Q:
GW2 Playerbase
no idea, but probably more, considering how awesome the game is.
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.
[~Galtrix~] [~Level 80 Elementalist~] [~GoM~]
Even so, it’s hard to really gauge the total population. Do you base it on individual log ins? Accounts? How active constitutes being counted?
Which games constantly update and announce how many total active players there are at any given time? I know EQ’s servers showed a total number of players in the early (think vanilla) days. Most of the time servers are just listed low-med-high-full etc.
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.
But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.
This is a well-reasoned guess. Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in that ballpark. Raids, WvW, Fractals, PvP.
I never have issues finding people to play with, and I play at the oddest of hours.
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.
Nope. They wouldn’t. And it’s because people start obsessing about the numbers and making threads on the forums arguing about whether or not the game is dying because the newest set of numbers say that the population is down by so many players, when it’s really just due to normal variations in population numbers. Just read the WoW forums sometimes from before they stopped giving numbers, where it’s either the game is great or it’s awful due to released numbers.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
ANet may give it to you.
I may be totally wrong here but I thought the only games that regularly published player numbers were subscription games like WoW and they only did it because subscribers are their major source of funding so share holders need that information to make an informed decision.
Since Anet is owned by NCSoft they only need to report on their finances to them (although NCSoft do include a basic summary in their own quarterly reports) and since the number of players isn’t directly related to their profits it’s not one of the things they report back on.
And as other people have said the other issue is how do you count it? Total number of accounts? Number of players online at once? Average number of players online over a week? Without a subscription there isn’t a clear way to say “this person is active and this one is not”.
I once got an email inviting me to give feedback on why I quit the game and had to explain that I didn’t quit – that email was for my 2nd (free) account which I’d made just to check out the differences between free and paid accounts. And then I forgot the password. It worked out well for me, they were able to help me get back into the account, but it does show the limitations of a buy-to-play game for tracking active player numbers.
Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
According to the info Anet themselves announced (or, more precisely, info that we got from one of the MMO webzines, that was based on the info they got from Anet) in the month HoT launched we had around 1 million of active accounts, half of whose were f2p ones.
(it’s not clear what “active account” meant in that context, but it’s most likely it was “accounts that logged at least once during that month”).
That was just after expansion launch, remember, so i’d say it’s unlikely the numbers are higher now. Most probably they are lower (though definitely better than they were during the content drought before LS3).
Based on this, i’d say the numbers from that reddit thread are a bit high.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
(edited by Astralporing.1957)
Based on this, i’d say the numbers from that reddit thread are a bit high.
a while ago, i gave my calculations to askagamedev. today, he replied, basically agreeing with my findings.
http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/150776912525/does-your-population-estimation-trick-using-the
(edited by CETheLucid.3964)
According to the info Anet themselves announced (or, more precisely, info that we got from one of the MMO webzines, that was based on the info they got from Anet) in the month HoT launched we had around 1 million of active accounts, half of whose were f2p ones.
(it’s not clear what “active account” meant in that context, but it’s most likely it was “accounts that logged at least once during that month”).
That was just after expansion launch, remember, so i’d say it’s unlikely the numbers are higher now. Most probably they are lower (though definitely better than they were during the content drought before LS3).
Based on this, i’d say the numbers from that reddit thread are a bit high.
Since we know HoT sales were lackluster originally, and we had a half price sale for HoT a couple of months ago, which according to some at least did pretty well, I wouldn’t assume the numbers are significantly less.
Guild Wars 2 has always had people returning for living world chapters and these last two chapters have been pretty well received.
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.
But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.
Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.
And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?
There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.
[~Galtrix~] [~Level 80 Elementalist~] [~GoM~]
Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.
Implied growth and announcing population statistics aren’t the same thing.
And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?
A-net did release an account count when they hit certain numbers, which is about as valid as any other “population count” that other games have released. How long do you think that population count was accurate or remained accurate? What did they use to determine exact population vs inactive population? For subscription based games it’s easier to get a rough count, I say rough because not everyone paying their sub is actively playing.
There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.
They did release some statistics like how many accounts were out there. So that’s a number that’s pretty much as valid as any other population release. Very few companies continue to update a count like that on a regular basis.
Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.
Implied growth and announcing population statistics aren’t the same thing.
And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?
