Guild Wars 2

So, my wife did not start playing the game until later on, after all my other friends and family went onto Tarnished Coast. I want to play with her, but because of the “Server Full” status, I am unable to transfer her to my server. Additionally, at this time there is no way to constantly “Guest” to her server, allowing me to play with her. The only times this is possible is areas like Lion’s Arch, which puts us into over-flow. I do not want to leave my other friends and family. And asking them all to change to a different server seems ridiculous. What do I do and how do I get my wife to my server? Or how can I play with her at least beyond a few specific areas?

You have to just keep trying at all different times of day until it opens up a slot for her. Try very early mornings 1-2 am try odd hours in the afternoon etc.

Just pop her in the post and she’ll be there by Tuesday.

On a serious note, I’ve read on the wiki that you can transfer using Gems? or is that not implemented yet?

Server transfers are free Lyenyo. When the server is full you just have to keep watching it until it is no longer full to get into a full one. Gems, money or Anet cant do anything to get you into a full server. Just waiting and watching it will.

If she could transfer by just paying gems I would have done it already.

I tried getting on TC also the past week straight. It was even full @ 2-5am everyday.
3 of us finally got in 5pm pst on Thursday.
Hope this helps & good luck.

Ah, I’ve just re-read the Wiki, apparently the Gem transfer service does exist but it’s NOT in the shop.

In a day or two….

In all fairness you have 8 servers out of 24 that you can transfer to right now. All at very high… which means in the current trend eventually we could end up with all servers at full. So I’m gonna ask are you ever going to raise the population levels or is transferring going to be a thing of the past soon?

Gaile Gray.6028:

I’m afraid there isn’t a perfect answer. As players have suggested, trying during different times may be effective.

Hi Gaile, I think it would save a lot of trial and error and frustration if some more details of the Server Population system can be given.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-explain-the-Server-Population-system

For example, you could tell us if the status only updates once per hour, so we only need to check once per hour. Or if you can get stats on when servers tend to become unfull for whatever reason, then it can give us some target times to pay attention, etc.

Whilst the best solution is Guesting and/or a queueing system for transfers, it would be nice if ANet could save us a bit of frustration/time by giving more details of how the system works.

At the moment I can’t think of any scenario where such information could be misused (in contrast to the details of the farming diminishing returns system, or bot detection system, for example) so I hope you will consider releasing such info soon.

:)

You may have to just try some odd hours and you have to keep looking rather than just check once as the server status for this game changes often and sometimes quickly. My husband and I had the same problem and we just had to be stubborn and quick. When we have managed it the window to get in was often only a few minutes at a time. G’luck.

I’m in the exact same situation as the OP (same server too). Been trying for more than a week to get this transfer done, checking the status at all different times of day and no luck.

We know the population caps are somewhat arbitrary because you made them all wide open for the invite a friend weekend thing. Can’t you just open it up a little higher?

How do you get two accounts on same server. I have a guild on one server with all my friends yet I can’t play on that server cause it always says full. In America 80% of the servers are always full I even wait all night still full. I can’t access guild bank or buffs from the other server and I can’t contribute in world vs world or even participate in anything guild based. Even PvE with my friends doesn’t really work all the time for dungeons and such don’t get us all on the same server.

Why is the cap so low for full can’t you just extort us with 50 gems or something already your going to do it anyways. I want to go with my friends on Tarnish Coast.

Lyenyo.2891:

Ah, I’ve just re-read the Wiki, apparently the Gem transfer service does exist but it’s NOT in the shop.

You transfer servers from the character select screen. At some point in the future these will cost gems and likely use the costing scheme listed on the wiki page, however, since launch and until an unknown time in the future all server transfers are free so the gem transfer service and it’s related costs/information can be ignored entirely until transfers are no longer free.

My friend is also having this problem. Please do something about this.

I have talked my friends into buying the game but can not get them on the same server where we have a guild and time invested. How do we get them on our server? Do you have any recruitment options to help us make you money and allow us to play together? Please address this fustrating issue.

I am talking my Friends into buying the game but can not get them on the same server where we have a guild and time invested. How do we get them on our server? Do you have any recruitment options to help us make you money and allow us to play together? Please address this fustrating issue.

I was so close this morning …. logged in with my wife’s account to check it when I woke up, Tarnished Coast was at “Very High” … clicked it … “Network Problems”! Argh! Quickly logged back in, but it was too late.

There’s a small part of me hoping that guesting will come very soon, which would basically solve the problem as I don’t think my wife will be playing much WvW, but I really don’t want to build up high expectations for that.

I asked them about this and here’s the response I got from support:

Hi there,

Thanks for contacting the Guild Wars 2 Support Team.

