Guild Wars 2

I have a friend who keeps telling me the reason he won’t be getting GW2 is because apparently GW1 died out. I believe he said something along the lines of ArenaNet adding some patch, and majority of players not liking it, and leaving.

I have no idea if this is true or not. I’ve only played a bit of Nightfall years ago, and I found it pretty entertaining. In any case, I haven’t heard anything about GW “flopping”, but then again I haven’t really looked into it too much.

Does anyone else happen to know if what my friend says is true or not? I’d love to just prove him wrong…

There was a patch that changed HoH to 6 players for about 6 months… people were pretty mad about that. But I don’t think it ever suffered a big blow. It’s still one of my favourite all time games and I spent a lot of time playing.

If GW1 flopped, I don’t think we’d be playing GW2 today.

The game’s 7 years old with no major content update for 2 years. Of course it’ll see reduced player activity, especially after gw2 came out. That does not mean the game flopped though, it’s just natural people move on after some time.

I’ll have to see if I can get more specific details as to what my friend meant, but I’m guessing either he’s making this up (he already preordered MoP collectors edition, maybe doesn’t want to regret that or something :p), or maybe he heard bad information from a friend or another source.

Not that I remember. The population dwindled over time, as all game populations do. There were a couple of major patches that did a lot of unnecessary meddling and made a lot of things unviable, but that’s all I can think of.

ANet has very “safe” design practices. They tend to try to make numbers tiny – insignificant really, and make it next to impossible to make a build work without intense min-maxing. Take a look at the GW2 economy (worthless, tiny rewards) or its sPvP (lots of min-maxing to get a small, barely visible payoff) or even its itty bitty handful of skills compared to GW1 (“Traits will change skills in a way that makes GW2 have even more skills than GW1 did!” LOLOLOLOLOL No.).

GW1 kind of turned into that over time. It started balanced, then got REALLY balanced, then became a gleaming plank of wood, then became a two dimensional line in space. To me, primarily a PvP player in GW1, this made it a lot less fun. Not because they removed exploits, or something, but because running one build ended up feeling too similar to running another one, because they marginalized everything in the game and killed off a lot of builds by making them “balanced” to the point that even min-maxing them and running them with perfect team coordination, they were still barely effective. It was very tiring and boring.

Maybe they are confusing GW1 with SWG (Star Wars Galaxies)

You made me curious, so I took a screenshot of kamadan at 5am pacific, 2 weeks after GW2 came out. Still people kicking about.

Edit: Ah, I did hear about SWG having shot themselves in the foot so to speak with an update that killed the game. Maybe that’s it.

Premixed.4567:

Maybe they are confusing GW1 with SWG (Star Wars Galaxies)

When I read the reason his friend gave, this was my first thought. That’s the only game that had that kind of major reaction. CoX did with ED but not on the scale of SWG did.

I wonder how long it’ll take for NCSoft to shut GW down too.

SWG shot itself in the chest
GW1 was still pretty popular Years even after it came out
Before GW2 was in Beta they had released a mega patch that bridged the Lore gaps in GW1 – GW2

I don’t remember any patch to GW1 that causes masses to quit the game.
Population has just been going down over time. Although even now it still has an ok player base I guess. For a game that old and with the sequel that came out less than 1 month ago. Logged into Guild Wars 1 two days ago and saw that Kamadan is still at least 2 districts. Pretty impressive.

GW1 died because they stopped putting out expansions.

GW1 suffered population wise the same reason GW2 will now.

If you do not enjoy PvP, either WvWvW or sPvP, then once you hit 80, the game isnt fun anymore. There is little reward and a lot of grind at 80.

They did accomplish removing the grind 1-80 though, its a fantastic journey up, and luckily I like PvP, but for those who love the PvE in the game and stay out of WvWvW and sPvP, at 80 there isnt much for them

Archaeneoso.8461:

GW1 suffered population wise the same reason GW2 will now.

If you do not enjoy PvP, either WvWvW or sPvP, then once you hit 80, the game isnt fun anymore. There is little reward and a lot of grind at 80.

They did accomplish removing the grind 1-80 though, its a fantastic journey up, and luckily I like PvP, but for those who love the PvE in the game and stay out of WvWvW and sPvP, at 80 there isnt much for them

GW1 w/o Expansions was pretty lackluster too for a while which is why you roll alts and experience another story

I played GW1 almost from the beginning and there were some patches that had a bigger impact and caused some people to leave.

The real reason it sort of died out, as already mentioned, is the fact that Anet focused on GW2 instead and didn’t bring out any major content updates anymore. They sold millions of copies there as well of the game, so I don’t think it was a flop at all.

Gehenna.3625:

I played GW1 almost from the beginning and there were some patches that had a bigger impact and caused some people to leave.

