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Guild Wars 2 particularly vulnerable to population changes?
Gorilla
Member UncommonPosts: 2,235
Firstly, I am talking about gameplay, not business.
I played the stress test a couple of nights ago that started 1:00 am in most of the EU (it was a work day too). As you might imagine it was not nearly as busy as previous tests/BW's. The experience was very different. I really missed not having many people around, events where tough and a lot slower for example. It was testament that Anet have largely succeeded in there vision of getting people paying together.
If I was Anet I would seriously think about having relatively high population caps vs server capacity and let overflow servers work there magic. Of course that might impact WvW queues or have other consequences.
their server technology obviously allows dynamically changing stuff but I wonder what they can do to maintain optimal populations? I guess the very best outcome is a slow steady rise in overall number of players!
(a side point, broadly speaking some events are pretty tough with 1 or 2 and somewhat trivial with 20+, I guess that can be tuned)
Comments
You know, I had forgot about that mechanic. Of course this is only possible because of their server technology. But shows the thought they have put into things. I wonder if you can guest from EU to USA? GW 1 allowed you to choose.
My hunch is that a rather large percentage of the population will want to WvW especially as time goes by. I guess you might end up with a situation where Sea of Sorrows is the "unofficial PVE server". Now there's a wacky thought!
You can;t solo many of the events, but its extreamly fun to duo or run with 3-4-5 players. BWE expirience is facerolling, prepare for much tougher and challenging expirience
Also what the mate above me said - Guest to another World if nobody around.
Kinda offtopic, sorry, but how do people know this? Is there a list of these "unofficial" PVE/PVP servers?
Yeah, I was reading a thread about the implications of a major population drop a while back and they were talking about exactly what you described. Making some unoffical PvE servers.
They were also talking about how they might be able to organize better for zones like Orr that might actually require quite a few coordinated people to complete in an optimal way.
http://www.gw2guilds.org/
It's a pretty wellknown websites for many established guilds, and will give you a pointer of what some of the population on many servers will do. E.g. guilds of a certain nationality will roll on server X, you'll find it all there.
I'm a night owl and I've had just as much fun playing the game when there aren't many people around as I do when the zone I'm in is packed.
Dynamic Events scale to the number of participants. Level Scaling scales people down to be able to play the game with lower level friends, (or just for the joy of playing content they enjoy). The game also has a Guesting feature, which allows people to join others for PvE play on another game server.
This game is much, much better designed to adapt to changing population densities than any MMO I've ever played.
So, no, the game is not particularly vulnerable to population changes. Just the opposite.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I have found that some DE's can be really difficult solo, and it was much slower. I'm not really sure how much this will actually factor into things however. In any of the mmo's that I've played at launch, I keep expecting to go back and see the starting zones empty but they never are. And DE's are not required to complete, so if you decide to pass on one it doesnt matter. With levelscaling, people from higher levels can come back and still enjoy the content, so a person really doesn't outlevel an area.
With all these points, I don't think it will be as vulnerable as you might guess.
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I seem to recall a developer post specifically talking about guesting that indicated you could guest from EU to USA, or vice versa. But I can't find it now. Unfortunately, I'm getting old as well, so my memory is sometimes a bit flawed. I can say, for sure, with 100% certainty that I did see a developer directly address this question. What I might be getting scrambled is in thinking they said you could...it's possible they said the exact opposite.
Does anyone else remember having seen what I'm talking about? I swear, It is out there.
Edit: I'm taking the time to try to find the original source of what I saw. So far, I have found this thread over at guru. No developer response or link there, but it says what I thought I remember, which means it is just a matter of finding the developer source. I will keep looking.
Edit 2: I found this link over in reddit with someone who actually did do it during early BWE before they disabled it.
Giving up on finding the web page where I saw a developer specifically talk about this, but based on what I'm seeing in other forums and on reddit, I am confident I am remembering it correctly.
It puts thesse worries in perpective that there is also players talking about GW2 be a game that benefit from population drops, because immersion will be so much better, when the Zerg is gone and the story in the events really can unfold.
Now that's a nice website. I guess my server of choice will be "Riverside" - it's a German server with a good number of guilds already listed as playing there on release. I hope Anet completes all the localization before launch... there were still a lot of things untranslated during last stress test.
"Fire is never a gentle master..."
You know thats exactly what they have done? First beta weekends had tons of servers, nearly 50. But for BWE3 they cut the numbers and instead increased the population caps on them, better utilizing the hardware and lowering the number of low pop ones.
Thankyou so much for this link!!!! Been wondering where the UK guilds were going. X3
So possibly Desolation or Gandara if those servers are still up
(Think there were a less servers in the last BW).
Sorry for going slightly off topic btw XD
I was there last friday night too, during the nightly european stresstest.
The low populated starter zones gave a very different feeling, no more zerging, but actually thinking how to handle the problems, some DE´s played totally different with little people around, they obviously dont scale linear, which makes me thinking some events have a minimal player requirement to succeed. While others can be done with a single person and smart thinking.
Actually the lower number of players made people want to group and talk to eachother.
And best of all, no queue for WvWvW
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I was just speculating what might happen if ( for example) populations largely shifted to WvW, people could designate servers to hook up on. Hasen't happened yet, hopefully will not.
Yes there is definitely a sweet spot. Actually it works well from 3-4 upwards. As for upper limit I guess it depends on the event, some of them seem to get a bit zergy round 15 or maybe 20 people.
I have to agree with this 110%. This is one of the reasons I am not too worried about the fact that I have not yet settled on which class I want to play first. I will do a little alt-hopping for the first week before I settle on one (leaning toward Sylvari guardian but I'm not quite sure yet).
By the time I get settled, the main mass of people should have moved past where I will be. And I do not see that as a bad thing. As someone who normally does a lot of end game raiding, I am pleasantly suprised with how happy it makes me to be going into a game where I won't be "in a rush" to get my first character to the level cap.
I don't think that site is very reliable when it comes to non English speaking communities. Last I heard, Riverside will be the unofficial German RP server and most of the "pro" guilds will go to Elona's Reach.
I'm determined to try to pace myself a bit too, no reason to rush if the metre isn't running (no sub).
Really the issue is dealing with some stuff solo, sure the zergs are perhaps not the finest experience but some things are very challenging solo.
As a previous poster said its good to be challenged and I agree, a couple of things verged on frustratingly difficult. Maybe that's not a bad thing!
That's another good point a DE level scaled down is likely to be less challenging than 'on level'.
i rmember on an early BW finding a fort with a couple of things to do, rescue a couple of little guys (skinks I think) and kill a champ. Tried pulling the champ to somewhere I had a chance of killing him, wasn't to be, not with his escorts. I Then spent time on the first problem kinda got close. Long story short despite failing had fun and look forward to returning one day.