Guild Wars 2

I think that the present method of listing server load. Accounts with characters on the server, active and inactive, is misleading and dishonest.

We need to move inactive accounts to a dummy server, allowing them to chose an active server if they return to the game.

Listing server load by actual accounts currently logged on will give players more options regarding play time, etc.

Server Lag is getting worse making world events and other game components requiring multiple players unworkable. This makes me think that Arena Net is reducing hardware to save money as the player base erodes. Wouldn’t it be smarter to consolidate the servers allowing active players to enjoy the game more?

What would be your criteria for inactive players hmm?
The game is designed so that you can take a break and come back if you wish.
How can you decide if someone is not coming back?

I would be most furious if I am not able to log on for an extended period and then find myself no longer on my home, where I have been since the BWE’s.

Incidentally, regarding this whole accounts vs players thing- I know it is accepted on these forums that this is the case but how does that account for server fluctuations?

It seems to me that the server pop has at least some semblance of how many people actually play on it otherwise it would be impossible to sneak onto “full” servers in the small hours.

Edit: what server lag?

Server lag? Not experiencing it. I think it’s your computer. Anet increased the number of players that won’t get pushed to overflow, therefore when you go and do a world event you’re not in the same area with more people than ever before. Culling is going to get removed as well, meaning that soon if you’re on a bad computer it’s going to be worse, because you’ll be seeing every single person in the event.

I haven’t noticed any server lag. Occasionally I, or someone else I’m playing with, will get a lag spike but unless it affects multiple people on the same server at the same time I’m inclined to put it down to my internet, or ISP.

And as other people have said how do you define an inactive account? Do they have to be away for a week? A month? 6 Months?

I’ve actually heard some people say there is a system to remove inactive accounts from a server, but it only kicks in if you haven’t logged in for 12 months and obviously it’s impossible for that to start happening until the end of August, so I don’t know how anyone could know for sure.

Edit: Also I’m no expert but I wouldn’t have thought inactive accounts would create an issue with server lag. If they’re inactive then they’re not connecting to the server and adding to the load. Unless you think the issues is that they’ve got so much data (in the form of accounts) on each server that they don’t have enough memory to run properly, in which case the solution would be to add more memory.