Guild Wars 2

Simon.3106:

So can anyone here give an example of how to bring all friends/guildies in one server without passing the map’s cap by ten fold? (example of having a super super large guild of course).

I had the suggestion before that allowing a Join in <Server> from the guild menu (instead of just the party menu) would make it way easier to move the guild. Nobody responded with feedback.

Allowing guild leaders to spawn a guild map would be another option. If you are a guild leader or perhaps officer with appropriate permission, you 1) have everybody map into a zone. 2) right-click your name and select “Invite Guild to <Server>” 3) space is reserved on a Megaserver for the number of online, representing guild members currently on the same map 4) a popup appears, similar to the one for Personal Story, inviting guild members to join the map. This popup would go to all online, representing guild members currently in the appropriate map.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Halvorn.9831:

It is no longer “your server”. Suppose the map can hold 150 players. Now, if there is 170 players, one map is full, the next holds the additional 20 players (basically). The same happens with 320 players, or 470 players… Do you notice? if you have 470 players, 20 will say “oh, it’s not full here”, the other 450 will be crammed into the place. That’s where your experience comes from.

Quoting to bring attention to what’s really going on with discrepancies in mega-server experience. As usual, the posts that make the most sense get ignored. Pre-patch, if you were in a popular area with few people, you could conclude with a high degree of confidence that you were on a low-pop server. Post-patch, all you can conclude is that there aren’t a lot of people in your shard because of the way the numbers fall at any given time.

You both make assumptions here that I consider incorrect. You assume megaserver shards are filled to the brim before a new shard is created. This is wrong, to the best of my knowledge.

More likely, there is a set minimum number of shards based on the minimum player population over time. So, for example, if Timberline Falls -across all of NA- ranges from 100-15,000 people, they might set a minimum shard number of 5. Meaning, on average, there are 20 people per shard.

As more players join, they are initially placed in the 5 shards up to some certain cap. (This could be 100, this could be 50… we don’t know…) At that point, additional shards are created and players are put into them.

I consider it highly unlikely that you’d have a situation where one shard has 150 and the other has 20 except if large guilds/organized groups are manually moving themselves and hardcap (150) a server.

Edit: as an additional note, you make an additional crazy assumption… that I’m only ever in the “20” shard and never in the “150” and that explains the entirety of my difference in perception. This is incredibly unlikely.

Ashen.2907:

timmyf.1490:

Templar’s post above me – which I assume will quickly be removed as he expresses his desire to physically attack ArenaNet employees – is exactly the kind of post I’m talking about.

Until this community gets rid of this kind of crap, ArenaNet employees will likely limit their posting on these boards.

Totally unacceptable.

This is an interesting point of view. In any other industry it would be considered inappropriate, poor service, and just plain bad business, to limit addressing one customer’s concerns because a completely different customer was a jerk.

Imagine going to a restaurant and having your food prepared incorrectly only to have the staff or even management brush your concerns off because a different customer was rude the day before.

Imagine a restaurant that seats 50 being filled with 200 people. 25 like the food. 150 are complaining about the food. 25 are threatening to punch the chef.

Now the 150 keep complaining that the chef isn’t walking around the restaurant to listen to their complaints.

Edit: forgot to note… the chef is in the back trying to fix the food for the 150 who are complaining…

AdaephonDelat.3890:

timmyf.1490:

What content has gone away that people still want? The holiday stuff? The Marionette? The Toxic Knights?

Just curious.

Actually I wouldn’t mind having the Marionette back. That was a really fun fight.

Yeah, they’d have to update the scaling, I’d think.

But seriously, people who keep complaining about temporary content: what content have they released (that is not holiday content) do you want back so you can replay? I feel like the best content (Molten and Aetherblade dungeons) already made it to Fractals. I’m curious as to what else people want.

Potential fix for guild missions, wondering if anybody has feedback:

Allow right-click Join in <Zone> through the guild panel in addition to the party menu.

That would allow the full guild to join on somebody without all the hassle of re-partying. Would that work? Are there unintended consequences?

I haven’t had 10 people at a world boss since they added the guaranteed daily chests with rares. It’s usually 30-40 or more. I guess I’ve just had time to get used to it.

I guess that’s a big part of it. You’re fighting to maintain an experience I haven’t had in, what, a year?

