Guild Wars 2

How does Linking work? It looks to me as though all the players on the linked server are simply “moved” as temporary guests to maps for the “host” server of Anet’s choice.
This would explain why we can’t see our server name and why we don’t earn any score for ourselves.

Is this right or have I misunderstood what happens behind the scenes?

I had somehow hoped that linking would allow the 12 linked servers to retain some form of identity and some feeling of progress, but I can’t see how this can be achieved if linking works the way I think it does.

Afaik, for linking to work at all, Anet would need to track participation by secondary linked servers separately. How else could they know the impact of adding, say, three servers to Sorrow’s Furnace and only one to Darkhaven? However, there would be no point to track Glicko for the secondary servers, if our “fate” is to be “guests” going forward. This feature is nothing more than server merge without the stigma of using the words “server merge.”

I don’t think Anet are monitoring the linked server scores at all.

Three months ago, on this thread Chris Barrett wrote the following:

• Linked “host” worlds have their Glicko data updated in the usual way. Linked “guest” world Glicko isn’t affected. It’s not yet determined what approach we’ll use for Glicko data for guest worlds when world links are changed, in the case that a guest either becomes a host or goes solo.

I think Anet simply look at the number of players who are on and when, and use this to try to balance the server combinations. This method assumes all players are equally good.

I agree that perhaps the right way to do linking would be to monitor (and publish) the scores for every server, and then create links based on score combinations. This method acknowledges that some players are more skilled. However, I think this would be complex to code because Anet would have to track the home server for each player even when in multiple combinations, which is why I think they just teleport people into the “host” map as temporary players for that side.

I wonder if a dev will step in and confirm or explain for us.

Largely agree with you Yuffi, just commenting on this:

I agree that perhaps the right way to do linking would be to monitor (and publish) the scores for every server, and then create links based on score combinations. This method acknowledges that some players are more skilled.

I don’t know if that is the right thing to do, after all improving in the game should also be rewarded and skill should be a deciding factor for winning. Not just the outnumbered.

So I think them aiming for roughly equal participation/numbers, without looking at the overall skill-levels (however they would accomplish that) is fine.

Also, how are you going to count points from different servers when we have everything from 1-4 servers in the same team. :p that is going to get messy.