Guild Wars 2

Suggestion to fix things https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1634448

robocafaz.9017:

Dude, like everything you listed was stuff that wasn’t added to GW1 until later updates… Nothing was removed, they just haven’t been added yet.

Contrary to popular nostalgia-bespectacled beliefs, GW1 didn’t launch with everything you see in it today.

I’ve seen this argument a lot, even before launch. Of course GW1 didnt launch with all those features there. Anet learned a lot from GW1 launch and applied those lessons.

Where the argument falls down is that to make it true then every lesson learned from GW1 had been forgotten or discarded in between GW1 and GW2. I.e They learned no lessons (or decided to forget/defer them until later) and in effect threw every thing away.

As for RP servers etc. I’m not sure how you can ever do this unless the RP server is totally segregated from everyone else and some degree of moderation is performed. Otherwise it’ll become a troll magnet.

Custom chat channels, a more flexible UI etc are all features that any AAA MMO should have had from launch, but obviously did not have the priority at the time.

Server load is the main reason why conditions are capped at 25 per set of people inflicting them. I.e the 25 is a group cap, not an individual one.

Friday bump. Same time, same place

Friday bump for Euro mesmers. Same time, same place. We’re planning to do a guild bounty for those who want to get their weekly rewards and commendations, a dungeon or whatever mesmers need doing

Did you actually read any of the suggestions people made at the time? There were loads that would not need a ground up re-design and that would use the existing mechanics we already have and have been proven to work at launch. Now ofc we dont know the cost of doing these etc etc but on the face of it, some are less work than the culling changes.

Now while i’m sure no one designed it to annoy people. At design time, the negative impact (community fragmentation, friends being forced to choose which set of friends they can play with etc etc) was IMHO deemed less than whatever positives (at a guess WvW and some notion of server pride)

I.e we are so clear that we want WvW linked to the servers people actually play on in other game types we’re prepared to have friends, guilds and the like split apart to allow that to happen

The hope is, is that Anet can take a long look at the so called positives weigh them against the negative effects on the community and perhaps decide the equation does’nt balance anymore enough to make the effort to change it.

We know they do can and did do this because they did it in GW1 with the way favor worked and the freedom to choose a region whenever you liked and now they’ve done a complete overhaul of the engine in the culling changes in GW2.

The topic is being able to play with any player anywhere in the world. Not if server transfers should be paid or not, which is an entirely different issue.

Furthermore it’s not for us to say if something will or won’t ever be changed. The best we can do is offer well reasoned constructive suggestions (like the link I posted above I hope) for them to take into account when planning future changes.

I wonder where we would be not only in this game but in RL if people just said “oh that’s how it works, accept it it wont change..”

Transfer there, transfer back when you’re done…. The mechanic is already there , in place and working.

But at launch you could freely transfer servers to and from EU to US and vice versa(it only took 2 mins too) .. If it were a data location issue then that would have not been possible.

I think what they meant was temporary movement was’nt possible. But by transferring it is. As I said, the only reason we still cant transfer at will was because of WvW.

You could keep the existing with region guesting system, but perform a server transfer across regions to keep network usage down.

Seperate your WvW server choice from your PvE server choice and it solves a lot of issues

Then perform a server transfer instead. The mechanic is already there and people could freely do it at launch.

The reason why it was stopped was because of WvW(see above on how to fix it)

I think the option to hide achievement points in game and on the leaderboard is a better idea tbh.

There is no obvious security risk as nothing in the account name is used to log in with, nor send you emails outside of game. What I don’t like is people’s performance being measured and ranked for PvE, especially when the measure is such a flawed mechanic as achievement points.

E.g I get 10 achivement points for Dungeon Master and yet 40 points for levelling cooking to 400 which costs me something like 2g. Surely people are’nt saying buying and using crafting mats and a guide is 4 times more difficult and skill worthy that doing every dungeon path..

emikochan.8504:

I wish you could guest across the pond, TC is the best rp server ever and there’s not really an EU equivalent

I don’t understand why you can’t, I don’t mind some lag..