It’s not on this thread, but on the other Megaserver feedback thread, the two most recent posts are a guy claiming he has gotten on the same server as his party ZERO times and somebody else saying they’ve only completed a world boss ONCE. I just simply don’t understand this. It’s so far from my experience of the game that it sounds like lying.

I read the post about world bosses to my girlfriend (who’s been running tons of world bosses for the ecto) and she started yelling. I can’t reproduce what she said here because profanity. She has the same experience as me: world bosses spawn fine (except Megadestroyer) and are easily defeated.

Anyway, that’s why I like to give as much information and background as I can. It can be hard to understand why people feel a certain way without understanding where they come from. I don’t see why people are complaining about world bosses, but I forget that as a high-population PvE server, I’ve had more than a handful of people at these events for months.

So thanks for sharing.

What content has gone away that people still want? The holiday stuff? The Marionette? The Toxic Knights?

Just curious.

munkiman.3068:

Saying people are “mostly happy” is mostly useless.

Ahh, here’s where I disagree! I think we have a system that most people like in theory but not in execution. When we say things like “megaserver has ruined the game for me, everybody I know is quitting,” we’re not providing useful feedback. (This is a feedback thread, remember.)

Far more useful would be feedback like this:

“Look, I get the whole idea of Megaserver. Filling out empty maps is a great idea. But here’s my problem:

1) Every world boss has like 100+ people at it [developer reads and considers solution: lower soft cap on megaservers]
2) I don’t see very many people from my guild or server [developer reads and considers solution: increase minimum number of megaservers per zone for better sorting]
3) Guild Missions make it very difficult to get everybody into the same zone [developer reads and considers increasing space between soft and hard cap, either by lowering soft cap or increasing hard cap]
4) Worse, we often have to wait for other guilds to finish first [developer reads and there’s a few options here…]"

Providing feedback where you clearly state which things are good, which things work, which things don’t work, etc, is far more useful. And, to be fair, many people on these threads are doing so. But there are many, many posts which bear no resemblance to my example here (or to the examples ArenaNet gave themselves on their HOW TO GIVE FEEDBACK thread), so I sometimes try to come in and fill that gap.

But you still need to list the good things! That’s just as useful of feedback as listing the bad things.

munkiman.3068:

timmyf.1490:

Inspired by CharJC, here’s what it looks like right now on my server. Note the not-ridiculous number of players. Also note that I recognize all these guild tags: EG LION RISE GSCH Aco Shdw Ph LUN SIN, putting the number of players almost certainly part of my server at half, maybe higher.

I have a much slower PC (i5 3770, Radeon HD7770, 8gb) which explains the lower framerate.

I’m really confused about all these pictures showing so many people in the Keep as it doesn’t match with my experience. At all.

Take that same picture pre reset when people get kicked out of wvw. Also read the chat when that happens. It be interesting to see what this reset is like after they tweaked the numbers (if they have).

Look, if your point is that during the brief period prior to WvW reset, Vigil Keep is overrun with players and it brings your computer to your knees, that’s fine. I’ll accept that. I won’t argue with you at all.

My point is that people are posting videos of an overrun-by-players Vigil Keep and saying it’s ordinary, everyday reality now. That doesn’t match with my reality. I’m not disputing it, I’m just presenting my own side.

As best as I can tell, greater than half the players on my megaserver at any given time belong to my server, Sanctum of Rall. I’ve had a couple people accuse me of not caring about my guild or my community, that is false. I am a guild leader of a small guild (140 roster, probably 15 active daily) and I care about them all very much. <3 I also care about my server, have taken the time to learn about its history and namesake, Roger “Oldroar” Rall, and participate regularly in server activities and Teamspeak meetings.

I am also not a troll. I had high hopes for megaserver, some of which have been met (more people in maps!) and some of which haven’t (put in maps with people on your friends list!) However, as somebody who is “mostly happy” with the changes and finds that people in the world are “mostly happy” as well, I feel that it’s important to give my own opinion as best as I can – and without trying to negate the opinion of others.

I recognize there are problems on EU servers with languages. While those problems do not affect my gameplay, they should be fixed. I recognize that there are problems for RPers. While those problems do not affect my gameplay, they should be fixed. I recognize there are problems with guild missions. These do affect my gameplay, they should be fixed.

