Why does guesting not work across NA/EU

[EggplantHero.8073]

Hey guys. I'm playing from NA and would like to party with my friends in EU.

We managed to add each other to party, message each other, and I can even see their location on the MINIMAP.

But, I can't see their player model next to me.

How come?

 

I looked into this thing called 'guesting', but it only seems to let you change world within your continent.

How come? It sounds like the perfect amount of restrictions to not mess with WvW and stuff like that.

I just wanna do like. map completion and quests and stuff like that. We're all ultra casual. We only have 1 character each.

 

I heard worlds are getting a huge rework. Is there any way that you can improve this in the same patch?

It should be technically feasible, as Overwatch allows you to pick NA/EU/Asia on the login screen and you can play with the same account without troublesome transfers.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

It's not possible. There are two separate data centers, one for NA and one for EU, and to transfer the information across from one to the other takes up to 1/2 hour.

 

If you want to play with your friend(s), you will have to choose Worlds in the same region (NA or EU). (You can transfer at no charge by deleting all characters and putting anything account-bound in the bank; or, of course, acquiring Gems to transfer.)

 

Good luck.

[EggplantHero.8073]

I think I've more or less accepted that I can't play with them at this moment.

 

I'd like to suggest one of the following alternatives to the devs for the future:

-make guesting work across regions

-make it so you can a NA character and an EU character on the same account

-bring back free transfers

-allow the extensions to be shared with another account of same owner so i dont have to buy them again

 

i realize all of these are a technical hassle, but please go for whichever you find most feasible

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You can always create a Play4Free account and play with your friends.

 

I don't think any of the other suggestions will be implemented any time soon.

 

Good luck.

[Pifil.5193]

Maybe once they get rid of the worlds in WvW they will make transfers between US and European servers free. After all, once there's no more worlds to transfer to there's not much of a justification to charge for transferring between worlds anymore.

[EggplantHero.8073]

 

 

> @"Pifil.5193" said:

> Maybe once they get rid of the worlds in WvW they will make transfers between US and European servers free. After all, once there's no more worlds to transfer to there's not much of a justification to charge for transferring between worlds anymore.

 

Yeah, that's kinda what I'm hoping for!

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I don't think that when the changes to WvW come about, they will make transfering free permanently, though there may be a window where transfers are offered at low or no cost.

They are unlikely to merge data centers and make it possible to play across region lines, as well, at that time.

 

Edit: In fact, the Devs have stated that the 2 regions will still exist.

 

**Region Transfers**

_Transferring between regions, from NA to EU, will still exist. We have not determined the costs for transferring but a region selection will be available on the character select screen that will allow transfers._

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

The issue is that they cannot speed up the rate of real-time data transfer between the two data centers and haven't been able to reduce the amount of real-time data that is needed to play the game (with various requirements of security, anti-cheat, etc). It would make their life easier if there was only one region. (Especially for hosting outside of either region, e.g. in Australia or Korea.)

 

That's why the removal of "worlds" as they exist now isn't removing the regional separation; the concepts aren't directly related.

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

The region world separation is the biggest detriment to this game. I'd love to play with my friends in europe.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

> @"Eloc Freidon.5692" said:

> The region world separation is the biggest detriment to this game. I'd love to play with my friends in europe.

 

Get another account either paid or free and set it on EU and you can play with them.

[Pifil.5193]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> The issue is that they cannot speed up the rate of real-time data transfer between the two data centers and haven't been able to reduce the amount of real-time data that is needed to play the game (with various requirements of security, anti-cheat, etc).

 

Dunno about that, I transferred one of my accounts from US back to Europe recently and it took seconds. As in, I logged out, then logged back in and it was complete.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > The issue is that they cannot speed up the rate of real-time data transfer between the two data centers and haven't been able to reduce the amount of real-time data that is needed to play the game (with various requirements of security, anti-cheat, etc).

