Guild Wars 2

Something I was just thinking about. What happens if population spreads too thin across the servers in the game? Usually we see server merges happen, but I am curious what would happen in GW2’s case.

Server pride is more prevalent in this game when compared to others due to how WvW works. What would be ANet’s course of action? What if servers got merged? How would you feel being grouped with people who were once your sworn enemy?

Of course everyone especially the devs want healthy numbers across all servers, but this has to be thought about eventually.

A certain popular MMO still hasn’t had forced merges. I don’t think this is something they’re thinking of yet. Plus, since there isn’t a sub, its not exactly easy to determine how active a server is, it literally could change overnight.

Right, I am not saying it is something they have to be thinking about right now. However it is inevitable. So it is just a curious question as to the course of action they would take.

Sign me up for Yaks of Madness. Although, I’d be just as happy on Gates of Rock.

Heh .. WvW is about tactics, and using your brain .. if you can´t respect your opponent for his performance in the code of “Art of War”, then you can´t understand the nonsense your question comes with.
.. but on the other hand, human nature is cruel – one way, or the other – it´s gonna be fun, when it occurs.

A better question, do you think the current way WvWvW works is broken?Should it really be FA vs TC vs YB or SoS vs SBI vs JQ? What if a server is primarily focused on dungeons and PvE content? Should the players in that server suffer since the server would be considered “full” still.

Server may be full, but full of what? Botters? Dungeon runners? Non-wvw folks?

DivineBeing.2086:

A better question, do you think the current way WvWvW works is broken?Should it really be FA vs TC vs YB or SoS vs SBI vs JQ? What if a server is primarily focused on dungeons and PvE content? Should the players in that server suffer since the server would be considered “full” still.

Server may be full, but full of what? Botters? Dungeon runners? Non-wvw folks?

That is interesting indeed. So more like a classic server selection where you pick a PvE server or WvW server. I guess with these free transfers if people think their server is dead in the sense of WvW they can move off, but then you have that whole issue of your guild losing all upgrades.

ANET can change the server population caps on a whim, there are no truly “full” servers, they just set them that way to keep WvW queues and overflow maps down.

Are there really any worlds that have regular queues for WvW left? It doesn’t seem that way when all 3 of US tier 1 servers complain of having the outmanned buff at times. Have you been an overflow map for any zone other then Lions Arch since September (Lost Shores and events don’t count)? PvE maps on tier 1 servers could use a lot more people around these days so I cannot even begin to imagine how empty the world must feel on less than “full” servers.

Yes, the bottom tier needs to be merged into the next one up. Those were expansion worlds added after release to relieve some of the WvW queue pressure and they served their purpose. The communities should not be destroyed with forced transfers off of a closed world but instead be merged into the tier above to make 6 medium population worlds into 3 full ones (i.e Devona’s Rest, top of tier 9 would be merged with Gates of Madness, bottom of tier 8 ). Yes, it will wreak havoc on the rankings for a few weeks while the dust settles but with free weekly transfers still open things would settle down and people could keep their community in tact or search out more a like minded one as some players on the smaller worlds are there for a reason and like being underpopulated.

This cannot happen until such time and the guild influence transfer issues are straightened out however so hopefully that is on the top of ANET’s list to fix along with some of the more serious glaring WvW bugs.

Joey.3928:

DivineBeing.2086:

A better question, do you think the current way WvWvW works is broken?Should it really be FA vs TC vs YB or SoS vs SBI vs JQ? What if a server is primarily focused on dungeons and PvE content? Should the players in that server suffer since the server would be considered “full” still.

Server may be full, but full of what? Botters? Dungeon runners? Non-wvw folks?

That is interesting indeed. So more like a classic server selection where you pick a PvE server or WvW server. I guess with these free transfers if people think their server is dead in the sense of WvW they can move off, but then you have that whole issue of your guild losing all upgrades.

EXACTLY! Lol, I was really worried after I posted this that people wouldn’t understand what I was saying but you got the point exactly.

Joey.3928:

Something I was just thinking about. What happens if population spreads too thin across the servers in the game? Usually we see server merges happen, but I am curious what would happen in GW2’s case.

Server pride is more prevalent in this game when compared to others due to how WvW works. What would be ANet’s course of action? What if servers got merged? How would you feel being grouped with people who were once your sworn enemy?

Of course everyone especially the devs want healthy numbers across all servers, but this has to be thought about eventually.

I already think most of my own server are riding the short bus, what is more from another server?

Sanctum of Rall and Isle of Janthir should merge

Sanctum of Janthir.

If they do mergers then there might be more commanders out there than there are zerglings.

i think we’re months if not a year away from any type of server mergers

Being on Kaineng, I was just thinking about servers being merged together because of low populations. When the alliance I’m in moved to Kaineng 2 months ago from Dragonbrand we were seeking no queues. Dragonbrand at that time was ranked #6 and in Tier 2. There were 30+ minute queues on all 4 maps at once as it was just about 1 month after launch of the game. Now that a ton of players have experienced the game for a couple months and are playing more casually or even left, I assume the servers are less jam packed. I really feel like Tier 8 should be merged into whatever servers they deem fit because they’ve served their purpose of opening up space for the initial rush to the game. Now that it’s died down a ton, it’s really hard to find Dungeon groups and WvW could be better. I really don’t want to have to transfer off towards greener grass and wish anet could solve the problems for us by merging. If we as a community have to transfer off to kill the servers forcing anet’s hand… I’m not looking forward to doing that.

I kind of rambled on at the end, late at night.

Does anyone even have queues on 4 maps longer than 5 minutes? or even queues on more than 2 maps?

I think server just needs to merge with the next tier, such as the t8 servers into the t7 servers, no need to split pve and wvw servers, because guilds that do both pve and wvw want to still be in the same server while wanting to recruit active players from wvw. But once player is invited to guild but is in a different pve server it doesnt let them do anything during their off hours of wvw, making them find a pve guild and a wvw guild, and sometimes you miss messages in guild chat because of that.

Joey.3928:

Something I was just thinking about. What happens if population spreads too thin across the servers in the game? Usually we see server merges happen, but I am curious what would happen in GW2’s case.

Server pride is more prevalent in this game when compared to others due to how WvW works. What would be ANet’s course of action? What if servers got merged? How would you feel being grouped with people who were once your sworn enemy?

Of course everyone especially the devs want healthy numbers across all servers, but this has to be thought about eventually.

Anet wouldn’t have to do a merge at all. Toons would just have a simple pointer tag for the server they rep for WvW only. PvE would default to the overflow system where by the PvE pop would be clustered together in one large pool similar to GW1. This should be trivial to implement for Anet.

Would be hilarious if Maguuma and Ehmry Bay got merged.