A poster claimed that “a thousand” people have come here to post their negative feedback. Poppykitten! I’d say 90% of the posts are the same 20 people arguing the same points over and over. (Including myself.)

If you actually care about helping ArenaNet and providing useful feedback, as opposed to simply raging, you could perhaps do so by posting your own screenshot. Like I did. Like CharJC did. Show us how none of the players are part of your guild or server community. Show us your 1fps. You’ll win far more support from me if you show it to be true because right now it sounds like a lot of hyperbole.

I’d bet it’s in the next feature patch later this year. They haven’t said exactly when, but six months is a fair guess.

ceol.9175:

timmyf.1490:

ArenaNet is a company of 300 people. People are busy doing their jobs. If you have a complaint, it’s worth lobbing it in the right direction.

Then why is nothing being released or fixed? Seriously. There are year-old bugs in the bug report subforum for events new users happen across all the time. One of the eight sPVP maps is bug-ridden and nothing has been done since it was released 6 months ago. It took them a horrendous amount of time to release the current balance changes. Where are these people doing their jobs? If there were consistent releases, we would know. If there was consistent communication, we would know. We have neither, so for all intents and purposes, they don’t exist.

Not that you’ll like this answer, but it’s prioritization. Exploits get fixed first, but after that, it’s a matter of prioritization.

Right now, priorities seem to be on developing new content and dealing with the China release. Other things are still important, they just aren’t as high of a priority.

Inspired by CharJC, here’s what it looks like right now on my server. Note the not-ridiculous number of players. Also note that I recognize all these guild tags: EG LION RISE GSCH Aco Shdw Ph LUN SIN, putting the number of players almost certainly part of my server at half, maybe higher.

I have a much slower PC (i5 3770, Radeon HD7770, 8gb) which explains the lower framerate.

I’m really confused about all these pictures showing so many people in the Keep as it doesn’t match with my experience. At all.

I’ll admit to being a bit perplexed myself that Danicia or maybe Martin doesn’t pop in and just say, “Hey, we’re here. We have no official response at this point, but we are reading and collecting feedback. Thanks.”

That said, I bet that would totally backfire and just anger a subset of people even more.

Demanding answers and a response is the surest way to get none based on my experience.

ceol.9175:

@timmyf that kind of post is in the minority.

Do you think that it’s a possibility it happens more often than you think and the posts are deleted? For example, the one that I referenced which is now gone?

ceol.9175:

Look around the forum at all the well-reasoned posts ArenaNet flat-out ignores. It’s disgusting, It’s honest-to-God the worst customer support I’ve seen in years. This company deserves 99% of the negative posts on this forum.

You say “ignore.” I’d counter “read but not responded to.” To me, those are not the same thing.

Also, customer service is different from community management is different from game development. I see a lot of people attack game developers for things community managers do or do not do. And vice versa.

ArenaNet is a company of 300 people. People are busy doing their jobs. If you have a complaint, it’s worth lobbing it in the right direction.

Lord Kuru.3685:

It’s too hard to create a dropdown menu? It’s too hard to use the same code from selecting a world to guest on? You do realize guesting is just moving from one instance to another. Anet’s excuse is total BS.

As I am not a server code programmer at ArenaNet, I can’t tell you why they are unable to do it. As I do have a degree in computer engineering, I can tell you it’s entirely likely there’s a reason that we don’t understand based on our very limited knowledge of their code.

It’s also possible that the reason they don’t allow the feature has nothing to do with code and everything to do with potential exploits. They were cagey.

It’s, as you suggest, also possible that they’re just lying. That’s just not immediately obvious and I’m very reluctant to jump to that conclusion. But do as you like.

Lord Kuru.3685:

I think they don’t want to reveal how many (or few) instances of each map exists at one time. As for “technologically impossible” — you’re right, total BS excuse invented by white knights.

I didn’t realize Anthony Ordon was a white knight now. Cool.

Look, with enough time and money, anything is technologically possible. ArenaNet just determined that the resource cost to do it this was was too high.

You can dislike that conclusion, but you will always have less information than ArenaNet did when they made it.

Some of us just recognize that we don’t know enough to say they could have easily done it. Don’t berate us as “white knights” for that.

