Guild Wars 2

Recently they stated that with the new system culling is gone completely and up to 300 people can be on your screen at a time. What I’m curious about is the “range” at which people will become visible. There’s obviously a range but what is it? Will I be able to see 200 people standing on Ascension Bay’s outer south wall while I’m at briar near the spawn? What’s the range and will that always be the distance at which a group will be rendered at?

What I’m worried about is that a zerg will still “cull in” when right on top of you, but when they do there’s up to 300 people. Will this big zerg now cull in from a mile away so we can actually make a tactical decision? Being able to see 300 people on your screen will still be useless if they still magically appear on top of you.

Anyone know if these were answered in an interview of some sort?

EvilSardine.9635:

Will I be able to see 200 people standing on Ascension Bay’s outer south wall while I’m at briar near the spawn?

No, but mostly because you can’t actually get that many players from one server into one of the maps right now anyway.

range of vision will be the same it currently is though.

I wish one of the devs would see this thread and answer some of these questions.

Either way I’m looking forward to tomorrow!

In places where you’re not affected by culling, it’s possible to see people from very far away. For example, you could watch people doing the winter wonderland jumping puzzle from the other end of the map, which is pretty far. Targeting seems to have a limited range also, since although you can see it, you can’t target it once it’s at a certain distance.

You should be able to test it right now by finding a quiet spot (no other mobs/players/targets around) and walking away from another person until they disappear, at which point that would be the max distance. Once the change goes live, you should be able to see up to X people within that max distance. A zerg will still be able to pop in on you however if there’s already X people within your view.