Guild Wars 2

So i saw the results from the WvW season, and on T1 was something like:
Blackgate
Blackgate
Blackgate
Blackgate
Oh Maguma
Blackgate
Blackgate….
The worst part is not that the high populated servers have advantage at WvW, but also they are much more active in public events and the players are more happy because the game feels social and populated, guesting solves this problem with the events, but wvw will remain..
Server merging was something that is happening often to other games including MMOs, why not to Gw2 as well?

From an interview with Devon Carver a couple weeks ago:

This is not something we are considering as all our servers have robust populations. Server structure has more implications that just WvW, which means any changes of these sorts would have to take all aspects of the player base into account. In addition, with the queues as they currently exist on those top tier servers, I think it’s more important for us to solve the underlying scoring issues which would let more people play than if we were to cut the number of possible players at any time in half.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/forums/thread/397784/page/1

Number 1 rules of MMO development.
“Never say never”

I’m sure they’ve said something in the past as “not something we’re considering” but then, due to the nature of a constantly developing game, would have had to change that.
Hell, they’ve even said they’ve changed their philosophy about the game now, compared to pre-launch.

Besides, in the long run, if they’re faced with lacking server pops, and burning money keeping them active, it’s more likely NCSoft will give them some direction to cut servers down/merge them.

Game needs an under flow system where empty zones from different servers are merged.

The Starter zones, aside from Queensdale, are void of life.

WvW and guesting have put any server mergers off for a bit. I really don’t see a reason for them at this point in time. Maybe they should make transferring off of BG more enticing :P

Immensus.9732:

Blackgate
Blackgate
Blackgate
Blackgate
Oh Maguma
Blackgate
Blackgate….

When did maguuma win?

It’s getting close, at the rate the game is losing players I dont doubt that server merges will happen within Q1 2014 unless major changes are made.

Yes.

With the overflow system, there is no reason to even have multiple servers from a PvE perspective. The only reason to have split servers is for WvW matches…and there are way too many servers for the current level of WvW activity. Merges should definitely happen before they start Season 2…it’s an opportunity to make league matches much more competitive and balanced than they were in Season 1.

Spawne.3128:

It’s getting close, at the rate the game is losing players I dont doubt that server merges will happen within Q1 2014 unless major changes are made.

I’m curious.
Where are the numbers stating how quickly this game is losing players?
I hear this a lot but I have yet to see any evidence outside of people just saying so…
Seriously, I’d like to know so I can look for myself…

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Spawne.3128:

It’s getting close, at the rate the game is losing players I dont doubt that server merges will happen within Q1 2014 unless major changes are made.

I’m curious.
Where are the numbers stating how quickly this game is losing players?
I hear this a lot but I have yet to see any evidence outside of people just saying so…
Seriously, I’d like to know so I can look for myself…

Don’t mind the gw2 haters, there seems to be a lot of them on this forum.

Most of us are happily playing in game

Ambush.9420:

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Spawne.3128:

It’s getting close, at the rate the game is losing players I dont doubt that server merges will happen within Q1 2014 unless major changes are made.

I’m curious.
Where are the numbers stating how quickly this game is losing players?
I hear this a lot but I have yet to see any evidence outside of people just saying so…
Seriously, I’d like to know so I can look for myself…

Don’t mind the gw2 haters, there seems to be a lot of them on this forum.

Most of us are happily playing in game

What? Most gw2 haters are happily playing the game?

kidding, I know what you’re trying to say…
btw, those gw2 haters you’re referring also plays the game, its just that Anet did something they dont like.

EDIT: On topic, its not time yet, merging servers will happen if the game needs it. Anet will act immediately on this matter when its time

Spawne.3128:

It’s getting close, at the rate the game is losing players I dont doubt that server merges will happen within Q1 2014 unless major changes are made.

LOL, yeah ok another “losing players” person, yet GW2 was number 3 in sales in a major game store behind the two brand new shooters that were just released, top that off apparently you think people pay a sub to this game? no they can come and go, and come back all they want.