>

> Dunno about that, I transferred one of my accounts from US back to Europe recently and it took seconds. As in, I logged out, then logged back in and it was complete.

 

Yup. Seconds. That's too slow for combat, for instance.

 

****

>> [From the World Restructuring thread 31 Jan 2018](

)

>> [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.

 

>> [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](

): curious, just how large is an average players character data?

> [A](

): I'm not sure that's something we've ever told anyone. Also ... it's a bit hard to say, since it goes through a lot of bit twiddling and compression before it gets to the database. It's super-optimized because the database servers are a very significant cost and we don't (and haven't ever) charged a monthly fee.

[Pifil.5193]

OK, so no reason why you couldn't transfer your character data to the EU when you start "guesting" and transfer it back when you finish.

 

Of course, they do like gem charges.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Pifil.5193" said:

> Of course, they do like gem charges.

 

>> [A](

)

>> because the database servers are a very significant cost and we don't (and haven't ever) charged a monthly fee.

[Pifil.5193]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > Of course, they do like gem charges.

>

> >> [A](

)

> >> because the database servers are a very significant cost and we don't (and haven't ever) charged a monthly fee.

 

Your data will have to be stored in one of the two data centres either way so that's not really relevant to the issue of transferring between regions.

 

The cost of shipping a few megabytes from the US to EU databases and back pales in significance to the costs of running either the game itself or the official APIs.

 

Actually, more likely a few kilobytes rather than a few megabytes.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > > @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > > Of course, they do like gem charges.

> >

> > >> [A](

)

> > >> because the database servers are a very significant cost and we don't (and haven't ever) charged a monthly fee.

>

> Your data will have to be stored in one of the two data centres either way so that's not really relevant to the issue of transferring between regions.

>

> The cost of shipping a few megabytes from the US to EU databases and back pales in significance to the costs of running either the game itself or the official APIs.

>

> Actually, more likely a few kilobytes rather than a few megabytes.

 

The amount is probably moot. We don't get charged for the cost of the electricity we use; that's nominal. We get charged for the cost of the KWhrs plus the cost of providing an infrastructure that allows that cost to be nominal. (Well, and plus a profit in most cases.) Likewise, the cost to ANet isn't just "moving some bytes around;" it also has to cover the cost of creating & maintaining the system that makes that possible. (Plus, from things they've written, I think they want to actively discourage people from moving around a lot. It's unclear if that was to build server loyalty when it mattered for PvE or if it's because they'd have to spend more on the infrastructure to support frequent swaps.)

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Perhaps, this is a reason: _not robust enough to have *reliable* database saves across continents_

 

Maybe it messes up 1 in every 100 or 1000 exchanges. Maybe it is better for players not to risk account data.

[Alga.6498]

If you don't want to pay any gems for the transfer to EU, you can delete all your characters and that will make your account completely transfer free without any gem cost. But that would be very sad thing to do imo since all of your work of your characters will be deleted.

I would suggest you to do;

1. Pay the transfer free for your whole account and stay perm in EU with your friends.

2. Create / purchase a new account who is based only in EU while your main account is still in NA server.

3. Try to bribe your friends to come over to NA server and they have to pay for the gem fee instead of you, :lol:

 

I don't think WvW will be deleted from this game, ever. Not since the pretty much active playerbase who is still playing WvW across **ALL** servers!

[Pifil.5193]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Perhaps, this is a reason: _not robust enough to have *reliable* database saves across continents_

>

> Maybe it messes up 1 in every 100 or 1000 exchanges. Maybe it is better for players not to risk account data.

 

That's very unlikely to occur and either way any data transferred between data centres will not be deleted from the original data until its confirmed that the transfer has been completed correctly.

 

If it's ever actually deleted, that is.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Hmm, I wonder why the Devs stated that as a reason, then, if it's not true.

[Pifil.5193]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Hmm, I wonder why the Devs stated that as a reason, then, if it's not true.