WvW, a notional idea that little boxes called servers are more important than long term established friends

No one has yet answered why if lag is such an issue that it would ruin peoples experience they still allow people from different regions to roll on a server in that different region. People would put up with extra latency if it could mean they could play with friends

Best solution I can think of. Seperate your WvW server of choice from the server you PvE on. Allow free transfers to your PvE server and paid transfers to your WvW server. see here for more info https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1258012

The decision to region lock gutted entire communties, gave people a horrible choice of who they can play with and is without doubt the worst aspect of GW2. It is imho a reprehensible design decision with obvious negative consequences that I personally have never seen any postive outcome benefits that outweigh them

Back in the real world. the real issue is, is that Anet don’t currently have enough trained people to rework the system (even if they wanted to) and these people are maxed out doing other back end stuff.

Fay.2735:

They already said they are going to remove culling from PvE at a later date:

ColinJohanson.2394:

The initial release of this system will be for WvW only. There are additional complications we need to solve with PvE due to the number and variety of creatures on screen that WvW doesn’t need to account for. Later this year, we’ll be expanding as much of the changes to the PvE open world as we can as well.

I remember reading that too. But it does’nt really explain why culling seems to have gotten worse since January. Perhaps it’s one of those it has to get worse before it gets better things?

PvE Culling is certainly worse than at launch and even since the start of the year. My suspicision is that they increased culling in the open world to free up capacity for WvW.

The culling makes doing any sort of world event a painful experiene, it makes LA look deserted except for when about 10 feet away when suddenly all these people pop up from nowhere.

I seriously doubt it’s my system or internet connection that’s under spec. I7 3770, 16gb memory, a 690 GTX and 100mb, low latency net connection. GW2 also runs from an SSD.

Something has been changed at the server end, and tbh it’s spoiling the immersion of the game in many areas.

The worry is, is that people will see achievement points as the measure of player ability and skill, leading to discrimination and general meaness

Thanks to all who came. This week we held a guild mission for the Euro Mesmers. Something we hope to expand on in future weeks to allows mesmers from all guilds of any size to join in and experience guild missions.

Looks like you had a great time without me :p A friday update to say we’ll be in the usual place (lyssa’s WP in DR) at 21:00 GMT

Friday night bump. I wont be there tonight, but i’m sure there will be people there ready for chatting, chilling and killing.

After mass slaughter of the living story we’re back this Friday same place (Gandara, Lyssa’s WP in DR)

Friday Bump. Same time, same place. This week i’m proposing we go do some living story to get our achievemnts.

Friday bump for this. Same time, same place.

Last week, after freeing some temples, a few attendees needed Caudicus explorables so we duly obliged. A few tricky pulls but otherwise it was smooth sailing.

Phase 1 of lupi is a pain if you are shatter based. I tend to run greatsword/Staff for lupi for a few reasons.
1. You can use the long range of GS to kill escaping grubs
2. Illu wave is great for pushing grubs backwards(away from lupi ofc) and giving people a few more seconds.

3. As far as clones are concerned i’ve used them deliberatly before to target a grub and then shatter them to kill. It’s the clones that run forward and engage lupi that are the risks. So just shatter asap and you’ll be fine.

When we do Arah, i mainly focus on DPS lupi in phase 1, while using clones for an OMG moment if a grub has’nt been picked up or the others need support.

A mesmer at lupi certainly is’nt a waste of a slot. Blink is invaluable for getting away from his shadow walk and bubble and also getting to a downed team mate fast without attracting the AoE on the way there.
Added to this timewarp is an amazing getting up from downed/defeated skill which, especially now often means the difference between a wipe and a win.

I guess the first question people will ask is, will using this app get you banned or hacked?

I’m sure you are’nt doing anything dodgy intentionally but it would be good imho to get a steer or confirmation from Anet about it’s use.

