Guild Wars 2

People are asking for merges because the server status are quite misleading. My server is high but only place you find people are in W v W rest of the pve zones are deserted.

The game feels dead because most of the players are either AFK in towns or forced to stand in towns screaming “LFG LFG LFG” or “LFM LFM LFM” due to a lack of LFD tool. If they leave town and actually go play the game, they won’t get to run their dungeons.

Wait until the LFD tool comes out and the game will feel a little more alive.

Keep in mind that full most likely has absolutely nothing to do with player activity. If someone’s inactive and hasn’t played for a month they’ll probably still count towards the server population. There’s no reason to believe that it’s on an activity base, because while logical it would be worse for PR regardless of activity levels. This of course is even assuming they don’t artificially lower the full bar to so say their servers are full.

I often wonder what people are talking about when they mention a bad population. I play on darkhaven, it is not one of the top servers by any means, which means as most are probably aware, a lot of people end up transfering out. Be that as it may, I still see a consistant amount of players, especially during boss/dragons.

Now it’s true, like someone pointed out, there are not 20 people around me at all times, nor would I want there to be for that matter. Unless I’m doing chain events, having 2-3 people grinding in the immediate vacinity is, quite frankly, enough.

Still though “dead” is a pretty poor term, as there is not reasonable way for a player to determine how many people are on in dungeons, the towns, all the maps, WvW, spvp, or tournament at any given time. What you “see” tbh, counts for nothing as you only “see” a very limited portion of the game at any given time.

whiran.1473:

There is a simple test to determine if ‘full’ means concurrent users (people online at the same time) or total number of accounts that the server has regardless of their online status.

That test is this: Do server populations drop over the course of time?

If they do, then it cannot be counting the total number of accounts since this number would never go down. When people stop playing they stop playing they do not delete their account.

I’d say the server population changes weekly, why? WvWvW is a factor. My server Far Shiverpeaks used to be full most of the time, but back then we used to be higher up in the tiers of WvWvW. Just checked now, it’s on ‘High’, it’s no longer on full because we’ve dropped a lot in WvWvW. So people have flocked over to the other servers.

Stratzvyda.3921:

Keep in mind that full most likely has absolutely nothing to do with player activity. If someone’s inactive and hasn’t played for a month they’ll probably still count towards the server population. There’s no reason to believe that it’s on an activity base, because while logical it would be worse for PR regardless of activity levels. This of course is even assuming they don’t artificially lower the full bar to so say their servers are full.

That isn’t the case at all. My guild transferred servers a few weeks back and it took an entire week to get everyone over as there were only a couple of times per day for an hour or two during off hours that the server would drop from Full to High.

munkiman.3068:

I think Full pertains to the amount of players on the server, whether they have logged in or not is a different thing. I would assume a server could say “full” and only have 250 people logged in at peak times.

Simply not true.

I was trying to join a different server, was listed as ‘Full’, so I couldn’t… I waited for an hour and bingo, was on ‘High’, and I could transfer to it.

I also constantly have to queue for WvWvW, sometimes for 30 mins or more.

Also, every game loses low-level area population. It’s inevitable. Name any other game in the history of MMO’s that have high levels of users in every zone.

GW2s system of being able to level in a 10-20 zone at level 63 and not be penalized is the best I’ve seen for keeping low level areas pretty well populated.

My highest level character is 40-something, and all my characters never have a problem joining in with numerous others for dynamic events, or finding dungeon groups (again, handy as there’s no holy trinity).

Game is doing just fine as it is.

I think players and developers underestimate just how badly instanced dungeons hurts a world’s population.

arcaneclarity.5283:

I think players and developers underestimate just how badly instanced dungeons hurts a world’s population.

This is so true. Look at the most successful MMO to date: WoW. Sure, it had lots of instanced dungeons (and raids). But it also had Jinta Alor which was like a dungeon but in the open world, not instanced. This alone must surely have been what made that game the huge success it undeniably was.

glad to see im not alone on this (so to speak) im on thunder bluff and a couple months ago there where too many people around, i took a break from gaming for about 2 weeks and come back to a single player game.

seriously, all i see in map chat, even in the zone im working on now is people spamming “LFG! LFM!” over, and over, and over and over for about 45 mins.

even my guild has taken a hit, there’s maybe five or six people online right now, 15 at most during peak times. Before there used to be about 20 or 30 give or take at any time of the day.

