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Reason for seperation EU and US servers?


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Hello all,

I have been playing this game for a while now, and since it's my first MMO I seriously am playing, there is one thing I do wonder about, and could not find the answer on these forums.I am curious what the reason for Server Seperation is?I mean, the US and EU servers cannot play together, nor can you simply guest on a EU server while playing on a US server and vice versa.

This has been on my mind for a while, since I am a European that is playing on a US server so I can join my friends ingame. The sheer amount of Europeans playing on US servers puzzles me.There is no benefit for me to play on the EU servers except Ping times. But considering the fact that I run an average of 150 on a US server and tested on a free account and got 27 on a EU server, this does raise the question as to why it is so stricktly seperated.

In order to get better performance, I need to completely abandon my guild, friends and our decades old community for what? Why is it not possible for me to - when I play solo - play on a EU server and then meet-up on a US server when I want to do things with my friends?

Server moves are expensive, and also the risk of leaving a US server to move to a EU server for the times I play solo, just to find the server I left from is full (I do enjoy WvW with my friends) is too high.

Why not open guesting on the opposite server? What are the technical reasons for that?

I mean this is 2019, not 1989 right?

Yes I could use another account to play on a EU server, but come on, buy the whole game again?? Start from scratch again? Not a nice prospect.Is there any solution to this outdated issue?

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Data is stored on either the EU or NA server but not both. Free server moves were locked out because of people that like to bandwagon in WvW. Once the alliance thing in WvW goes lives, perhaps they'll enable the ability to switch between NA and EU although you may be locked out of WvW if not in the correct region as your alliance.

Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7uet5l/world_vs_world_restructuring/dtjseun/

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Here’s what the devs have previously said on the subject (keeping in mind that your account information is stored on either an EU or a NA database and guesting to the other database currently means your account information has to be transferred from one database to the other, then back again to return to your previous server).

Q: I remember changing servers instantly in GW1, how that was possible then? Different system all together?A: In Guild Wars character data /is/ actually transferred across the Atlantic and it was a huge source of downtime and disconnects for EU players. It wasn't fair at all and so for Guild Wars 2 we decided it was a better trade-off to have reliable service on the same continent even if that limited the ability to play together somewhat..Q: will it be possible to TEMPORARILY guest for free cross-region, to allow us at least a temporary way to play at least PVE with friends cross-region?A: No that won't be possible - guesting allowed your "current world" to change but didn't do anything with the location of your data - Europe or North America. We have talked about what it would take to play in Europe and have your data in NA (for example) but the cables under the Atlantic are just not robust enough to have reliable database saves across continents.

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@neoteo.3975 said:Internet is faster than when we were all playing gw1.First, no, the speed of light hasn't changed since then and that's always been the limiting factor for intercontinental data transfer for gaming.Bandwidth has increased, so that more data can be streamed than before and that still doesn't mean that it moves from North America to Europe any quicker.

Secondly, in some instances, the internet has slowed down since playing GW1. The demand for services (especially streaming) is increasing more quickly than the backbone, that part of the internet that lies between your ISP and ANet's. More and more, people are finding that their routing has slowed (more hops, less convenient hops, more trouble between hops, ...). And that will probably get worse before it gets better.

At some point, gaming studios will find a way to compress the amount of data that needs to be transferred and still be able to manage safeguards to prevent client-side interference, so the distance between data centers will become less important. The problem is that generally the better they get at compressing data, the more data they want to add (to make the game look and feel more alive), so it's going to be a while.

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Gw2 has significantly improved since the base game launched.. I do believe that it would be possible for Anet to make this change however I think the main reason they don't is because it would take a significant amount of work to pull off and they can't guarantee that everyone will be better off for it..

We do know that some Anet partners get the ability to swap servers for free in order to play with their global communities but that's so far the only thing I know of that allows NA and EU to play together.I couldn't tell you anything about that though.. i'm not a partner myself so I've no idea if there are any restrictions to it.

I do hope that Anet can finally find a way to give that ability to all players though, I play in EU myself but a lot of my friends play in NA and a lot of other EU players play there too which diminishes the EU servers of players who live here.If everyone could play together it would be so much better... and tbh this is probably the one thing I personally want more in Gw2 than anything else.. even new content.

