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Overflow Zones...
Draith77
Member Posts: 14
in Guild Wars 2
Are there any plans for them to add a feature to let friends play together in Overflow zones? Last night my friends and I were stuck in two different zones with no way to meet up in the same zone. Some of us were in Que the whole night and played in the Overflow Zone. While the rest of our friends played in the normal zone with no way for us all to meet up together...
I think AN needs to add a feature to allow groups or party members to be able to go to the Overflow zones together if one or more of their party members are in Que.
Comments
A lot of people gave this in their feedback reports. I definately see them impleneting this option soon.
Theres also supposed to be "guest" servers for you and your friends, I hope that they will be able to make it so you are always in the same server as your team mates, i don't see why they shouldn't
There are times when one must ask themselves is it my passion that truly frightens you? Or your own?
True me and my girlfriend spent like 5 mins checking if we actually started at the same server ^^
At one side I rather play solo then see a "56 in que" message but yeah being able to be on the same overflow would be nice
My theme song.
In truth this really was the only problem I had with the whole game/weekend. Not counting the Login server issues because that is just something that will be delt with and not a way things are set up to be. My family and I ended up just queing up instead of travelling to the overflow and it seemed to work out much faster. I really cant see them leaving it the way it is so I'm guessing it will be better for the next round.
Agreed, it was very frustrating for our group as well. But it is Beta after all and if a lot of people have reported this already then I’m sure it will be addressed soon.
You can always wait at the character selection screen and watch how your "position in queue" changes.
It's just an option if you want to play the game on the overflow server when your server is full. Way better than just waiting in a queue and being unable to play the game at all on your character. It's a good solution but has to be correctly adjusted.
I think they should really add an option for people to play on the overflow server if more people is there... It would be better than trying to teleport to the original homeworld server.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
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The overflow servers were basically a bandage put on when they couldn't incorporate guesting for this beta weekend. Guesting will take over primarily placing you on a whole nother server from your own and your friends can come join you on that server. Switching servers with guesting does not change which queue you are put into for WvWvW.
Overflow should have no place in the game once guesting is available. You will be put into a queue for your own server while playing on a different server until its ready if you wanted to.
This concept sounds perfect.
This sounds great, is there an official link to this? I would like to read more.
I am not doubting you, I just prefer to read/hear it directly from them.
I don't believe you. I need a link or something.
Yeah, that sounds like it would fix the problem pretty handily. The overflow was my biggest concern from this weekend as well since I ended up spending about 80% of my time on it. Sometimes the wait before a spot opened would be more than an hour, but then I'd just end up back in overflow once I zoned. Guesting really should alleviate that nicely.
By the way, for those who weren't there, the overflow server feels *exactly* like the actual one. You really can't tell the difference.
Well I don't know if overflow is going to go away, but it should because they plan to implement guesting
http://www.arena.net/blog/choosing-and-transferring-worlds-in-guild-wars-2
at the bottom of that page it states:
When Guild Wars 2 launches, you will also have the option to play with your friends on another world with our free “guesting” feature. With guesting, your characters can play on any world where you have friends—with certain restrictions. For instance, you will not be able to participate in WvW while guesting.
While home-world selection and world transfers will be available during our Beta Weekend Event, guesting is not currently available. All players will be able to receive 2,000 gems free for the Beta Weekend Event, so you will be able to purchase a world transfer if you find yourself in need of one. Since the limit is one transfer every seven days, you’ll only be able to change worlds once during the Beta Weekend Event.
Overflow was a complete disaster, the District system needs to be brought back.
Yeah, I knew guesting wasn't avaiable because I tried to do it and it said it wasn't available. But I don't think that means the overflow server is going away. The thing about the overflow server is taht a month after release, it'll probably rarely if ever be used anyway.
I see what you're saying though. You can get a group together and go guest it at a low pop server at any time and this removes the grouping issue people were having.
ArenaNet said they were going to work on making sure groups can stay together even with the overflow system by the way.
