Nynja.1674

Werewolves and Vampires are cliche, but only because of how they're expressed in most forms of media. If done correctly, they can either be awesome or horrifying. I would love to see a Vamp or Lycan class make its way into GW2, properly fleshed out with some impact on the lore at the very least. Thoughts?

Aye, I'll admit that I hadn't thought of breaking away from Americans. I usually look for Australian Guilds to play with so we all run together. It may seem like a risk, and it can be daunting to take that risk, but there are a lot of Australians playing GW2 concurrently (or at least, there are enough of us begging for our own server/s) and the irony here, is that the Oceanic playerbase would increase if servers were ours to play on. Some developers recognize this and have given Oceania servers to play on. WoW's Oceanic servers, for example, have high to max population during peak hours and even when I'm playing at 3am, there are [at most] 3 servers with high population and 5 or so with low population. We do actually exist, and we do actually play MMORPGs XD Sarcasm aside, Australia often gets overlooked because developers refuse to believe that there are enough of us to justify the risks of adding datacenters in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne. There are plenty of us though, believe that. Having played WvW, I know there are lots of Asuralians..... I mean Australians.... and how you guys affect wvw ppt :) And I'm pretty sure that if ANet thought it would be economically viable they would consider it and pitch the idea for NCsoft etc. But in most cases, companies makes that kind of decision at launch, and stick to it for the games life, wow isn't exactly a good example being the single biggest and most popular MMO game in history and going strong for 15 years. I mean personally I'd love to see you guys get some servers locally, both because playing with high ping sucks, but also because it might actually even out the coverage for more NA servers in WvW. But depending on the numbers and behaviour (which we don't have the numbers for, but ANet might) of 'stralians, I suspect that ones that would end up suffering the most are the 'stralians. Some people are already complaining that some maps feel empty in EU/NA, PVP would have a much smaller pool making it very difficult to find good matches, and WvW has every potential to become an even more polarized cluster-kitten than it already is on NA. WvW for example, say that the two largest "oceanic" servers in NA decided that we're going to stack on the same AU-server to play together, you might end up with 1 very stacked server, and 1 medium, and 1 almost empty server. That would be a receipt for a horrible match-up. Simply put, ANet sits on the numbers, we don't really know how many 'stralians there are, or if it would be enough to create a own thriving data-center. Even if an AU-DC would cause the population to double, we don't know if that would be enough or not. And I'm pretty sure that if ANet looked at the numbers and thought it was big enough, they probably would have done it.You're absolutely correct. With no real way for any of us to view actual, concurrent, population numbers within specific countries, it's not viable to ask Arenanet to consider adding more datacenters in countries that lack them. It's a shame and I am only beginning to accept this as the unfortunate circumstance of living here, that we will never be considered "worth it" ): Adding to your point about map population, I've noticed that too. As I leave the starter areas, map pop becomes abysmally low which sucks for world boss encounters. I love solo play as much as I love group play, but with no-one to help fight world bosses, I can't access half of the armor and weapons content I want. As for whether or not we can fill three servers, I believe it's possible if Arenanet push or market the addition of Oceanic servers. Idk about y'all, but I tend to google MMORPG's server populations/server locations before investing in the long term grind. Since I had purchased GW2 when it first released, I never really cared to abandon it cuz I love it; only to continue supporting Arenanet and engaging with the communities, also recognizing that server locations were obviously exclusive to Europe and America and that it would not be likely to add more datacenters in Australia shortly after release. It's been seven years though. I would have thought that seven years of commitment would have earned us our own server/s, even if the general consensus is to, as you've stated, add these servers at launch. That would be a part of the risk, as most developers believe we don't exist, or are so backward (we kind of are, in all fairness) that we wouldn't even have the money to afford to play these game (jokes on you guys, a majority of us play subscription-based MMORPGs). I usually use WoW as an example because Blizzard have done [almost] everything right, (exclude Legion, that was a disaster) and so WoW is worthy of its legendary status. It should be the basis and influence for every new MMORPG, cuz 15 years is considered an impossible lifespan for any game let alone an MMORPG (Ultima Online started the mass craze and didn't even last that long). I want GW2 to live a longer life than GW1 (and to bring back the Monk class pls, GW1's Monk class was awesome), and to live a long life in general. Arenanet, pls consider us!

Aye, I'll admit that I hadn't thought of breaking away from Americans. I usually look for Australian Guilds to play with so we all run together. It may seem like a risk, and it can be daunting to take that risk, but there are a lot of Australians playing GW2 concurrently (or at least, there are enough of us begging for our own server/s) and the irony here, is that the Oceanic playerbase would increase if servers were ours to play on. Some developers recognize this and have given Oceania servers to play on. WoW's Oceanic servers, for example, have high to max population during peak hours and even when I'm playing at 3am, there are [at most] 3 servers with high population and 5 or so with low population. We do actually exist, and we do actually play MMORPGs XD Sarcasm aside, Australia often gets overlooked because developers refuse to believe that there are enough of us to justify the risks of adding datacenters in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne. There are plenty of us though, believe that.