We had a great time last week with an all mes CoE run and attacking the temple of Grenth.

We’ll be meeting at the same place this week. Lyssa’s waypoint in DR at 21:00 GMT on Gandara

Cya there.

EU one meets tonight also.

Gandara, 21:00 GMT at Lyssa’s waypoint in DR

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/EU-All-Mesmer-Meets-Fri-21-00-GMT/first#post1348898

Hi

This is a follow on post from the pre-guesting events held on Gandara over the past couple of months

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/All-Mesmer-Meets-Gandara-Every-Friday-9pm-GMT/first#post1286585

Now guesting is in, we’re throwing this event open to anyone with a mesmer and who fancies coming along for tips, chat and doing fractals, Dungeons or whatever.

Server to Guest to : Gandara
Place to meet : Lysssa’s Waypoint in DR
Time : Every Friday at 21:00 GMT
Contact : Shanaeri Rynale.

Hopefully we’ll see you there.

Shan

Don’t worry we’ll be here next week when guesting is here.

BTW just under 3.5 hours until this weeks event.

This is different from server forums as guild/community events can be open for anyone. There’s a growing number of activities, some of which are weekly. Having a central location for them would be of huge help

Hi

Many guilds and communities are starting to run events for players to attend and atm these posts have nowhere to go other than more general forums.

My guild has been running weekly events and contests for a few months now and due to the activity of the forums its getting harder to spread the word(other than continued bumping). There are also a few other guilds starting to schedule events and contests too and I expect they will soon run into the same issues.

Players Helping Players would seem to be a nice place to put these, but again they soon get absorbed into other topics.

It would seem logical to be able to have a place where people can go to see what’s going on in their region community wise and see how they can join in.

Not only would it help to raise the profile of these events it helps establish a more integrated community feel to the game.

last week we returned to AC and gave Ghost Eater a darn good illusionary thrashing. It all went pretty smoothly with blink, portal and into the void being of particular note.

We’ll be in EU LA Overflow this week. Look for my IGN (Shanaeri Rynale as a commander tag, near the fountain)

Mungrul.9358:

I prefer straight answers; sales and marketing lingo with its evasive phrasing annoys me and makes me believe that the person using said language does not respect me.

This type of language has been predominant from ArenaNet recently, with all answers sufficiently ambiguous so as to constantly allow themselves “Get out of jail free” cards.

Answers such as “We will not be adding another tier of gear in 2013” when asked if they will be adding more tiers above ascended to the game. The subtext here is that they may very well add extra tiers in any year after 2013.

It’s cowardly.

I do kinda agree. They gained a whole load of respect from me when they said sorry about how the Ascended items was handled a(we needed to to fit a gap between Exotic and legendary. what gap?) and that they are working on sorting the issues out.

The thing is, it should’nt have taken a 20,000 reply thread to do it.

It’s the same with guesting. We were given a reason, which logically does’nt stack up with no sense of disapointment they could’nt make it work. Instead we get a “We knew players would’nt like it but we’re doing it anyway” answer.

You know what would have been better about the guesting thing. It would have been something like

“We’re really sorry we could’nt get cross region guesting to work. We spent months trying to but in the end it was just too risky and unreliable to put it in.

We’ve not forgotten about it though so we may come back to it if we get another brain wave. For now though improving the core game and getting as solid experience as we can for you is our main focus"

It’s nearly what they wrote. But in the Anet version there was not a hint of regret or sadness. So it just comes across as arrogance and ya boo sucks to you

If you know something is going to be controversial or bad news tell us up front. The worst that will happen is that you’ll get the same flak for it but an appreciation for being open about it. The best you’ll manage to find a way to fix it and be seen as amazing

Basically, treat us as intelligent adults. Own up to screw ups, admit your limitations and please don’t try to hide behind spin, mis-direction or silence.

