Guild Wars 2 Guesting And Paid Server Transfers Coming Soon!

Written by: Richie Procopio (@richieprocopio) | January 17, 2013 10:58 am

22 Comments

Guesting and Paid Server Transfers Coming in January Update

At long last, Guild Wars 2 guesting will be implemented on January 28! And there was much rejoicing. In case you haven’t been watching GuildCast (and shame on you, really!), guesting is the ability to visit other servers and play with friends who call a different world home. Everyone thought this feature would be implemented at—or shortly after—release, so we’ve been waiting quite some time for it to rear its glorious tardy head.

But the announcement didn’t evoke smiles from everyone. The internet is particularly adept at finding the rotten spot on the perfect apple. The guesting feature will NOT allow you to visit players in a different region. European players can’t visit North American home worlds and vice versa. This is disappointing, but ArenaNet explains why this restriction is in place:

“There are two databases: European player data is stored in our European datacenter, American player data is stored in our American datacenter. This is to ensure that people in these regions can still properly play in case there is an issue with the connection between the datacenters.

When you do a world transfer from the US to the EU (and vice versa) your player data is transferred from one datacenter to the other. This is not the case with guesting, as you are still “registered” on your home world.”

Many people seem to be upset because it’s the first time that we’ve been made aware of those restrictions. It’s a valid point, but considering that most MMOs don’t allow you to visit other servers for free at all, it’s still an amazing feature that the majority of the community will be thrilled with.

There are a few other conditions to keep in mind regarding guesting:

You cannot participate in World vs. World while guesting.
You can only guest for 2 different worlds at a time. Each time you guest, that world becomes one of your eligible guest worlds for a 24 hour period.
When you guest, you earn guild influence on the guesting server and not your home world.

Paid server transfers are also being introduced at the same time as guesting. This will, hopefully, encourage server populations to stabilize and instill a sense of loyalty and pride among World vs. World fanatics.

Guesting will be available in less than two weeks and that also means the next game update will take place on January 28. Check out the full announcement for further details. What do you think of the guesting plan? Let us know what you think by leaving us a comment.

Guild Wars 2 Guesting And Paid Server Transfers Coming Soon!

Guild Wars 2

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Continuation of the living story and many changes to WvW.Read more »

3 comments
Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 Microtransactions: Still Consistent and Strong

NCSoft announces that Guild Wars 2's Gem Store sales are still going strong.Read more »

15 comments
Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 Expansion In The Works

A Guild Wars 2 expansion is in the works and The Secret of Southsun is about to go live.Read more »

45 comments

Pete Cuellar

What did I tell you guys see guesting is here.
http://twitter.com/Hexbee Hecate

I was a bit dissapointed with guesting. I pretty much assumed that it would end up being region locked. With GW2 not having PVP, PVE and RP specific servers the main issue that seperates players is the regions. I understand the reasons why they have done it the way they have, but still a little dissapointed. I am an EU player on a US server (Transfered from a EU server to the Tarnished Coast) but will definatley be staying on the US server for its great community and RP, also the US time zones are perfect for a English Insomniac! LOL.
- http://twitter.com/maaDDoc =maD.Doc:.
  
  Well, for the RP, EU region has the server Piken Square as the inofficial RP server, and what I’ve seen of the RP there it is pretty good, and a great community So it is always that to think of But yeah, US servers are always good for insomniacs in EU
http://twitter.com/ToriMcGrath Tori McGrath

“NOT GOOD ENOUGH WE WANT ALL OF EVERYTHING”
http://twitter.com/AgeNightroad Adrian Lloyd

Being a developer, I understand the technical issues that are involved. It just really sucks since they said they would and had to scope it out (at least for now).

I have this EU/NA friends issue and I still don’t know how I’m going to handle it. I’ll eventually have to find a solution, the worst case is that I stick to one region and I’ll transfer over to the other region every now and then. Hopefully, one day in the future, ArenaNet will find a way to make regional guesting work but I think some decent possible solutions from the community that could be implemented would help.

For instance, we can have all the guesting/paid transfers as is but in addition have a non-changing gem price from going to one region to another. This would be I guess paid guesting. Have it so that you’re data is transferred over but WvW is disabled. Naturally, this gem price should be way cheaper than a paid transfer but no so cheap as to exploit it. Not the ideal solution mind you, but it’s better than no regional guesting imo.
Jado Cast

I’m happy this is coming soon, so we can now get rid of free transfers so WvW will begin to stabilize.
- jugyfant
  
  Amen to that
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

A little surprised the transfer occurs at the character select screen. I was expecting something similar to the way you transfer your character to a WvW map. You would be in the world, get a message from a friend and then pop over to their server. If there is a queue to get into their server, you continue playing while you wait.
DoctorOverlord

Good to hear this is being implemented! I’ve been anxiously waiting to see it in the game.

