Guild Wars 2

Is it true?

I was reading chat with Rubi Bayer yesterday while Wintersday Livestream was on air.
She practically told everyone in chat that “this will be the FIRST Wintersday for MOST players”.

What does that mean?

Does that mean that most players joined after December 2012?
Did GW2 sell more copies in 2013 than from release?
Taken from Wikipedia:
By January 2013, over 3 million copies of the game have been sold. By August 2013 the sales have shifted 3.5 million copies.
It does not seem likely GW2 sold more copies in 2013 than in 2012.

Most people who pre-purchased or bought GW2 in 2012 were GW1 active players, friends of GW1 active players, GW1 players who left, friends of GW1 players who left.

Does that mean most people who Pre-purchased are gone?
If so, where are they gone to?
Follow me on this:
Given that 3million purchases were made between Aug2012-Jan2013,
and 500k purchases were made between Jan2013-Aug2013,
and assuming that all players who bought GW2 in 2013 are still active,
it seems that 500k players are experiencing their FIRST Wintersday, and apparently they are a MAJORITY of players in the game.
If the majority is 500k, then the minority is less than 500k.
Then, it means that less than 500k of the 3million players who bought GW2 in 2012 are still active then, since those who bought the game in 2012 are a minority.
That means that more than 2.5 million players left GW2?

After last night’s Livestream, I noticed something, so I just checked my friendlist, my followers list, and my GW1>GW2 guild when we all moved to GW2 list. I even checked my block list.
Why is everyone appearing offline?

Well I can only speak for me personally. I quit because of vertical progression and because fractal levels were reset. I don’t find enjoyment or challenge in any of the new content and the story telling is too light for my appreciation.

There are a ton of MMOs on the market and MMO players switch games more than ever nowadays, so this doesn’t surprise me.

If you look at the MMO market right now, you’ll find tons of games that do a few things really well, even though there are a lot of other aspects that are mediocre or worse. This makes for an environment ripe for players with an eye for the greener grass to be lured to the other side.

I’m not kidding when I say I recently joined an active pve guild in gw1 (after some years of not playing) and am having fun again with some MQSC runs. GW2 is just so… boring. Also Path of Exile is an interesting game and I’m checking that out as well.

Lol this again. Its like some people are on a quest to prove no one plays gw2 any longer or something. I dont know why everyone of your friends appears offline, all I can tell you is the game looks far from empty to me.

Galen Grey.4709:

Lol this again. Its like some people are on a quest to prove no one plays gw2 any longer or something. I dont know why everyone of your friends appears offline, all I can tell you is the game looks far from empty to me.

Please re-read, I never said the game is empty.
I am saying that GW1 players seem to really be the minority and all of the people i knew from GW1 seem to be gone from GW2.
Only recently did I realize that most of my current friendlist consists of people who did not play GW1.
It just seems to me that GW2 consists of mostly non-GW1 players now, and what Rubi said yesterday just seems to confirm that.

lol @ the wikipedia reference.

There are many reasons that this is the first for many players. For instance, players who purchased GW1 played through the summer then shelved the game may not have login ever since have purchased GW2 this year. Or there may be those who don’t believe in Wintersday was recently a believer.

Just because someone owns GW1 doesn’t necessarily means that they’ve seen Wintersday. So that statement hold some truth to it, unless you can prove it otherwise.

Seems pretty true to me. I’m a Guild Wars 1 player and I quit Guild Wars 2 within a few months. All of the people in my Guild Wars 1 guild moved to Guild Wars 2, and none of them log in anymore. It’s the same with my friends, they don’t log in either.

It seems like Guild Wars 1 players were used to the best, and then they moved to a mediocre game (compared to GW1) and were disappointed with it, so they moved on. This is one of the reasons that I quit (among a few hundred reasons).

I doubt it. I still find a lot of GW1 vets in all sorts of different maps.

I think many gw1 players have left, certainly my rabidly gw1 fanboy friend has abandoned gw2 in frustration. On the other hand, I was an active gw1 player for years and joined gw2 at launch and suffered frustration about six weeks in and abandoned the game. I rejoined in feb 2013 and have played consistently ever since. So this will be my first wintersday . . . but maybe I am an exception . . .