Templar’s post above me – which I assume will quickly be removed as he expresses his desire to physically attack ArenaNet employees – is exactly the kind of post I’m talking about.

Until this community gets rid of this kind of crap, ArenaNet employees will likely limit their posting on these boards.

Totally unacceptable.

Seth Moonshadow.2710:

It would be nice is Commander Tags also had a one or two word description after them Like “Commander Timmyf: champ run” or “Commander Timmyf: World Events” or “Commander Timmyf: World Bosses” Just a thought….

It’d be Commander Loki Karaoke and almost certainly because I’m running Guild Missions.

There have been many suggestions for this (and Anet has shown some interest) including 1) changing colors or shape or 2) allowing guild-only tag visibility.

I expect there to be Commander tag features added in the next feature patch later this year based on the interest shown by Anet plus lots of speculation on my part.

Lovelocke.9286:

When you see a tagged player you know they’re experienced, and know what they’re doing.

Not even remotely true.

It’s okay for ArenaNet to test different prices to see what their sales look like.

It’d also be best if everybody avoided buying the mini at this price to ensure they get the message.

To be fair, they added permanent content in the form of Southsun Cove and most people weren’t happy either. I do agree that we need more permanent content and a year ago, but that still won’t make everybody happy.

The promise of GW2 has never been “no grind,” it’s been “no grind for stats, grind for cosmetics.”

You could argue as to whether the game has been successful (I think Ascended equipment is where ArenaNet faltered…) but that was always the deal.

Twilight is a completely unnecessary cosmetic upgrade to an Ascended greatsword. That’s why it seems like a grind.

Olvendred.3027:

timmyf.1490:

The silver cost for the extra WP is so marginal, I wish they’d remove all WPing costs within zones just so people stop complaining about it. Technically you could travel the whole map for free by WPing to an exit, running through the exit to the next map, WPing to the next exit, running through, etc… but that’d take forever.

Who cares about the costs? It’s the extra 2 minute loading screen each time that’s the problem.

Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I hadn’t thought about this, as I load in within 10 seconds zone-to-zone and maybe 3-4 seconds in-zone.

The silver cost for the extra WP is so marginal, I wish they’d remove all WPing costs within zones just so people stop complaining about it. Technically you could travel the whole map for free by WPing to an exit, running through the exit to the next map, WPing to the next exit, running through, etc… but that’d take forever.

rgraze.5169:

Seriously, Plains of Ashford only have 3 uncontested wp on the far west side yet when I zone in theyre all open. WTH, make me wp twice to get where I want to go. Who thought this was a good idea?

Nobody. Even the devs acknowledged it wasn’t their preferred option, it’s just the only one that was technologically feasible at this point.

Asacledhae.2650:

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I really hope A-net sees this, as it’s exactly what they turned the game into.

I might as well give an epilepsy warning before you watch this!

You have been warned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqVHpyu72Is

This was my experience of Lyssa before Megaserver, though Sanctum of Rall apparently had a lot less people attacking during the “look away” phases. :-)

This is good to hear. We have lots of people to teach to get to the point we can complete it regularly, but we’ll get there…

1) it’s the weekend
2) Colin doesn’t do bug fixes anyway

Come on.

Annoying, yes. Potentially expensive, yes. Deserving of a quick fix, yes.

Pay-to-Win, no.

Astralporing.1957:

timmyf.1490:

Prophet.6257:

But like in sports all Anet has to do is start winning. Start implementing things the majority of the fan base wants and a lot of the negativity will fall into the background.

Wardrobe? Check.
Account-bound dyes? Check.
Underflow system? Check.
Free retraiting and repairs? Check.
Better rewards for PvP and non-Conquest maps? Check.

Are you sure the negativity will fall into the background? :-/

All of those (with the possible exception of the last one – not being PvP player, i wouldn’t know) were either implemented in a way that significantly differed from what was suggested, or were tied to some strictly negative changes, or both. Don’t you think it might be possible, that if they were implemented the way the proposers wanted the reaction would have been different?

Of course! And then a different group of people would have been upset. You can’t please everybody, especially when everybody has the anonymity to show up on message boards and whine about it.

phys, I think you’re absolutely right. There are definite winners and losers here, but all systems can be changed. Since we know they’re investigating and tweaking Megaserver RIGHT. NOW. it would be in all our best interest to keep it calm, rational, and provide QA-quality feedback to help them improve.

