GW2: Server transfers and WvWvW bonuses

[Squirrelbanes]

Excessive supply would act to reduce prices. Hopefully then we'd see a fall in gold sellers. Ofc, it all has to be balanced with the gold available in game...it might just end up relative.
But with the reduced demand for high end items that make your character more powerful, hopefully there will be less scope for sellers.
It remains to be seen whether the cosmetic items will just replace the powerful items from most MMOs that ppl chase and pay big bucks for. We'll just have to see.

[Arkenaw]

If you want to switch servers completely, you pay. It's that simple. If you don't like speculation, you are of course welcome to not read it.

---------- Post added 2012-02-24 at 03:38 AM ----------



I would assume that the content won't be so difficult that you absolutely need the buff.

There's hardly any speculation, it's almost everyone speaking as if it's set in stone already.

[Lothaeryn]

It remains to be seen whether the cosmetic items will just replace the powerful items from most MMOs that ppl chase and pay big bucks for. We'll just have to see.

It's highly probable that this will be the case, economies usually have one niche market that just has a ridiculous pricing for it. IN wow it was Epic BoE's and mounts/collectibles. In GW2 It very well may be the unique/rare costume designs for armor skins.

[Dosvidaniya]

Umhm, not commenting on others PVE experience. Worried about my own! Specifically said it makes me nervous if they have a big effect on PVE.

What if my server sucks and I can't get a buff? D:

The ladder system will place you with the nearest "skilled" opponents. So, the only way you'd always lose is if you were truly the worst server of all servers. Yes, one server will be that server. However, you'd hope that they still stay in the running for winning their respective bracket. If not, it's probably time for a server merger.

That's my qualm about the system. I'm hoping they'll allow for some flexibility in transfers if WvW always has an outlandish queue or if the server is dying. I'd hope they'd merge or split you in said cases.

[Lucky_]

What are you even talking about? This does not punish PvPers it punishes those that are chasing the top WvW servers. Notice that its the ammount of points your server gains and not who wins that gives the benefits.

Last i checked WvW was between 3 realms which means if their are 30 realms there will be 10 "Top" as u like to call them servers, Even with those 10 servers theirs still 10 more servers that are getting close to if not all the benefits the "Top" ones are getting depending on how many point thresholds you pass, And 10 more servers who also depending on the point thresholds they pass will get some benefits. Their isnt going to be "home server crowding" and remember just because you win one week doesnt mean you wont be last the next. Server hopping is pointless after the first or second hop. I am sure there will be servers that will have huge PvP communities and once you find those you will make that your home server. Everything will balance itself out and the end and chasing the "Top" 10 is really only going to get you in the middle of the pack the way the system works.

You're talking about a very nice pipe dream. Reality is a polar opposite. Take a look at top "PvP" servers in WoW for a great example of this. In EU, it has been Stormscale-EU for a long time. The server was utterly destroyed with queues, to the point where you had to wait several hours for months on end to play on the server. Did it make top PvPers go away? Nope. For every one that left and freed a slot on the server to migrate, there has been ten new candidates to get in. I still remember the german tears when Cyclone got fused with german battlegroup, and poor germans basically lost around 500 arena rating overnight upon entering arena after the fusion. It was a slaughter with their gladiator barely holding to low end of duelist cutoff in the next season if even that.

People who like this certain type of gameplay tend to be ready to sacrifice a lot of time and comfort to be able to play with and against similar people.

Last I checked (which was last year) it still remained the "go to" server to find best players in EU and best chance to get a really good team. That is the reality. People will zerg the "best server" and will whine about queues. And keep on zerging it regardless.

[smelltheglove]

i think lucky has a point there, players might not be able to gain the rewards immediately, but they might jump ship to a "winner" for the long term. although, that might be an opportunity for those that prefer more pve challenge to go to poor pvp servers. hard modes? lol, jk

[Squirrelbanes]

It's highly probable that this will be the case, economies usually have one niche market that just has a ridiculous pricing for it. IN wow it was Epic BoE's and mounts/collectibles. In GW2 It very well may be the unique/rare costume designs for armor skins.

Yeah...but the difference is you don't have to have it to make your character relevant and be able to play. Wanting is still a very big motivator...but, ya know, just sayin There will still be a massive demand for it...but hopefully not in the same extreme that many people will buy gold for it.