OldRodKS.9758:

I wonder about that “Full” tag sometimes. My server is one of the ones that’s always Full, but there are lots of zones I go to that are nearly empty. Yeah, the Orr zones are fairly crowded, but not enough to offset all the empty ones I see.

I play on Tarnished coast and I see people all over all the time

Siphaed.9235:

Akiko.2364:

what happened to the 25th US server?

Never was one. See, 24/3=8. That’s 8 WvWvW pairings. A 25th server would be an odd-man-out and couldn’t exist without a 26th and 27th as well.

Interesting, I never pay attention to PVP stuff … but then the official wiki is wrong as they list 25 US servers (is one the overflow server maybe?)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World

I transfered to a “high” pop server before (Maguma) and it was a ghost town. I went to every dungeon entrance and there was nobody insight. Next day I transfered to SoR and when I loaded there was 15 people there.

If you want to play on lower pop servers than you are going to have to suffer the consequences for it and that’s primarily the reason I only want to play on high pop servers.

You have to stop reacting on this absurd.

If you see a great game, you love playing it, you see that many servers full and high, and all of a sudden some guy on forum says that its dying.. I mean, then just dont react. Your reacting just produces more flame and makes more and more people wonder about state of the game, while its clear that its an awesome game, full with people, and its just getting started.

update on borlis pass, which is listed as “high” on the world list…

there is pretty much no one in cursed shore except a zerg of about 20-30 people at plinx. we can’t even complete grenth or arah events anymore. the other 2 orr zones have been empty since forever.

Full/High means the number of people that are Currently logged in that server. It drops from peak hours to off hours and then rise to the next peak hours all the time, every day. You can see it very clearly by yourself. I don’t understand why people are still popping this “full means the number of created account” non-sense.

No full is online players. That is why you have to wait for an off peak time for a full server to drop to med or high to move. Common sense. I see plenty of players whr i want to see them.

OP, this is a silly thread bordering on trolling. One time buy games without a sub don’t die. Grandma doesen’t give a kitten about WoW or GW2 enough to inform herself on which has a monthly fee and which game asks for a credit card number for bankspace and character slots. Doomsayers and fanboys are no better than one another.

bojangles.6912:

Max Lexandre.6279:

I belive alot of people stop playing already, but they are replaced, if there wasn’t alot of people who stoped playing then with the new players coming every day the servers would be all crashed.

What I feel it changed in the game I feel a bit alone, even with alot of people arround me, but they just passing by.

Replaced by who? LMAO that’s why their box sales haven’t grown much since after a month of launch and sorry but there is no way new people come close the number of people who stopped playing. Servers are dead. I would say over half. I am on a heavily populated server and see no one. Made a new toon to see if even anyone was in the starter zone and it was empty.

About that you may be aware that everybody is farming Orr, that’s why most other maps are quite empty.

Max Lexandre.6279:

bojangles.6912:

Max Lexandre.6279:

I belive alot of people stop playing already, but they are replaced, if there wasn’t alot of people who stoped playing then with the new players coming every day the servers would be all crashed.

What I feel it changed in the game I feel a bit alone, even with alot of people arround me, but they just passing by.

Replaced by who? LMAO that’s why their box sales haven’t grown much since after a month of launch and sorry but there is no way new people come close the number of people who stopped playing. Servers are dead. I would say over half. I am on a heavily populated server and see no one. Made a new toon to see if even anyone was in the starter zone and it was empty.

About that you may be aware that everybody is farming Orr, that’s why most other maps are quite empty.

as i stated earlier, on borlis pass, which is listed as “high”, orr is mostly empty.

there’s around 30 people at plinx, and that.is.it.

we can’t even finish grenth or arah chains anymore.

dirtyklingon.2918:

as i stated earlier, on borlis pass, which is listed as “high”, orr is mostly empty.

there’s around 30 people at plinx, and that.is.it.

we can’t even finish grenth or arah chains anymore.

So, organize them to do it. It takes what? 5 people to run Grenth? At least, I’ve completed it with five. But, let’s be generous, and say ten people. Still plenty of people to do it. It isn’t people that are lacking here it’s organization, motivation, and leadership.

Beyond that,

How many people are in Lion’s Arch?
How many people are in dungeons?
How many people are in the lower level zones?
How many people are waiting on dragon spawns?
How many people are in sPvP?
How many people are in WvW?
How many people are -elsewhere- in Orr?

