about actual transfer with a seperation for WvW and nodes. Basically, taking things back to first principles and what used to work.

Heck even having to wait 10 mins for it to transfer you over is way better than not being able to do it at all. The ’that’s because it’s the way it works now’ reason is not a reason to look at things from a different angle. People assume guesting is the only way it can work

As I said in my suggestion put a delay on transferring back, and even add a speed up consumable in the gem store to help pay for extra bandwidth.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

I’m not talking about guesting, more like taking things back to first principles and what used to work. Heck even having to wait 10 mins for it to transfer you over is way better than not being able to do it at all. The ’that’s because it’s the way it works now’ reason is not a reason to look at things from a different angle.

People assume guesting is the only way it can work. As I said in my suggestion put a delay on transferring back, and even add a speed up consumable in the gem store to help pay for extra bandwidth.

Oh I thought you were. We’ll still run into the issue of how to determine which server someone belongs to for WvW.

My suggestion deals with that (I hope ) Basically you chose a server you want to be loyal to, and you can only WvW when on that server. The actual server you then play PvE on is then seperate from your loyal one.

All the restrictions for WvW will then apply to you loyal server not the one you play on(for example gems to transfer. cooldown periods and being able to see the map)

Neko.6735:

Why have different data centers, is the question….

Latency. Not everybody is connected to the game using high quality bandwidth. Connecting to a US server from across the ocean with a low quality bandwidth provider would have hellish latency.

Neko.6735:

Why have different data centers, is the question….

Redundancy.

One data center can be wiped out in a disaster. Multiple data centers increase redundancy and lower risk.

Having all of your eggs in one basket is bad news. Look what happens to Netflix every time Amazon’s cloud goes down.

Dangbat.2804:

Neko.6735:

Why have different data centers, is the question….

Latency. Not everybody is connected to the game using high quality bandwidth. Connecting to a US server from across the ocean with a low quality bandwidth provider would have hellish latency.

If latency is so much of a problem they won’t let players guest to different regions because it will detract from the game then why allow players from one regions to roll on the opposite region at all? Especially since the degradation would be all the time, not just for the few hours the guesting would allow?

Besides isnt it down to the player to decide what’s good and bad? Just give a little message box that says “Changing to a different region may cause lag and detract from the experience, do you want to continue Y/N”

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Dangbat.2804:

Neko.6735:

Why have different data centers, is the question….

Latency. Not everybody is connected to the game using high quality bandwidth. Connecting to a US server from across the ocean with a low quality bandwidth provider would have hellish latency.

If latency is so much of a problem they won’t let players guest to different regions because it will detract from the game then why allow players from one regions to roll on the opposite region at all? Especially since the degradation would be all the time, not just for the few hours the guesting would allow?

Besides isnt it down to the player to decide what’s good and bad?

The problem is the way the thing is designed. There’s a difference between being in the US and playing on a European server and being in the US and guesting to a European server.

If you’re on a European server, then your data is on the European server park. Your information can only exist in one server park at at time…so the only lag is your connection to Europe.

If you guest to a European server from the US, your information is still in the US server park. The difference in ping is now from your machine, to europe but it constantly has to go back and access the US server park. It’s simply not playable for the biggest percentage of the player base. It basically means that the discrepancy between what your client-side server sees (what’s on your computer) will be too different from what the server in the server park sees.

They tested it and it really was unplayable. It’s more than just lag.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Dangbat.2804:

Neko.6735:

Why have different data centers, is the question….

Latency. Not everybody is connected to the game using high quality bandwidth. Connecting to a US server from across the ocean with a low quality bandwidth provider would have hellish latency.

If latency is so much of a problem they won’t let players guest to different regions because it will detract from the game then why allow players from one regions to roll on the opposite region at all? Especially since the degradation would be all the time, not just for the few hours the guesting would allow?

Besides isnt it down to the player to decide what’s good and bad? Just give a little message box that says “Changing to a different region may cause lag and detract from the experience, do you want to continue Y/N”

Guesting to another region is a choice you make on your own. Joining on a server that isn’t in your region and being FORCED into high latency is bad customer service—a company that operates a game that is free to play can not afford bad customer service.