We are sorry to hear you ran into this issue with your world selection. Now that said, we are aware there is a large strain on the servers at this time and they are filling up quickly. We are working hard to try and do our best to make sure everyone can play where they would like. However, if a server is listed is full you will not be able to select it as your home server for now, nor can you transfer to it using the transfer service. We do not have a way to work around this on our end either, as each world can only support so many accounts.

Spaces do occasionally free up on those servers, though, so you could try keeping an eye on the server population. We’re constantly monitoring world population, and while we haven’t made announcements about whether or not we’ll increase population caps, it’s definitely not outside the realm of possibility.

I hope that answers your question, but should anything else pop up please let us know about it. Thanks so much for your time and you have a great day!

Regards,
<Removed>

I’ve been trying to transfer to Tarnished Coast for over a week, and it’s never less than full. I’ve tried all kinds of times, but I just can’t put my life on hold and sit at the computer for however long it takes for something to open up so I can get into a server where I can roleplay.

Can we please have some kind of transfer queue? EX: If a server is full I sign up on the transfer list, then when spot opens up the first person on the list gets offered the chance to transfer in or decline the transfer and be removed from the list. Maybe make it a paid option, since it involves development time and doubtless operations work.

I just think a non-RNG way is fairer. The current transfer method is pretty random, and given a 2+ million population the odds of transfering onto a full server are similar to the odds of getting a precursor from the mystic forge.

Guesting would also do a lot to address the problem.

Gilosean.3805:

Can we please have some kind of transfer queue? EX: If a server is full I sign up on the transfer list, then when spot opens up the first person on the list gets offered the chance to transfer in or decline the transfer and be removed from the list. Maybe make it a paid option, since it involves development time and doubtless operations work.

This gets my vote. I’ve been trying to transfer to Tarnished coast for over a month now and still no luck. It’s getting rather frustrating.

Honestly this really sucks…I just got this game to play with a friend of mine and now I can’t been watching the server all night and it has never dropped from full. It is really frustrating… I feel like I purchased an MMO to play a single player game. This needs to be fixed. I like the idea of at least being able to go on a wait list or something. Because another thing that is unfair & frustrating is the idea of someone getting the slot because they happened to log in at the “right time”. (Example: Someone on here has been trying for a month for that server. However I just buy the game and log in, and there happens to be room on the server. So as someone who just picked the game up I get a spot another player has been trying for, for a month.) Its just not right it really needs to be fixed. I would rather pay like that guy said to be on a wait list for a server.

I really hope that the people in charge of guild wars are still paying attention to this issue. I recently decided I wanted to start playing GW2 again after a long hiatus. This decision was made mainly because my really good friend is playing, and I hardly get to see her irl because she lives so far away. However, she plays on TC because her family is a part of that server. I’m not going to ask her to leave or expect that she and her family move servers to play with me. But I’m not going to start playing this game again if I can’t play with her. I don’t want to just do dungeons with her. I want to play the game with her. This seems really stupid. I’ll pay money or join a queue, that would be great. Just offer us something, please????

I’m stuck in this untenable situation also. My wife can’t join me on Crystal Desert. We’ve been checking out different times for over a week and its consistently full. She mostly plays to be with me, and if this can’t be arranged, then we’ll have to find another game.

I wanted to mention, I know the prescribed answer here: sit and wait for the server to drop below full. But I have a life. I would love to include GW2 as part of my life, but for me the primary draw of this game is that it’s an MMO: I can play with my FRIENDS. That’s by far most important for me. As sandman mentioned, if I can’t play with my friend, I’m going to go do something else. And no, GW2 won’t die because I don’t play. It’s a great game. But still-I’m a potential gem-spending consumer. I spend money on things that captivate me. Hey, I’ll freely admit this!! If I like the game, I’ll spend money on it! I don’t mind! But if nobody is offering me any solution other than sitting vacantly at a computer screen refreshing the world select, methinks arenanet is losing my potential consumerhood.

Look, all I’m saying is this: I will sit and try to get into this server for awhile. But eventually I’ll give up. And I know the people in charge of GW2 have heard tons of happy success stories of people getting into full servers to play with family/friend’s. I’m just asking you guys to consider how many MORE people gave up and just lost interest in the game. Imagine all the potential money lost by people who just want to play with friend’s/family/spose/guildmates. Imagine all the people who didn’t want to refresh a screen for a week straight for a tiny window of opportunity to play the game with the only people they are even playing the game for in the first place!!!

Just saying

I been checking daily to see when my husband can get back to Tarnished Coast. I live on the west coast so I been going on odd hour times when most of the US is asleep. Still no avail. My husband left Tarnished Coast to get his friend to play and course, his friend decided not to play as much, so my spouse has been stranded on another server for a while. They need to expand the server cap or create new servers, otherwise people will stop playing if they can’t get their friends on their server.