---------- Post added 2012-02-24 at 03:51 AM ----------

Snippidy

This will be mitigated by only being matched against equal servers though.
Will be hard, or next to impossible, to guarantee a victory. Of course, hardcore pvpers will gravitate to the highest ranked servers...but you're randomly faced against other servers that are as good as you.
Can't see it being such a major problem. At least, much less of a problem than in wow.

[Dacomp89]

You're talking about a very nice pipe dream. Reality is a polar opposite. Take a look at top "PvP" servers in WoW for a great example of this. In EU, it has been Stormscale-EU for a long time. The server was utterly destroyed with queues, to the point where you had to wait several hours for months on end to play on the server. Did it make top PvPers go away? Nope. For every one that left and freed a slot on the server to migrate, there has been ten new candidates to get in. I still remember the german tears when Cyclone got fused with german battlegroup, and poor germans basically lost around 500 arena rating overnight upon entering arena after the fusion. It was a slaughter with their gladiator barely holding to low end of duelist cutoff in the next season if even that.

People who like this certain type of gameplay tend to be ready to sacrifice a lot of time and comfort to be able to play with and against similar people.

Last I checked (which was last year) it still remained the "go to" server to find best players in EU and best chance to get a really good team. That is the reality. People will zerg the "best server" and will whine about queues. And keep on zerging it regardless.

It would seem that GW2's system would at least spread those people over 3 servers, otherwise they wouldn't have good opponents to face. Even then though, it's doubtful that a single strong server could stand evenly against 2 other realms combined. It's part of the beauty of the 3 realm system. If one realm is extremely strong, the other two would almost have to ally in order to accomplish anything, and one would assume that 2 realms could beat 1. That plus the rating matching would make finding a single or even a few dominant realms more difficult. You might end up fighting the same 5-6 realms many many times though, as natural brackets are formed. All in theory of course.

[Torched]

Hate this excuse. What about meeting new people and finding out they play but are on a different server? What about friends who don't know that you play and roll on a different server. I don't care about pvp at all btw. The penalty should be only the stat boost, not a fee. I'm already going to be spending money on character slots.

......... people are fine with paying a fee in WoW for char transfer and that´s a game with a monthly sup fee, but their not ok with it in a game that has no monthly fee? sigh.
Some people you just can´t please.
Its not like your jumping on new home servers every few days.....
This game lives off of microtransactions and you think its strange and totally unfair of them to have you pay if you want to change your home server?......

OT.
I think its a great idea.

[Lucky_]

This will be mitigated by only being matched against equal servers though.
Will be hard, or next to impossible, to guarantee a victory. Of course, hardcore pvpers will gravitate to the highest ranked servers...but you're randomly faced against other servers that are as good as you.
Can't see it being such a major problem. At least, much less of a problem than in wow.

You're missing the point. This will be exacerbated by only being matched against equal servers, because it will mean that this server(s) will be the only place in entire game to go for high end WvWvW PvP.

With all the WAR RvR fanatics raging about WvWvW, I can only hope that they can keep the "top" server up. And I foresee a massive wave of QQ about not being able to make it into WvWvW because of team size limit.

In this regard, battlegroup segregation is arguably a good thing, because it lets people wanting to sit on top more then one destination to go to. With all servers being matched against each other until those "best" servers come clearly on top, they will be the only address to go to.

[asharia]

which kinda scares me How Long the listing will be for items on the AH, having a single server AH like WOW's for one faction is large as it is, but EVERY person who plays the game on the same auction system? that thing's lists will never end!

incoming 200 pages of single dusts ><

[Cyclone Jack]

Umhm, not commenting on others PVE experience. Worried about my own! Specifically said it makes me nervous if they have a big effect on PVE.

What if my server sucks and I can't get a buff? D:

It also depends on what the buff percentages are. I think it was a curse vid that showed WvW bonuses and, at the time, they were between 2 and 4%.

Something else to think about would be if consumable buffs (food, scrolls, etc) as well as other obtainable buffs (killing a named boss, talking to the dooders at the shrines, etc) are available in GW2, as both of these are already available in GW1.

Personally, I don't think it'll be that big of a deal, and i doubt any buffs will be needed to complete any content.

[Squirrelbanes]

You're missing the point. This will be exacerbated by only being matched against equal servers, because it will mean that this server(s) will be the only place in entire game to go for high end WvWvW PvP.