A-net did release an account count when they hit certain numbers, which is about as valid as any other “population count” that other games have released. How long do you think that population count was accurate or remained accurate? What did they use to determine exact population vs inactive population? For subscription based games it’s easier to get a rough count, I say rough because not everyone paying their sub is actively playing.
There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.
They did release some statistics like how many accounts were out there. So that’s a number that’s pretty much as valid as any other population release. Very few companies continue to update a count like that on a regular basis.
I’d have to disagree with you that account numbers are a valid way to evaluate the population, as this game is b2p whereas other games are p2p or f2p. I’ve seen that many people buy secondary accounts as either bank storage or for more character slots in GW2. 19 out of 25 guildies have 2 or more accounts. That right there tells me that the number of accounts doesn’t tell me a thing about the population. Feel free to do another study with your own guild.
I agree that companies seldomly release their statistics, but it is wise to release them when a large population is acquired so others will know the game isn’t dead. The only reason for not releasing them would be the fact that they’re scared of losing players because of a dwindling population. That’s why Blizzard stopped posting their statistics… because they lost around 100,000 subscribers and that’s when they stopped posting statistics.
[~Galtrix~] [~Level 80 Elementalist~] [~GoM~]
I said “Pretty much as valid as any other” not that it was 100% accurate. What do you think other games base their population count on? People have multiple accounts on ALL types of games, F2P, B2P, P2P it’s not just seen in one business model. So like I’ve asked before what do you think the population count is based on?
Asking 25 people, in the same guild if they have multiple accounts is not a good study. It’s an extremely small sample, and highly unlikely to accurately depict the total player base. If you want to do a “study” and get some sort of accurate representation you would need to poll a HUGE amount of people, a handful is simply not a large enough sample size.
I disagree that the only reason for not releasing them would be lose of players. There are other possible reasons, so unless you have actual information from the source I would refrain from making assumptions.
It’s a very tough number to predict.
The implementation of the megaserver system gives almost no means of actually predicting player population health within the confines of a static unit of measurement.
If I had to take but just a guess, it’d be that on any given day the number of unique logins probably hovers around two hundred thousand. That said, based on economic trends, I would be inclined to believe this number has fallen from close to double or triple that of roughly a year and a half ago, and is likely still on a quick decline.
Formal Thief Elite Spec proposal:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/ES-Suggestion-The-Deadeye-FORMAL/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/ES-Suggestion-The-Deadeye-FORMAL/
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.
But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.
Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.
And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?
There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.
Most MMOs tell you what they’re making before they make it too and Anet seldom does. I think by now most people would stop thinking Anet is just a typical MMO company and stop making assumptions because of it.
I mean how many MMOs started off out of the box as buy to play? I can’t think of any. Even MMOs that became buy to play like TSW started off as sub games.
Anet started off neither free nor sub and that’s pretty unusual.
Most games have their highest player numbers after the launch of the first game. There’s just too much competition otherwise. Virtually all the new WoW expansions that come out see less people returning (the current one may be an exception) and sees them leaving faster.
Because there are more games than there ever were, and there are less people playing computer games than playing console games now. it’s unlikely you’re going to find any MMOs that go up in numbers regularly. Who has? SWToR? ESO?
All these games get a bump when they go free to play and then their numbers start edging down again. All these games get a bump when the come out with an expansion and they start edging down again.
You say this like this isn’t the rule in the industry, that somewhere MMOs get more and more players. I’d like to know which those are.
Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.
Implied growth and announcing population statistics aren’t the same thing.
And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?
A-net did release an account count when they hit certain numbers, which is about as valid as any other “population count” that other games have released. How long do you think that population count was accurate or remained accurate? What did they use to determine exact population vs inactive population? For subscription based games it’s easier to get a rough count, I say rough because not everyone paying their sub is actively playing.
There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.
They did release some statistics like how many accounts were out there. So that’s a number that’s pretty much as valid as any other population release. Very few companies continue to update a count like that on a regular basis.
I’d have to disagree with you that account numbers are a valid way to evaluate the population, as this game is b2p whereas other games are p2p or f2p. I’ve seen that many people buy secondary accounts as either bank storage or for more character slots in GW2. 19 out of 25 guildies have 2 or more accounts. That right there tells me that the number of accounts doesn’t tell me a thing about the population. Feel free to do another study with your own guild.
