Talk:World/Archive 1

Archive

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• 2009-2014

Australia server

I guess something people here want to know is, will there be a server located in Australia? Right now we have a ping of 300-500ms (verified with speedtest.net) most of the time to either of the euro or america servers, slightly less to the international server, and least to the all-but-deserted asian districts, but never below 200ms for me. During peak times like holiday events, forget it - very heavy server loads and ridiculous lag make the game almost unplayable. The northern hemisphere seems well-catered-for... will the people in the great southern land have such joy? I'm sure one could be set up in one of the capital cities. There are a lot of Aussies that play this game, and I'm sure a 50-100ms ping would be a welcome change from getting on servers that are half a world away. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 120.29.33.202 (talk • contribs) at 18:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC).

Rename/move to World?

In the context of servers, Eric and others have always called them Worlds, using Server only as an explanation. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to have the explanation of a world on the actual World page, with Server redirecting there, rather than the other way around? Sirrush 13:49, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Why was this ignored, I agree with sirrush, but none is taking action or even debating this. --AdventurerPotatoe - 22:29, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

That comment was from a year ago, most likely it was missed. And of course no one is taking action, Sirrush didn't add a move tag, so no one would have found this. Anyways, I agree, move to World. Eive 22:35, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I was pretty good at not knowing wiki stuff back then. :D --Sirrush 01:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)-- Amantis - 03:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

We all were Sirrush, we all were. - 02:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

regional-specific worlds?

I am wondering if ANet has said anything about region specific worlds. I.E. Will European players have a different world than American players. I know that in GW1 they broke down the barriers between territories, allowing anybody to play anywhere, but I haven't heard anything about GW2's take on it. I believe the information would be relevant on this page and helpful for player expectations at launch. --Tloch14 22:26, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I've very much wondering this as well. Is there any information on how they are named yet? How are they chosen, and at what point (character creation, account creation?)? How are they divided, regionally? --Starfleck 16:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Transfer free

So the big question... transferring home servers, does it entail an in-game fee, or a €€€ based fee? It is not entirely clear from the quote, but since the server technology is pretty rigid, I'd much rather have a high in-game fee than a low out-game fee. In WoW I always felt really bad after moving servers because it was, without any possible justification, 20 euros completely wasted, just because I wanted to play with a friend (I'd never move for a guild nor WvWvW bonuses).77.176.125.152 22:43, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

You can still visit your friend's server for free, only changing your home server will cost. I don't really see any reason to move your home server besides guilds and WvW, so if that's not your thing, don't do it :P --zeeZ (talk) 22:46, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

How about doing WvW with friends? Very important option.77.176.89.252 19:53, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

BOO BOO BOOOOOOO I agree with 77.176.89.252. In GW1 I developed a large network of friends on Euro and US servers. And within those two regions, I developed separate groups of friends. I also have RL friends who play far less than me, and would prioritize them, even though I wouldn't interact with them in game nearly as much as my in-game developed friends. So we're limited in who we WvW with. This is one of the worst bombshells of disappointments regarding GW2 I've seen. HORRIBLE BS ANET! Social interaction should be key. This is a lot more important than the silly social media focus they just announced. Social is key. This is the single biggest hamper on the social I've seen. And it's huge. --Mooseyfate 06:23, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately the choice here is between making WvW fair and letting anybody do whatever they want. I'm all for the former. Edit: And you can still PvE and PvP with your friends to your heart's content. Just WvW that's a bit restricted. --Eerie Moss 06:39, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Selecting more than one group of old friends to play with trumps this particular type of balance. Balance should be achieved through restricting rewards to encourage this only happens when friends care more about playing together than those rewards. A long time ago I read something (yes, I know everything we read is subject to change) saying you could change servers for free as you pleased. After the change you either wouldn't be able to play WvW for a few days, or that you got no rewards from WvW. Either of these are better. The later of the two is the better of the two. --Mooseyfate 12:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I guess we need to see how the guesting feature works before we can really comment on the drawbacks of the current design. This is the way it's been designed for launch, but I would imagine if there's enough feedback from the community about this choice, they'll probably come up with some other way to structure it. I'm in agreement with restricting rewards, but the problem you create is if a particular world is losing, strong players can potentially join the losing side and rally to a win for that server. So you'd need to extend the restrictions such that people from other worlds can't even contribute to the score, and then how to track that becomes unmanageable. jumpboy88 21:01, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Chances are if you make it to max level in one server, you're already pretty established there. I don't imagine transfers will be free, but you can always roll another character elsewhere. Theoretically, anyway-- anguard 17:39, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

No Anguard, all your characters are on one server. If this weren't the case, I wouldn't want to start low lv character like this anyways (multiple times). I seriously missed not being able to WvW with some friends during the beta weekend. WvW is the perfect thing for joining friends of different skill levels. Very casual PvP. I tried both forms of PvP offered, and what I'd call both forms of PvE (story, and roam around doing misc tasks/events). WvW is honestly the only one I desired to do with friends. There will be more forms of PvP I belive. But WvW is the one I'd want to do with friends who are of vastly different skill levels.. because it's all about numbers there. There absolutely are ways to balance WvW abuse for people server hopping. If they don't choose to persue those routs, then so be it. But I am very much in disfavor of everything dealing with Worlds as the current state of the game stands. A real disappointment. --Mooseyfate 05:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I think they should allow one free transfer on every account. Firestorm10 14:10, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm still really displeased about this. GW is effectively asking me to know right now who I will be doing WvW with. I have lots of friends on many servers. This is a game, I shouldn't stress over who I will WvW with. I should just be able to do it. Figure out who I will WvW as a NATURAL PROCESS OF PLAY, not a per-deterministic one. It's like the government asking me how much I'm going to spend on my business this year. I'll spend what I need, I don't know this now! This goes against their GW manifesto hard. One free transfer is a good start. One free transfer per year is a hair better, but still pretty bad. This is worse than the Favor problem from GW1 (only worse because there are so many more segregations per player... better because it only segregates WvW). --Mooseyfate 07:13, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