 

Well, what they're talking about is leaving your data on the US databases and playing on the European servers rather than transferring your account's data across to the European databases and playing there.

 

That would obviously have an additional latency/synchronisation cost that would have an impact on performance as whenever something updates your account data (i.e. just about whenever you do anything that grants XP or karma, gives loot or any one of a thousand other actions) it'll take a little more time for the transaction to occur than if it was all occurring on the European servers. That transaction "lag" might become noticeable but as you're already experiencing noticeable lag from playing on servers a continent away anyway, who knows how much of an effect it would have? It would however increase the network traffic between the data centres. It would make more sense to transfer the account data to the other data centre at the start of the guesting session and handle all the data "locally", then transfer it back at the end.

 

I have my doubts about their claims that the transatlantic infrastructure isn't "robust enough" for reliable, quick communication from the East coast of the US and Europe, though.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> Hmm, I wonder why the Devs stated that as a reason, then, if it's not true.

 

The OP is disregarding the fundamental infeasibility of this. Its not JUST a technical limitation, its a limitation in physics. At minimum, we're limited to the speed of light, the speed of Energy movement through a medium, the speed of a state transition, and a bunch of concepts about information transfer and integrity. The kind of physics we can leverage in computing tech right now, can't effectively solve both the accuracy problem and the latency problem in the same solution.

 

Copying the data across isn't the biggest problem here (though it introduces several problem that would be marginal to a localized user). Its the client/server performance when the game has extremely high latency, and the strong possibility of greatly reduced data integrity. You playing on an EU server when you're located half way across the world from it, has substantial consequences. The more the server and client run validations, the worse this problem gets.

 

Theres also a problem with citing Overwatch as an example, because there are lot differences in how their games are run, the kind of data volumes they deal with, and the level of trust the system has between client and server. I've read some articles on how Overwatch manages integrity, and a lot of that goes hand in hand with Play of Game feature (or arguably the other way around). Game integrity is upheld by the server basically being able to predict every probable outcome within a narrow window of time, and comparing them against the actual results. Most games do this as part of interpolation, but Overwatch takes it to a whole different level of "I hope you like linear algebra". But the catch here is that this is incredibly computationally expensive, and not actually all the accurate... not in the way humans would process this data. Combined with human level decisions on what would more or less be acceptable, the system OW has can tolerate the problems in a way this game can't, or more likely wouldn't want to. And thats ignoring Blizzard's ability to field their own infrastructure, where as Anet went with AWS as a cost saving measure, and how it adds even more problems then a typical backhaul between 2 data centers.

 

 

If you want a more apt example, you should be looking at WoW, Diablo, Heros of the Storm, and other games which are more data driven and less physics driven.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Pifil.5193" said:

> Maybe once they get rid of the worlds in WvW they will make transfers between US and European servers free. After all, once there's no more worlds to transfer to there's not much of a justification to charge for transferring between worlds anymore.

 

Sorry for the bad news but nope. Server transfers will still be a thing because servers will still be a thing. The only difference is that who is on what server will change on a weekly(?)monthly(?) basis. This was covered by the announcement of the future change.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @"EggplantHero.8073" said:

> Hey guys. I'm playing from NA and would like to party with my friends in EU.

> We managed to add each other to party, message each other, and I can even see their location on the MINIMAP.

> But, I can't see their player model next to me.

> How come?

>

> I looked into this thing called 'guesting', but it only seems to let you change world within your continent.

> How come? It sounds like the perfect amount of restrictions to not mess with WvW and stuff like that.

> I just wanna do like. map completion and quests and stuff like that. We're all ultra casual. We only have 1 character each.

>

> I heard worlds are getting a huge rework. Is there any way that you can improve this in the same patch?

> It should be technically feasible, as Overwatch allows you to pick NA/EU/Asia on the login screen and you can play with the same account without troublesome transfers.

 

If you can see them on the minimap, you should be in the same data center region, just on different instances of the map. Just right click them, click "Join in < mapname >" and you should see them.