Sadly, the people best in a position to provide that feedback seem to be providing the lowest quality feedback so far.

Prophet.6257:

But like in sports all Anet has to do is start winning. Start implementing things the majority of the fan base wants and a lot of the negativity will fall into the background.

Wardrobe? Check.
Account-bound dyes? Check.
Underflow system? Check.
Free retraiting and repairs? Check.
Better rewards for PvP and non-Conquest maps? Check.

Are you sure the negativity will fall into the background? :-/

Theo, a suggestion for you: run up to Harathi Hinterlands. There’s a pretty solid set of dynamic events that happen there which all tell a unified story in the north part of the zone. Keep an eye on the meta-event tracker on your screen, it’ll explain the current status and tell you were to go to pick up the events.

Make sure to hang around after events finish for a few minutes to catch the beginning of the next event.

Eurhetemec, I’m not going to sit here and have a personal argument with you on this thread. If you’d like to do that, you’re welcome to message me here or in-game and we can do that.

I have never said that Megaserver is perfect. What I have said, repeatedly, in multiple threads (some of which you may not be reading) is that Megaserver is an improvement for me, needs some tweaking (better ability for guilds to get together, inclusion of Friends list as a mechanism for sorting, ability to choose a style of megaserver such as RP, Dungeon runner, casual, etc) and has a large problem dealing with language which definitely exists, though is not a problem for me. If you disagree, you can easily look up my post history to verify this information.

I think the design of Megaserver is imperfect but a step in the right direction. I think it can be tweaked and made to work well.

What I’m less certain of are these forums. There are lots of smart people saying lots of smart things, even things I disagree with, about the update. But those smart things are often lost in a sea of complaints, I’m-quitting posts, hyperbolic “this has ruined everything” posts, and demands for immediate responses from the devs.

This is all counterproductive. We would all be much better off attempting to provide actionable feedback that explains precisely the issues we have while giving enough information to allow the devs to fix the algorithms for Megaserver.

If this is happening somewhere on the forums, I have not seen it.

Flytrap.8075:

Iason Evan.3806:

I don’t notice that to be the case at all. Exotics are still way cheaper than they were even 6 months after launch. It used to cost a whole lot more to gear a character. With shared Ascended items, it’s even less money actually.

I respectfully disagree.

It’s now harder than ever to get Temple Armor and the rune/sigil changes resulted in a price hike for anything that is even slightly desirable. I helped my brother gear out his first 80 last weekend and it was an absolute pain coupled with sticker shock.

Pack is a good choice that’s not toooooo expensive. Or Ranger. Engineer is good for anything that uses lots of bundles (Engy kits, Ele conjure weapons) and is dirt cheap.

Eurhetemec.9052:

timmyf.1490:

I love how everybody acts like the overflow system worked perfectly. Do you know how often I was able to play with my full guild for new Living World events on patch day?

Never.

How about my full party?

Occasionally.

How about just my girlfriend?

Usually, but not always.

Very often, by the time we all loaded into a map and tried to join on somebody else, that somebody else’s server would already be full. As would ours. Not soft-capped full. Hard-capped full. (We weren’t guesting.).

It worked perfectly for me, thanks. Play with my wife? 100% of the time. My party? 100% of the time (literally – I have no idea what stopped you here – can you explain?). Everyone from my guild who wanted to group? 100% of the time (maybe I got lucky there but…).

You must play during non-peak hours or on a low-pop server. Playing around 5-9pm server time (PST), events like Escape From Lion’s Arch would almost instantly create an overflow. Getting into main? Ha! Hilarious!

Okay, so you enter your overflow. Did all five members of your party make it into the same overflow? No, just three? Okay, the two people not with the three of us, join on us. Oh, the world is full? Okay, let’s join on the two of you. Oh, your world is full too?

That was how these events would go for us for WEEKS. Marionette was like this for over a week. Escape from LA was like this for a week or two. The events to retake LA seemed to be a bit better, but it was still hit or miss.

Trying to get 10-15 guildmates into the same overflow? Forget about it. That is simply not happening.