List format

Should we do a bulleted list or comma separated list? --Indigo121 02:33, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

can we write that Fissure of Woe will be the Italian world? even if its not true, so many italians will come there and it will become it! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by World name (talk) at 12:49, 15 August 2012 (UTC).

Worlds that aren't places from GW1

Or I cant find any mention of them on either wiki:
Ehmry Bay, Fergusons Crossing, Whiteside Ridge, Sharp's Corner, Scavenger's Causeway-- Amantis - 03:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

all but Scavenger's Causeway are ArenaNet employees: Jonathan Sharp, Mike Ferguson, Kevin Ehmry and Chris Whiteside =) ..sorry, i do not know how to make an account (edit: made one) or place this information in correctly...source: google and your own wiki =) Scavengers Causeway is next to Orr, connecting it to Tyria —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Inculpatus cedo (talk • contribs) at 16:12, 25 April 2012 (UTC).

Steamspur Mountains sorta is, since it was called Southern Shiverpeaks in GW1. --Falseprophet 15:47, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

that counts for everything on the list if we do it like that Falseproph. ._. --The Holy Dragons 16:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Clique Servers

Perhaps clique isn't the right word, but heck it's 3am so that's the word that came to me. I guess it's almost inevitable that certain worlds are going to evolve into and be characterized by people of certain play styles. Such as: PvE focused worlds, a few primary PvP focused world that play WvW almost exclusively, and probably not a few almost completely uninhabited worlds. It reminds me of the major cities in GW1 - Kamadan and LA being the most populous, and then at times KC being almost completely empty and then other cities (Denravi) that noone ever goes to for anything except to pass thru on their Prophecies tour, not to mention the actual servers on GW1, with certain being populated (and sometimes only in certain cities on certain servers - Eternal Grove) and others being empty almost all the time (Polish). (Usaf1a8xx 08:08, 26 April 2012 (UTC))

I believe the plan is to document characteristics per world on this wiki. - Infinite - talk 08:23, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

It's natural for players to be drawn to the servers that are most populated. By the time I'm able to play this, there will probably be an unofficial "RP" server for me to join.-- anguard 17:44, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

As long as the guesting system exists, I believe there will be cliques, as there were in GW1 (International 1 for HoH or nothing). Players will definitely group up like this over time, but for starting out you can only tell so much about a server's playstyle from their general attitude. Until there's a high number of lvl80's, we won't truly know (except for RP-ers).

May I suggest we add several links at the bottom of this page to compiled lists of Guilds-by-Server, or better yet, create a new page with this info for any wiki contributors to add their own guilds on to? Even lesser-known guilds can then self-proclaim themselves to be for a specific server before Launch Day, to lessen the number of server transfers just for the purposes of meeting up with friends.--Starfleck 17:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

The way we document guilds (if at all) is still being discussed. That said, we will never include guilds on main space articles. - Infinite - talk 17:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Right, that. I would not want guilds to abuse Wiki as a sort of recruiting tool. Are you saying a reference link to something like [1] or a similar compilation on a separate wiki article (noted/tagged to be something unofficial), without the guildpage links, would be interpreted as mainspace? I'm not completely familiar with the rules on references and unofficial pages. Thank you for your response, by the way.--Starfleck 17:34, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

When we start documenting server cliques, we will definitely reference with proof of what is documented. Per example, any documentation on the unofficial RP server(s) will be referenced by a (couple of) source(s) clearly indicating that the RP communities have decided on those worlds. Something like your link is a general list of where guilds and communities end up at, so we can't use it for that (organising guilds should be left to the leader and their co-leaders, worlds included). You need specific sources to document specific cliques. (Per example; World x is mostly inhabited by Scandinavian players. This would need a reference to some kind of community hub (maybe even just an image of world chat being dominated by Scandinavian languages) to back that.) - Infinite - talk 17:40, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

When it comes to guilds, can't we do it the same way as GW1W? (Or whatever acronym we're going to use for it :P). After all, nothing would have to change other than adding a "Server" line on a template.-- anguard 17:53, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Once we're ready to implement a system to document guilds; yes we can make it clear per documented guild (or rather, the owners of the guilds can do so). - Infinite - talk 17:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Awesome. Ok makes perfect sense to me. Thank you Infinite <3 --Starfleck 18:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

EU servers.

I don't suppose anyone has any idea what servers will be adopted be which countries/languages? I reckon that if the servers have not already been designated, is inevitable that some servers will get populated mainly by people of a particular language or from a specific country. I just wandered if anyone knew anything about it? Titan Crow 16:16, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

See this list. 91.82.183.175 16:33, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a million. Titan Crow 16:50, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Multi world guilds ?

I'm wondering something.

I'm living in North America (way north of New York), but i'm part of a small guild in wich 99% of member are living in Europe. And i dont play on the same schedule of them most of the time.