So, if you think about it these overflow servers are meant for you to be able to play while waiting to enter the server. People are complaining that you can't play with your friends in this scenario because they are in a different server. But, you do know that you would be looking a t a queue and your space in that queue for that time you are in the overflow server??
I find it to be a GREAT feature because I will take actually playing over looking at a queue any day of the week. Now, the real problem is the population in the beta was probably too big and this will likely happen at launch to. So Anet could go the extra mile and figure how to fix this up but Im perfectly happy with the current solution because its better than what we had.
I wonder if it had to do with servers being completely crammed full of lvl 1 - 10 players and only 3 of the five racial starting areas available?
Hmm I might be onto something here.
I'm sure server pops will be adjusted too.
Life IS Feudal
You have a valid point. I'm thinking they will be able to. It'd be best for them to move the person on the regular server to overflow with their buddy. It would be a small sacrifice for the other person but if they want to be with their buddy it shouldn't be too major.
I got put into overflow I think 3 times and two of those times I was moved to my home server. Took bout an 45mins to hour maybe. I wasn't grouped at all and just roamed so I didn't really feel the effects of being on my server or not. Being able to log into a server is better than geting the que system IMO.
Good post though.
PM before you report at least or you could just block.
The thing about overflow and friends is the fact that a friend that's already in the original server can't just teleport a friend there from overflow - why? Cause then you could have the scenario where people will logon, ask for a group invite and poof be in the world and kill the whole overflow function.
That in mind the only possibility is to move the person from the original server to overflow and man would that make people complain. Still this would be my favourite move from ANets side to make.
I actually feel this way myself. At least with the district system we knew where to meet up.
For my brother and I, it was normally Japan 1 (We live in New Zealand, but Japan 1 was our district of choice. Next to no one was ever there)
The least they can do is allow us to join a friend in their particular overflow. I fully expect something to be implimented either by next beta weekend, or release.
MMO's played: Ragnarok Online (For years), WoW (for a few weeks only), Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Eve, Allods, Shattered Galaxy, 9 Dragons, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Star Trek Online (Got someone ELSE to pay for it), Champions Online (Someone else paid), Dofus, Dragonica, LOTRO, DDO and more... A LOT more. I've played good AND bad. The bad didn't last long. :P
It wasn't explained because it is a 'feature'
Anet did admit that the queue system was kind of broken (IE - playing for 5+ hours and never leaving the 'queue' server) It's still very much a work in progress!
A post from the oficial forums:
"...
Overflow happens when a map is full.. it creates a copy of the map for you to play on while you are que’ed for the home map. What Overflow didn’t do this weekend, (which it will,) is attempt to put you in the same overflow as your party and friends.
..."
Not sure if I can link the source (since lots of people don't have access to the forums), but it's on the oficial forums - guild wars 2 discussion - guest system thread (or you can use dev tracker, it's the top result right now).
Personally I think one of the problems with the overflow was that people could just not log off. I once let my character online while I had to do some other things, I came back two hours later and it was still online (in GW1 I've left chars for over 11 hours and still there when I come back, but GW1 was heavily instanced so it makes sense there). Most games disconnect you after you've been a little time idle. So, I'd guess the huge queue times to go from overflow to regular was mainly because people were just not logging off so they weren't making space for it.
It was the biggest complain on the oficial forums, though, so I don't really see them not changing it for release or even for next beta weekend.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
As L0C0Man just quoted (though didn't quote the whole thing, so I'll do it), the guest system and overflow system are separate things.
Guest and overflow are different..
Overflow happens when a map is full.. it creates a copy of the map for you to play on while you are que’ed for the home map. What Overflow didn’t do this weekend, (which it will,) is attempt to put you in the same overflow as your party and friends.
Guest is the ability to play your main characters on another home world where you have friends. (independent of how full the map is). Guesting was not in BWE1.
I'm trying to get some more discussion from them on the potential of having a guest system as suggested earlier in this thread, because I think it's a great idea.
would you rather spend 20 minutes in a queue?