53 replies to this topic

[Bloodtau]

It's reached that stage in an mmo's life when people have begun abandoning ship (either form the game all together or onto other servers) and has left some of the servers a ghost town.

Arenanet needs to really think about getting rid of some of the servers now and merging them together. Would be best for everyone to be fair.

Also before people come in here looking for a flame war, server mergers doesn't mean OMFG A GAME IS DYING!, it just means that population has begun to balance out but very lopsided.

[Ninja Ataris]

I think they're hoping to push out Server Guesting as a feature before attempting merges.

[madmaxII]

They should have created shared instances for underpopulated PvE maps a long time ago. Most of the PvE world started to feel like a singleplayer game not long after the game was released

[Bloodtau]

Ninja Ataris, on 04 November 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

I think they're hoping to push out Server Guesting as a feature before attempting merges.

It's a great idea but wouldn't this make the situation worse though? The few people left on a server who never managed to transferred would just guest all the time wouldn't they?

I know you have to actually be friends with someone on a server to guest over but this isn't hard to manage at all..

[Diablo85]

Ninja Ataris, on 04 November 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

I think they're hoping to push out Server Guesting as a feature before attempting merges.

Guesting won't solve the issues of servers that barely have a WvW population left.

[Jentari]

Even though there are a few servers that seem to have lower pop then others, there are at this time no US servers that show anything lower then High pop.  Plus add the fact the game has only been out 2 months.  With these 2 things and the knowledge that server mergers confirm to everyone that the pop is dropping, I dont think we will see this happen until the game hits 6 months or maybe more.

[Aetou]

Diablo85, on 04 November 2012 - 02:01 PM, said:

Guesting won't solve the issues of servers that barely have a WvW population left.

Nope but free transfers will.  If you care about such things transfer to a T3/4 server of your choice.  It's much better for Anet to let people to choose where they want to move than to force them to go to specific locations.

[Bloodtau]

Jentari, on 04 November 2012 - 02:03 PM, said:

Even though there are a few servers that seem to have lower pop then others, there are at this time no US servers that show anything lower then High pop.  Plus add the fact the game has only been out 2 months.  With these 2 things and the knowledge that server mergers confirm to everyone that the pop is dropping, I dont think we will see this happen until the game hits 6 months or maybe more.

Yeah but do you actually know what population size changes the server status?
A-net can change it on the fly. Heck, it could even be set at like 1000 people per server to show up as "high" for all we know....

[Blixcoe]

lol I want this game to be like Sword art online but that's an impossible dream.

[Featherman]

Diablo85, on 04 November 2012 - 02:01 PM, said:

Guesting won't solve the issues of servers that barely have a WvW population left.

They barely had one to begin with actually, since all the competitive guilds decided to group in a certain few servers. And yeah, the best solution to fix this would be to get guilds from high pop servers to move down. Maybe add some incentive other than the lack of queue times.

[Jentari]

Bloodtau, on 04 November 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

Yeah but do you actually know what population size changes the server status?
A-net can change it on the fly. Heck, it could even be set at like 1000 people per server to show up as "high" for all we know....

No I dont and outside of Anet most likely no one knows.

Even SWTOR with its massive pop dropped waited until it was over 6 months old to finally merge servers.  Most likely Anet will merge them in the future.  When they do they have to delete 3 servers at a time in order to keep WvW even.

I will agree that in some areas the pop on some servers (can't speak for them all) is light if not dead, but I think Anet will try to hold off on merges for as long as they can.

[Diablo85]

Featherman, on 04 November 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

They barely had one to begin with actually, since all the competitive guilds decided to group in a certain few servers. And yeah, the best solution to fix this would be to get guilds from high pop servers to move down. Maybe add some incentive other than the lack of queue times.