I agree that companies seldomly release their statistics, but it is wise to release them when a large population is acquired so others will know the game isn’t dead. The only reason for not releasing them would be the fact that they’re scared of losing players because of a dwindling population. That’s why Blizzard stopped posting their statistics… because they lost around 100,000 subscribers and that’s when they stopped posting statistics.
And people who play Eve have multiple accounts, a lot of people serious about WoW have multiple accounts too. Some people multibox and have a dozen accounts or more. A game being buy to play doesnt’ stop people from having a lot of accounts, depending on how deeply they are into the game, and how profitable having those accounts actually is.
Multiboxing is a thing in most MMOs I know.
Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.
Implied growth and announcing population statistics aren’t the same thing.
And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?
A-net did release an account count when they hit certain numbers, which is about as valid as any other “population count” that other games have released. How long do you think that population count was accurate or remained accurate? What did they use to determine exact population vs inactive population? For subscription based games it’s easier to get a rough count, I say rough because not everyone paying their sub is actively playing.
There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.
They did release some statistics like how many accounts were out there. So that’s a number that’s pretty much as valid as any other population release. Very few companies continue to update a count like that on a regular basis.
I’d have to disagree with you that account numbers are a valid way to evaluate the population, as this game is b2p whereas other games are p2p or f2p. I’ve seen that many people buy secondary accounts as either bank storage or for more character slots in GW2. 19 out of 25 guildies have 2 or more accounts. That right there tells me that the number of accounts doesn’t tell me a thing about the population. Feel free to do another study with your own guild.
I agree that companies seldomly release their statistics, but it is wise to release them when a large population is acquired so others will know the game isn’t dead. The only reason for not releasing them would be the fact that they’re scared of losing players because of a dwindling population. That’s why Blizzard stopped posting their statistics… because they lost around 100,000 subscribers and that’s when they stopped posting statistics.
And people who play Eve have multiple accounts, a lot of people serious about WoW have multiple accounts too. Some people multibox and have a dozen accounts or more. A game being buy to play doesnt’ stop people from having a lot of accounts, depending on how deeply they are into the game, and how profitable having those accounts actually is.
Multiboxing is a thing in most MMOs I know.
The thing is, the number of people having multiple accounts increases when the game is B2P or F2P, making population counts according to accounts meaningless.
Yes, there are people with multiple accounts that play WoW, but I guarantee that percentage is WAY lower than the percentage in GW2.
[~Galtrix~] [~Level 80 Elementalist~] [~GoM~]
The thing is, the number of people having multiple accounts increases when the game is B2P or F2P, making population counts according to accounts meaningless.
Yes, there are people with multiple accounts that play WoW, but I guarantee that percentage is WAY lower than the percentage in GW2.
The percentage may be lower, but without actual metrics you don’t know how much that percentage is.
Based on this, i’d say the numbers from that reddit thread are a bit high.
a while ago, i gave my calculations to askagamedev. today, he replied, basically agreeing with my findings.
http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/150776912525/does-your-population-estimation-trick-using-the
That was not an Anet dev, so he was just guessing. Which proves exactly nothing (for one, he may not have been aware of any GW2 statistics).
Since we know HoT sales were lackluster originally, and we had a half price sale for HoT a couple of months ago, which according to some at least did pretty well, I wouldn’t assume the numbers are significantly less.
I haven’t said they are. I said, that they are unlikely to be higher now. And that they almost certainly were less during the content drought.
And even if there was some increase (even if think it unlikely), reddit estimation is around twice as high, which is pretty much absurd. No MMO that old can double their active playerbase outside of post-expansion high tide. Especially compared to the post-expansion high-tide.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
That was not an Anet dev, so he was just guessing. Which proves exactly nothing (for one, he may not have been aware of any GW2 statistics).
All of us are guessing. The OP is ball parking it. It’s a pretty good well-reasoned guess. Someone in the industry agrees.
I guess we’re in the top 5% of the game then. The weirdos who come and post on the forums.
According to that 80 20 5 rule thingy.
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.
But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.
I disagree, the thing is WoW’s numbers were dropping expansion after expansion. in fact it was only after they announced there lowest number of subscribers that they stopped publishing there numbers entirely.
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.
But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.