Played Guildwars since prophecies was one year old (2006) and enjoy Guildwars 2 right now. Its a different game, but i like it in is own right. And i will see the guildwars 2 Wintersday for the first time.

I played GW1 for seven plus years and I’m still here, so plus 1 to the greybeards!

GWAMM here…and I usually see another gwamm title in my dungeon groups, or at least a title associated with the Hall of Monuments.

Also…some people skipped wintersday last year (myself included).

I really think you are reading too much into it.

My GW1 guild came to GW2, along with 1 of our alliance guilds.
I am the only one still playing. Everyone else left for greener pastures.
On the other hand, I found a new guild that has dozens of players online everyday so it’s hard to tell.
The game does seem empty at time. I have stopped doing jormag as more often then not, I am the only one there or there is only 1 or 2 others. Same with several other big events. Whole zones seem to be empty.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Galen Grey.4709:

Lol this again. Its like some people are on a quest to prove no one plays gw2 any longer or something. I dont know why everyone of your friends appears offline, all I can tell you is the game looks far from empty to me.

Please re-read, I never said the game is empty.
I am saying that GW1 players seem to really be the minority and all of the people i knew from GW1 seem to be gone from GW2.
Only recently did I realize that most of my current friendlist consists of people who did not play GW1.
It just seems to me that GW2 consists of mostly non-GW1 players now, and what Rubi said yesterday just seems to confirm that.

You might not have said it directly but plenty of what you said implied you think the game is “empty”
like say:
“That means that more than 2.5 million players left GW2?
Then, it means that less than 500k of the 3million players who bought GW2 in 2012 are still active then”

etc…

If you’re being genuine, I wasnt on the chat so I dont know what Rubi said exactly but she couldnt have been counting people from Gw1 and them experiencing wintersday in Gw1 because its a completely different experience anyway.

every one of my gw1 guildmates on gw2 are inactive and we had a 100 strong guild catch them from time to time on gw1 still better than gw2 in every aspect except graphics gw2 got hyped up and I honestly thought it would keep some of it’s gw1 taste and be freaking amazing just more explorable but no it honestly sucks yea you gave us a more interactive environment but even a pretty dog gets ignored if that’s all it can do. I love anet for gw1 not its sibling so much was lost in the transition. BUT anet made great strides in gw1 so maybe just maybe they can save gw2 before it’s just too far gone for me as for you grey statistics 3 million copies from august to january would mean MAJORITY of the game experienced the first wintersday might have just been a miss communication we all have them

Edit: on a side note 999,000 people is a LOT of freaking people notice how almost NO ONE is in explorables just the event area for LS or in LA and having only what 150 people per instance or is it 200? would be a crap ton of instances making it seem not empty when in the broader picture it is

Yes. ArenaNet has done an amazing job of alienating and driving off their Guild Wars fanbase. I’m pretty sure that they feel that Guild Wars 2 was not designed, marketed, nor intended for the type of player who loved Guild Wars. I actually think that ArenaNet considers Guild Wars as some kind of embarrassing skeleton to keep in a closet as much as possible.

This would be why Guild Wars fans are a very small minority of the GW2 population.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Well I can only speak for me personally. I quit because of vertical progression and because fractal levels were reset. I don’t find enjoyment or challenge in any of the new content and the story telling is too light for my appreciation.

1. The Fractal levels did not reset!

2. The only reason there is a small vertical progression is because ArenaNet mis judged exotic gear. They thought it would be a hard to get armor which isn’t the case. So they made Ascended armor to be the hard to get armor. That’s the only vertical progression you will ever see in GW2 because it’s the last tier and there won’t be another tier.

JesseyFranz.8362:

1. The Fractal levels did not reset!

2. The only reason there is a small vertical progression is because ArenaNet mis judged exotic gear. They thought it would be a hard to get armor which isn’t the case. So they made Ascended armor to be the hard to get armor. That’s the only vertical progression you will ever see in GW2 because it’s the last tier and there won’t be another tier.

1. They did. They reset anyone with a Fractal level higher than 30 back to 30.

2. We don’t know that for sure.

Vorch.2985:

GWAMM here…and I usually see another gwamm title in my dungeon groups, or at least a title associated with the Hall of Monuments.