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I'd imagine server location and thus distance lag would become an issue. Not going to lie, I'd love for it to happen, or atleast, I'd love to be able to guest on the other side of the pond, but I can understand how it'd become logistical and technical hell

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@"neoteo.3975" said:Hope they solve this issue and make gw2 worlds merge into one, and add instances once the map is full. Internet is faster than when we were all playing gw1.

They can't without the internet elevating to quantum computing and entanglement data transmissions. And for the record... the only reason Guildwars1 could get away with cross continental parties is it being a more traditional Skill-queue type game, where latency has less overall impact on game performance. GW2, and to a possibly greater extent GW1 PvP, is highly latency sensitive due to how "order of actions" determines the outcome of combat. GW2 has mechanisms to soften the impact, but can't eliminate the problems associated with 100ms+ latency, when your combat model is deterministic by nature, and each action has major significance.

If you don't understand why this is bad, look up the long running controversy of modern Battlefield games over Client side hit detection and Server tick rates, and COD's host-based system's problem with latency.

For GW2 WvW specifically, the long round trip times directly and negatively impact the response time of many skills. And thats a game mode that requires much faster reaction time, and more careful management of resources, because the server performance is notoriously unstable. This might sound backwards at first... until you realize the underlying problem is lag spikes effectively slowing all reactions by upwards of 200-300ms; effectively delaying the tells of enemy attacks on your client, and increasing activation time of your own skills. When you're already down to split second windows for reactions, you either have no room for error, or have to go predictive in order to counter or avoid attacks.

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The only solution I can think of, is 2 homes. Data stored 2 places for a small amount of cash.The main issue for me is not playing together or not, I have learned to deal with the ping times, and with an average of 140 to 150 that isn't that bad.

But the times I am solo in the game, it would benefit me to play on EU server rather than NA server.

I stick on NA server as a European to play with my community, which is scattered all over the world, in WvW. I am not looking for better performance in WvW because I do that for the enjoyment of hanging out with my friends and I have learned to deal with the higher ping times.

Currently the only viable option is to have 2 accounts, one for each. Buying the expansions again isn't even the biggest issue, it's a one-time fee, but getting everything to the same level again, all masteries, achievements, characters, skins, stuff, you name it.

The biggest issue I found so far actually isn't ping times. The biggest issue is disconnections which are prone to happen on storyline. I had to do Balthazar several times, because of disconnections during the last "you won" cutscene, and that wasn't fun at all. Comparing with my friends: it was not happening to those that are in the US or Canada, but it was likely to happen to those in Europe or the UK (also on NA servers)

I can switch to an Euro server yes, but run the risk to not be able to get back to my friends in WvW on my current NA server if that becomes full.That is why I am sticking to the NA server for the time being.

2 homes, sync accounts once a week (only PvE) for example. That would be a win already. Get the best of both worlds.

However, not likely to happen, just as likely as me starting a 2nd account: Nope.

Too bad, it is what it is.

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@Tuna Bandit.3786 said:

There is no benefit for me to play on the EU servers except Ping times. But considering the fact that I run an average of 150 on a US server and tested on a free account and got 27 on a EU server, this does raise the question as to why it is so stricktly seperated.

Yes I could use another account to play on a EU server, but come on, buy the whole game again?? Start from scratch again? Not a nice prospect.Is there any solution to this outdated issue?

You answered your own question! Good job!No matter the year, data can't move faster than the speed of light, that's why they need more than one data-centre.And since they have those data centres, and they assume people are intelligent enough to go to where they have the best experience, your type of problem is uncommon, and thus they didn't feel the need to create a whole service to migrate data from place to place outside the same data-centre. Especially since the amount of data potentially stored in one account is not trivial, and there's problems associated with migrating that data, from packet loss and data corruption, to duplication issues, etc.

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@"Tuna Bandit.3786" said:

. The biggest issue is disconnections which are prone to happen on storyline. I had to do Balthazar several times, because of disconnections during the last "you won" cutscene, and that wasn't fun at all. Comparing with my friends: it was not happening to those that are in the US or Canada, but it was likely to happen to those in Europe or the UK (also on NA servers)This happened to almost everyone I know on the NA servers. I think this was more of a game issue than connectivity issue.

