f13.net

Does anyone know if they've elaborated on this?  Seems pretty pertinent to know before we go and make our characters at retail.

Lock servers?

I assume this to mean, lock the server after it reaches some population threshold in order to shuttle the community into the other anemic servers. So that when late comers or those not taking a day off of work to secure their spot on the server login for the first time, they won't be locked out from a server that their guild/friends are on.

Answer to the question... I have no idea.  :grin:

Locking is were the server goes 'FULL' status and new players can't select it for their home.  I know Sky got locked out of Fort Aspenwood in BW2. I believe in the stress that happen during US primetime a hand full of servers were 'FULL'.  You guys will get first hand knowledge of it on JQ and GoM.

Yep. Also keep in mind that server transfers will be free for the first week or so.

In beta when a server got locked it stayed locked from what I saw.  So the late comers were the ones who never got to secure a spot.


You can't transfer to a locked server though.

Did they go locked or did they just stay full?  I don't remember seeing LOCKED on the world selection screen.

It's the same thing.

So to be clear, once a server goes to full, it becomes locked - even at non-peak hours when it may not actually be at capacity, those slots are reserved for those not online but who have their account on the server?

That I don't know, I just meant the thing about there is no locked status. Full is the locked status.

Obvously, if being full is a temporary thing, you just make your char on any server and transfer in the middle of the night.

It's not locked though.  During off peak hours you can slip into those servers if you like.  I've known people to do that during the BWEs.

So the locks are temporary.  It's a mini-game! How fun!

Yes.  I did it myself, in fact, during the beta weekend.

OK, so not a permanent 'you can't make characters here' thing, good to know.

Well that's good for me then.  Still seems rather bizarre and sounds like putting blood in the water from the get go.

I wouldn't worry about it unless you want to play on a server with Reddit or the Goons.  But like someone mentioned, free server transfers for the first week or two.  After the first 3-5 days you should be able to switch.

In the end though, it doesn't matter at all unless you want to do WvW with friends.  You can guest anywhere you want in sPVP, or PVE.  You can be in the same guild no matter what home server you're on.  I was in a guild during BWE and I was on a random server all by myself.  There was a ton of people on Gates of Madness and Darkhaven all at the same time.   Kinda cool what they did.

Not sure what you mean by putting blood in the water?

I didn't mean anything big just that there will be some group that can't manage to get on at the right time.   They'll be very vocal no doubt.