Chat log between Dev. 2 month before game release.

LOG of chat with wvw dev on vent chat 2 month before release of GW2.

[RG]Sac: hi
[ArenaNet] Dev: Hey
[RG]Sac: will commander be getting a boost before live in terms of showing more than 5 maybe 20
[RG]Sac: also better options etc
[ArenaNet] dev: I don't think that commander shows any
[ArenaNet] dev: it's just party that does that
[RG]Sac: are you planning more options to work say like warband in warhammer
[RG]Sac: with 4 party on window to sort out parties within a commander/squad
[ArenaNet] dev: I'd say it's unlikely for launch, but we are definitely aware its a high demand feature
[RG]Sac: whos the dev who will decide how many servers for live?
[ArenaNet] dev: It would just involve a lot of work at this point, while we are trying to polish existing features for launch
[RG]Sac: i understand
[ArenaNet] dev: I'm not 100% who decides the number of servers
[RG]Sac: with the server cap vs wvw cap is reason im hopeing for more servers.
[RG]Sac: racials for wvw do you think they will stay ?
[ArenaNet] dev: I'd say they are borderline, I think we'll first try to rebalance really strong ones
[RG]Sac: one of most important questions. What is to stop people transfering to a #1 server once it becomes #1 servers. what are you doing to stop this or discourage it?
[ArenaNet] dev: if its still a problem, I'm sure we'd look at restricting them
[ArenaNet] dev: there are really only a couple of problematic racial skills, out of over a dozen
[RG]Sac: 2 really charr artillary barrage and grasping vines
[ArenaNet] dev: right
[RG]Sac: Where are you standing on aoe in WvW. stacking etc. metoer shower/lava font
[ArenaNet] dev: Balance is going to be more and more of a focus in the coming days
[RG]Sac: the question above about transfering to #1 server?
[ArenaNet] dev: for WvW?
[RG]Sac: im guessing this is a hardone but will still be a problem because u will allow transfers for cash
[RG]Sac: yea i mean making a server become #1 in world then anyone who wants to transfer to it
[RG]Sac: what is to stop that or discourage it?
[ArenaNet] dev: well it'll be more expensive to transfer to high population servers than low population servers
[ArenaNet] dev: also, if you consider that high traffic servers are more likely to have WvW queues, some players will want to avoid that
[RG]Sac: yea. but with the wvw cap as it stands there wont be any low population servers.
[ArenaNet] dev: and transfer to medium pop or low pop servers
[RG]Sac: im very worried about how many servers you might have as it stands
[RG]Sac: do you know the server cap number?
[ArenaNet] dev: I don't
[RG]sac: 100 as it stands for wvw? hopefully problems with combos and lag to up it back to 166?
[ArenaNet] dev: I'm more familiar with WvW content and mechanics, and less with the server side stuff
[RG]sac: the combos are causing more ur problems
[RG]sac: specially the stealth one
[RG]sac: server having to regester people disapearing then coming back
[ArenaNet] dev: I mean, we of course want to increase the population as high as our servers can run without lag
[RG]sac: also while factoring in collision of that player
[ArenaNet] dev: Which is why we are doing tests like today, to isolate problematic areas and then optimize them
[RG]sac: yea i want the game to be epic. but if wvw stays around that number
[RG]sac: i really feel more servers are needed
[ArenaNet] dev: Yeah, however there's a lot more of the game than WvW
[ArenaNet] dev: when we thin the numbers
[ArenaNet] dev: regular pve maps can become thinly populated
[ArenaNet] dev: so there are tradeoffs
[RG]sac: wvw is massive part of game. for many the only. warhammer/daoc community
[RG]sac: or i feel its deffinatly a bigger area than i have maybe read between lines of anet expecting it to be. if thats fair to say
[ArenaNet] dev: We are very aware that a huge number of people are craving a WvW type experience, and want GW2 to fulfill that need
[ArenaNet] dev: So we are just going to have to find a good balancing people where WvW players, and non-WvW players can be happy with server populations
[RG]sac: yea from daoc then war. not had any pure rvr games since. rift tried and failed. swtor. people looking for that wvw filler since war
[ArenaNet] dev: balancing point*
[RG]sac: ur doing a great job. i just feel more servers are needed if cap for wvw stays same over server cap
[ArenaNet] dev: I guarantee, if we need more servers, we'll be the first to know :)
[RG]sac: ques will be insane and put alot of people off. which is with more servers you could spread more people and have less scale from server size to wvw cap size
[RG]sac: yea i understand. i setup alot of top EU servers for games with top pvp players. karak eight peaks - war/ whitefall - rift/ freedon naad - swtor
[RG]sac: there will be 10-15 big alliances with hardcore pvp guilds that just want wvw
[ArenaNet] dev: It's safe to say that for the first few weeks of launch WvW is likely going to be full on a lot of servers, round the clock
[RG]sac: yea and even a month after
[ArenaNet] dev: but it remains to be seen if that kind of concurrency will maintain for months
[RG]sac: arguement of having servers look empty over ques maybe
[RG]sac: so Eu servers are probably being hosted in germany?
