Guild Wars 2

Title pretty much sums it up. I personally felt like the biggest fail of SWTOR was that they waited 6 months to long to realize that dwindling server population size has an impact on those who remain.

I make the following assumptions:

1. The dramatic decline of population that I see in WvW is indicative of general server population. My server has basically had ZERO WvW queue, or 1-5 minute queue.

2. The games success is directly attributed to the community and the experiences players have within their community.

3. The lack of community, from declining populace, reduces that experience and makes the game less enjoyable.

4. Failure to address server populations will result in a similar mass exodus that SWTOR suffered.

Examples:
1. Our guild went from having 150-225 online during primetime, to 50-75.
2. WvW queue times, have gone from “something” to “nothing”
3. Most world areas (PVE) are relatively vacant.
4. CD is supposedly one of the full servers, but its already seeing decline. What does this mean for other servers who have a lower stated population?

Suggestion
1. Bite the bullet and combine some servers, specifically ones that have differing primetime schedules. The WvW population for US servers in the 11pm(PST)-11am(PST) window is terrible.
2. Combining differing prime-time schedule will fill in the BIGGEST vacancy spots, and the spillover people in other hours will help to fill out some of the lesser periods.

what did i just read???

1. most servers are still high and full with 2 or 3 medium. This is almost the same as launch and I don’t think anet would secretly lower the cap of the server like swtor to hide the population decline.

2. it took swtor 6 months to implement some sort of server transfer to help the server popular problem. Gw2 has free and instant server transfer since beta. If you think your server is in trouble, transfer to a high/full server.

3. wvw queue time is directly l ink to whether your server is winning or not. If your server doesn’t have a long queue during prime time in wvw, it’s probably because your server is getting own badly in wvw.

4. cystal desert, the last time i checked, was still a full server at 11 pm.. that was two days ago when i try to make sure how high that freaking server is in wvw. You guys either has some spy from jq, or got a wvw guild transfered to other server. I am from dragonbrand btw.

talk about cd… you guys litreally allied with jq when we are even strenght and fought against db… you guys literally dropped the orb of power in front of JQ just to help them push us… so I am not suprise if people won’t log into wvw or just transfer to another server with better honor.

5. this is the most important thing. Swtor is a bad game, this is why it died so quickly. It is just a wow clone with worse engine, animation, and gameplay.

ability delay? ilum taken out due to lag? raid that took a day to c omplete and lock you out for the rest of the week? a on rail style map? that game copied wow so hard that they copy all the bad stuffs from wow in the modern day instead of the good stuffs from vanilla. This is why swtor fails

1. Full- is designated by ANET. It was also Full day 1. So by that logic you think that it has the same number of active players today that it did on day1?

The server status of FULL is severely misunderstood by many people. I’d go further, but I am not sure how it would be worth my time.

2. Take a server that presently has a low pop. That doesn’t mean every single person is going to take the time to go figure out how to server transfer. By that same logic, it would be my own fault for not spending $25 in WoW to transfer to a more populated server, vs. just quitting WoW to play a game with more active players around. Maybe a group of players.. say a guild of 200 who are on a server with a low pop… Maybe the mass organization of an entire server transfer initiated by themselves doesn’t seem very ideal. Maybe they already view that they have made some kind of commitment into the leveling of the guild (via influence), that they don’t feel that they should have to recreate. Whether paid or free, you completely missed the community portion of what i proposed is an “assumption.”
3. Seriously? That’s your logic?

4. See 1, which you don’t get.

5. Opinion is the biggest part of why. Clearly, by my post, I was taking the time to cite a correlation between population balancing and its impact on the community. That’s why the thread doesn’t compare game mechanics or other features.

Today I looked at the server list just out of curiosity. Most of them were full and high. Only two of them appeared as “medium”.

Highly populated WvWvW happens at night.

EDIT: took this pic a few seconds ago.

moyako.7064:

Today I looked at the server list just out of curiosity. Most of them were full and high. Only two of them appeared as “medium”.

You really trust those “words”? You know, to say “they” you only need “two” not more, if you understand what I mean

I don’t think that looking at the server list tells you much about the actual pop. ArenaNet can change the capacity when they choose. Just because most of them were full and high, doesn’t really mean it’s the same “full and high” that it was a week ago.

My server could use a decline in WvW population. 3 hour queues suck.

Ronah.2869:

You really trust those “words”? You know, to say “they” you only need “two” not more, if you understand what I mean

Point taken

Is it population decline or a severe disinterest in WvW for your server?

I honestly doubt accusations of population decline at this stage of the game. I’d be looking more at things such as population stabilization, disinterest in certain game modes, and on/off peak hours. Add free server transfers into the mix and people are going to go where the party is, even if that party is on a high or “full” server.

First off the server population and transfer service go hand in hand

You can read numerous posts about people’s server losing in wvw and transferring off, which is just ridulous btw

People are at fault for queue times and server populations right now and they are failing miserably.

Best thing to do is get rid of these transfers asap then they can deal with any population issues but for right now you cant.
I think people would be very surprised by population values on servers in a weekly format.

I believe the “high” / “medium” / “low” numbers are based on the number of characters assigned to that server, not the number of actual active players, so a server can be “high” while having a low active population.

Also, one of the reasons for the recent population decline might be simply that people can’t play.

I haven’t been able to get into an instance for two days, due to bugs, and the delay on server transfers (which was meant for WvW but was implemented in a way that affects PvE as well) has made it impossible for me to swap between my two groups of friends.

As a result, I have been playing about 1/3rd of the time I was playing before, and just doing other things in my free time.

The launch of the new WoW expansion could also have some telling in it.

TBH, I can see what the OP thinks, but to give him right? There are many games coming out these days, Borderlands 2, WoW MoP. Those are games which also take some time. The big difference with GW2 and SWTOR was that GW2 is free. Which makes people leaving it easier behind then for example a game where you pay for.

My guild also has lesser people active then at launch cause some of them started playing BL2. If GW2 came out after BL2 or MoP they would have played GW2.

I am enjoying GW2 day after day I am logging in. I want to know more about the story, the lore etc etc.

The main issues the game has is that most endgame content is or unplayable due bugs. Or has ben Farmed like hell and people don’t feel liking farming anymore.

GW2 is a game you pay for once and can leave behind when you find something else to play. Same for me, when Pokemon Black and White 2 comes out you will find me on my DS then on the PC.

I also started LoL up again. Just do have to do something different. GW2 is a wonderfull game. It has many flaws, but I still like it and like the leveling part. I love to see the slow changes they make in the game. Yes, I can only say good game.

And to get back ontopic.

OP, don’t be afraid. The people who are quiting know are mostly people who are the rotten fruits in a basket. It’s better they get purged now, while new players are slowly entering. For example I still get order of GW2 in my game store ^^. People I sold the game too, are still playing it and telling me. Awesome game.