So, player grouping. The layering/islands/instances thingie should priorize your friends list when deciding where to fling you. The rest should be by playstyle and possibly location profiling. (Game runs in partial P2P model, so being close in the 'net should improve multiplayer experience.) "Wings" (groups) will be a post-launch feature. Then there's the private grouping mechanism, which is only the group and NPCs, one player creates a group and others join. But as noted, the game will launch with "fly to the same place and hope you get assigned to the same instance" method of grouping. Helps if you are on the same node - which is apparently more likely if you coordinate login times.