[ArenaNet] dev: I believe so
[RG]sac: is localized text a necessity to add RUS/ITA to server list. even if the server language is english. if not only to help locate them?
[ArenaNet] dev: I'm not sure, probably.
[RG]sac: whats the cap as it stands for wvw 100 or 166 ?
[RG]sac: u being very helpful btw :D nice to pick ur brain
[ArenaNet] dev: I'm honestly not sure what the cap is currently set at, its changed a number of times
[RG]sac: how is the work coming on spells and lag reduction
[RG]sac: have you looked into combo fields?
[ArenaNet] dev: Not personally, but I know we've begun isolating problematic skills and streamlining their performance
[RG]sac: i know ur not balance but it seems the balance people are set on not having any deminishing returns type system
[ArenaNet] dev: Yep
[RG]sac: which in every other game i have played mainly did not have one. but because of WvW stacking and more numbers etc. One system like this went in after first month
[ArenaNet] dev: Our game also plays much differently than other MMOs
[ArenaNet] dev: we tend to have much shorter duration CCs
[ArenaNet] dev: and lots of condition removal/stun breaks
[ArenaNet] dev: Stability boon etc
[RG]sac: yep but with aoe stacking and not really much healing in game and so much dmg. that short cc with good co-ordination groups will probably be enough
[ArenaNet] dev: I'd say that even games that do have diminish return mechanics, you are usually stunned more often, for longer, than you are in our game
[RG]sac: the only real broken ranged stuff is meteor shower/ lava font could have higher cd. and then charr racial
[ArenaNet] dev: Sure, if you are a good coordinated group, your reward is winning fights
[RG]sac: where ele would then be scepter/dagger or dagger/dagger like war with close/mid range
[ArenaNet] dev: except against other good coordinated groups
[ArenaNet] dev: or against zergs maybe :)
[RG]sac: the afk system going in will be like the one they put in rift or so?
[RG]sac: so it picked up on macro users and people auto running into wall
[ArenaNet] dev: I'm not sure how it is being implemented, but we are aware that its possible to circumvent some afk systems
[RG]sac: yea which was part of my big post. not sure if u read it or not probably busy
[RG]sac: which is tied to the wvw cap
[ArenaNet] dev: I likely have, if it was posted in the WvW forums
[RG]sac: yea
[RG]sac: wvw concerns and suggestions big wall of text lol
[ArenaNet] dev: generally speaking, player concerns are the same concerns that we ourselves have
[RG]sac: i think i put everything i have seen from other games on there or see hopefully gw2 not heading
[ArenaNet] dev: there is just a finite amount of time to address every concern
[ArenaNet] dev: and an almost endless list of concerns :)
[ArenaNet] dev: concerns just evolve, as one thing gets fixed
[RG]sac: are you going to be cranking out alot of wvw tests 2-3 per week ?
[RG]sac: this splitting of people im not sure what numbers u was after
[RG]sac: might wanna just get cap for each side on one tower
[ArenaNet] dev: I know we'll want to do another test, because we didn't finish gathering data from this test
[ArenaNet] dev: I don't know if we'll do anymore after that though
[RG]sac: btw what happened from first closed beta to now ?
[RG]sac: the servers seemed better with higher cap
[ArenaNet] dev: hah, tons of things!