They moved to Amazon years ago without affecting the service. Huh. I was unaware of this. If this is true, then there's no real threat to introducing more server clusters/datacenters.

Forum quote of the day........... Not sure what you mean by this. If it's about the downtime for taking GW2 off the physical servers to transfer to Cloud-based servers, I get that it is excessive and would not please the consumers. They would understand though, if Arenanet are transparent during the process, should they choose to do this. On the off-chance that they do consider Cloud-based/serverless services, it would most likely be done for GW3, which the world would appreciate. Let's be honest: physical servers are a waste of money and resources, now that we have access to services like AWS and Microsoft Azure, since 2015? I think. A few months of downtime is acceptable for a massive transition like this. It is utterly inconceivable for several months downtime to be deemed acceptable for a 7 year old MMO. How would the devs even get an income with no one buying stuff? How many players would return after several months, flabbergasted that such a decision as made for a relatively small population's better ping? A fraction of the current population is all. Anet could be transparent about the process every minute of every day and it would still be the worst decision they would ever make. I get wanting a better ping and wanting a better all round experience, but I can't comprehend it is genuinely a serious suggestion to put GW2 into an offline mode for months. A few months downtime is a million miles away from ever being acceptableI highly doubt it would take a few months to transition from physical to serverless, so take it as a slight exaggeration or even ignorance in this regard. It might even be a guesstimate, but I do understand the rammifications of a decision like this. However, do not forget that GW2 is now a F2P model with no consumer ever feeling obligated to purchase anything from their Gem store. If Arenanet ever felt the threat of bankruptcy, they would introduce a subscription model or even revert to Buy-To-Play, as GW2 initially was. Developers are also protected by their Publishers and their day jobs, so they will never lose their homes or their livelihood from a short amount of server downtime. I would not ask of this if it meant Arenanet facing bankruptcy though. This recommendation comes from trust in them and their capabilities. You are correct though: a few months downtime will raise the ire and irritance of the playerbase to such a degree that they would question the choices made to do this. Whether or not Arenanet chooses to support GW2 for many years to come would, inadvertently, influence the choice to transition to serverless or give Oceania official servers. It is necessary to give Australians the ping we need to become competitive in PvP though, which is a big thing for us, as we cannot compete against America/Europe with such abysmal ping. We can only do so much as Roamers, lest we engage in combat against an equally skilled opponent with 5ms ping, versus our 270-400ms ping. Where is the fun in PvP if we cannot even survive a one-on-one duel? We need our own servers. Asia needs their own servers. Africa and India, need their own servers. AWS can do this (I'm not familiar with Azure, sorry, so I cannot account for their amount of servers in whichever countries) and is doing this, with games like The Division 2, Anthem (RIP), Tree of Savior and many MMORPGs. Ubisoft took the initiative and it has worked out for them, encouraging others to follow :3 I love Arenanet, so I won't abandon GW2 but I would appreciate a little love for Australia <3

Asia does indeed need the same treatment. There are enough Australians on, what we call, "Unofficial Servers" to justify Arenanet transitioning to AWS. We will easily fill the Sydney cluster, so WvW will not suffer the 'Empty Server' treatment that a few games with Australian servers have suffered (DICE's Star Wars: Battlefront 2, for example). Oceania has been a loyal follower of Guild Wars, ever since its inception in 2005 (I bought it a few years later though) and will continue to stand by Arenanet, regardless of their choices (Australia really does love Guild Wars THAT much).

I forgot about Microsoft Azure too XD The Cloud truly is amazing :3 > @Randulf.7614 said: Forum quote of the day........... Not sure what you mean by this. If it's about the downtime for taking GW2 off the physical servers to transfer to Cloud-based servers, I get that it is excessive and would not please the consumers. They would understand though, if Arenanet are transparent during the process, should they choose to do this. On the off-chance that they do consider Cloud-based/serverless services, it would most likely be done for GW3, which the world would appreciate. Let's be honest: physical servers are a waste of money and resources, now that we have access to services like AWS and Microsoft Azure, since 2015? I think. A few months of downtime is acceptable for a massive transition like this.

This discussion has been merged.

It's been 7 years. 7 years, and Australia still has no servers. Arenanet, PLEASE. You guys are so lucky to develop in the current era, as we all have access to AWS: Cloud-based servers. Long gone are the days of physical, location based, server racks. Long gone, are the days of expensive rented buildings for on-site server hardware. All you need is one or two machines to run thousands of servers in hundreds of countries on a cheap subscription plan. Take GW2 down for a few months to make the switch. It will only benefit you and us, your loyal consumers. Australia has been in the dark for too long. It's time for you to recognize us, recognize that it's painful to play with 270ms ping (with NBN connections). Even WoW has oceanic servers and WoW is 15 years old. Edit I stand corrected. Arenanet have switched to AWS but have incurred higher ping for Americans, Europeans and Australians, as the servers seem to have moved further away from prior loations. I'm not entirely sure what to ask of Arenanet now, as my hopes were riding on adding the Sydney server datacenter but it won't happen, it seems. Ah well, I'll continue to play PvE in any case. Thank you, all, for the discussions <3 https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/22554/amazon-web-services-is-ruining-the-game-for-over-seas-players