Guild Wars 2

The 64-bit client is more reliable for me than the 32-bit client. It crashes perhaps 3-5 times a week, as opposed to 3-5 times a day.

But (and I develop software professionally), a regularly “core-dumping” application is something EVERY development team should consider their HIGHEST priority, in terms of defect mitigation/resolution. Nevertheless, the problem persists…

So, if resolution is not feasible (due to unreliable 3rd-party technology, like Microsoft Windows, or whatever), workarounds to minimize the impact on the user should become the development team’s highest priority. I don’t see any evidence of these workarounds either (?!?), beyond the issue of the 64-bit client (which, granted, has been a major improvement).

I grow unutterably weary of the game crashing, kicking me off a map (like a Dragon Stand map in which I have an hour of my time invested, and which I must for all practical purposes wait another hour to restart in any meaningful way), only to find the map is full when I attempt to reconnect 10-15 seconds later. The recommended expedient, that of being in a party/squad so that we can taxi back to the map, is rarely viable.

I would suggest that Anet implement some sort of “map recovery” capablility. Keep track of which users (in terms of client IPs/accounts/characters) have been connected to each map recently. Hold a population slot open on relevant maps for all such users. If a connection arrives for a recently connected user, deliver them to the same map (to occupy the reserved population slot), restoring them to the state that applied when they crashed. Time out reserved population slots rapidly (30-60 seconds… long enough to allow a crashed user to restart and reconnect, but perhaps not long enough for a user whose system has crashed or whose internet connection has dropped completely, due to reasons beyond Anet’s control).

Something like that.

The fact that nothing like this has been delivered, given the well-known and long-standing issues of unreliability in the GW2 game client, is (IMO) unconscionable.

On the topic of 64 bit client crashing, my client crashes every time it fails to load a map (especially prevalent in LA) 3 crashes in 2 minutes.