With all the WAR RvR fanatics raging about WvWvW, I can only hope that they can keep the "top" server up. And I foresee a massive wave of QQ about not being able to make it into WvWvW because of team size limit.

In this regard, battlegroup segregation is arguably a good thing, because it lets people wanting to sit on top more then one destination to go to. With all servers being matched against each other until those "best" servers come clearly on top, they will be the only address to go to.

I'm really not missing the point and I do agree with you mostly. I just think it will be mitigated, to some extent, by the random factor. I'm not at all suggesting that a "best" server or a group of the best wouldn't emerge and that people would gravitate towards them.
Just saying that throwing in a random factor mixes things up and makes it harder to guarantee a victory.

Anyway. it's impossible to know how this will play out until we get in: server population and the number of servers will play a massive role in how this works. Like, if the queues on the best servers are very long I think people will go to one of the other best servers instead. But we'll just have to see what happens.

[omlech]

What does this mean though? How does home vs visiting actually work? I just wish people would wait for more solid info before posting every little scrap of detail they find.

There's nothing more solid than right from the horse's mouth.

[DrakeWurrum]

Just the fact that you can freely visit other servers for the hell of it allows this game to be infinitely more social than WoW will ever be. O_o

I'm not sure I'm a fan of putting a fee on changing your home server, but the fact that you can visit other servers alone is amazing.

[Merendel]

which kinda scares me How Long the listing will be for items on the AH, having a single server AH like WOW's for one faction is large as it is, but EVERY person who plays the game on the same auction system? that thing's lists will never end!

Alot will depend on how well they design the search interface. To be honest wow's AH interface can be prety bad when it comes to finding exactly what you want or filtering results on commodities that are abundant. Its a far cry better than TOR's but still there's no way to filter out the 10 pages of single item stacks that are 1 copper cheeper than the 20 item stacks. Also bad where items who's name was included in other items, searching for uncut gems could be painful, finding wool cloth when someone had posted pages of wool cloth bolts just as bad. If the interface alows for plenty of filters to narrow down your search and preferably a way to set the max number of results per page a global economy wont be all that bad.

Hopefuly they make the buying of items quite smart. If for example I want 100 widgets and some joker posted 50 in single stacks for for 10 gold then there's stacks of 10 rangeing in price from 10-12 gold per item. If I could place an order for 100 widgets with a max price of 11g per item it would buy out all 50 single stacks and try to fill as much of the order as possible from the 10 and 11 gold stacks of 10 buying out the cheepest first. Even better would be if they alowed partial purchases of stacks and auto condensed smaller stacks for the same price in the search list.

[Sargerus]

People are honestly complaining...? Are you kidding me?

[Zeek Daniels]

Take a look at top "PvP" servers in WoW for a great example of this. In EU, it has been Stormscale-EU for a long time. The server was utterly destroyed with queues, to the point where you had to wait several hours for months on end to play on the server. Did it make top PvPers go away? Nope. For every one that left and freed a slot on the server to migrate, there has been ten new candidates to get in.

You are not getting what i am saying. So ill say it again, Lets say there are 30 total servers which means 10 different WvW battles, which means there will be 10#1's 10#2's and 10#3's after the first round of battles. Now of those 10 #1's PvPers will flock to the one that gained the most points thinking that server is the best. So lets call that server A. Server A now has to fight 2 other #1 servers lets call them Server B and Server C. Lets say Server C wins the next round and server A comes in 2nd. Now should all the PvPers flock to each server that won this round? or should they stay? Lets say they stay on Server A who is matched up with 2 other servers the both won the first week and lost the 2nd. This time Server A gets first place.

Do you see whats going on here? The system balances itself. You dont need to change servers if your trying to be on the winning side. The only reason i see to change servers is to join more PvP high pop servers so that there are more players doing WvW on your realm and they realms you will be facing. Because im sure the more PvE focused realms will have a ghost town like atmosphere in their WvW.

[Lirik]

Does the server picking system still work like traditional MMO's? Where I choose a server from a server list?

The way it is sounding right now is that if at launch me and 4 friends roll characters at the same time it randomly picks a different server for all of us and we don't get a choice.

Assuming everyone gets placed on different servers, in order to play together 4 people will have to all visit one person's server to play together...


Am I getting this right?


Also a little off topic but, is the mist a zone for your server or is it where everyone in the game congregates?

[Squirrelbanes]

snippidy

Pretty much agree. I think we'll see tiers developing, rather than a king server, over time.