Player sepreation: A Guild Wars Issue

[warban]

When the best online cooperative game that I have ever played goes from one complete online world to multiple regional worlds I can’t help but think the worst. I really start to worry when it looks its not going to change back. For those who haven’t been in the game for long and those who never preordered or didn’t play the betas there used to be one world sever.

Taken from the support at Guildwars.com
Link http://support.guildwars.com/cgi-bin...i=&p_topview=1

Why are there different game worlds?
Answer: In order to give the best possible service to players around the world, we have established server data centers. At present there is one in North America, one in Europe, and one in Korea. Over time there will be more data centers, all designed to give players the fastest and most efficient service during downloads and during gameplay.

Firstly I think it’s a great idea to have multiple data centers. It minimises lag and overall creates a better game play experience. I have no problem with this but what I struggle with is for a game that is so connected with the ability to move players about from one sever to the next, across the world and back again, why did they have to split the English speaking world in the process?

Fun fact: When battling within the tombs of the primal kings (world pvp) against people from different worlds you’re no longer playing on your home data center.

Players are placed in one of the data centers or "worlds" when they set up their Guild Wars account for the first time. This game world will be chosen as the best for service, but will also be the world that is most likely to contains a number of people who use the same alphabet or character set as is most common in the player's part of the real world. It is very important to note that the Guild Wars worlds do not prohibit playing with or against people from around the world. Players can meet anyone they wish in the International Districts and can engage in cooperative and competitive gaming from that district.

There are 3 game worlds. America, Europe, and Korea. 2 if you only count the retail box versions of Guild Wars. Most English speakers will pick America with the exception of the English speakers in or around Europe. At the current time if you don’t speak English your best sever choice is Europe as well. This is because America is already filled with English speakers.

If you speak English which world would you rather pick?
A world with only English speaking people in it. Or a multi-language world.

Wouldn’t it just be better to spilt the world based on Language and not World placement?

Note this wouldn’t have to mean that you’re not playing on local data centers. The game could be improved so that once players have grouped and started the mission the game would then place them on a sever that is closest to all the players in that group.

One of Guild Wars biggest issues is having the required amount of player around to Group for missions. A crucial step with this game would be to have as many people who speak the same language within the same world as possible. This would improve the time taken to get a group for the missions as well as give people more choice as who to group with.

International Districts... Ok so it’s a redeeming factor for those who are separated. But there are a few issues.

First. One of the end game PVE mechanics (optional) is extremely hard for unorganised groups. It costs 1000 gold per try but is very rewarding if you succeed. It is also only available when your World is holding the Hall of Heroes. Thus you will need to be organised to attempt this with Either with a guild or other organised group. Now if your guild contains members from both the European and American worlds you cannot not group with them because this area contains no International districts. Thus it’s impossible to group there.

Next point which is unrelated to the first. Is that international districts were mainly designed for players meeting players who already knew each other. It’s not meant to be a random pickup Area. You can group with that international friend but you have just lowed your chances of getting a compete group. It’s still possible but the odds are you are not going to wait around for more people to show and you will just take Henchmen (AI players).

Players are encouraged to play in their respective game world. If they elect to make a change, they will be able to do so, but changing worlds will be limited to just five times during the entire lifetime of a Guild Wars account. We ask that all players consider carefully before moving from one world to another. Our Support Team is not able to assist if a player exhausts the number of changes on his or her account.

Ok So A.Net is very serious about Ladder and competition mechanics protection. They don’t want exploiters ruing the game. That’s great but Limiting the realm selection to 5 makes this an even more serious Issue. You can’t keep changing your world. And when you hit zero your stuck. A.Net Tech support cannot help you.

Wouldn’t it be better if Region selection was separated from PvP world tournament?

There are also other gameplay reasons for having different game worlds. We will be able to offer world competitions, and will provide in-game bonuses for achievements based on the in-game worlds. More details will follow on this facet of Guild Wars.

And you see with more in-game bonuses for achievements based on the in-game worlds comes the fact that your not going to be doing these things with your friends from other worlds. This isn’t something you can just fix by buying the next chapter, more data severs in places like Australia or other places will split more guilds and friends if they accept this fate. And if they don’t well this just proves that the world separation is a failed concept. Take note separation not warfare.

There are many ways that A.Net could improve this system but it seems this isn’t going to happen. I know this game will go far and will be great but this shadow will hang over it forever.

When you go to pick your world choose carefully you only get 5 chances.

there was never one world server....

[Dreamsmith]

Yeah, the game is split into thousands of districts and many times more instances. Players are automatically separated into thousands of shards no matter how you look at it. The issue is, can any two players anywhere in the world play together if they want? Then answer is, yes. They just meet in the appropriate district. Whether that happens to be a "home" district or an "international" district isn't terribly important. So it is one big worldwide community, not broken into pieces in that sense. It's as much one big world as it ever was. Why anyone gets worked up about picking a region is beyond me...