My intentions were to choose a server of NA, but now i fear that it could prevent me somehow to contribute to my european guild "success" within the game. I'm thinking about the "points" (fame, whatever) we win for the guild in PvP. Although i never was much of a big PvPer in GW1, they said many times that in WvW theres will be others mean to contribute to the success of our chosen world and/or guild.

So, i'm wondering if members of the same guild can be on differents world. What could be bad about it, and what could be good.

Thanks for any advice. TulipVorlax 00:41, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but my understanding/expectation/hopes will be that guilds are not bound by world, just accounts are. After all, what'll you do if you chance servers - automatically leave the guild? Or what if your account is in two guilds, and the guilds are focused in two different servers? But again, I may be wrong. Konig/talk 04:10, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

They haven't really said anything about guilds in relation to worlds but it makes the most sense that they will be global. In your situation, if you want to participate in WvW with your guild, you'll have to select the same home server as them, which will likely be in Europe. When you're not playing WvW, you can use guesting to play on a server in the US instead. --91.74.200.48 06:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

We tested out the multiple servers guild on BWE3 by mistake, both me and a friend playing on different servers in EU and both creating a guild named "xxx" (censored for not making an ad here) (our GW1 and AION Guild). As the game was not stopping one of us in doing so, I believe you can make a multiple worlds guild but it will be counted as different guilds, one as xxx-server1 and one as xxx-server2. Moonie 95.33.120.49 01:40, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Heavy traffic servers

I saw some worlds listed as high density. Just wondering if there is any fear of a particular world "filling up"so to speak. My fear is signing up and then my friends signing up later and not being able to get in the same world as me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 166.248.65.28 (talk) at 17:00, 29 April 2012 (UTC).

ANet addressed this in one of the FAQs (I don't have the link handy). If you sign up for a world that is full, you will be placed into a queue and will move when there is space.

So, yeah, worlds will fill up, but you shouldn't worry about it. Make sure everyone agrees which world to start with. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

When an area is full, you will be moved to an "overflow" server and enter a queue list to join the "main" server. meh always 4get to sign--meheezen 12:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

BWE results

I signed up to a world based in a different part of the world and switched midway through to a local one. I didn't experience any notable lagging (outside the total outages that everyone suffered). In other words, based on the first BWE results, I would recommend that guilds ask all members belong to the same world, so that people can play together. (I didn't play any WvW, so I can't speak to that.)

Transferring was cryptic — I signed up to move, despite the description, got back in immediately. But on the old world. So, it appeared not to work. But then, 10-15 minutes later, was moved successfully. (Others who tried this had the same experience.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 04:42, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

That was actually explained in a post by Arenanet. When you ask for a World Change, you enter the queue to do so. I don't have the original post in order to reference, sorry.

If there is no wait then yeah you go. If there's a list, then you wait your turn, behind others that asked for a transfer. Until then, though, you can continue to play on your current server, then it transfers you in time (10-15 minutes, maybe even mid-match in PvP, we'll have to test this to find out?). That's the gist of it. --Starfleck 17:02, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Individual world articles

So are we going to document each world as an individual article? There has currently been only one, [[Anvil Rock]], but I don't know whether or not there exists a previous consensus on this. Mediggo 08:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe we benefit from individual documentation, as all worlds are the same, game-wise. Redirecting the ones not already in use may be nice, though probably not necessary. I'd say just keep the list of worlds to "document" them. - Infinite - talk 09:14, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

/agreed. If, for some reason, it turns out that individual worlds are notable in some way, we can create articles for them. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 02:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Unless worlds are in some way different from each other (doubtful), then they shouldn't be documented separately. [That being said, if we ever get real-time game-wiki integration (a guy can dream) individual articles might be useful. Now is not the time though.] Support deletion. Aqua (T|C) 02:16, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of Anvil Rock I assume. :) So when it comes to trivia or whatever, shall we link to all those locations or just add a general link to locations in GW1W, or wut? (Referring to this revert of my own edit where I added links) Mediggo 06:57, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't see much value to linking to the GW1 articles. Tyria (world) is linked in the main text and that has info on the various lands. The relationship of world names to Tyrian locations is just a smidgeon beyond coincidence, e.g. there's nothing about Anvil Rock (GW2 server name) that has anything to do with Anvil Rock (explorable area) or Anvil Rock (lore)...except that ANet was too lazy to do something more than re-use names. If you still think the trivia is important, I'd suggest a table hidden by default (with a show button), so it doesn't add to article bloat. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 07:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd still suggest doing a redirect for each server name eventually anyway. This way, the article won't be recreated by some random newbie and people will find the info they want if they type their world name in box (the redirect to general article).
—Faalagorn☎/✓ 23:37, 14 September 2012 (UTC).

Shing Jea - an Asian server!

Please reserve "Shing Jea" name for an Asian server! They deserve it! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Teisei (talk • contribs) at 14:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC).