The real reason it sort of died out, as already mentioned, is the fact that Anet focused on GW2 instead and didn’t bring out any major content updates anymore. They sold millions of copies there as well of the game, so I don’t think it was a flop at all.

That’s cause it wasn’t and it didn’t truly die out
Trust me I’ve seen MMOs DIE out (RIP Tabula Rasa)

It does sound like your friend confused GW1 with SWG, OP.

Here’s a transcript of the conversation with my friend:

Espionage724: hey, whenever u mentoned that GW1 failed or something, what did you mean lol
Friend: um with the patches
Friend: when they started to update it before they anouced the guild wars 2
Friend: they patched it and made a bunch of de buffs and pay for better armor
Friend: and pay for better recipies for ur skills
Espionage724: hmm
Friend: and changed some of the pvp
Friend: and pve stuff
Friend: through the patches and made it weak
Friend: my friend from Germany was telling me how much they changed
Friend: and made it more pay to win
……..
Friend: from what i understand the patches for the game were very bad
Friend: after awhile
Espionage724: hmm
———————————————————————————

Made GW pay to win? How? All “endgame” armors have the same stats, all “endgame” weapons have the same stats. You can unlock all skills for PVP trough PVE easily.

Makes no sense, he definitely mixed something up.

Yeah, no. Every time I sign on, the major hubs are so swamped with players, I switch districts just to have a bit more calm. And that’s a game from 2005. Definitely no flopping there.
Also, you cannot pay anything to win. The only winning-related things in the store are the same old PvP skill packs as always.

Your friend’s friend probably just suffers from they changed it now it sucks syndrome.

He definitely got it mixed up with another game. There is no “better” armor or “recipes for skills” in guild wars.

Sorry, but your friend is either confused or pulling your leg. None of the things he mentions have anything whatsoever to do with Guild Wars.

Milennin.4825:

I don’t remember any patch to GW1 that causes masses to quit the game.
Population has just been going down over time. Although even now it still has an ok player base I guess. For a game that old and with the sequel that came out less than 1 month ago. Logged into Guild Wars 1 two days ago and saw that Kamadan is still at least 2 districts. Pretty impressive.

Not good enough for NCSoft, apparently. CoH had a pretty good player base and they decided to fire the whole team out of nothing.

Eochaidh.4106:

Not good enough for NCSoft, apparently. CoH had a pretty good player base and they decided to fire the whole team out of nothing.

I guess auto makers should never retire a previous model?

Where is my 2012 Chevy Nova?

Premixed.4567:

Maybe they are confusing GW1 with SWG (Star Wars Galaxies)

Yes, they are. I was in SWG… when they came out with the combat upgrade and then the NGE (alleged “new game enhancements”), that basically killed the vast majority of the population, and led to its ultimate demise. I was there… 8 grueling years lol.

As for Guild Wars 1, It is still going strong. I actually picked up the title last July (2011), and still play it (though admittedly not as much as GW2).

GW1 sold 7 millions copies and went strong for 7 years.
GW2 is an upgrade of GW1, not a GW1-killer.

Your friend is kinda dumb.

GW1 + all its expansions together sold a cumulative 7 million copies. Copies of the core game probably did not exceed 3-4 million. It’s a little misleading.

Still, very respectable numbers for a single platform game. No, it did not “flop”. I believe it was viewed as a success by NCSoft, and lord knows they’re hard to please at the best of times.

PvE Skills with Grind Attached (r u rank 10 bear norn kill master? gtfo)
Consumables required to get a group for high level stuff
Heroes
Full Party of Heroes

and the biggest offense of all to me!

Changing the way Cap Sig worked.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I started GW1 in 2005 when there were stil tons of players looking for a party to do missions. It was amazingly fun for a long time at least for me.

I honestly believe the heroes killed that aspect – which was in fact the funnest part of the game- playing with a group of 8 players you didn’t even know. Honestly I’d still play it if there were people doing that.

I got holy lightbringer on my fire ele and loved every minute of it.

Red Falcon.8257:

GW1 sold 7 millions copies and went strong for 7 years.
GW2 is an upgrade of GW1, not a GW1-killer.

I wouldn’t really say GW2 is an upgrade to GW1, they are totally different games. The presentation, gameplay, story scale, setting and audience Anet is aiming at are all totally different. Only thing that it has in common with GW1 is the name, races and some place names. They will be able to do fine next to eachother, since a lot of GW1 veterans expected more of the GW1 formula only to be disappointed to see a WoW flavoured GW instead of the successor they imagined. It’s a matter of taste.

Fox.1054:

WoW flavoured GW

Uh, the lack of WoW flavor is the leading cause of complaints about the game on this forum, actually.