The more I look at your posts about your server being ‘dead’ the more I’m thinking that it has a good amount of activity. Now, if you had said there was no one in Orr at all I’d be thinking, holy smokes, that’s quiet!

Plus, at what time are you saying these players are there?

I remember someone complaining that servers were quiet at 7am Eastern Sunday morning…

It’s ok. Some people here simply can’t accept the fact that their precious mmo is declining in players logging in/people stop playing. They are not being replaced by new people either. Some servers may look very populated and other servers dead like people have said but of course they must be wrong. This happens on every mmo, even WoW. WoW could use a server merger along with Tera and Rift. But most of us know the truth that the peak came and went fast and the arrow is pointing downward for the game.

Siphaed.9235:

… it should do a commercial around Thanksgiving to get more public awareness. Do it! Please and thank you!

They are running ads in many Game Magazines for the November issues. You and ANet think alike

As far as populations go, no one has any real stats so anyone complaining about dropping populations are either trolls or don’t realize that their own tiny slice of game play is only anecdotal evidence. There are as many people that say there are lots of players as those that say there are none. Right now we just don’t know.

i didn’t say my server was dead bro.

i said it’s hilarious that’s it’s rated as “high”.

i’ve been through most of the zones in teh game multiple times in the past month btw. you kinda have to do that now that there isn’t enough pop to proc events, let alone complete them. on top of crafting.

it’s not qq. it’s just simply stating the reality of the matter.

I’m on Stormbluff Isle and it’s incredibly rare that I don’t run into at least a couple other players. It most frequently happens in unpopular leveling zones (Snowden Drifts is the biggest empty zone). LA always has overflow, and there have been times I’ve entered an Orr zone in the past few weeks that I’ve been put in an overflow there too. Orr overflows really do suck because they are actually empty, but thankfully it only lasts a couple of minutes.

Made the announcement last night that Shadow Behemoth pre-event started, and someone in my guild actually got stuck in a Queensdale overflow as it seems everyone on the server came out for the boss.

Still can’t xfer to my friends server because it’s full all the time, but one of my other buddies managed to catch it at high for a few minutes and xferred, so I guess the game must be dying.

OldRodKS.9758:

I wonder about that “Full” tag sometimes. My server is one of the ones that’s always Full, but there are lots of zones I go to that are nearly empty. Yeah, the Orr zones are fairly crowded, but not enough to offset all the empty ones I see.

But there is a 3h queue for Eternal Battleground…

Mammoth.1975:

Still can’t xfer to my friends server because it’s full all the time, but one of my other buddies managed to catch it at high for a few minutes and xferred, so I guess the game must be dying.

We have the same problem with our guild. 4 on one server, 3 can’t transfer.

I just got the game, can people on Yak’s Bend gtfo so I can xfer my newbie toons there and join my friends!

YOur forgeting overflows doesnt show. Before even the overflows had overflows. Now you only get overflow in la becouse everyone stands there bored, afk and tabed out http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

please don’t post xfire numbers. even though i think it’s obvious population has diminished greatly, xfire is best left to be joke cliches of mmorpg.com and kotaku( i mean that those two sites are a joke because of things like citing xfire numbers, among many, many other things)

dirtyklingon.2918:

please don’t post xfire numbers. even though i think it’s obvious population has diminished greatly, xfire is best left to be joke cliches of mmorpg.com and kotaku( i mean that those two sites are a joke because of things like citing xfire numbers, among many, many other things)

Thats exactly what the SWToR fanboys said.
I dont use xfire myself, but its a good indication

Selo.1250:

dirtyklingon.2918:

please don’t post xfire numbers. even though i think it’s obvious population has diminished greatly, xfire is best left to be joke cliches of mmorpg.com and kotaku( i mean that those two sites are a joke because of things like citing xfire numbers, among many, many other things)

Thats exactly what the SWToR fanboys said.
I dont use xfire myself, but its a good indication

last time i checked according to xfire wow is dead too

i think the reality is, that few people actually use xfire, and those that try it often don’t find it that useful.

about the only gaming social platform with useful numbers is steam, and it only applies to steam works games.

Siphaed.9235:

Why are there topics demanding server mergers, demanding a shorter transfer limitation, and saying “this game is dying” and “people are leaving”?

From what I see…the game is growing, significantly. There’s a lot of players I see every day, and the game is just getting started. I’m expecting to see more growth come the Nov 15th patch and post-Christmas.