[RG]sac: oO + 30 maybe about 80-90 reds vs 50-60 blue and 90 green in stonemist courtyard
[RG]sac: and 0 lag
[ArenaNet] dev: we make dozens, if not hundreds of changes a day
[RG]sac: fps was up and down but it felt smooth
[ArenaNet] dev: just in WvW
[ArenaNet] dev: most of them aren't super noticeable to players though
[ArenaNet] dev: so just imagine how many things changed in 2-3 months
[RG]sac: yea i expected. i understand animations, skills combos is alot
[ArenaNet] dev: which is why we do tests like today
[ArenaNet] dev: to figure out which of those changes had the biggest impact
[ArenaNet] dev: maybe it's multiple things each contributing
[RG]sac: was it better in terms of adding cap?
[RG]sac: i really appreciate ur time btw. been a good chat.
[ArenaNet] dev: was what better? BWE1?
[RG]sac: the closed one before bwe1
[RG]sac: with invited public 30k people
[RG]sac: press
[RG]sac: and alpha only
[ArenaNet] dev: I'm sure it was, the more features we had to WvW, the more potential problems we introduce at the same time
[ArenaNet] dev: If it was just a big empty map with nothing to capture, it'd run amazing :)
[RG]sac: yea all them inner working parts to keeps. siege
[RG]sac: just people placing down siege
[RG]sac: i just want as many people as possible to kill :D
[RG]sac: on siege where are you guys standing as it stands
[ArenaNet] dev: We did things like add more events
[RG]sac: i feel it might be a little to powerful
[ArenaNet] dev: events for defending objectives
[ArenaNet] dev: giving rewards from killing gates and walls
[ArenaNet] dev: giving rewards for repairing
[RG]sac: do you guys really want say 10v10 and 2 of them to place down arrow cart and use them rather than fight on there own character
[ArenaNet] dev: etc
[ArenaNet] dev: sure, if the situation merits it
[ArenaNet] dev: certainly not in every engagement
[ArenaNet] dev: if you've got terrain advantage, and your arrow cart can manage a choke point
[ArenaNet] dev: I'd expect people to place siege to defend it
[RG]sac: well mostly if was running warband size of people vs same or zerg
[RG]sac: yea i mean open field 10v10/20vs20 1 on each slapping down
[RG]sac: purely for the dmg it does
[ArenaNet] dev: In that case, I'd expect you might want to drop down even more than 1
[ArenaNet] dev: maybe 2 arrow carts and a ballista
[ArenaNet] dev: but then you have to consider that you won't have supply after you win the fight
[ArenaNet] dev: and maybe you need the supply for something else later
[RG]sac: i would rather just have 20vs20 with players. personally siege has its place but when it comes to being necesity for fights maybe its too powerful?
[ArenaNet] dev: so you have to decide if its worthwhile to place the siege for that skirmish in the field
[ArenaNet] dev: a single arrow cart can be destroyed very fast
[ArenaNet] dev: if its just in a an open fight
[RG]sac: yea i suppose.
[RG]sac: ok last thing to bend ur ear
[RG]sac: offpeak playing and capping
[RG]sac: i posted some ideas about having health on guards going up or doors
[RG]sac: walls not being attackable at offpeak hours so people had to go threw main doors
[RG]sac: as say you have epic battle all day in primetime of server. your off to bed to get up for work. come home and 5-10 of enemy team have taken everything
[ArenaNet] dev: yeah, we are aware that offpeak raids are going to be common in some cases
[ArenaNet] dev: we have some plans for addressing it, though I don't know that it will happen before launch now
[RG]sac: i play alot at all times. i would want it to be hard for my 10 to do sumthing when hardly any enemy to defend
[ArenaNet] dev: I expect that high tier WvW servers, are going to coordinate, so that they have US/EU/Oceanic guilds on the server
[ArenaNet] dev: so they don't have offpeak times
[RG]sac: yea ive seen them alliances happening
[ArenaNet] dev: but I'd imagine less organized servers will run into this problem more frequently
[ArenaNet] dev: but in theory, those servers will eventually only get matched against other round-the-clock servers
[RG]sac: well i wanted my alliance on eu server with only eu
[RG]sac: good movement with the 150-175 we will have
[RG]sac: so we can move around the wvw maps
[RG]sac: with less servers and the cap i feel the ques are going to be insane
[RG]sac: which i why i thought maybe anet would have like 200 servers with mulitple of 3
[ArenaNet] dev: It's getting pretty late and I'm still at the office, so I'm going to head home
[RG]sac: yea its been pleasure thank you devname
[ArenaNet] dev: Np
[RG]sac: really nice talking to you and thanks for answering my questions
[RG]sac: take care cya later
[ArenaNet] dev: Have a nice day!