Heros and Instances

So I got to thinking, what happens when both players leave the game and the heros are still there. Do they get left in the instance and use up memory space?

If they do, does it eventually get erased or are they forever in there until they die?

Or is there some timer that goes off after both leave and it shuts down?

When you are with 2 people in the area and one of them leaves, the heroes start following you straight away, no waiting time or any delay. Looking at that I'd say the area automaticly gets shut down if last player (including heroes or not) leaves.
Totaly guessing though.

Well, on your end (the client side), there is only one GW running at a time. So when you leave the "instance" and, for example, go back to your Guild Hall, the Guild Hall is the only thing running on your computer (whether the other guys leaves or not).
On the server side, as soon as all human players leave an instance, the instance shuts down (afaik) - even if it didn't, the memory "wasted" would be in ANet's servers, not your computer. The only time that the instance would be remain active would be if one or both of you "lost communication with the server", in which case, the instances would remain active until the normal "lost communication" time out. But, if both of you leave normally, the instance shuts down.

Short of probing the ANet staff I don't know that we'll ever find out.


Who knows how long an instance without a live player lasts. There is a delay between logging off and your character leaving the game, as many a failed survivor attempt has learn't the hard way that I guess the heroes would linger for. Their's also the grace period for the returning disconnected, which it's clear the heroes wait out.

I'm guessing instances don't last long once they're no longer populated with players. And my basis for this; there was a period a few years back where occasionally I'd disconnect whilst loading into a cut scene likke the ones preceeding entering new mission outposts. Now whilst watching cutscenes you're not in the outpost. When reconnecting I'd get a message along the lines of "Cannot find instance" or wording something like that, and would find myself in the previous outpost, with the mission outpost I was aiming for unlocked.

Suggests for me that in the short time I was disconnected, the instance had been removed, heroes, henchies and all.


Not that it matters, since that sort of data is serverside, so wouldn'y affect the client side, really

And here I thought that all the heroes and hench run around and scoop all things left on the ground as a cash cow for ANET.

An instance without a live player lasts for exactly 10 minutes. That's how long a server that has lost connection with a player lasts. If both players leave the instance is purged from memory right away.

If both players D/C, the server waits for them to reconnect for 10 minutes, at which point the heroes will stand in place and fight anything that aggroes. If a reconnection isn't successful the server then purges the instance from memory.

Ok thanks

question answered