Same, I see enough titles around to think that there’s still a significant GW1 population in GW2.

JesseyFranz.8362:

2. The only reason there is a small vertical progression is because ArenaNet mis judged exotic gear. They thought it would be a hard to get armor which isn’t the case.

All their statements up to that point suggested they thought (and wanted) that BiS gear would be easy to get. If they decided later that it’s a bad thing, it’s not because they misjudged something, but because their design goals have changed.

SoPP.7034:

Vorch.2985:

GWAMM here…and I usually see another gwamm title in my dungeon groups, or at least a title associated with the Hall of Monuments.

Same, I see enough titles around to think that there’s still a significant GW1 population in GW2.

Also, this (well, except for GWAMM, never had enough patience for that).

I know a fair amount of people who have returned to GW1, but there’s still a good chunk of us around. But I agree with Chuo. GW2 has indeed forgotten what made GW1 everyone’s favourite, and have directed their attention to ex-WoW/similar MMO players. Which was just a kick in the balls for many of us who played GW for several years. It was hard to adapt at first, but I still think it’s an enjoyable game in some areas. It’s quite sad to see the game brought down the such a casual level too. GW was all about player ability, now it’s ‘hit dodge, move from cirlce, spam 1 with zerker gear.’ That’s probably another reason so many GW1 players left too. The skill system is just effortless and the only things stopping you are cooldowns.

Not having access to the data or any way to carry out a survey on an accurate cross-section of the player base all I can tell you is I see a lot of HoM titles around. When I do dungeons with a PUG it’s not uncommon to see 3 people wearing them.

And there will be even more who have them because many people will choose to wear a title they earned in GW2 instead.

As for that quote we don’t really know how accurate it is, it might just be something that sounded good at the time, or a way of reassuring new players that they’re not alone. But there’s also many reasons people might not have seen Wintersday last year that have nothing to do with when they bought the game.

For one thing it’s Christmas time. A lot of people are away for all/most of it seeing family and friends and even if they aren’t they will have a lot of things to do in their spare time that have to come ahead of playing a game. And after Christmas (or even before) they’re likely to have other games and other presents they’ll want to use instead.

For another thing last year Wintersday was the 3rd special event they’d done, after Halloween and Lost Shores. Anet were still finding their feet with their new system and how to communicate it to players so whilst it was a lot better than the other two it still wasn’t entirely clear what was actually going on or when or where or how to join in.

Plus a lot of people hadn’t gotten into the habit of checking what was in the monthly update (as they were then) which made it even harder to communicate.

On top of which I’ve seen a lot of topics on this forum since about the middle of summer saying “I bought the game at launch, played for a couple of months and/or rage quit as soon as new gear was added but now I’m back, please list everything that’s changed” so I suspect that factors into it as well. Even when people like a game they don’t always stick with it, playing it every week or even every month. Especially since GW2 has no subscription fee so, aside from Living Story content, you’ve got nothing to lose by taking a break for however long you feel like.

Idk, but from experience:

In the first few months, there is a very good chance that I will go into an overflow map every time I walk into a portal, any portal, in any map.

Since November 2012, I’ve never been put into overflow map, unless it’s event related.

GW1 was a niche game, and had a smaller fanbase than typical MMOs, from my understanding. So that would make them a minority to begin with.

Beyond that, yes many GW1 vets have left for various reasons. Many have also stayed for a variety of reasons.

Are we a minorty? Likely,
Does it bother me? Nope

I would say yes, they are different games. GW2 being much more accessible to new players, so GW1 vet’s are probably a minority to players not experienced in the IP.

I was there for the launch of GW1 and GW2 and one thing I can say for certain (which is similar to all MMO’s) The people you play with in the first 6 months rapidly changes compared to the people that are playing for 12 months +

Accessible polished mmo’s tend to have a greater retention of 1st timers, as it a totally new experience and they have no benchmarks. The group that I pve/wvw with at the moment have never played anything else and enjoy the game.

Rose tinted glasses can sometimes be such a hinderance to an individuals enjoyment. Just try to take it for what it is.