Be proactive, don’t wait for brown stuff to hit the fan. Everyone here is a fan and a customer we’re not your enemies out to get you.

Engage us more, step away from the twitters and facebooks and PR AMA’s. Get into the game world more, chat to players, attend community events. Sure it’ll be wild for a while but at least people will feel listened to , treated as equals and part of it.

Basically, makes us feel we are part of things WITH you, not a bunch of people who feel like things are being DONE to us.

If performance between players in NA and in EU playing on each others servers is so bad and so erratic as to make guesting untenable why even let them roll on other regions servers in the first place.

I agree it does come across as arrogance in the extreme. Perhaps they are so confident that losing some more customers won’t matter because the game is so awesome

I assume there is a “Is this a valid node for the player” function so you would’nt need to have a manual check for each node coded. You’d simply call the function and if the server you’re on wasn’t your loyal one that would return false and as you say display the node as depleted

I agree there is a way of playing with friends in other regions.

The new GW2 premium membership subscription. Play with your friends anywhere, at any time and no matter the region for the bargain sum of only (using Beta costs) of $35 a month

Don’t miss out on playing with your friends of many years, buy your gems today.

I would imagine loyalty servers would be measured for loading also and either people would be refused to select them, or would need to wait longer. Just as they do now.

The mechanics for measuring server fullness are there already so while i’m sure it’d be a little more work it’s still do-able.

Besides, it would soon autobalance. E.g would you rather have. a 30 min wait for EB or zero wait for T2 set of loyal servers to play on. Basically, with server fullness it would operate just as now.

I’m sure it’s not that neat or tidy but it could at least avoid a ‘Tyrian curtain’ cutting the entire game community in two.

As mentioned above. Anet are clever, Anet are smart i’m sure they can get it working

Use a Hall of Monuments stone(anyone can get one) to whisk you away to the HoM. Then go back through the HoM portal to exactly where you left off.

Doesn’t even need a doubling of storage space. It can probably be done with NO hardware changes at all. Just some database changes and some software adjustments.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1243598

There’s a 520+ reply thread at the top that goes into that. Arenanet gave a reason that there are two data centres in which its possible to transfer a character to and fro but not guest there because they are not really connected even though they are connected enough to let characters be copied.

I can pretty much safely say that the vast majority of players view the current guesting system as very poor and would like Anet to try again, using their undoubted cleverness to make it work as befits a community focused company.

Ofc, Read the thread and make your own mind up.

Animando.7956:

Relic.7148:

Guild Wars 1 allowed players to move freely between different servers, leading me to believe there is quite a good reason why such a limitation exists.

Not at the very beginning. We could only move 5x times between US and EU (and some made financial profits with such travels because the trade markets were seperated -> price differences). Then it was free.

There were international districts from day 1 where players from US and EU could meet up and team. There were only two limitations, the trade posts were separate(as you said) and you couldn’t visit FoW together(UW was possible but you needed to fight your way to a hidden shrine)

I’m still staggered that such an oversight was made by a such a progressive and innovative ‘community focused’ company.

It’s also unlikely to swamp bandwidth as once you are on a server you are likely to stay for a few hours. Heck if it’s an issue have a 2 hour cooldown like a hearthstone in WoW (hey can even sell reduce that cooldown consumables in the gem store ) or only do the transfer if it’s to a new DC..

To me, at least the logical answer would then be to allow server transfers without impacting WvW and nodes etc.

I believe this can be done by seperating your WvW server choice from the actual server you play on.

Here’s how it could work.

Create a new field on an account, lets call it ‘loyalty’ On logging in after the patch you are asked to choose a WvW server you are loyal to. This loyal field would not change even if you moved servers.

If you change to another server and its not your loyal one you cant enter WvW or indeed see the map.

If you want to change loyalty that will cost you gems, and have the same restrictions as now.

In short, in any comparison check within the code you are making to see if a player can WvW change that comparison to the loyalty field rather than server choice field.

