the district discussion

As we all know, there are many districts in the game for various towns. But I've noticed something - whenever a party or event is going on or someone wants to trade/buy an item from you, they always want to go to the first district. Does that happen to anyone else? And why does everyone pick the first district? It's the laggiest district of any town and it's not like you can't pick a different one easily.

And speaking of districts, if you logged out in a town (especially one of the major ones like LA or Kamadan) it usually always spawns you right back into the first or second district, which is, again, the laggiest. I think you should be able to choose which district you want to go in before actually selecting the Play option (but that's for Sard so I won't go into it too much).

So what do you think about the district generator and how most events and things happen in the first districts?

yeah.. i agree. we should be able to select the district we want to spawn in at the character selection screen.

When changing towns you can choose what district you want on the map. When the map is up and say you click Lion's Arch. Well on the box that says Lion's Arch and describes the town a bit. At the top it says like active district or something. If you click that bar all the districts pop down and it will zone you to whatever district you want.

Is that what you mean or do you want to be able to choose a district from your player select screen? That seems like a waste of time for anet to make. I mean it is like 2 more clicks to get to whatever district you would rather be in honestly.

For non-events, Dis 1 was always used because it fills first, and the people there usually choose to go there. So this has just continued into events, except for events if you're in Dis1, you can quickly jump to say, dis 60, and sometimes catch the end of the event there, so you can get 2x everything.

I remember going from Dis 1 to Dis 53 to Dis 170 in an event, and getting 3 of the finales.

Whenever you map travel, the default option is: "Active District," which starts at 1. I'm guessing most people don't use the drop-down districts menu, and just ckick to travel straight away. District 1 is probably a force of habit or simple lazy choice.

I like to zone my characters out to Guild Hall before I log out to avoid the initial lag from loading in active districts.

Songbringer: What I actually meant was the option to choose your district at the player select screen. When you are in a town, yes you can change the district but it's lag city and takes forever to even get there if you're in the first or second district, which is usually where you spawn.

MisterB: I agree, I always zone to my guild hall first just to avoid the lag. But then there are times when I go to the character selection screen and it lags, saying my character is currently in Isle of Meditation instead of guild hall. So when I go back to play that character, it zaps me back into the last town I was in, producing more lag, plus in the first district which makes it even worse.

Now I kinda get why you're sent to the first or second district first, but honestly it would be better for everyone if you could choose.

As for the events and such, I can see why people would go to the first district and then hop to a later one for more goodies but for community events that don't involve an NPC like Mad King Thorn or something? No idea why the hosts of those always say go to district one. Same with buyers and sellers.

D1 of the major trading cities has been the default for trade since day dot - you know that if you want to trade, you go to D1.

Sure that makes the lag, but you can always deal with it by going to another district, reading the Party Search panel where all trades show up, then asking the dealer to come to you. Sometimes when doing a big trade, it's nice to go to a less populated district so you can talk in peace.

And yes, the drop down panel for district choice when mapping into a town is very useful.

I don't get any "lag" in any towns...

I'm fairly certain this is a bug, and I don't know of any way to avoid it.

The reason buyers and sellers prefer district 1 is because traders want the largest audience possible.

tenderwolf you probably mapped to the guildhall of an alliance member that's why you get zapped back(stupid but it's how it works)

And about D1 for most events is cause the first district is allways the first one to fill up which is logical no?

I always meet people in the last district. If I'm looking for a PuG, trading, or it's a festival I head to d1.

Cyb3r: Nope, promise I'm in my guild hall and not the alliance one.

To all others regarding trades, okay I get that part, but of course there is the party search feature. But what I was actually thinking of when I posted this was if you arrange here on Guru to buy or sell something. You contact the person in-game and they always say come to dist 1. Especially if they're the buyer that makes less sense. lol

Ok, a couple things you'll want to understand... The number of available districts is not fixed. It grows and shrinks depending on traffic. The reason you usually spawn in the first 2 districts is because they want the towns to not seem deserted. They have an algorithm that controls when another district is needed, and when to shut one down.

Regarding where to trade... if people use the trade window, they can click to join their trade partner, thus ending the need to specify where to meet. Yes, you may end up joining your trade partner in d1. If lag is that big a deal to you, maybe consider telling your trade partners to come to you instead of you going to them. I doubt that will bother them enough to make a forum thread.

I just go to the 1st district because there are the most number of people thus the greatest chance of getting the item sold or bought.

There are more people in (A)D1 so I just go there to sell or buy stuff. Same thing with QQ as I swap from RA ID to AD1 to whine.

Ya, I too park in my guild hall to avoid a laggy start.

Thats a bit of a cyclical arguement really tender, the district is so laggy because of all the people who go there. Rather than people going to the most laggy district, its all those people going there that makes it laggy. Then again, once the disctrict is crammed full of people, yes it is laggy and yes people do continue to trade there.

However, in answer to your question, yes I do find people always want to trade in d1. I make most of my prearranged guru trades in ID1 Temple of Balth.

Seems to be the general thing. Around 90% of the trades I made on Guru were done at GTOB ID1.

However, I WOULD like that option to change district at character select menu, here's why...

I use two computers; the desktop is a mid-end machine, runs great; the other one is a 4-year-old laptop which takes -forever- to load, even on graphics set at low. The laptop isn't made to game, I fully understand it, but sometimes it's the only computer I have access to for extended periods of time.

If I log off at Kamadan on peak hours my desktop, I won't have any problem to load it. Usually, it'll even load a lower district. AD3... AD4... while in fact I wanna be in AD1 or at most, AD2.

If I log back on my laptop, I'll load AD1 or AD2 while I want to load in a LOWER district, since the laptop takes 5-10 minutes loading the armors at low graphics. I can't move, the computer doesn't register anything else - I can't even ALT+TAB out. When I'm not being waited on, sure, I'll just go AFK 10 minutes... but when I got asked to come there and trade, ouch. I apologize and tell them whichever district I've loaded in, unless they wanna wait another 5-10 minutes .

I'd gladly welcome a district-change button on the character screen. Until then, I'm just gonna try not to spawn in Kamadan/LA/SJM busy d's.