Fix Guesting Description Inaccuracy

I'll make the change myself if no one notices this in a week. "Players will be able to visit other worlds as guests **as long as they have friends on those worlds**" We don't _need_ friends on a server to Guest to it. We can switch just to switch, like an RP person Guests over to an RP server. The misconstrued info comes from http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/05/08/guild-wars-2-wants-you-to-play-with-friends/ where Eric was just using it as an example. WAZ 01:19, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Guesting means you are only temporarily visiting the other server, and someone else has to invite you to guest. Switching means you pay to permanently transfer your account to the other server, and you do this on your own. They are two distinct things. —Dr Ishmael 01:27, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

In spite of his juxtaposition of 'guesting' and 'switching,' I think Wazwolf has a valid point. The line, "A player may also choose to play on any server where they have a friend as a guest." can also be interpreted that regardless of which world a friend is on, you can be a guest there. It doesn't make sense that you are only limited to worlds in which you have friends, and the menus during the beta, while not operational, had the option to guest on any server. --Thervold 03:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Really? I thought someone else had to invite you to another server as a guest. I didn't know you could "guest" yourself. —Dr Ishmael 03:51, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the article is correct. The ANet blog entry about this says basically the same thing: "With guesting, your characters can play on any world where you have friends". It seems pretty clear to me. --Eerie Moss 05:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

"When Guild Wars 2 launches, you will also have the option to play with your friends on another world with our free “guesting” feature. With guesting, your characters can play on any world where you have friends—with certain restrictions. For instance, you will not be able to participate in WvW while guesting." ~Martin Kerstein. You can read that as literal. Or, you can read it has how we speak, "you can play on any world where you [might] have [your] friends." As in, we don't need literally friends to Guest there, but why else would we bother? But seeing 2 different employees use that language has me doubting it was just an 'oversight'. So if we need friends on a server to Guest to it, I'll be pretty pissed. It ruins international guilds who may wish to move around to unofficial servers that host their language, or timezone. WAZ 14:55, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I recommend you submit this as an official suggestion (or in the beta forums when they are back online). However, I'm pretty sure that ANet has changed their mind on this more than once. I thought I remembered on of the devs saying that guesting, when enabled, would allow you to play on any server. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:11, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I will if need be. I was thinking the same as you that there was an official response saying we did not need a friend, but I can't find it. I should have linked it back in May.... WAZ 00:03, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

During BWE3, my friends and I were on different servers but we were able to play together by A) Being in the same party and zone and B) an option on my Right click on a party member's name called "JOIN". The problem is, I haven't seen it or been able to duplicate the situation since BWE3. For ref: Server I was on was Henge of Denravi and server they were on was Crystal Desert. Still trying to get an easy way to join up with people on a different server :( Dargus 00:34, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like you and your friend were on an overflow shard together (overflows are cross-server). Guesting is a mechanic whereby you'll be able to join the main instance, but it's been completely disabled for all of the beta weekend events. They turned on the "server squishing" mechanic for the last BWE which allows overflow shards to overlap and put different servers together. I could be wrong, but that's what it sounds like. --Starfleck 20:31, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

World list

Lists like this are normally sorted down-then-across, not across-then-down. —Dr Ishmael 15:54, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. - Infinite - talk 15:57, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

French/German designations? Redshift 16:00, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

It would seem the French and German playerbase has "claimed" some worlds. I guess we can add annotations accordingly to reflect these claims. - Infinite - talk 16:02, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Is that what was meant by the tags in the blog post? I assumed that was a bit more official than the players "claiming" them. —Dr Ishmael 16:08, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't even notice those. Ignore my previous comment. We should definitely add these. - Infinite - talk 16:14, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Should the lists now also be made expandable? Or perhaps a different formatting altogether? - Infinite - talk 16:44, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I put them in a horizontal block because they make poor use of the space vertically. And in 'across-then-down' order because that was easier to produce and presumably maintain because I could imagine there will be further server changes in the lead up to launch. -- aspectacle  18:11, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

World-related topics

These topics come up often when discussing worlds:

• Are these really physical servers? or are they virtual/cloud-based concepts? This affects ...
• What does ANet really mean when they say US-world or EU-world?
• Should EU players expect more lag if tied to a US-world? (vice-versa?)
• In WvW, will ANet only pit EU worlds against other EU worlds?
• Are there any meaningful consequences to one's choice of server besides:
  • Lag (noted above)
  • WvW teams and the resulting Power of the Mist benefits?
  • Whether it's trivial to find your friends?

In my limited ability to test (by joining a foreign server), I didn't detect any noticeable lag. Guidlies who have researched latency reports believe that the differences between US-player|EU-server (or vice-versa) are negligible compared to the differences across player ISPs and home wiring.

So, I believe (without sufficient proof) that world is a virtual concept that matters little to the player. i.e. the designation of EU and US are nearly arbitrary tags that are mostly useful for those attempting to find a world where people are more likely to be located within a similar time zone or to speak a common language. For example, a French-speaker from New Orleans is (in my theory) likely to be better off on an EU/French server and a US-miltary employee based in Augsburg, DE working nights is more likely to be better off on a US server. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:40, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

It shouldn't make any difference to players whether each world is an actual, distinct, individual "box" server or whether they're running multiple virtual machines per box, assuming that the virtualization architecture does an efficient job of load balancing. —Dr Ishmael 20:06, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Something I really wished I'd checked last BWE: Is your choice of Home Server actually restricted, or can someone from the EU have a US server as their home server? Asking, because for multi-continent WvW guilds, it's important. Illiander 06:36, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Possibly answering my own question: "If you choose to select a home world that is in a different region from where you purchased your game, you will be logged out for a short period of time while your account is moved to your new region.", from here: http://www.arena.net/blog/choosing-and-transferring-worlds-in-guild-wars-2. Assuming that that data is still valid, and that the implication is valid. Did anybody try this last Beta? (Illiander, not logged in) 82.41.46.0 13:29, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Unofficial Server List for Certain Groups

