Pre-Launch & Launch Day: Servers

Taran

New Member
Heads up for anyone who didn't know:

After the final beta, all data will be erased. Not just characters, but EVERYTHING including what server you were playing on. So when pre-launch and launch days arrive, be careful to select your server (Eternal Grove). Don't assume that just because you played there during beta that you are automatically going to be creating there again (without having to tell it).

And with the population we have already seen, we can expect queue lines to get to our server. It would be great if we can just get started right away, but there have been at least 300,000 pre-purchases made already. So you might want to bring a book with you to keep you occupied until you can get in.
 
"at least 300,000" is the minimal estimate given by Lewis B. and not denied by Colin Johanson in the interview "Exclusive Interview with Colin Johanson - Part One".

Source: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/interviews/exclusive-interview-colin-johanson-part-one

Anet doesn't want their actual totals known. So yes, it could easily be higher like 1.3 million. But 1.3 million at this point in time is an unconfirmed rumor. I believe Anet does NOT want its competition to know how well GW2 is doing. If the competition thinks they only have a moderate fan base, the other games will continue 'business as usual'. But if they find out GW2 has over a million fans and its not even released yet, the other games may step up "incentives" and game changes to draw those fans back. So for now, the exact number isn't really "known" but the point is, there's going to be many people signing in to create characters on the few servers available. And Eternal Grove is one of those "popular" servers.
 
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I realize this may be a little late, but have you all considered looking at what servers other Christian guilds are playing on and forming an alliance there? I know of at least two, possibly three Christian guilds that will be playing on Divinity's Coast server and we would love to have fellow brothers and sisters alongside us in our adventures.
 
So for now, the exact number isn't really "known" but the point is, there's going to be many people signing in to create characters on the few servers available. And Eternal Grove is one of those "popular" servers.

This raises a question: Why are we going to play on one of the "more popular" servers? Wouldn't it be a lot easier to make sure everyone could play on the same server if it was less likely for the server to become full? As far as I can tell with the way servers and overflow works, once the server is full people simply cannot create accounts that are linked to that specific server, there are no server queues as such just overflow servers and a hard cap on account numbers.
 
That a very good question. I'll see if I can help explain why a "popular" server still might be the ideal choice.

As GW2 has shared its design intentions, WvWvW is about the only aspect that will be affected by server location. Therefore, the selection of a server has more to do with its impact on WvWvW than anything else. If WvWvW was a non-issue, then it wouldn't matter where one made an account; GW2 allows guesting from one server to another and even guild membership from one server to another.

However, to be competitive in WvWvW, the more people playing, the more likely that server would "win a few."

So here's the trick: trying to select a server that has lots of people and who are interested in WvWvW without having so many that it limits your guild membership (particularly those wanting to play WvWvW).

And it gets even more interesting now because no one really knows how the servers will be populated prior to launch. The only data we have is from the behavior during the beta tests.

So will Eternal Grove become too populated? That's certainly a reasonable question and a genuine concern we all share. We will have to wait and see what happens and then if necessary, discuss how to address any problems that come up.
 
As of right now the cap is set at 100. Whether they change that before release is up in the air. I would be surprised if they kept it at 100 for release. As for what we are at now, we have about 20-30 signed up in the enrollment thread but expecting us to be around the 40-50 come release. I am advertising us as 50+.
 
For what it's worth, there's a thread going on now over at Guru to find an alternate home for Oceanic players since the first two picked have become very full. So far, Astralarium is the favorite, but I thought it was interesting to note that Eternal Grove is coming in second. The poll doesn't have a very large sample size, but the name is out there, so maybe we'll see a decent round the clock presence on LoE's current server of choice.

Good news for those of us who play WvW or just play at odd hours for NA/Eur.
 
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