This is frustrating to me because I’m happy with Megaserver, yet I accept that it also has issues that require fixing. I don’t seem to be getting the same courtesy back. Opponents of Megaserver don’t seem to recognize that it solves a huge problem that many of us had. (Or that it should solve the problem. It remains to be seen.) It’d be nice for you to at least acknowledge that the system serves as an improvement for many people who don’t want to go back to the old way.

Out of curiosity, which zones have you been in? Caledon Forest has 3 jumping puzzles, for example. (Or is it 4?) Each has a chest reward and an achievement associated with it.

As always, the Wiki is your friend. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists#Locations

Dredge is Night.

Exactly, Monkey. And the reason I cringe when people call Hearts “quests?” It’s because players unaccustomed to GW2 then think that Hearts are the main leveling content. They are not. At all. Or at least shouldn’t be… Dynamic events are the main leveling content.

Monkey, I think my problem with hearts comes from when I got the game. I am not a traditional MMO player but played with a lot of people who were. This is how they played the game.

1) Leave starter instance.
BEGIN LOOP
2a) Run to nearest incomplete heart.
2b) Complete heart.
END LOOP – REPEAT UNTIL COMPLETE
3) Complain there’s nothing to do and go back to Rift.

After they quit the game and I just ran around on my own on a second character, I started skipping hearts because I had done them before and didn’t care. Suddenly I realized that, not only was I having more fun, but I was leveling way faster as well.

Everything about the game improved when I basically began ignoring the existence of hearts on the map. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t doing them – in fact, I was still clearing them pretty regularly. I just wasn’t grinding them.

Monkey Fritz.9052:

Right, forgot to point out, Guild Wars 2 is actually trying to train you to forget “questing” all together.
Event Chains are the main form of gameplay in this PVE, heartquests and map completion are there to make sure that you run across events and event chains, because by the time you get to Orr that’s all there is. Event Chains.

I cringe every time I hear somebody call a Heart a “quest.”

theo.5214:

From what I’m understanding, from what you guys are saying, is that the ranges don’t represent the content, only the appropriate level ranges for the zone. So, if you are somewhere from 40-50, you will find something there at your level. NOT that it will get you from 40-50 going through the zone.

This is correct.

Astral Projections.7320:

I thought the computer would look at our friends and put us in that map. I found a map with a good node layout so I friended a bunch of people from map chat that were doing the FG champ farm on that map. Switched characters and landed in a different shard. I tried zoning in and out, going to character select and back, switching characters, dropping those people off my friends list and nothing worked. From then on I was put on the shard I didn’t want.

We need to be able to flag our accounts for important choices AND the computer needs to give strong weight to these choices.

Friend List is not currently used. They said this somewhere but I forget the source. It is something they’d like to do, but right now the only factors are Language, Server, Guild, and Party, iirc.

Astralporing.1957:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Frankly, they have nothing to gain from posting anything that is not in FINAL stages of implementation.

Yes. On the other hand, they have something to lose by not posting. They can lose their players – and they are losing them. I personally knwo people that left the game not because it changed in a way they didn’t like, but because communication policy alone made them think that Anet either does not care about community, or doesn’t have a clue about what they are doing, or both. And frankly, i tend to slide more and more towards that last (“both”) opinion myself.

While I absolutely agree that communication is an area of comparatively poor performance for ArenaNet (in a lot of ways), quitting the game because the devs don’t show up on the forums and go, “yeah, we know?”

That makes me think these individuals didn’t like the game much to begin with and are just using this as a convenient excuse to leave.

anzenketh.3759:

Curious what server are you on?

As for your living world comment. I think they are giving themselves time to figure out the MegaServer before they release a Living World event. This is why it is out on all the maps to test it in a environment as close as possible to that as they make adjustments.

My server is in my signature! ;-) It’s Sanctum of Rall.

We’re a pretty big server, but remember, any server that is big enough to hit overflow levels will have this same problem as overflows are shared between all servers.

I absolutely agree the timing of Megaserver was meant to be in the middle of Living World releases to provide a safer way to test it. I do wish we could be providing better feedback than “this game is hell, I’m quitting.”

Feedback like… “I was doing guild missions, we had X people trying to get into Y map, but it took us Z minutes to get everybody together… almost everybody, that is, because Q people never made it in because the map filled up.”

That’s useful feedback for the devs and the kind that I wish more people would give.