You can pretend this isn’t the issue all you want, but it is and you’re wrong for thinking it isn’t.

You also have to understand that for players using ISPs that use poor quality bandwidth providers, the latency between the US and Europe could be over 1000ms…. For every player who is getting below 100, there are probably 5 or 6 that would be getting between 500-1000ms of latency.

So what happens when you transfer then? Why not adapt the transfer mechanic since it seems to work fine? Why not just ditch the guesting mechanic?

If as you say people’s latency is so bad and so distruptive to game play Why even allow player to roll on opposite region servers at all? Because if it’s as disruptive as you say Why not just seperate EU and Rest of the world for stop people getting such a bad experience?

I’ll agree the problem is the design, but to me all the transfer mechanics are in place and working and did so just fine at launch so there is no reason why they wont still work now once you solve the WvW and node jumping issues. All of which seem pretty simple too.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Hardly. I’m European and play on an NA server, and my ping is excellent. I have met other Europeans, Asians and Australians on the same North American server. None of us felt we wanted or needed to switch to a European server for better lag. As far as the people go that I’ve talked to anyway.

What really bothers me is that we can’t guess between NA and EU servers. I honestly don’t see the purpose of that. I have gamer friends from way back, half of them are US-based and the other half are EU-based, and I can only meet up for dungeon runs with 50% of them.

So far, nobody could explain to me why this degree of separation is necessary.

… and I am in the US playing on a EU server. There generally hasn’t been any problem for ME aside from ones caused by my own connection. However as I write this right now I am talking with two guild mates who are also from the US(one is even in the same city) and they are experiencing very horrible lag. The networks are not as perfect as you think. That lag wasn’t always there either and it is only during certain times of the day.

Language.

Sorry, had to be said. NA and especially US gamers are fairly monoglot. I’m sure no US gamer would be pleased if he picked a server only to discover that the primary language of choice there was anything other than English. And then find out it’ll cost him money to move.

Europeans on the other hand are a lot more polyglot. Lots of languages, lots of history, lots of invasions, lots of borders, nice rail system. You have to be able to handle yourself in multiple languages and for international commerce, most can handle English, sometimes better than native speakers.

I suggest those that are still wondering about this issue to do some research on networks, data centers, latency, etc. It will make what is being said to make more sense. You can hear the reasoning but without the foundational knowledge of this, you won’t understand it. Kind of like how I can explain a calculus problem to someone who has only gone as far as algebra.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

So what happens when you transfer then? Why not adapt the transfer mechanic since it seems to work fine? Why not just ditch the guesting mechanic?

If as you say people’s latency is so bad and so distruptive to game play Why even allow player to roll on opposite region servers at all? Because if it’s as disruptive as you say Why not just seperate EU and Rest of the world for stop people getting such a bad experience?

I’ll agree the problem is the design, but to me all the transfer mechanics are in place and working and did so just fine at launch so there is no reason why they wont still work now once you solve the WvW and node jumping issues. All of which seem pretty simple too.

I don’t think the problem is as simple as you’re thinking it is.

You can only have one unique account because you can send game mail from US servers to European servers. So you can’t duplicate someone’s info in both server parks.

A transfer presumably moves all your information permanently from one server park to the other. That transfer takes bandwidth and presumably processor power. To do it back and forth every time someone wants to guest would probably be prohibitive, particularly if you have large numbers of people doing it.

In other words, if you play on a European server, your data is in the European server park. If you play on a North American server, your data is there.

If you were guesting, you’d have to go from your computer to Europe and then back to your server park, back to Europe and then back to your computer. At least this is my understanding of it. It would double the lag of transferring.

Behellagh.1468:

Language.

Sorry, had to be said. NA and especially US gamers are fairly monoglot. I’m sure no US gamer would be pleased if he picked a server only to discover that the primary language of choice there was anything other than English. And then find out it’ll cost him money to move.

Europeans on the other hand are a lot more polyglot. Lots of languages, lots of history, lots of invasions, lots of borders, nice rail system. You have to be able to handle yourself in multiple languages and for international commerce, most can handle English, sometimes better than native speakers.

