Looking for an explanation

[Glaukus]

I'm confused as to why there is an overflow server for specific cities (Lion's Arch). I'm ignorant when it comes to game technicalities and such. There was no such thing in WoW which had more players, they could all just go into Stormwind/Ironforge whenever. Is the reason for overflow in this game because of it's technical limitations, or is it just an idea to keep cities from being to crowded? Sorry in advance if this question comes off as stupid or hard to understand. ^-^

[Karizee]

It's an improvement over WoW's system in that when servers are full you don't have to wait in a log-in queue, you can still go into the game, you are just not on your home server. You will be in overflow until a spot opens up on your server.

[Glaukus]

It's an improvement over WoW's system in that when servers are full you don't have to wait in a log-in queue, you can still go into the game, you are just not on your home server. You will be in overflow until a spot opens up on your server.

But I was only placed into overflow when entering Lion's Arch. I'm confused as how there was a spot open in my server, but not in that particular city?

[Karizee]

But I was only placed into overflow when entering Lion's Arch. I'm confused as how there was a spot open in my server, but not in that particular city?

Because they do it by zone.

[Fencers]

Sorry in advance if this question comes off as stupid or hard to understand. ^-^

Neither Guild Wars 1 or Guild Wars 2 have a contiguous, open world. Every zone, including cities, is a discrete instance that has a player capacity of X. When X is reached in any particular zone, including cities, players are shuffled to an overflow version of that instance.

An overflow is like queue in that you will be asked if you would like to move back to the actual server zone after a time. However, unlike a passive queue you can still play the game. Albeit on a temporary instance of that zone or city.

It's a limitation of the Guild Wars engine. Arena.net's engine can not handle a contiguous world ala World of Warcraft or Tera. Has nothing to do with "an improvement over WOW" or login queues. It was this way sans overflows in Guild Wars 1- each zone was discrete.

[Doozerjun]

What Fencers said, although I will add that the instances in GW2 are persistent while in GW1 they weren't.

[draykorinee]

It's an improvement over WoW's system in that when servers are full you don't have to wait in a log-in queue, you can still go into the game, you are just not on your home server. You will be in overflow until a spot opens up on your server.

Yeah... its not an improvement its a limitation they had to set. Nice try though karizee.

[InfiniteRetro]

Neither Guild Wars 1 or Guild Wars 2 have a contiguous, open world. Every zone, including cities, is a discrete instance that has a player capacity of X. When X is reached in any particular zone, including cities, players are shuffled to an overflow version of that instance.

An overflow is like queue in that you will be asked if you would like to move back to the actual server zone after a time. However, unlike a passive queue you can still play the game. Albeit on a temporary instance of that zone or city.

It's a limitation of the Guild Wars engine. Arena.net's engine can not handle a contiguous world ala World of Warcraft or Tera. Has nothing to do with "an improvement over WOW" or login queues. It was this way sans overflows in Guild Wars 1- each zone was discrete.

its not a problem with the engine in gw2, they're just crap coders. gw1 did districts PERFECT. gw2 is the hybrid however in this day and age for a game that touted as being a persistant game its rubbish. every zone is still a lobby of people who log in and out of it, which, ironically, is THE only part of the game that actually denotes true activity.

[xizzu]

Yeah... its not an improvement its a limitation they had to set. Nice try though karizee.

I take gw2 system anyday, id rather be in an overflow than queued up for hours in other mmos, so yeah there are pro and cons on both systems.

[Fencers]

Well, to be fair. One isn't ordinary queued up to enter Meridian, Stormwind or Velika. Not sure if it's common on a random Thursday to be sitting in a queue for Undercity sighing away at the game you could be playing. I do not play World of Wracraft.

Obviously, those other games intimated have large, persistent and mostly contiguous game worlds. Whereas Guild Wars 1 and 2, do not have contiguous worlds at all. The former has no persistence either.

Login queues typically only matter during major releases or expansions. I have yet to ever hit a log in queue in any game for any thing other than new release/expansion. So really this whole, "I'd rather play than stare at the login screen!" is at best HIGHLY circumstantial and worst, stupid.

[xizzu]

Well, to be fair. One isn't ordinary queued up to enter Meridian, Stormwind or Velika. Not sure if it's common on a random Thursday to be sitting in a queue for Undercity sighing away at the game you could be playing. I do not play World of Wracraft.

Obviously, those other games intimated have large, persistent and mostly contiguous game worlds. Whereas Guild Wars 1 and 2, do not have contiguous worlds at all. The former has no persistence either.

Login queues typically only matter during major releases or expansions. I have yet to ever hit a log in queue in any game for any thing other than new release/expansion. So really this whole, "I'd rather play than stare at the login screen!" is at best HIGHLY circumstantial and worst, stupid.

Erm no, there was (dont play WoW anymore) a server (Outland EU) which had queues all the time during the course of cata and wotlk, not only at the release of an expansion. I also remember another server which was home server (Stormscale) had massive lag at the main city and the barrens due to massive amount of people online, it made duels and using ah unbearable. So yeah I still prefer gw2 system over WoW one.

[mafao]

Games like WoW can support many more players per server, so an entire continent is usually run on a single server, with several thousands players online. Games like GW2 or Tera require more computational resources per player (due to positioning playing an important role), so they can support only few hundred players max per server. This is why they run each zone in its own server instance. Its inconvenient, but its the price you have to pay for having action-based combat, combo-fields and 'real' projectile simulation.