GW2 is different from other MMOs. I didn’t start 100%ing zones until long after I hit max level. Your best bet is to make sure you fully explore zones first by uncovering the map, unlocking waypoints, and getting most of the POIs and vistas. Do EVERY dynamic event you come across always. (I’d ignore hearts, but that’s a personal preference.)

Beyond that, kill stuff as you run through and you should get plenty of levels, especially with the XP boosts that come with food and utility buffs.

But yes, you need to do this in all the zones, not just one of them. By now, using this method, you would have 60-70%ed all five main cities, all five starter zones, a few 15-25 zones (Kessex, Brisban, Snowden, Diessa), the 25-40ish zones (Lornar’s Pass, Harathi Hinterlands, Gendarran Fields, Fields of Ruin).

If you’ve done all that and still are only level 45, I’d be pretty surprised.

Porterhouse.6304:

Brother Grimm.5176:

Frankly, they have nothing to gain from posting anything that is not in FINAL stages of implementation…

But what have they got to lose?

Communicating information that will change, making them subject to hundreds of claims of “lying” by people who make hyperbolic charges like “all the programmers must be celebrating Eggs Benedict Day.”

I love how everybody acts like the overflow system worked perfectly. Do you know how often I was able to play with my full guild for new Living World events on patch day?

Never.

How about my full party?

Occasionally.

How about just my girlfriend?

Usually, but not always.

Very often, by the time we all loaded into a map and tried to join on somebody else, that somebody else’s server would already be full. As would ours. Not soft-capped full. Hard-capped full. (We weren’t guesting.)

To really see if Megaserver works, I want to test it in one of those Living World events because that is where I’ve had absolutely no luck so far. If it works in those situations, I’ll be a happy camper. If not, I’ll be back here talking about fixing or removing it with the rest of you.

Pifil.5193:

Sure, these can all be “fixed” in some way or another but how long will that take? ArenaNet don’t have a great track record in following up on these things and chances are that a lot of the feature pack team has already been reassigned to new teams for the upcoming season 2 of the Living Story.

If the events still glitch in a month, come back to me and I’ll be your punching bag. I’d expect them to fix it in the next week or two. (The bugged events, at least. Not the scaling.)

I wouldn’t worry as much about the Feature Pack team – the feature teams usually work independently from the content teams (there was a good presentation about this, I think for GDC?), so while they may have started on new features, they likely aren’t working on LS2 stuff. My guess would be that they’ve moved on to either Guild content (guild halls, better guild management options, additional ways for guilds to spawn events, fixes for guild missions with megaserver), WvW changes (improvements to Commander tags), or perhaps some client-side fixes (effects scaling, etc.)

Keep in mind that a “dev” is not an all-knowing all performing robot. You can’t take a UI designer and have them debug client-server communications. You can’t take a programmer and have them build a set of gemstore armor. That’s why they split into “feature” and “content” teams to begin with.

Please don’t be upset by this, but I’d like to pick at what you said because I think it’s important.

Pifil.5193:

In my case I tried using the current megaserver system to do a few bosses, half simply didn’t spawn

Bugged events can be fixed. This is not evidence that Megaserver is a bad idea or unworkable. Plenty of events bugged before Megaserver. This isn’t even a new thing.

Pifil.5193:

the other half died so quickly in a hail of fire that it felt pointless, 10-15 mins prep for the Fire Elemental then it died in 30 seconds.

World Boss event scaling has always been a mess. My server routinely had tons of people in these events and all the bosses melted like this. This isn’t a problem caused by Megaserver, it’s existed for awhile.

World Boss event scaling can be fixed even if Megaserver remains.

Pifil.5193:

Given that and the fact that we can no longer use gw2stuff to let us know when a boss or temple is up so I’m operating in the kind of informational limbo that existed when the game first launched prompted me to pretty much give up on PVE for now while I try sPVP for a while.

You don’t need gw2stuff. The boss schedule is posted. I agree that Temples are more difficult.

I like sPvP, but don’t expect to get the love and attention of devs over there either…

Pifil.5193:

If/when they start fixing the megaservers I’ll give it another go but they really need to get a move on. Rolling “broken” software out that removes a bunch of features that people are used to and just leaving it there is never a good idea.

But it’s not broken. You just don’t like it.