What? I’m guessing you play on American servers. The European servers that specifically don’t have English as their official language, are either French of German. And they are adequately marked as such. The rest are English. You do, of course, get people on English servers, that speak a different language among each other, however even they are able to communicate in English, usually. Additionally, if they were to be ‘merged’ together, they would remain distinguishable. You don’t have to go onto a European server… You’d have to be <censored> to manage to join a server with its ‘primary language of choice’ being other than English, and be disappointed that you mistakenly chose the wrong server, and now have to pay for a transfer…

What even…

Khisanth.2948:

… and I am in the US playing on a EU server. There generally hasn’t been any problem for ME aside from ones caused by my own connection. However as I write this right now I am talking with two guild mates who are also from the US(one is even in the same city) and they are experiencing very horrible lag. The networks are not as perfect as you think. That lag wasn’t always there either and it is only during certain times of the day.

The massive lags happen to those residing in Europe also.

Again, boyfriend and I have played on a US server from Europe since release, and lag has never been an issue for us at all, or for other players from outside US who I met on TC since.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think the problem is as simple as you’re thinking it is.

You can only have one unique account because you can send game mail from US servers to European servers. So you can’t duplicate someone’s info in both server parks.

A transfer presumably moves all your information permanently from one server park to the other. That transfer takes bandwidth and presumably processor power. To do it back and forth every time someone wants to guest would probably be prohibitive, particularly if you have large numbers of people doing it.

In other words, if you play on a European server, your data is in the European server park. If you play on a North American server, your data is there.

If you were guesting, you’d have to go from your computer to Europe and then back to your server park, back to Europe and then back to your computer. At least this is my understanding of it. It would double the lag of transferring.

Firstly, when there were far more concurrent users at launch you could transfer freely and quickly. Why would it be any different now

Secondly, as I said above and in the suggestion, you simply have a cooldown and/or a restriction on how many times you can transfer in a given time period. If you are in a hurry, or really want to go there buy a consumable item from the gem store to help pay for any extra bandwidth used.

Even if you have to wait 10-15 mins for the stuff to copy over I know people would rather have that than be unable to play with friends or switch to a server from their native timezone once it goes quiet in the one they normally play for.

Thirdly it helps alliviate the issue of server merges (and they will come) and quiet servers if people can just go where they want to.

time differance from 8-12 hour differance depending on where they live in the us (its bigger then europe).

network costs from eu-us + server strains for the lag (there is always anMS issue from eu-us be it large or small it is always there).

and maybe they just cant be botherd to maintain the connection between the 2 24/7 adding to server costs they dont really need.

take WoW you either buy a EU copy or US copy and cant play between the 2 or transfer between the 2.

so just get used to it and deal with it.

krixis.9538:

time differance from 8-12 hour differance depending on where they live in the us (its bigger then europe).

network costs from eu-us + server strains for the lag (there is always anMS issue from eu-us be it large or small it is always there).

and maybe they just cant be botherd to maintain the connection between the 2 24/7 adding to server costs they dont really need.

take WoW you either buy a EU copy or US copy and cant play between the 2 or transfer between the 2.

so just get used to it and deal with it.

If every time an issue arose and people chose to ‘get used to it’, instead of finding a way around to improve the situation… We wouldn’t have gotten very far now, would we?

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think the problem is as simple as you’re thinking it is.

You can only have one unique account because you can send game mail from US servers to European servers. So you can’t duplicate someone’s info in both server parks.

A transfer presumably moves all your information permanently from one server park to the other. That transfer takes bandwidth and presumably processor power. To do it back and forth every time someone wants to guest would probably be prohibitive, particularly if you have large numbers of people doing it.

In other words, if you play on a European server, your data is in the European server park. If you play on a North American server, your data is there.

If you were guesting, you’d have to go from your computer to Europe and then back to your server park, back to Europe and then back to your computer. At least this is my understanding of it. It would double the lag of transferring.