Hey, I just wanted to add my voice. I usually lurk and never post, but I wanted to add my voice to this. I play alot of games. This one specifically I bought to play with friends not solo. I couldn’t care less about playing single player in GW2 Im here for the wvwvw as that feature is not provided in most other games. As it stands now though within 4 hours of my guild and family transfering to Sanctum of Rall, I even living in France atm and am supposedly on SoR’s “off hours” cannot transfer onto that “full” server. So the result now is that I am restricted from playing the game for the reasons I paid for it in the first place. I have in the past encouraged other friends and family to purchase this game so that we could play together. Now I feel like I got stabbed in the back unintentionally by the powers that be. I don’t have the time or the will to sit here for hours daily just hoping a spot opens up on a full server that never changes, I’ve been at it for 2 days n kittenittenired of it. So what does this result in reality? I cant play the game with my friends and family and I wont recommend a game to new potential players because atm I cant play with them or the ones already playing the game. I’m extremely frustrated with the situation because EVERYONE loses here. You lose sales, I lose time with my family and friends, they lose time with me, and your community that keeps you in business slowly deteriorates. GW2 is a special game and has a place in my game quiver, but there are other things to spend my time and money on other than watching a server transfer page in the hopes someone quits the server of choice and I somehow beat everyone else to the punch. No thank you. Bad form. Bad form…

Gaile is right, people. Yes, in an ideal world, everyone would be able to play on the server of their choice. However, in the real world, servers have a limit to the number of players that can be on at any one time. Those who are trying to set up / transfer to a server listed as Full will just have to wait until a time when it is not listed as Full. Full means Full, as in a full glass means it will hold no more. Some must be removed before more can be added.

I made it in to the choice server, but had to share my account details with 3 other people to delegate “watch” hours. This situation is obviously not preferable and could be rectified by simply by adding a server transfer request “queue” feature. Full means full but its also full of “ham” that players should have to resort to this sort of action to play with each other, and effectively blocking them from play (if they don’t desire to play alone) for days or weeks at a time. You honestly stand a chance to lose those players over the time period because unlike waiting in line at a movie, or at an arcade, gaming on the web and the PC generally provides immediate gratification. And yes I’ve been playing since AC as well. I may have been fortunate in my day but this is the first time I’ve had this issue with a game or an MMO in general. I only posted because this is a legitimate concern and I’m glad your reading the forums. =) But, I honestly think it wouldn’t take too much to fix this situation by adding the transfer queue which would be fair to all involved that wanted a transfer, and certainly more fair than either delegating player responsibility to ‘watch’ the server situation and sharing confidential account details, or having your players waste their time daily merely using their computer to sit and stare at a static screen. Its a single sour spot in your design. We (the concerned) are just pointing out our distress, what we really don’t want to hear is “Yeah you just have to wait in line and get lucky =)” Not in this digital age of immediate gratification and indulgence.

That all being said, I’m sure with extreme effort on the players parts they can get in. But this issue could be solved with the above suggestion by Arenanet without causing players to be this concerned and miss time with their friends and family and your game. Its a lovely game and we love playing it, so lets figure out a way to make that happen more often, not less. Thank You.

Shinobi.2839:

That being said I made it in to the choice server, but had to share my account details with 3 other people

I hope you changed your password afterwards…

Same problem here. Waking 3am, 4am, 5am (Pacific Time) today to try to go to Sanctum of Rall without success. Was playing alone since beta tests, waiting for some friends, but they didn’t come. Last weekend I went to a nice guild, but can’t go to their server. Was most of the time on Jade Quarry, a full server too, but there was times when my friends could move into there…

Honestly, I’m pretty disheartened by Gaile’s response here. I’ve been trying to transfer to SoR since I purchased the game and have still to find the server to be not full.

I, like many others, purchased the game after hearing good things from friends, and I want to play with said friends.

No, I don’t expect a special exception, but at the same time I don’t see why the devs couldn’t come up with what Shinobi just mentioned. A server transfer queue would take 5 minutes to develop the code for, and it would solve a lot of the inadequacies with the current system.

For someone who works everyday and wants nothing but to log in and play with friends after I get home, this game is becoming really frustrating. Not because the gameplay isn’t excellent – it is – but because I’m stuck staring at a World Selection server screen all day, waiting for the opportunity to play on the same server as my friends.

Anyway, it’s one thing to say you’ve heard us and you’re working on it. It’s another thing to say “well this is just like waiting for a parking spot”. Gimme a break.

I don’t pay to sit at a parking lot waiting for a parking spot, FYI.