Can someone add a page, or section to this page, or both (to redirect people looking for such info) about what servers will be for what communities? Like Tarnished Coast is the RP server (with Ehmry Bay being RP alternate and Older Players). Sea of Sorrows and Darkhaven are the Oceania servers. Etc. So far, this link has been condensing info from various forums: http://www.wikihost.org/w/gw2betaweekend/start . It was for the betas, but some info will carry over to release, like the servers chosen by the RP community and Oceania community. Also, Eternal Grove was the LGBT server during one 'unofficial server list' Google search. Would be nice to help guilds and future players to meet, without having to search pages of Guru and other forums. I would like to add this asap as an 'Unofficial Community Server List' if we can get some uniformity in what we find online. Mostly, the communities have already agreed, and spread it by word of mouth, but that only applies to fans who have been following the game for a while. New players will miss this info. WAZ 00:03, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

You can do so in your userspace if you want, but that's not the kind of information that really belongs in mainspace - it's documenting the players/community, not the game. —Dr Ishmael 00:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

If you want to link to the wikihost article on list of fansites, I think that's fine. However, I note that there are similar lists on Guru, Reddit, and elsewhere...and the associations don't always match. Individual guilds and alliances have also chosen servers and they might have more of an influence on the world population than any of these lists.

It's also not obvious to me that the majority of players benefit by this not-quite-arbitrary segregation by playstyle, creed, nationality, or physical location. I see the appeal for some people, but I don't think there's any statistics showing that it's useful for most. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I actually vote in favour of adding notes on the type of servers the players have dubbed as clique worlds (particularly roleplaying), solely because dominant communities on worlds are looking for ways to organise themselves, and new players. Not in the style of adding [RP] to certain worlds on our list, but rather a few notes in the notes section addressing the dominant features of worlds, grouped together by type. ArenaNet is all about inclusion nowadays, so they'd probably also prefer we recognised clique worlds and supported them. - Infinite - talk 09:37, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

It is debatable whether all that segregation is good or bad (personally, I think rather good), but we should only document it, not pre-empt it. So we should not write any of this before launch. All we have so far are some players stating their intentions, nothing more. --Xeeron 09:59, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is a note I should've added to my previous comment. There is no need to add anything until it's been established in the actual release. - Infinite - talk 11:40, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I was about to ask very nearly this same question, as a matter of fact. So I'll simply add to the discussion with a minor question; where should the line be drawn on what "cliques" to document? (I should note that I am in favor of documenting such things, so long as it is documentation of a clique that is in place, rather than documentation intended to help form a clique.)

For a simple example, apparently the world I was on during BWE3 (Blackgate, for those curious) had been designated as "the Reddit server". (there was very little Reddit-related discussion for the rest of the weekend, so who knows how far that clique-forming endeavor actually got.) Reddit is of course a rather large community - though argument could be made that the GW2 Reddit community might not be so big - so I would think this may be worth mentioning. However, it also may be left alone, as if anyone wanted to find the world Reddit users were using, they could simply check Reddit for the information.

How big of a clique should it be before it's worth documenting? Things like RP worlds are a given, I'd say, so long as it is a large enough portion of the RP community all in one world. Your small little fansite all using a single world is not worth documenting, since anyone who wants to know can just check your small little fansite. The middle ground between the two is where I'm curious on it; larger communities from specific sites, in particular.

On that same topic, if a majority of wiki-users decide to all stick onto one world, would that be worth documenting, or would you consider that simply gratuitous self-service?

(edit: apparently Darkhaven was being used as the Reddit server, not Blackgate, which may explain why I saw little Reddit discussion on the server.) -- Jïörüjï Ðērākō.>.cнаt^ 05:49, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) If we aren't going to allow people to post guilds in the mainspace or a guildspace, I don't see why we should make it easier for some folks to decided arbitrarily for everyone else that certain servers are associated with one type of game play or another. As with guilds, people are free to use user space, forums, and other fansites to organize themselves.

I love the idea that roleplayers might be able to find each other more easily, but they already have tools to do that. I thought we were being conservative in reserving the wiki to document the game, which only designates a few types of home worlds: US, EU, EU/French, and EU/German. IMO, listing anything else would be inappropriate.

Of course, if someone can show stats demonstrating that Server X is e.g. 50% immersion or role-player, then I agree that would be worth documenting ...as a bullet in the the trivia section. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 06:07, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

EU Servers - English only

Out of the EU servers are there going to be any specifically set up for those of us who only speak English as most of us English folk lack the lingual skills or language tuition to speak German, Spanish, French etc.

Perhaps I should comment in the GW2 forums for this but while I am here it would be good if world selection was NOT a pre-requisite simply for PvE and I think would be better served once going in to PvP. Lady Elyssa 21:04, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

All EU servers in the left column under "EU" is English. Only the right column are the non-English servers, sorted by language. Moonie 95.33.120.49 01:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Unofficial Community World Usage BWE3

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u3QpOmEhLOzjhyxrI5Ulf8rDz_INGgvyqHECiA2yXks/edit?pli=1 Rudhraighe 16:09, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

In addition to Rudraighe's link, there are also the following unofficial lists:

• GW2 Guilds
• Guru's version
• a free form list at Ether Pad/Titan

I seem to recall seeing a list on Reddit, but I haven't been able to find it. Several forums also include sections devoted to guild recruiting/searches, e.g. GW2 Forum.