Firstly, when there were far more concurrent users at launch you could transfer freely and quickly. Why would it be any different now

Secondly, as I said above and in the suggestion, you simply have a cooldown and/or a restriction on how many times you can transfer in a given time period. If you are in a hurry, or really want to go there buy a consumable item from the gem store to help pay for any extra bandwidth used.

Even if you have to wait 10-15 mins for the stuff to copy over I know people would rather have that than be unable to play with friends or switch to a server from their native timezone once it goes quiet in the one they normally play for.

Thirdly it helps alliviate the issue of server merges (and they will come) and quiet servers if people can just go where they want to.

Transferring was never the problem only guesting is. It’s not about you waiting for the stuff to copy over. It’s about bandwidth usage over all, and how that would affect other things.

I don’t know the details if the system, only that when trying to guest to the other region, the lag made the game unplayable. As for the rest of it, would someone switch servers to get onto a better WvW server in Europe so they could switch back to a better WvW server in the US?

Again, I understand your desire for this, but without knowing all the details we can’t know all the problems. It’s easy to say that it’s easy to do….but that doesn’t mean that it is.

Then ditch guesting and move to a transfer system instead. If it works better to transfer the data permanently than shift it for a while then do that. I’ve already suggested a way to pay for an extra bandwidth(Gem store selling quicker cooldowns) and i’m sure there are other ways too.

For sure we don’t know the design parameters used, but I do know it had some constraints that seem to have directed the design decision.
1. The desire for ‘server pride’
2. WvW being server based
3. Wanting to limit people to a ‘server community’

These design decisions very much affect the solution as much as the technical side. These design decisions come with some very serious downsides such as:
1. Community fragmentation(players forced to choose which friends they play with)
2. A greater impact of Server Merges. Server merges have little or no effect on serverless or freedom to choose a server whenever systems.
3. People being stuck on empty servers.
4. Limitations on recruitment and choice of guild

If you look at TSW, EvE, the up and coming TESO then it is certainly and technically possible to have a world wide MMO without the divsion of servers that is playable from anywhere.

The technology side we cant do much about now. But we can challenge the non technical design and suggest a better way of doing things. Think different was always something I attributed to Anet, perhaps it’s time they did.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

Then ditch guesting and move to a transfer system instead. If it works better to transfer the data permanently than shift it for a while then do that. I’ve already suggested a way to pay for an extra bandwidth(Gem store selling quicker cooldowns) and i’m sure there are other ways too.

For sure we don’t know the design parameters used, but I do know it had some constraints that seem to have directed the design decision.
1. The desire for ‘server pride’
2. WvW being server based
3. Wanting to limit people to a ‘server community’

These design decisions very much affect the solution as much as the technical side. These design decisions come with some very serious downsides such as:
1. Community fragmentation(players forced to choose which friends they play with)
2. A greater impact of Server Merges. Server merges have little or no effect on serverless or freedom to choose a server whenever systems.
3. People being stuck on empty servers.
4. Limitations on recruitment and choice of guild

If you look at TSW, EvE, the up and coming TESO then it is certainly and technically possible to have a world wide MMO without the divsion of servers that is playable from anywhere.

The technology side we cant do much about now. But we can challenge the non technical design and suggest a better way of doing things. Think different was always something I attributed to Anet, perhaps it’s time they did.

But Guesting solves a host of problems. Because transferring DOES change your WvW world and hosting does it. If you did this, you’d enrage pretty much every hard core WvW player in the entire game.

The whole reason transfers are as expensive as they are is to stop people from transferring constantly to the winning server. And the reason that guesting was introduced was to allow people to go to another world to play with their friends. Right now, those on US servers can play with their friends on different servers, go to open temples on different servers without transferring.

Making transferring free is a major problem for this game. In fact, when the game came out, because guesting wasn’t in, you were allowed to transfer once per day but people were taking advantage of it, so they changed it to once a week and still the WvW players complained about free transfers.

While I sympathize with your situation, free transfers aren’t going to happen for that reason.

My suggestion offers a solution to the WvW issues. Basically seperate your WvW server choice from the server you actually play on. Then keep the WvW restrictions(cooldown, transfer costs etc) to your WvW server choice.