I disagree, at Guild Wars 2 release WvW was big and thriving. Why else were there outrageous queues on pretty much every server in the game? Sadly WvW has alot of problems which caused the population to drop in no time. My server, Far Shiverpeaks, is a prime example of this. The first month after release we had two hour queues during the entire day for every possible map and now we can barely fill up two maps at primetime.

Because of the population drop there are alot of servers (at least in Europe) that can barely fill op even one map during primetime. Reducing the amount of servers, merging the smaller WvW populations and adding incentive for higher pop servers to move to lower tier servers would be a good first step to make WvW more competitive and balanced.

[Ritualist]

Stop tying WvW to servers.  Just make it a massive version of Structured, with new battles opening up as soon as there are enough people queued up for it. Make the whole battle last for a few hours only. Increase the rewards for the folks that participate in the battles and remove the passive bonuses.

And then remove servers and give us back districts.

[dd790]

I am on a high population server, but most areas other than the level 80 zones, Lion's Arch and WvW are basically dead.

I'm not so sure it is a server population problem or a game design flaw.

[jirayasan]

The problem is everyone is playing high level content.

[jazzbrownie]

Protoss, on 04 November 2012 - 02:35 PM, said:

Stop tying WvW to servers.  Just make it a massive version of Structured, with new battles opening up as soon as there are enough people queued up for it. Make the whole battle last for a few hours only. Increase the rewards for the folks that participate in the battles and remove the passive bonuses.

And then remove servers and give us back districts.

Oh god, no.

[Princess Fatora]

Quote

Why else were there outrageous queues on pretty much every server in the game?

I still need to wait over 15minutes at servertime night to get into wvwvw on borderland maps...

[TGIFrisbie]

Here is both the failing of your thought and the solution to population issues.

End game is fine, the Cursed Shore map has plenty of peeps.  There is no population problem.

Maps prior to level 70 are virtually dead over 90% of the 24 hour day.  The exceptions are typically the Human maps since more players tend to play humans (fact).

The REAL solution I have pointed out a few times on these forums and once or twice on the official forum is this:

Lower level maps should be shared between multiple servers.  3-5 servers sharing a map will help shore up the player shortage on those specific maps.  Based on their own internal numbers, Arenanet can decide how many servers share the maps.  Those with extremely low populations perhaps 5 or more share.  Those with low populations perhaps as few as 3 would share.  Almost all of the maps could use with 2-3 servers sharing.

Failing this type of implementation I would agree with giving us back Districts, but that could lead to node exploits.  Perhaps in the end though Districts on the lower level maps (districts are basically the same as having multiple Overflow servers, for those that didn't play GW1, and you could switch between them).

Edited by TGIFrisbie, 04 November 2012 - 03:25 PM.

[Perm Shadow Form]

It feels as if i'm playing single player rpg.
Today, exploring maps for 100%, encountered only like 5-6 people.

I had a discussion with someone today, and we both agreed that it would be nice if the added NPC companions a.k.a Heroes back...
____________

I don't think Arena Ner will admit their mistakes and merge servers now...
I think They'll simply reduce server transfer time to 12 hours or something, and make it free, always.

Edited by Perm Shadow Form, 04 November 2012 - 03:27 PM.

[P4ndora]

There're two reasons why I don't want server merging:
-People (haters) will attack all GW2 forums saying "haha GW2 is dead! It failed! etc...". There's still many people around, so that's just not the truth. There are also plenty of trolls already, we don't need more of them to come here.

- Queues. Many server has this. I'm now playing on a medium-populated server, it's great here tbh. No queues, and there are more than enough people to go dungeons/farming Orr. I don't want to be in more populated servers for a reason.