What would grandma rather get little Jimmy for Christmas: a $15-a-month 7-yr old game plus all expansions costing nearly $120, or a subscription free GW2 for $60 one-time box cost? That’s an easy choice for them to make.

My server and guild has been growing. Sure, there are those people that rushed content and left after the first month (even my guild had a few), but they’re replaced by casuals, new players, and long-term players.

I think this game needs more servers added. Not only should it add more servers, but it should do a commercial around Thanksgiving to get more public awareness. Do it! Please and thank you!

Keep in mind Full is just a label ArenaNet could have changed the caps needed to trigger the “High” and “Full” labels to give the appearance that the game is doing well. Their entire overflow process is a bit of a mystery. They may have made some parameter to changes to how many players can be in a zone before they are directed to overflow.

Keep in mind ArenaNet must pay for server up time. They have revealed in interviews they have their own internal Cloud architecture, which likely means they are counting the compute cost of every server instance that’s running and dynamically scaling based on historical data of usage.

They know from their logs how many players are playing on a given Saturday morning and probably adjust how much load a server can handle based on that. To run the backend in an optimal way and not spend a fortune on compute power this would be necessary. Although it sounds complex, the tools not only exist to do this it’s not uncommon practice with other less demanding applications.

There are certainly not near the number of players on the servers today that we had in the weeks following launch. Yes, many lower level zones are very underpopulated. Not entirely empty, but empty enough to break core play mechanics (e.g. dynamic events) and generally destroy the play experience. This is destroying the game very quickly.

Leveling an alt and going through empty zones has been a bit of an emotional experience because of the night and day difference in how this felt the weeks following launch. It went from being perhaps the best gaming experience I’ve ever had to being at times quite frustrating. What was a great game is now a very frustrating broken game. ArenaNet fault in this area is on assumptions made on several populations. Are zones too big? Lack of a low-population counterpart to overflow (underflow) and overall poor scaling design for dynamic events. While in general the events seem to scale great for 3-9 players or whatever, when you have only one many can not be completed.

These things are all fixable, but MMORPG communities have short attention spans and too many options to really hang out. Yes, GW2 was built by a team of amazing artist and I think the community has expressed it’s admiration for their hard work, but there is no brand loyalty with these sort of games. Either get it working or we could care less if you cloned Van Gogh and had him do the artwork. This attitude is just and common sense. For company to assume their product somehow deserves a fan base with a higher degree of tolerance for bugs out of respect for the artist involved in making the product, well there’s a word for that: Pretentious

17 Full servers ATM. Im on SoR server and i see people on lower level area’s all the time and Orr is just pact. . . i destroys my heart when people say the gw2 is dead ITS NOT dead!

Uriel Saintclair.6345:

17 Full servers ATM. Im on SoR server and i see people on lower level area’s all the time and Orr is just pact. . . i destroys my heart when people say the gw2 is dead ITS NOT dead!

It really depends on your sever. I LOVE gw2, but I’m on Eredon Terrace and it IS almost dead over here. I really do wish to continue playing, but it just makes me feel lonely when I’m stuck on a server no one is on. Also, its next to impossible to transfer to a world that is full.

Notice how game developers (except CCP) will never confirm or deny what population labels mean or how many people play their game? IMO, that is evidence of a population problem.

Funny, just 2 days after the Halloween event the servers showed only 2 or 3 full on the US side then suddenly they explode with at least 1/2 of them showing full almost 24 hours a day.

I think Anet changed the full tag on alot of the servers to reduce the transfers. Look at the full servers, they are the servers that have been in demand for wvw, now they are alomst always full, can transfer to a full server, so if you really want to transfer then you have to transfer to the mostly lower tier servers.

Cerulean.5142:

Funny, just 2 days after the Halloween event the servers showed only 2 or 3 full on the US side then suddenly they explode with at least 1/2 of them showing full almost 24 hours a day.

I think Anet changed the full tag on alot of the servers to reduce the transfers. Look at the full servers, they are the servers that have been in demand for wvw, now they are alomst always full, can transfer to a full server, so if you really want to transfer then you have to transfer to the mostly lower tier servers.

Please see my reply to OP. This would indicate would I have stated. They are scaling so the definition of “Full” today is not what it was during the Halloween event or at launch. Only ArenaNet has the numbers…