Does’nt even need a complete re-design, just uses a software modification of systems that are in place and working now

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1634448

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

My suggestion offers a solution to the WvW issues. Basically seperate your WvW server choice from the server you actually play on. Then keep the WvW restrictions(cooldown, transfer costs etc) to your WvW server choice.

Does’nt even need a complete re-design, just uses a software modification of systems that are in place and working now

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1634448

Will not work. NA WvW servers are on the NA data center and EU’s are on the EU data center. They will need to have their account info transferred whenever they go to WvW and whenever they log off (or crash) while in WvW or leave.

This is more than a simple software change. There’s hardware and other factors mentioned in this thread many times that people are just not understanding or ignoring.

We have no info on what/how much/capacity etc of the hardware they use, so we dont know if any new HW is needed at all. The assumption many people make is that to solve a problem you need to throw hardware at it. Now ofc the answer is sometimes, yes you do but clever software design and changes can and do mean no extra hardware is needed at all. I.e We can’t make the assumption that it’s needed or not.

I don’t think you’d need to transfer the data each and every time you log off. Only when you need to transfer from EU-Rest of world or vice versa.

Again the assumption is, is that this would be onerous and hammer the bandwidth, but given the speed in which transfers occured at launch I’m not so sure the overhead would be unacceptable. So yes, while we don’t have measurements etc in place from a historical viewpoint it would seem it could be acceptable.

Teams routinely wait more than 30 mins for people to be available to come so it’s my view that so long as the transfer time is under that time it would be acceptable as a user experience since players often wait that amount of time anyway.

As for the software changes needed, yes I am sure they are trickier than just changing a database field, but remember Anet redid a lot of the graphics engine and network code so as to remove culling. If they can make that magnitude of change once, they can do it again should the desire be there.

Basically, that’s what it comes down to. It’s not impossible to do, neither does it look like it needs a lot of hardware and network changes. What it does need is for Anet to have the desire to revisit something that fragments, disrupts the community as well as make server mergers a whole lot more difficult.

As I stated before, please research data centers and everything related to network connections and gaming. You’re missing something because you don’t have a basic knowledge of this.

Actually, IRL I know a whole load about this(without going into too much detail I do work for DC and infrastructure managed services, often in the $100m+ scale for one of the top 3 IT companies in the world) . I also won’t get in to a kitten contest as to who knows the most though as I choose not to divulge too much about me IRL.

Doing this kinda stuff day in day out for more years than I want to admit. I know what’s possible, what’s not and the pitfalls around them. This is very possible. It’s done every single day around the world, using amounts of data that make GW2 look small scale(in reality it is).

Talking about mis-conceptions it’s a common one in gaming to use the term server to mean a box sitting in a datacentre somewhere. Since A ‘server’ can comprised of many physical(or virtual) servers that can lead to some wrong thinking. In this case i’m using the term server to mean a logical collection of hardware that makes up a discrete and named instance. A logical server can therefore be spread between datacentres(not too far though) or just the one. The size, power and capacity can also be adjusted on the fly to take into account server load or other conditions(such as how overflow works)

When I read how Dust 514 addressed the issue("To mitigate any performance issues that this might have on either of the two games, CCP has designed a server architecture such that the majority of Dust 514 gameplay will be run on various “battle clusters” across the world. These server clusters will handle all the latency sensitive first-person shooter aspects of Dust 514. The main Eve cluster, located in London, will only communicate with Dust 514 for information such as character names.) I thought that is a very neat way of doing things. When I read how GW2’s seems to do it seemed to me to be techinically inferior and far less flexible.

I’m not saying the design is flawed, it was designed around a certain set of criteria and in that respect it’s probably fit for purpose. What i’m trying to do is find a solution that can be put in that does’nt need a complete redesign and yet changes the design criteria such as to eliminate the downsides to it in a reasonably cost effective way.

Probably best leaving it there. I still maintain Anet can change the way things work across regions and do so in such a way that it does’nt need a complete resdesign so we’ll just have to beg to differ.