I would guess that a large portion of those 3 million purchases between release and January 2013 were given as Holiday gifts (mostly Christmas) and as such those players likely did not really get to experience Wintersday either.

Also some players quit in the early going because it wasn’t what they though, but have since come back because returning is free.

Also it should be noted that nearly all highly anticipated releases see a 30%+ drop in active players in the first month as people buy it because of the hype and decide quickly its not the game for them and move on when something new comes out.

Zplus.4217:

Idk, but from experience:

In the first few months, there is a very good chance that I will go into an overflow map every time I walk into a portal, any portal, in any map.

Since November 2012, I’ve never been put into overflow map, unless it’s event related.

This has very little to do with the total number of people playing. During the first 2 months everyone was new and almost everyone (except a few people who rushed levelling) was on a low level character in the same few low level zones.

Now people are much more spread out so unless there’s something happening to draw everyone to a specific map it’s very unlikely they’d all try to be in the same place.

From what I’ve heard GW2 is still a lot better than many other MMO’s because the down-levelling system means you do at least have the an incentive to go back to low level areas on higher level characters.

I just went and did Grenth Temple two nights ago and there were more people there than I have ever seen.

GW2 is more similar to Wow than GW1… so yeah, most of my friends already quit and I barely see any old school GW1 fan online nowadays.

Some of us are still here. I always have a HoM title on, and will replace with GWAMM once that’s done (because I slacked off for years, bah).

I don’t know that Rubi typed exactly that. I remember reading the chat too and I remember many players, not most. I could be wrong.

However, in a live environment, with people typing quickly and trying to read and talking to people in the real world at the same time, it’s so easy to mistype something like that. Happens to me all the time.

It’s not an official statement from Anet, it was a casual statement from Rubi. She might have been trying to calm people down because others were complaining about so much time being spent on showing stuff we’ve already seen. To calm the crowd down she might have wanted to say that many people weren’t hear last year…which is what I think she said. I don’t remember her typing “most”.

That said, even if she did, it could have easily been a typo.

Iason Evan.3806:

I just went and did Grenth Temple two nights ago and there were more people there than I have ever seen.

Yes, its called Ascended armors with ridiculous amounts of dragonite grind.

so basically you saw everyone online from your server working on their armors…

Turgut.4397:

It’s quite sad to see the game brought down the such a casual level too.

I’m a WvW player in GW2, first and foremost. When I play a week of evenly matched up servers the fights that ensure are exciting every time.

I just steam roll through the PvE content.

Danikat.8537:

Zplus.4217:

Idk, but from experience:

In the first few months, there is a very good chance that I will go into an overflow map every time I walk into a portal, any portal, in any map.

Since November 2012, I’ve never been put into overflow map, unless it’s event related.

This has very little to do with the total number of people playing. During the first 2 months everyone was new and almost everyone (except a few people who rushed levelling) was on a low level character in the same few low level zones.

Now people are much more spread out so unless there’s something happening to draw everyone to a specific map it’s very unlikely they’d all try to be in the same place.

From what I’ve heard GW2 is still a lot better than many other MMO’s because the down-levelling system means you do at least have the an incentive to go back to low level areas on higher level characters.

During those times I was mainly leveling with map completion, and no the overflow was not limited to “low level zones”, so I don’t know where else can all those people “spread” to these days.

Most likely she misspoke.

I suppose the alternative is that lots of people buy GW2, stay around for a bit, then leave for whatever reason – which would mean high number of “active” players with very few “veteran” ones.

That would be a very odd picture for an MMO. Not a flattering one either.

GW1 vet of 7 years waves and goes to another thread

Oh and I still play here. “Tarnished coast says hi!”

I know my entire pvp guild of Guild Wars 1 vets left fairly early on due to how bad PvP is/was. What really pushed a lot of my old Guild Wars 1 friends out was the announcement of ascended gear. They didn’t even have it in the game and the rest of the Guild Wars 1 vets I knew quit on the spot after the first interview about it.

Only 1 of them have returned and I barely play now as well. I honestly just lurk the forums to see if they ever fix anything and/or go back to how they did things in Guild Wars 1 (skill >>facerolling). Sadly.. that day has not come and I fear it won’t.