As for the nodes and the like if you are not on your loyal server have a short message pop up saying “you can only loot this on your loyal server” Thus stopping the economy effects. Now sure you wont be able to gather or loot world event chests but thats a tiny sacrifce compared to not being able to at all

Server pride is maintained by use of the loyalty mechanic so thats unaffected. As is spying as it’s possible to have people on different servers in the same guild right now, so this suggestion would change nothing.

In this way we don’t need to redesign the network, servers or routing. We use whatever is in place and working now.

Yes i’m not a dev, but something along these lines would seem to be a simple solution to the problem.

Yes there are some downsides such as potentially waiting and not being able to gather. And perhaps it’s not as neat and nifty as it could be BUT the cost to community of those downsides as far, far less than splitting it in half.

It just needs the will and desire to think around the problem.

Been throwing around a few ideas inside my off the wall noggin about alternate ways guesting could work.

My premise is that the hardware limitations are fixed, and that we cant redo the entire way the infrastructure fits together.

So.. here we go..

So.. here we go..Back at launch we could transfer to whatever server we liked, in whatever region we liked with only about few mins delay. Right?

But this affected the WvW balance as people would just flock to the winning servers.

It also caused an issue with node farming and world event drops.

So.. here we go..Back at launch we could transfer to whatever server we liked, in whatever region we liked with only about few mins delay. Right?

But this affected the WvW balance as people would just flock to the winning servers.

It also caused an issue with node farming and world event drops.The other barrier it seems is that since the two databases aren’t linked it’s not possible to move data from one to another. BUT it is possible to copy/transfer it for a number of reasons people don’t really understand. We just have to accept this limitation as a given and that it’s not just PR spin to keep people quiet.

Put my idea in a seperate suggestion thread. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-idea-for-making-cross-region-guesting-work/first#post1243521

Just read this about Dust 514 om the wiki. "Dust 514 will be connected to Eve Online’s single-shard server. The complexity of running two games on one server proved to be a unique challenge for the developers. To mitigate any performance issues that this might have on either of the two games, CCP has designed a server architecture such that the majority of Dust 514 gameplay will be run on various “battle clusters” across the world. These server clusters will handle all the latency sensitive first-person shooter aspects of Dust 514. The main Eve cluster, located in London, will only communicate with Dust 514 for information such as character names."

FPS games are much more sensitive to lag than GW2 so while it’s probably far too late to change stuff it goes to show that with some lateral thinking this stuff is eminently do-able.

But we need to focus on what’s achievable now, with what we have rather than what might have been.

Cosine.1786:

Glitch.6849:

I’d like more frequent responses on this and not having this just brushed under the rug.

They’re already said it’s not possible, so it’s not possible. This thing that is demonstrably quite possible, and indeed, something they have successfully implemented in a previous title just simply can’t be done! It only took five months of hand-waving and saying ‘eh, we’ll get to it eventually’ to work it out.

It’s absolutely maddening how much I was looking forward to this feature and how much Anet are simply going to put their fingers in their ears until the complaints stop.

The thing is, people have given loads of alternatives that would work. Suggestions that require no hardware chanages at all and would use the systems already in place. Systems that have and were proven at launch when traffic was far greater than now.

The only thing required would be to make WvW not a factor and protecting nodes/world events from being farmed. Both logically, far easier than infrastucture changes.

9/10 issues of this nature are resolved in software, not hardware.

Anet has a history of pulling off what they previously called impossible. It just needs the will, passion for the community and willingness to throw the rulebook away to do so.

If community really is at the centre of everything they do. As mentioned time and time again by all sorts of devs then perhaps it’s time to make that more than words and into a reality.

I hate to say this. But this response from the community would be entirely predicted by the ‘suits’ at Anet even before it was announced. they knew what outcry the ascended weapons patch would cause but did it anyway.

Pulling the patch or changing it to allow a limited form of multi region play (e.g just like now) would indeed be the sensible thing to do.