Pariah.8506:

Game needs an under flow system where empty zones from different servers are merged.

The Starter zones, aside from Queensdale, are void of life.

I agree with this. Speaking as someone who is on a “high population” server that actually is NOT high, I would love it if there was an underflow system.

I think the problem with your plan of just merging servers together is that you fail to take into account is player playing patterns. Some players don’t ever even touch WvW, and likewise, some players almost never do anything PvE related. For instance, my server, GoM, is considered Very High in population, but we are routinely outnumbered in WvW and are in the bronze league. This is because a large section of our player base is only concerned with achievement point hunting. During the early weeks of this WvW season, we had really high participation, but as people completed their achievements our numbers have significantly dropped off to the point where last week HoD dominated with having 2-3 times as many players in WvW as us even though I think our server is considered more full than theirs.

If you just go merging servers together all willy nilly, you’re likely to get the worst of both worlds. You’ll get a server that still does poorly in WvW and rarely reaches the population cap on a map to be able to compete and you’ll simultaneously get a server that has a ridiculous problem with overflow servers during any big living story event.

IMO it’s at least 4 to 6 months past due for server merges.

Shufflepants made some good points. I think we have the same issue on my server regarding WvW. Personally i like to play in both areas and can really notice the lack of people in wvw compared to pve. Yet at reset and world boss train time the world becomes overwhelmingly busy so that overflows are created. The only time i see waits for wvw is on friday night reset when the wvw guilds are all in.

Merging servers would make the game unplayable during NA prime time. BG won the league with having a strong presence outside of primetime NA. I don’t know about the lower tier servers but all gold league servers can field full maps during NA prime.

There’s no point in merging servers…

People complain about WvW because the other team has more players than them, not because they want more players. Many were happy with the state of low tier servers, their main selling point back when there were tiers were low queues and less zerg oriented combat. People want to be matched fairly, but that’s not possible in the League format. As close as we are ever going to get is back to the original ladder.

That’s what people want. They just didn’t realize it when they started complaining that match ups were stale. What we got were blow outs and people wishing they had a match that resembled the matches they were “stuck” in during Ladder.

LOL….they don not care.

about time, the server mergers are….

don’t just look from the NA perspective. look also from the EU perspective. even for PvE, you don’t need 3 half-dead english speaking servers (or any other languages)…. merge them, save your electricity bills ANET, give players more people to play with…

azizul.8469:

about time, the server mergers are….

don’t just look from the NA perspective. look also from the EU perspective. even for PvE, you don’t need 3 half-dead english speaking servers (or any other languages)…. merge them, save your electricity bills ANET, give players more people to play with…

Merge 3 servers and you end up with 1 server with no one to fight………

Merging servers is admitting that your game is failing, not going to happen.

Most servers seem to be healthy PvE wise anyway.

It is just that WvW-game design favours that all WvW-players concentrate on 1 server.

I stated before, the reason the new Mists map is coming into the game is they’re planning on combining servers in WvW, how people can’t see this i don’t know…

Next League will feature “Teams” of servers

Samhayn.2385:

Merging servers would make the game unplayable during NA prime time. BG won the league with having a strong presence outside of primetime NA. I don’t know about the lower tier servers but all gold league servers can field full maps during NA prime.

I can confirm that yaks has had at least EBG queue during primetime hours and maybe a borderland. Anywhere from a 5 minute queue to an hour+. Last week vs sbi and ebay we had 3 of the 4 maps queued during primetime.

I don’t think traditional server merges are the answer (and would create as many issues as they solve), but I do think they need to get creative and come up with some way to make WvW fun again for everyone.

The idea of teams or alliances of servers with more maps (with people basically guesting to alliance servers to support on those maps) seems like it would be the obvious solution. Done properly, it could potentially fix multiple issues, including number imbalances and long queues on the more popular servers. I sincerely hope they are considering this.