Nice catch on the livestream comment! And an interesting analysis…

Considering how quickly Anet panicked and started the gear treadmill, it seems believable that a very significant number of people went inactive within the first few months.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Well I can only speak for me personally. I quit because of vertical progression and because fractal levels were reset. I don’t find enjoyment or challenge in any of the new content and the story telling is too light for my appreciation.

I agree those reasons hurt the most.
I already dealt with the vertical progression. I won’t do it and on another tier I will quit entire GW2.

As for story, I find latest Toxic alliance the first semi-decent story line (you know, the begging, the ending no weird rush or such – I had some fun and few decent dialogs). But if they won’t introduce more good arcs soon and kill scarlet in next 4 months I will probably go like you.

GW1
As for GW1 players I’m one, and I find less and less people with titles from GW1, and those feel so exclusive now so I stick to those and I think that most of players from GW1 left and if they come back it will be for expansion.

SO YES GW2 NEEDS EXPANSION BIG TIME.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Why is everyone appearing offline?

People who enjoyed GW 1 are not necessary going to enjoy GW 2. Not every sequel is as good as the original and there are many examples in the entertainment history. Watched “The Matrix” on blu-ray and still enjoyed it from the begin to the end, but only watched first 10 minutes of “The Matrix Reloaded” and always tried to avoid “The Matrix Revolution”, did not like “Return of the Jedi” of the “Star Wars” trilogy either, while “The Empire Strikes Back” was the best of the three.

this may be weird to the ear but it makes sense:

Without end game, the game eventually ends.

What really bugs me about reading some of the responses and playing both GW and GW2 is that it really seems like ANET pulled a bait and switch on the username that made them. If you look at the development of Guild Wars they made content for a year and a half before they decided they needed to make a sequel. I’ve heard the arguments about skill balancing being a pain but let’s get real, horizontal progression is not easy. It requires constant tweaking. That is why everyone chooses to go the vertical progression route in their games. Guild Wars stood apart from the crowd but its sequel is becoming a part of it. They are just trying to do the same old recipe differently and I fail to see how it is going to be successful. I still play Guild Wars and I find myself barely able to log on to GW2 anymore. Everyone I have met over the past year has quit. Some played longer than others but for the most part everyone I have known is gone.

And now Guild Wars is going into complete automation mode with no content updates. The final abandonment from ANET, hopefully one day the show number comparisons between the two titles. Anyone else out there that is dissatisfied with GW 2 should come back to GW. They will be welcomed with open arms.

TL:DR kitten moan kitten GW better than GW 2, everyone come back to GW

SoPP.7034:

Vorch.2985:

GWAMM here…and I usually see another gwamm title in my dungeon groups, or at least a title associated with the Hall of Monuments.

Same, I see enough titles around to think that there’s still a significant GW1 population in GW2.

/flex

Champion of the Gods here :P

There’s at least two other COTG in my guild and I’ve seen a couple in Queensdale too. Also see a few GWAMM and plenty of other HoM titles ranging from Traveller all the way up. Maybe Maguuma has a lot of old GW players?

Mesket.5728:

GW2 is more similar to Wow than GW1… so yeah, most of my friends already quit and I barely see any old school GW1 fan online nowadays.

That’s like saying an apple is more similar to the moon than to Mt. Everest. This game is still clearly the not-WoW of fantasy MMOs out there.

RubiBayer.8134:

We save the livestream chat logs in case we ever need them for reference, so we went back and double-checked, since “most” is kind of a strong word. The actual quote is:

[12:13:27] <guildwars2> Yegor, this is the first Wintersday for a lot of people. ~Rubi

This is true–new people join Guild Wars 2 every single week.

Well that clears that up.

I know i’ve played since launch but was traveling last year and didn’t get to participate. So this is my first wintersday.

Lol. Such are the cases of playing ‘telephone’.

GWAMM x3 here. This will be my 2nd W’day in GW2 and 6th in GW1. I really appreciate the atmosphere of the games and it makes the playing experience more fun, to me at least.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Well I can only speak for me personally. I quit because of vertical progression and because fractal levels were reset. I don’t find enjoyment or challenge in any of the new content and the story telling is too light for my appreciation.

And you are still here in the forums? Lol