(As mentioned above, I don't think we should post unofficial lists on the main page, but I see no problem linking them here on the talk page. A quick scan of the four sites linked above shows some guilds listed differently across the lists or some worlds identified as having a focus (e.g. role playing), but inconsistently across the sites.) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 03:56, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Most likely, even such general themes such as RP will take a little while before they settle into any one world. There's also going to be a lot of shuffling around while players try to figure out which worlds they'd rather be on for WvW purposes, etc.

I'm especially interested to see how that balances itself out; if we'll end up with "X world is competitive WvW" or if the fact that winning worlds will attract less experienced players will equalize things. All in all though, it seems a good idea to note that any lists early-on in the game will probably need to be taken with a grain of salt, until everything's actually settled down. -- Jïörüjï Ðērākō.>.cнаt^ 17:39, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Spanish-language server?

The BWE3 Worlds blog post didn't list any server as being [ES]. I'm reverting the listing of Ruins of Surmia as a Spanish world until someone can provide an official link showing that. —Dr Ishmael 01:52, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Locking this page for IPs

How many times did someone try to edit in a Spanish server? Can we just lock this page for IPs (and newer contributers) until release? - Yandere 22:20, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Protected for 3 months. We'll see what happens after that. - Infinite - talk 23:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Baruch Bay

Does anyone know where Baruch Bay is located? I can't find any info... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.126.197.197 (talk) at 20:45, 15 August 2012 (UTC).

Will Guesting be available at launch?

If guesting isn't available at launch, when will it be available? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.186.18.236 (talk) at 02:39, 17 August 2012 (UTC).

when has not been determined.."In time, we’ll also introduce free "guesting," which will allow players to visit other worlds as guests as long as they have friends on those worlds." Rudhraighe 04:15, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

World transfer notes

I know many people want to have confirmation from Arenanet that free world transfers are going to be available at launch, so I added a note to that effect and a link to the official support website. I noticed that the World Transfer article seems to be missing, maybe some of the info on the page should go there? -- Davidmo 02:22, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Individual world articles - revisited

I know that there was a previous discussion about whether there should be pages for individual worlds. I would like to submit for consideration that in GW2 it very much matters which world a player is in. In fact the whole competitive WvW concept is rooted in what I call world identity a la "my server is better than your server". If that premise can be accepted as accurate then it follows that players will be interested in resources available to them for their specific worlds. Such resources will essentially all be external to the game such as notable players (for example Ehmry Bay has YouTube user woodenpotatoes who has 32k+ subscribers or the Relics of Orr with their long running podcasts) as well as fan sites such as the Ehmry Bay server forum which I run. The same is true for almost all other worlds out there. Individual world pages would be a central resource (other than search engines) to maintain collections of those relevant references. So please reconsider your previous decision and allow pages for individual worlds. --Thuley 05:33, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

That isn't really something for the wiki to document, however. It would be best to find a fan-site which is willing to and does document this stuff and link it in notes/trivia/external links section on this article. Konig/talk 06:35, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

have to agree with Konig here, i just see us getting the nightmare that is/was guild wars 1 guild namespace on gw1w. It might be worth it to make a suggestion thread in the new forums asking anet to build world sites.- Zesbeer 06:40, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

It's just a page not a namespace. That's what? 50 pages or so? There should be world pages. Links to popular useful external sites like he mentions aren't a big deal. Just links. No nightmares. As long as people don't try to use the page as their personal site billboard ad what's the harm? Set a guideline of link plus short description. In addition to world pages there needs to be a category for each world name so articles and users can be linked together. If I want to find out more about Anvil Rock I go to that world page. If I want to find other users on Anvil Rock I could go to that category. There certainly needs to be more space given to worlds than just a list of names. They are far too important to the system not to have their own page even if they are only place holders. — Malacon on Blackgate — 13:29, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Ideally Anet would create world sites that then have links to resources relevant to that world. In practical terms that is unlikely to happen because it would require constant management effort on Anet's part to add/remove sites from those lists as necessary. One could argue that Google knows all and a player should be able to find whatever they are looking for on search engines. This is only partially true since recently especially Google started to clutter their top search results with YouTube and Twitch.Tv videos which may be related to the search but often are not the actually searched for resource. Not many players know how to use the search operators to exclude Twitch.Tv results. To be perfectly clear though, the purpose of the world page would primarily be to promote external fan sites created by players of that world with relevance to that world. Even when using good search terms in search engines, and disregarding the video results cluttering up the first page, most often commercial GW2 sites own the first page(s) of search results. World pages would essentially help a Jade Quarry fan page to be found by linking to it directly and by doing so also improving its relevance which would then make it rank higher in search engine results.--Thuley 16:35, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The wiki's stated purpose is to document the game, not to document the community. Since community is an important aspect of the game, however, we have a List of fansites page. If you want links to fansites, that's where they should go. We can add subsections to group them by world, but we don't need to create additional articles that are nothing but external links (which is what world articles would be based on your proposals here). —Dr Ishmael 16:47, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Grouping the List of fansites by world would be a good compromise. I will continue the discussion about this on the talk page over there. Thanks.--Thuley 17:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Ruined Experience