It is a pity about NA/EU split but I think most people secretly suspected there would be region restrictions.
http://twitter.com/QuietNine Quiet

am i the only one who couldnt stop noticing the hostess stare off at show notes in the corner? man that is distracting.
Karizee

I’m really excited for the possiblities that Guesting will bring. Region-wide events hosted by guilds (for servers that aren’t full obviously) like mass synch dancing, scavenger hunts, zone clears, guild recruiting, etc.
Jolene Williams

Guesting is exciting, but I am disappointed server transfers will no longer be free. Maybe people will quit leaving our server though.. Getting tired of that.
Shanaeri Rynale

Sometimes I think it’s too easy to dismiss poor design decisions to ‘nerd rage with entitlement complexes’ Aka the internet. When actually there are some serious implications. Issues that merit closer critical thought and examination

Apart from being able to do open world stuff, guesting won’t give us anything more than we already have. We can still join dungeons across our own regional servers, we can still do fractals across our own regional servers which is by far what people want to do. So, for most people guesting as delivered will actually offer very little

There is one fundamental reason why people play MMO’s and it’s not to do with the content it’s to do with friends both existing and those to come. To meet up in a game, enjoy the content and in the process learn more about different cultures and places.

Community transcends content no matter the timezone.

The reason given seems to point at a fundamental design decision (flaw?) and yet I wonder if all possibilities have been examined. For example a software solution which allows people to transfer to any server they wish ( just like we could do at launch) but mitigates that on the effects of WvW(decoupling WvW server choice and home server) and the economy(preventing node gathering on an non home server) for example.

Often all it needs is some different thinking, rather than just throwing hardware at it.Many, many times we were told X is impossible in GW1. Hairdressers, Appearance changes, account restorations, retrospective legendary survivor titles etc. All of these were solved with some innovation and inventiveness from Arenanet

With tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of players who will, after 8 or more years of being so used to meeting up with who they like no matter in the world this ‘Tyrian Curtain’ comes with a huge feeling of being let down and of deep, deep disappointment. After all asking everyone who knows you, who then knows other people to move to another ‘island’ just to join you is entirely unreasonable. Given the choice between playing with friends somewhere else they will, after a time decide to go a place where they can all meet up, a place which won’t be GW2

In the end, we don’t have to live with the consequences. We can just go elsewhere. Areanet after being so innovative in many other areas however will have to.
- CannibalShinobi
  
  The fact that you claim this is a design issue when almost no other MMO would allow characters to jump servers, even in their own region, for free makes your other points a complete joke. It’s the best design decision for stability and the fact that you can jump servers when other MMOs don’t shows that they are doing as much as they can right. This is a great design decision.
  - Shanaeri Rynale
    
    Actually GW1, Secret world, Eve, City of Heroes, Star Trek online and loads of others allow characters to do just that for no cost. Heck, even WoW allows cross server teaming now. In addition, even if none of them did allow you to swap that in itself is not a valid region not to change something.
    - CannibalShinobi
      
      No, they do not. Eve doesn’t even have separate data centers. Blizzard has gotten to the point that you can’t even play SC2 from america on European servers without buying a new account, let alone allowing people in other regions to play together without an actual paid transfer in WoW.
      
      You are spreading falsities.
      - Shanaeri Rynale
        
        And the rest of the games I mentioned? I think you are mixing up the location of hardware with functionality. The statement they made was that latency etc. makes it too erratic and unreliable to guest across regions. That being the case why allow people to transfer or roll on different regions at all. As their gameplay experience would be permanently gimped?
        
        As mentioned above, other games do it and even they didn’t that’s no reason not to copy how other companies manage it on smaller budgets and less resources. I respectfully suggest you drop into the official GW2 forums and read the many suggestions people have made on how this can work without even touching a bit of hardware
        
        My own personal view is that they tried to get proper guesting to work with a certain set of rules Technical(We can’t redesign everything), Gameplay (WvW is a sacred cow we can’t touch) and commercial (you have X much money to spend)
        
        As many of the suggestions on the official forum have outlined. This is very do-able even by changing one of the rules (not even the technical and money ones) they used. What the majority are saying is that they think Anet should go back, change the rules (as they have done many times before) and try again
      - CannibalShinobi
        
        The latency is not their stated reason at all. It has everything to do with being registered to a certain data center, in order for guesting across regions they have to transfer you account information to that data center. Costs of bandwidth alone makes this something AN just can’t afford to do.
        
        None of those games you mentioned do it, and most mentioned have a sub fee, so no, they are not working with less resources than AN currently is. And you lost this argument once you told me to go to the forums for a feasible fix. Are you out of your damn mind? You actually believe these people know more about AN’s system than AN? That they know more about the costs and networking than AN? Those suggestions do not work, they don’t magically branch connections between data centers allowing the free transfer of data.
http://twitter.com/Salamolign Salamol

I’m getting tired of saying it, but I feel the more places I complain the more chance there will be of ArenaNet reworking the guesting. The must be a way of doing it cross-region and I really wish they’d just keep working on it. Guesting as it is right now serves no purpose to me
- CannibalShinobi
  
  Reworking the system? That would require them to combine data centers or severely increase their own costs with the severe increase of bandwidth throwing data back and forth between data centers. Maybe if this game had a sub fee then this would be cost effective, but even MMOs with sub fees won’t let anyone play on other servers at all, even within their own region, without a paid server transfer.
http://profile.yahoo.com/FPXO267IVAHL3MK4HRRNRQPNDA Bush Swanson, The American Dre

I was hoping to guest with my cousin in Paraguay but now i can’t. THANKS ALOT ARENANET!
http://twitter.com/MiZTiiX MiZTiiX

seems cool

Guild Wars 2 Guesting And Paid Server Transfers Coming Soon!

Guesting and Paid Server Transfers Coming in January Update

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Guild Wars 2 Microtransactions: Still Consistent and Strong

Guild Wars 2 Expansion In The Works

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Sign in to your account