But I cant see it happening. The decision has been made, the spin put in place and the hubris-o-meter set to maximum.

And right there is why the effort to fix this is worth it.

This is’nt about game mechanics, or content or nerfs or anything like that it’s about the fundimental reason why people play MMO’s. Being with friends no matter where they are to enjoy each others company in virtual worlds. Worlds that somehow bring diverse cultures, nations and people together with a unfied purpose. To have fun and take their minds and hearts away from the 9-5 and somewhere inspiring.

That is real community, and why the ‘Tyrian Curtain’ of guesting is such a bad decision and should be revisted before being locked down.

As mentioned in the blog Arenanet is “Community focussed” which means community is a priority right?

Is community just a nice PR buzzword to toss around in blogs or is it something that actually matters? I guess we’ll find out on the 28th.

To paraphrase JFK “Ich bin ein Tyrian”

I’m not against WvW in any shape or form. Just that there has to be a way to have both. The ability to transfer to whatever server you like and protect the interests of WvW.

We can also transfer wherever we like, launch proved it. The hardware, the infrastructure indeed most of the software is already there, done on the table.

It cannot be an insurmountable problem. As I said, Areanet have proved they are smart and can look at things another way.

Time to put the cape and tights back on ..

Medarr.7193:

Warder.3491:

Amulrei.4973:

Medarr.7193:

For those of you whining about this… do you have any idea how much it costs to keep servers synced between continents? No you dont its readily apperant from your posting. You also dont seem to realise its not simply a matter of sending the data from one data center to the other, not do you seem to realise the issues with global routing, peering of tier 3 networks, BGP and several other issues that crop up when you try to do this globally. Ya all sound like spoiled kids. wha wha I could do this in GW1.. well GW1 isnt GW2 you assume they work the same network wise but they dont.

So… AN completely changed their story on how guesting would work AFTER taking our money (while leaving the original statements still up on their FAQ and website for extra facepalm points) but yet we are the “spoiled kids” for not lapping it up?

I don’t know if I should mock or pity you.

Don’t take the bait, it’s not worth it. Not only does he exaggerate the difficulty involved (though there is a certain difficulty involved, I will not deny that), he presents that solution as if it’s the only one available. There have been many others, some better, some worse, presented in this thread, and there are yet many others that remain unexplored. ArenaNet are good at what they do, they can come up with ways around this. It’s just a matter of whether they choose to or not.

And how much data centers have you seen on the inside? Or how many tier 3 peers have you worked with? Do you even know what you’re on about?
If you think that making a global network that syncs data between data centers is easy then please give me your contact details so I can hire you. I could use good network architects.

And as an example google rolls out its own fibre optics network to sync data between their data centers this should tell you that its not as straight foward as it appears. Theres a lot more going on in the background then you think.

I think google has a little more data going through it than GW2 :p

Not every problem needs extra hardware to solve. 9/10 times application changes can get the job done. Upgrading infrastrucutre is the last resort to getting something fixed, not the first.

What I suspect happend is that they were given some technical boundaries and some game mechanic restrictions. E.g We are finding linking two datacentres too hard and WvW must come first no matter what.

What then happend is that they tried for months to get it work within these constriants and failed and instead of changing the game mechanics rules they either were’nt allowed to or ran of time/money

It’s the WvW requirement that’s stopping people transferring where and when they want. Simple solution is remove WvW from the equation then do that. I.e Decouple WvW from your home server

It’s more a question of what their priorities are and atm it seems to be one game type above the wider, global community.

What I do know is that many,many times Anet have told us something was impossible in GW1, like reconnects, appearance changes and account restorations.

These were solved by them thinking outside the box, applying some innovation and desire to do better for their customers.

I really hope that same spirit has’nt gone.

Just a quick reminder this is tonight in LA(overflow) at 21:00 GMT. Give me a PM (IGN is Shanaeri Rynale) about 20 mins or so before to get an taxi into the right overflow.