I'm in LA. My friend is in LA. My friend is on a different server. In GW1, I would pop over to their district and do emotes and stuff by them. The reason for worlds is so not worth it that I can't do this. Yes there is a guesting feature. No I don't know if they have it working since so much of this game was not in working order at launch. But going to the trouble of guesting to just pop by and /point isn't what this type of interaction is all about. I am animatedly opposed to all the cons brought on by server segregation that the old GW1 didn't have. The pros of server loyalty, server community, and WvW are not worth it to me. I wish ANet would see this down side of the system as is, even if they don't place the same value on the loss of these friend interactions that I do. --Mooseyfate 15:15, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, Moosey, I hope you also don't like the fact you run around with other random players outside of towns, participating in random world events together. Because that's also what the server segregation allows. Otherwise it would be back to instances for the explorable areas, rather than a permanent world, and there would be no world events at all. I don't think you have thought about the pros of the servers properly. 203.114.128.238 00:55, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to sound harsh but competition between servers is at the very core of long term GW2 game play. The game mechanics that go along with that have been known for some time prior to release. It is very unlikely that this core of the game will ever change. You want to play with your friend then join the same server. Simple solution really.--Thuley 19:56, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

this has nothing to do with this page please post any suggestions or complaints about the game on the official forums or on your user page, because the wiki is not a forum thanks! Talk pages are to discuss the page itself.- Zesbeer 02:04, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

WvW rankings

Hey,

does sb. here have all of the WvW rankings which were officially published by a-net? Would be nice if we could collect them and create pictures with the changes of the world ranking and points of each world. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ophilon (talk) at 22:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC).

A page has been started at "World versus World ranking". —Dr Ishmael 22:27, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

"Gaming" world selection

Based on what's in this article (and knowing nothing else about the game) it sounds like one should simply choose the most populous or highest-ranked server and by mere virtue of doing so they gain an advantage either by way of having more players or some kind of reward in WvW? Can someone explain what incentive exists to join a lower-population or lower-ranked server, other than the likelihood of running into overflow queues? 76.253.0.17 01:34, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

WvW queues are the big one. If you want to WvW then you really don't want to be on one of the overflowing servers. If you want to WvE (or not WvW at all apart from the world discovery) then you want to be in a server that is winning it's current match by a landslide.Illiander 08:11, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Can people from different servers enter someone's personal story instance together?

I have done it before with dungeon instances (everyone has to be in the same party and in the same zone that the dungeon entrance is in), but it seems like it's not possible for personal story instances (even when the whole party is in the same zone that the instance entrance is in). Can anyone confirm this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.186.18.236 (talk) at 18:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC).

I cannot confirm entering someone's personal story from another server. I have done the ascalonian catacombs with a group that hasn't all completed story mode yet, but that was all on the same server. I have also entered the same dungeon with people on different servers in the above ground area, and not able to see the light blue dots you normally can in a party, but when entering the dungeon, all players were there. Not sure if this info helps or not, hope it does. (Also, please remember to tag your comments on talk pages with 4 tildes (~). 69.183.30.135 21:22, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Caulle's Crossing

There's no option for "Caulle's Crossing" in the world transfer list. It's also not listed in any of the official rankings. Finally, WvW matches are three servers at a time -- CC would be the 25th world, creating a gap. Accordingly, I've removed it from the list. 75.37.20.28 19:22, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Unofficial Associations

Europe

• Aurora Glade : South African
• Blacktide : Polish and Russian
• Desolation : UK and Republic of Ireland
• Far Shiverpeaks : Scandanavian and Dutch
• Gandara : UK
• Piken Square : Roleplaying
• Ring of Fire : English International
• Ruins of Surmia : English International
• Underworld : Polish
• Vabbi : Hungarian and Italian

Originally posted to main article by 86.5.66.83. —Dr Ishmael 18:28, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

As nice as those associations are, I can confirm first-hand that Desolation is actually vastly International. - Infinite - talk 18:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Pretty much every EU server is "vastly international" -- the reason people care about "unofficial designations" is whether they are more likely to find certain groups on one server than another. For example, the so-called RP servers are unlikely to be even 20% active RP-participants compared to the active population and there are probably RP guilds on every world. However, it's a lot more likely to run into RP groups/guilds/individuals on Piken or Tarnished than any of the other worlds. So, it can be helpful to an RP player to consider those two worlds first.

But there are good reasons for not posting unofficial designations in the main article: they aren't official, they are almost completely unverifiable, and they are somewhat arbitrary with the sole exception of the RP designations. For example, who's to say that Underworld has more active Polish-speaking players than Desolation? How do we know whether to change a designation, if several massive guilds move from one server to another?

tl;dr This wiki follows the guideline that we don't put "facts" in mainspace unless they can be confirmed by anyone willing to invest the effort. And there's no way to verify unofficial designations. 75.37.21.227 18:34, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly my thoughts, and many others' in the past. We decided to not include these associations back then, and am pretty much sure that consensus wouldn't change now. - Infinite - talk 18:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Will Guesting help underpopulated worlds complete PvE events?

Such as contested dungeon entrances and karma temples? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.186.18.236 (talk) at 20:32, 22 January 2013‎ (UTC).