[draykorinee]

Erm no, there was (dont play WoW anymore) a server (Outland EU) which had queues all the time during the course of cata and wotlk, not only at the release of an expansion. I also remember another server which was home server (Stormscale) had massive lag at the main city and the barrens due to massive amount of people online, it made duels and using ah unbearable. So yeah I still prefer gw2 system over WoW one.

Erm the GW2 one didnt even let me on the server with my guild we formed due to being full, so I prefer the normal (not wow one) mmo style. Never seen queue in my life but a handful of overpopulated servers having queues is normally counteracted by blizzard offering free server transfers and noone taking it and whining about queues still :S

[xizzu]

Erm the GW2 one didnt even let me on the server with my guild we formed due to being full, so I prefer the normal (not wow one) mmo style. Never seen queue in my life but a handful of overpopulated servers having queues is normally counteracted by blizzard offering free server transfers and noone taking it and whining about queues still :S

Yeah, because transfering to those dead servers is soooooooooo worth it, played 2 years on a dying server id rather have a 2 hour queue than not being able to recruit/pug. Why do you think people keep transfering to overpopulated server? Oh and btw you cant create new characters in locked servers in WoW (dont know about other mmos).

[Zilong]

Truthfully I have never had a problem with servers be it on WoW or Gw2 or anywhere else. It's true that I had to make a few transfers due to horrible servers on WoW (25 bucks per characters really sucks), and I had to wait on queue at Illidan's server but I eventually gave up on that server too, my character was just starting anyways. So yeah I don't even have any preferences on this regard.

[Purple]

Well, to be fair. One isn't ordinary queued up to enter Meridian, Stormwind or Velika. Not sure if it's common on a random Thursday to be sitting in a queue for Undercity sighing away at the game you could be playing. I do not play World of Wracraft.

Obviously, those other games intimated have large, persistent and mostly contiguous game worlds. Whereas Guild Wars 1 and 2, do not have contiguous worlds at all. The former has no persistence either.

Login queues typically only matter during major releases or expansions. I have yet to ever hit a log in queue in any game for any thing other than new release/expansion. So really this whole, "I'd rather play than stare at the login screen!" is at best HIGHLY circumstantial and worst, stupid.

Not quite. My server back in WoW had Queues throughout vanilla, and didn't get better until near BC's release. Once BC did release the Queues were worse than ever for months until Blizzard gave people the chance to leave for another server freely. If people hadn't left in enough numbers they'd outright stated they'd do it for us, it was just that overloaded. Even after they we still had ques in the hundreds at times, and WotLK did not improve things. I'd agree with you in relation to most other games though, WoW, as notes many times on these forums, is just an exception.

Obviously, those other games intimated have large, persistent and mostly contiguous game worlds. Whereas Guild Wars 1 and 2, do not have contiguous worlds at all. The former has no persistence either.

WoW is probably the only truly open and persistent MMO I can think of, outside of a few other rare - rare - exceptions. The majority of MMOs are divided by zones, just like GW2, which is persistent, if not open. As for the borders touching, well, that's debatable. Something like DAoC could send you quite a ways at a zone point, while at others it would transfer you to a shared 'zone border' of sort between zones. Call it a limit if you like, but it's extremely common and everything from SWTOR to AoC and more do it. The Secret World is a good example of this, as you'll go through a road tunnels between different zones in the first area, definitely not sharing a solid border, and the majority is separated by much more - only accessible through the portals in Agartha.

Calling these things limitations is misleading, because it makes people think of flaws - something they couldn't do, when in reality GW1 did what it did as a design decision - not due to limitation, and in GW2, as well as the majority of MMOs that seem to do this, it's still a design decision. Call it a limitation all you like, but the original design decisions, in regard to the engine and GW1, was with purpose. These weren't 'well we had to do this' but 'we want to do it this way'..

If you want to talk about limitations of an open world design, like WoW, how about noting that the lack of zoning used to cause widespread problems during world PvP, especially when it grew large enough, that would screw with people's gameplay who were nowhere near the battle. That's a bloody engine limitation.

[InfiniteRetro]

lol people preferring overflow servers ROFL i mean, even an idiot begs the question 'if they can run an overflow server WHY not actually have it as a true area instead' oh wait, they cant, mediocre coding and all.

[Pion]

i remember my mid BC raid times where the whole raid needed to log in a full hour before the actuall raid beginns because of the ques due the prime raid time.

LK times where nearly the same. Not a full hour but still more then a half just for being able to raid.

[mafao]

lol people preferring overflow servers ROFL i mean, even an idiot begs the question 'if they can run an overflow server WHY not actually have it as a true area instead' oh wait, they cant, mediocre coding and all.

I suppose you can do it better? Anyway, what is you experience in building scalable architectures? There is a physical limit on how much a single server can process reliably.

[tlacoatl]

It's a limitation of the Guild Wars engine. Arena.net's engine can not handle a contiguous world ala World of Warcraft or Tera. Has nothing to do with "an improvement over WOW" or login queues. It was this way sans overflows in Guild Wars 1- each zone was discrete.

Its nothing to do with not being able to handle it, why do you spread such crap?
Its about the zones being spread over the world and not directly linking up, its jsut a different approach, one I personally prefer over WoW's "contiguous" world which I find limiting and also jarring in its zone transitions.

It also allows the over flow servers to work zone by zone which is great as it does not disrupt game play as much as the server wide log on queues in wow and massive zone lag wow experiences at peak times in populated areas (lagaran as Dalaran got to be known as).

Neither is inherrrently better or worse, just different approaches.