@OP: Horrible idea. You want to merge servers because of blackgate? There is a bigger world out there than just one server you know.

The bigger need is to find ways to balance the population. I know there was a preliminary CDI on that topic and I’ve heard it will be revisited soon.

They will have to wait until at least 4 servers have medium-to-low populations before they decide to merge any.
While WvW is the only thing that really differentiates various servers, you have to take into account fringe cases.

A great example is Anvil Rock. Tumbled to last in WvW, but has the best SPvP population in NA.

I can see that the bottom two in EU are essentially dead weight but the 3rd T9 server is many time more viable.

Lastly, server merges are seen as a show of weakness in a MMO. When they finally decided to deal with having 30 empty servers in SWTOR, all they did was accelerate the transition to F2P.

The problem is your just assuming that the lower servers are dead, they maybe just dead for WvW, you have to get someone interested in it, I would say that after the league you will see a lot of guilds moving about, in order to get better battles in the next season,

I heard that the Silver league was more fun to be in than the gold league, and that’s saying something.

DIBS ON EHMRY BAY MERGING WITH YAK’S BEND!

Immensus.9732:

Server merging was something that is happening often to other games including MMOs, why not to Gw2 as well?

Server merges make no sense under this system. Also PvP population is not a reflection of the server population. most of the NA servers report “Very High”, for total population.

What Anet should have done was preserve the PvE pop under a global overflow system, since servers for them don’t matter when doing carebear content. GW1 style for those that played the predecessor.

Then Anet should have made dedicated Battle servers for players to link to, not the 24 we have now, which is to many given the limited PvP population.

Heck it would be then easy for Anet to tier battle groups to cater to ZvZ battle groups, and lower the map cap for a different tier for havok sized battle servers. I guess under that system they could keep 24 or more depending on how the tier battle groups are defined.

Ok I Did It.2854:

The problem is your just assuming that the lower servers are dead, they maybe just dead for WvW, you have to get someone interested in it, I would say that after the league you will see a lot of guilds moving about, in order to get better battles in the next season,

I heard that the Silver league was more fun to be in than the gold league, and that’s saying something.

Only SoR has not enjoyed Gold League. I think only FA and YB, and maybe NS are happy with their Silver League experience(s).

Boottspurr.9184:

DIBS ON EHMRY BAY MERGING WITH YAK’S BEND!

5 hour queues in NA, still loses to off hours coverage?

Chris.3290:

Boottspurr.9184:

DIBS ON EHMRY BAY MERGING WITH YAK’S BEND!

5 hour queues in NA, still loses to off hours coverage?

Hmm… I see your point.

Ok I Did It.2854:

The problem is your just assuming that the lower servers are dead, they maybe just dead for WvW, you have to get someone interested in it, I would say that after the league you will see a lot of guilds moving about, in order to get better battles in the next season,

I heard that the Silver league was more fun to be in than the gold league, and that’s saying something.

The lower tiered servers are dead. If you say they are not, I would ask you visit there pve side as well. I had a week in ferg’s and it took forever to down jormag, in kaineng no different, in fact when I arrived there back on the ‘mouthbreather’ era … they couldn’t even farm orr properly. This coming from a past Darkahaven player, whose pve was far superior.

But none of them are near as solid as TC and BG, I would assume JQ the same.

And yes, I’d also concur that Gold League every server enjoyed for the most part. Even some SoR but server as a whole may be enjoyed it the least. I cannot speak for them, but I’ve seen nothing but positive and enjoyable times across the other 5.

~X, TC

I don’t know what to believe.
We have a guy from DR asking how best to use an 80 person zerg all on TS3 (I haven’t seen anything like that in T2-T5; the closest thing being last night’s blood bath at NWT on TCBL); and people on ET talking about GoM’s “huge” nighttime presence.

I don’t know if these kind of things are “in perspective” or exaggerations.
I personally think both NA and EU could shave off a tier and do just fine; but I haven’t seen any numbers to support or deny this.