I admit that low level areas should have shared servers, probably the same 3 servers that are fighting with each other in WvW. (well, maybe that's not a good idea coz servers can flame each other for smthing that's happened in WvW)

[wxkinrc]

i want Transerver LFG system like wow

[Var]

The solution doesn't really help the problem and simply introduces others. Merging servers won't solve the issue of the starter to mid level areas being mostly empty (and cities that aren't LA) because there simply aren't that many people (new or alt) running around through there (this is true of any game). There are still people there, often times looking for groups for the nearby dungeons or alts making their way up in levels, but most of the former can be found in LA and one of its many, many overflow shards (particularly during the prime-times). The rest of the population is rather densely packed around: the dragon timers, Cursed Shore, or dungeons. If you start merging people to save the low pop areas such as the starters you're hardly going to actually do anything but you will introduce disruptive overflows and even more people to CS or the dragon fights.

I do like the idea of connecting the lower level zones exclusively such that several servers all spill into one area but full on mergers isn't going to help. Population statistics work this way, people aggregate in a single place (and in games that place is the place with the highest rewards) and the only way you're going to goad them to move is with either new shinies, promises of new shinies, or better rewards. Just look at what Halloween did to Queensdale, LA, and the bagillion overflows in MKL all the while making it nearly impossible to do regular dungeons and lower the standing pop of CS. When Nov. 15th hits, you'll see the same thing. SoS island will have a hundred overflows.

These monthly events plus constant upscaling will basically give new players (or alts) a way to level without walking through ghost towns while giving high level players something novel for a week or two. (The MKL leveled my alt every few minutes because of all the mobs and events, and the upscaling made it actually feasible.)

[Devious]

No.

Simple answer, don't feel the need to give a constructive answer.

Edited by Devious, 04 November 2012 - 03:51 PM.

[Nalano]

You're kidding, right?

Game is fine.

Edited by Nalano, 04 November 2012 - 03:56 PM.

[xarallei]

If they don't want to merge servers they should consider doing something similar to the cross realm zone thing in WoW. While many people don't like that feature in WoW it's mainly due to WoW's anti-cooperative system where you are constantly competing for things instead of working together. In GW2 you benefit from working with others so this system would probably work better.

[Kurosov]

I would assume anybody unhappy with low population on their server would choose to move of their own free will while transfers are still free.

Gandara seems to have a healthy population at the moment so i have not seen any issues myself. The only real issue there is the large zergs farming end game areas means downscaling while keeping loot to your level isn't quite as effective as expected. Maybe some bonus to completion of events, as they do with exp from killing foes in emptier zones would help with this.

[Maconi]

I just think it's sad how badly Anet failed with their scaling system.

"Everything scales! Go back to low level areas any time you want and the content will be scaled for you!"

They failed to mention that the rewards wouldn't be scaled, only the content. Who the hell wants to go back and do old content but not be rewarded for it? The reason people do it in games like WoW are for achievements/pets/mounts/etc. You can't expect people to do it for no reason.

[Gremlin]

Kurosov, on 04 November 2012 - 04:07 PM, said:

I would assume anybody unhappy with low population on their server would choose to move of their own free will while transfers are still free.

Gandara seems to have a healthy population at the moment so i have not seen any issues myself. The only real issue there is the large zergs farming end game areas means downscaling while keeping loot to your level isn't quite as effective as expected. Maybe some bonus to completion of events, as they do with exp from killing foes in emptier zones would help with this.

Moving servers is fine for single players not so easy with groups of players and will be out of the question once transfers cease to be free.

[Bloodtau]

Maconi, on 04 November 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

I just think it's sad how badly Anet failed with their scaling system.

"Everything scales! Go back to low level areas any time you want and the content will be scaled for you!"

They failed to mention that the rewards wouldn't be scaled, only the content. Who the hell wants to go back and do old content but not be rewarded for it? The reason people do it in games like WoW are for achievements/pets/mounts/etc. You can't expect people to do it for no reason.

So much for the whole fan boy argument "The whole game is end game!" ey?
Some stuff looked good on paper and failed in practice....

[Arewn]

This is a problem seen across all MMOs, even the behemoth WoW.
I think a "reverse overflow" system of sorts would be nice though, something that lets you join a more populated instance of the zone on the fly.