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@ReaverKane.7598 said:

There is no benefit for me to play on the EU servers except Ping times.
But considering the fact that I run an average of 150 on a US server and tested on a free account and got 27 on a EU server, this does raise the question as to why it is so stricktly seperated.

Yes I could use another account to play on a EU server, but come on, buy the whole game again?? Start from scratch again? Not a nice prospect.Is there any solution to this outdated issue?

You answered your own question! Good job!No matter the year, data can't move faster than the speed of light, that's why they need more than one data-centre.And since they have those data centres, and they assume people are intelligent enough to go to where they have the best experience, your type of problem is uncommon, and thus they didn't feel the need to create a whole service to migrate data from place to place outside the same data-centre. Especially since the amount of data potentially stored in one account is not trivial, and there's problems associated with migrating that data, from packet loss and data corruption, to duplication issues, etc.

Uncommon isn't true. A huge proportion of people I meet ingame are from Europe. It's not 1 or 2% of the population on the NA server.That is why I asked why it is so stricktly seperated. I mean not even guest on EU? Transfer is permanent.

60% of our Guild is EU, about 40% of the people I have in my friends list are EU.

I've done som research and I found plenty of games where you can have main and alternative home, to overcome such issues. The fact that we cannot have that here, just is 1999 thinking.

I agree on your first comment, I did sorta answer my own question regarding ping times, but on the other hand, I DO play on NA server and not unsuccesfully either.

The tech issues aside, the hardline seperation - with no viable options to visit both servers - isn't cool. and still yes, very much outdated.

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@"Tuna Bandit.3786" said:Uncommon isn't true. A huge proportion of people I meet ingame are from Europe. It's not 1 or 2% of the population on the NA server.60% of our Guild is EU, about 40% of the people I have in my friends list are EU.What makes you think your guild is representative of the distribution of all players?

That is why I asked why it is so stricktly seperated. I mean not even guest on EU? Transfer is permanent.Transfer is not "permanent." You can transfer back & forth 52 times a year. (And that's primarily a limit to prevent WvW bandwagoning. ANet would be happy to take 500 gems from you daily, if you want to swap often.)

I've done som research and I found plenty of games where you can have main and alternative home, to overcome such issues. The fact that we cannot have that here, just is 1999 thinking.The speed of light hasn't changed since 1999.There are ways to manage an "alternative home" system, which come with particular risks, additional costs, and thus aren't present in all games.

The tech issues aside, the hardline seperation - with no viable options to visit both servers - isn't cool. and still yes, very much outdated.It's not free to maintain the data nor free to keep it duplicated in two locations.

Put another way, don't you think that ANet would be all over this if they thought it technically viable? They'd be able to charge a lot for those who wanted to play in both locations.

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@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:The speed of light hasn't changed since 1999.

While I agree with your general points, the speed of light isn't much of a limiting factor here, it's the additional routing points that create the latency.

With the atlantic roughly 3 500 km wide (actually the distance London-NYC) and light speed roughly 300 000 km/s, travel time of light only accounts for approx 10-15 milliseconds. My latency from Sweden (with good internet) to the european servers is more than that.

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I do miss gw1's system of letting me pick a slider to select, na, eu, international etc. But it was based on a different structure, and the servers was located in NA.

One othe big changes to gw2 was that they literally split the servers into 2, 1 for na and 1 for eu. To play on one or the other, your account details needs to be transferred from one to the other. Which is the main limitation to why you can't guest etc. A system that allowed you to bounce back and forth between NA/EU would require (because of the way the server software and structure work) to move your account data back and forth between the server-bank's constantly. This is automated, but still is "work" to a degree, and also it would cause some timeout while the system is processing the transfer, in which case you wouldn't be able to play (from memory, for about 30 min, been a while since I transferred).

Being an EU player playing on NA servers myself, I would definitively appreciate something like this myself, but I've just handled it by using 2 accounts... since I'm a dofus and ended up pre-ordering 2 games before launch anyways, because seemingly I can't count -_-'

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