Yesterday we received some big news– Guild Wars 2 will finally have the long-awaited guesting feature beginning on January 28th. ArenaNet posted a developer blog detailing how the feature will work and what restrictions will come with it. Guesting will work for all types of gameplay except World vs. World. Since players will be able to guest on different worlds within their region, players won’t be able to transfer between worlds for free after this date. After January 28th, full world transfers will remain on a 7-day timer, but will cost Gems. Population restrictions may also apply.
Later in the day, we also saw a detailed explanation on why guesting will only work between worlds in the same region (North American and European count as separate regions). Here is what ArenaNet had to say:
Originally posted by Martin Kerstein (Source)
Let me explain to you why you cannot guest on worlds in another region.
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.
I understand that some of you are disappointed that you cannot guest on worlds in another region, but considering the complexity of internet routing, our main priority is to ensure that players have as much of an uninterrupted game experience as possible, which is the reason why we have two datacenters.
LET'S GET SOCIAL