16th June 2012, 12:53 PM
- Servers: more on the major problems with GW2's MMO-standard server system -- In GW1, servers were based on region only. Everyone in America server was on one server. When in towns, you'd be broken off into Districts based on how many people were in the zone, but you can switch between Districts with a menu on the screen, so it's not a problem. However, GW2 does things entirely differently -- like with traditional MMORPGs, you have to choose a preset server that you'll be on. There are 48 servers each for the US and Europe. Each is entirely separate most of the time, with its own separate version of the world and separate playerbase. You can temporarily change servers in PvE from the character select screen, but cannot change while playing, and you are always stuck in only one server at a time. The only exception are Overflow servers, for when a server is full; those are shared between multiple servers, but you return to your main server once space is available so that's a somewhat minor point.
So, why is this so bad, and so, so disappointing compared to GW1? First, splitting everyone up into so many different, hard-locked servers, where you can only temporarily switch from server to server (permanent main server switches require real-money payment!), is worse game design than having everyone together, as GW1 does. I'm sure this point could be argued, but while I can somewhat understand a regional server breakdown, I absolutely do not like having a breakdown like this within each region. It divides people for no good reason. Sure, in GW1 with all of those Districts you'd run into a random number of people each time, but it'd always be DIFFERENT people. In GW2, you're only going to see people from your 48th of the regional server each time -- it's an obvious, and substantial, downgrade.
And on that note, beyond the limited number of people that draws from, that has potential playerbase-per-area problems as well. I mean, for anyone who remembers GW1, in the opening weeks and months after a new game launched (of the four, or the free mini-addon Sorrow's Furnace), there'd be a lot of people around. However, over time, as people move on, player populations in earlier zones decreased. They helped this a bit once Expert mode was added, but still, the fact that there were now three worlds, one with two campaigns on it, did lead to a spread-out playerbase. In many missions or towns, if you wanted a player group, you could wait for a long time with no success, and this was in a game with one server per region (remembering that the US, EU, etc were separate servers too in GW1), not 48.
But in GW2, GW2 does the MMO-standard thing of having separate servers, each with entirely different player populations. That means that if you have areas with few people in them, like GW1 has lots of these days, you've got 1/48th as many people in any one specific server, yes? And sure, you can switch servers from the character select screen, but you're still stuck in only one server at a time, and THAT is the issue here. That's an artificial restriction that didn't exist in GW1, regional servers excepted, and shouldn't exist in the sequel either. GW1's Districts solution is a far better one than this.
Of course, as I said in my last summary post grouping isn't nearly as important in GW2 as it was in GW1 because of the MMO design, so the effects of this aren't quite as significant as they would be in GW1. If the answer really is "well this is an MMO now and not GW, so don't worry about it because grouping doesn't matter as much as it used to anyway"... well, that's getting pretty far away from what the whole point of GW was, that's for sure!
Anyway though, regardless of that, it IS a potential issue. I assume that they're hoping that the fact that there's only one campaign right now instead of four, the massive game design changes, and that they're hoping for even more sales this time, will deal with the potential issue, but we'll see if that is accurate or not. No way to know right now, but based on what I saw in GW1, I'm skeptical; there never were any such issues in the betas, not with the time limits and with how they didn't let you go to the whole world, they appeared in the full games after release, over time.
It's nice that you can have friends in other servers, group between servers, etc, but seriously, that's just fixing things around the edges of the problem, much like how they apparently want to add a lot more viable builds for each class, but of course won't just let people make their own skillbars, and are sticking with this stupid weapon-based skillbar concept. I saw that excuse that that wouldn't add that many "viable builds", but seriously, that's a weak excuse.
So, why is this so bad, and so, so disappointing compared to GW1? First, splitting everyone up into so many different, hard-locked servers, where you can only temporarily switch from server to server (permanent main server switches require real-money payment!), is worse game design than having everyone together, as GW1 does. I'm sure this point could be argued, but while I can somewhat understand a regional server breakdown, I absolutely do not like having a breakdown like this within each region. It divides people for no good reason. Sure, in GW1 with all of those Districts you'd run into a random number of people each time, but it'd always be DIFFERENT people. In GW2, you're only going to see people from your 48th of the regional server each time -- it's an obvious, and substantial, downgrade.
And on that note, beyond the limited number of people that draws from, that has potential playerbase-per-area problems as well. I mean, for anyone who remembers GW1, in the opening weeks and months after a new game launched (of the four, or the free mini-addon Sorrow's Furnace), there'd be a lot of people around. However, over time, as people move on, player populations in earlier zones decreased. They helped this a bit once Expert mode was added, but still, the fact that there were now three worlds, one with two campaigns on it, did lead to a spread-out playerbase. In many missions or towns, if you wanted a player group, you could wait for a long time with no success, and this was in a game with one server per region (remembering that the US, EU, etc were separate servers too in GW1), not 48.
But in GW2, GW2 does the MMO-standard thing of having separate servers, each with entirely different player populations. That means that if you have areas with few people in them, like GW1 has lots of these days, you've got 1/48th as many people in any one specific server, yes? And sure, you can switch servers from the character select screen, but you're still stuck in only one server at a time, and THAT is the issue here. That's an artificial restriction that didn't exist in GW1, regional servers excepted, and shouldn't exist in the sequel either. GW1's Districts solution is a far better one than this.
Of course, as I said in my last summary post grouping isn't nearly as important in GW2 as it was in GW1 because of the MMO design, so the effects of this aren't quite as significant as they would be in GW1. If the answer really is "well this is an MMO now and not GW, so don't worry about it because grouping doesn't matter as much as it used to anyway"... well, that's getting pretty far away from what the whole point of GW was, that's for sure!
Anyway though, regardless of that, it IS a potential issue. I assume that they're hoping that the fact that there's only one campaign right now instead of four, the massive game design changes, and that they're hoping for even more sales this time, will deal with the potential issue, but we'll see if that is accurate or not. No way to know right now, but based on what I saw in GW1, I'm skeptical; there never were any such issues in the betas, not with the time limits and with how they didn't let you go to the whole world, they appeared in the full games after release, over time.
It's nice that you can have friends in other servers, group between servers, etc, but seriously, that's just fixing things around the edges of the problem, much like how they apparently want to add a lot more viable builds for each class, but of course won't just let people make their own skillbars, and are sticking with this stupid weapon-based skillbar concept. I saw that excuse that that wouldn't add that many "viable builds", but seriously, that's a weak excuse.
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