It will only help if underpopulated worlds recruit guests to help. However, members of underpopulated worlds can guest themselves to other worlds, in which those areas are uncontested. I doubt anyone can predict the specific impact to any particular world for any particular situation. I am sure it will take weeks or months before we get a sense of this. 75.37.16.51 01:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

It's not any different from free daily or weekly transfers...--Relyk ~ talk > 02:36, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

It's incredibly different from free transfers, especially with 24-hr or 7-day restrictions. Transferring is a big deal for anyone in a guild, because it means leaving your improvements behind. While some people transfer regularly for WvW, hardly any PvE players transfer more than once or twice. But with the wait period, it's not currently realistic for anyone to go from one server to another to help others or to complete a skill point that is stuck on their server. Guesting will allow people to get their temple armor on-demand (or nearly so), assuming the areas are uncontested somewhere in their region. At the moment, that's a complete impossibility unless you can manage it on your server. 75.37.16.51 04:06, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

World Transfers Free if Zero Characters on the Account

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Account-transfer/first#post1427223

"Ok, confirmed by my good team member: The server transfer fee is for moving characters, if you have no characters the transfer is free." -- Gaile Gray

75.37.20.148 20:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

World ≠ server.

It should be noted that 'servers' are the physical machines that host worlds and other services like login, market and chat, and it's not the same as a 'world'. The article simply says that worlds are servers, which is not true. That's why some maps can have problems while others may be fine, or why a player may be disconnected from chat or look like out a guild, or not be able to login while other things work. Players refer to them as 'servers' out of custom, and I don't see any reason to keep a custom from other games in the official wiki, like calling professions "class". MithTalk 22:50, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

ANet often uses server and world interchangeably in most of their posts/interviews. While it is technically true that a single world doesn't correspond to a single physical machine (a server) or a single virtual one, it's a distinction that won't help players understand the mechanics. For all practical purposes for anyone other than an ANet employee, it doesn't really matter.

I don't see any value in distinguishing between server and world, until this wiki has a detailed article on servers, covering chat/guild data vs environmental data vs world data. If someone wants to create that article, it might be of interest to a few people. 75.36.176.194 08:46, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Guesting

I do like that it says guesting can be done, but is there any explanation of exactly HOW to do so? I think that should be in this article too, since the "guesting" page redirects here. 69.183.30.135 19:05, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

(Reset indent) regarding the current edit guesting still matters from the mega server page they first came out with they said something to the effect of " guesting will help place you in a mega server with people from that server" maybe I am dreaming that but i think a partial revert is in order.- Zesbeer 07:23, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It's important for doing stuff like guild missions. I just did some on Saturday, and guesting to same server was necessary for everyone to get rewards. Vili 点 08:30, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Speaking about guesting, the terms Guest and Guesting both redirect here but there is zero mention of what it does or how's it done whatsoever. It's not even mentioned in the article. If someone with the appropriate knowledge could fix that, would be great. 217.15.224.210 02:29, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, yeah. Basically, when the megaserver came into the game, an unregistered user thought that the guesting section was no longer relevant and removed it completely. I restored it with slight alterations, but it should work now. Thank you for bringing this to the wiki's attention! --Ventriloquist 02:37, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

BWE history

Inspired by the discussion on Talk:Eve's Warren, I spent some time digging through this article's history, the GW2.com news articles, and the ArenaNet Blog at the Wayback Machine to compile lists of the worlds in each Beta Weekend Event. User:Dr ishmael/World is the result. It's very basic, but it tracks the development of the worlds through all the BWEs up to release.

I had pondered using flag icons ( ) instead of text abbreviations, since that would make it easier to visually scan the table.

I'm not sure which of our CSS color schemes it should use. mech1 since worlds are a game mechanic? location since most of them are lore locations? Something else?

The only world name that I couldn't figure out an origin for is Blackgate. Any ideas?

Finally, would this be acceptable as a collapsed table on the article itself, or should it go to a subpage?

P.S. Here is the Excel spreadsheet I used to compile data and generate the wikitable, in case anyone wants to modify the table quickly. —Dr Ishmael 15:22, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

• That much historical data belongs, imo, on a subpage. By tradition, that would fall under "Trivia" and it seems odd to have half a table that doesn't reflect something important to the actual game (however interesting it might be to some of us).
  • That said, I think it is worth keeping the footnotes to the exceptions from the "Guild Wars 1|2 location" theme, especially because those are named after individuals.
• I wouldn't get hung up on whether to use mech1|location|etc: those are just labels we offer so that there are consistent color schemes on the same page and that we can sometimes see "at a glance" the category.
  • OTOH, if you need a reason: these aren't in-game locations, but labels applied to a behind-the-scenes mechanic (the virtual server to which people are non-arbitrarily assigned). They have nothing in common with POIs and such.
• We use flags in every other table that covers the same sort of thing. INB4: yes, plenty of German-speaking players don't come from or live in Germany.
• Are there any fantasy games that don't have a "black gate" of some sort?

Just to be clear: I complete agree that this is worth documenting in mainspace; even though it's not directly relevant to the game, some players enjoy this sort of trivia. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 15:35, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking subpage too - this article is already fairly large, and even a collapsed table of this size would be a bit too much to add.

Definitely keep the footnotes on this page for the current worlds - I never intended this to replace the current list. —Dr Ishmael 15:41, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I always figured it was the GW2 version of gww:Blacktide Den...although that's a mission name, not a place name. Vili 点 20:49, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Blacktide is a current European world. I don't think Blackgate (NA) is meant to reference the same thing. —Dr Ishmael 22:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Google search revealed the reason! Well, ok, no — I suspect someone just liked the sound of it. I would have preferred that all of the server names have nothing to do with Tyria: Yak's Bend should always mean the outpost and never a server. Anyhow, Ish, thanks for working on this. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 01:53, 8 September 2014 (UTC)