I disagree, the thing is WoW’s numbers were dropping expansion after expansion. in fact it was only after they announced there lowest number of subscribers that they stopped publishing there numbers entirely.
They also had started selling subscription tokens to players. Players buy tokens with money then sell the tokens to other players for gold. People then use the tokens to buy subscriptions for their account(s). That sounds one to one but people might buy several years worth of tokens (and reportedly some did) and then stop playing. So do you count the tokens of people who aren’t playing or not? It’s a paid subscription but no one is logging on. It’s not as easy to count subscriptions or number of players, even on WoW, as someone might think. Not with tokens, subscriptions, alt accounts and countries that pay and play by the hour.
Be careful what you ask for
ANet may give it to you.
ANet may give it to you.
Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.
Implied growth and announcing population statistics aren’t the same thing.
And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?
A-net did release an account count when they hit certain numbers, which is about as valid as any other “population count” that other games have released. How long do you think that population count was accurate or remained accurate? What did they use to determine exact population vs inactive population? For subscription based games it’s easier to get a rough count, I say rough because not everyone paying their sub is actively playing.
There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.
They did release some statistics like how many accounts were out there. So that’s a number that’s pretty much as valid as any other population release. Very few companies continue to update a count like that on a regular basis.
I’d have to disagree with you that account numbers are a valid way to evaluate the population, as this game is b2p whereas other games are p2p or f2p. I’ve seen that many people buy secondary accounts as either bank storage or for more character slots in GW2. 19 out of 25 guildies have 2 or more accounts. That right there tells me that the number of accounts doesn’t tell me a thing about the population. Feel free to do another study with your own guild.
I agree that companies seldomly release their statistics, but it is wise to release them when a large population is acquired so others will know the game isn’t dead. The only reason for not releasing them would be the fact that they’re scared of losing players because of a dwindling population. That’s why Blizzard stopped posting their statistics… because they lost around 100,000 subscribers and that’s when they stopped posting statistics.
And people who play Eve have multiple accounts, a lot of people serious about WoW have multiple accounts too. Some people multibox and have a dozen accounts or more. A game being buy to play doesnt’ stop people from having a lot of accounts, depending on how deeply they are into the game, and how profitable having those accounts actually is.
Multiboxing is a thing in most MMOs I know.
The thing is, the number of people having multiple accounts increases when the game is B2P or F2P, making population counts according to accounts meaningless.
Yes, there are people with multiple accounts that play WoW, but I guarantee that percentage is WAY lower than the percentage in GW2.
Not sure how you can guarantee that, because I’m not sure how many people in a game you can literally multibox might have more accounts. You might have less people with more accounts over all. Particularly if there are more people playing to begin with.
I definitely knew people how had more than 12 wow accounts and I don’t know anyone in Guild Wars 2 that has that.
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.
But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.
I disagree, the thing is WoW’s numbers were dropping expansion after expansion. in fact it was only after they announced there lowest number of subscribers that they stopped publishing there numbers entirely.
But even before they stopped reporting subscriber numbers, they went from 12.4 million to 4 million. They were showing losses all the time and they were still reporting. And everyone knows WoW is the most successful MMORPG of all time, both financially and population wise. And even they can’t maintain a population. No other MMO has come close.
So using WoW as any kind of example of anything probably won’t work because nothing can compare to it. But if you look at the other “big” MMOs, which of them are publishing numbers?
Based on this, i’d say the numbers from that reddit thread are a bit high.
a while ago, i gave my calculations to askagamedev. today, he replied, basically agreeing with my findings.
http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/150776912525/does-your-population-estimation-trick-using-the
That was not an Anet dev, so he was just guessing. Which proves exactly nothing (for one, he may not have been aware of any GW2 statistics).
Since we know HoT sales were lackluster originally, and we had a half price sale for HoT a couple of months ago, which according to some at least did pretty well, I wouldn’t assume the numbers are significantly less.
I haven’t said they are. I said, that they are unlikely to be higher now. And that they almost certainly were less during the content drought.
And even if there was some increase (even if think it unlikely), reddit estimation is around twice as high, which is pretty much absurd. No MMO that old can double their active playerbase outside of post-expansion high tide. Especially compared to the post-expansion high-tide.
I’d agree with you if the game hadn’t gone free to play. But there are plenty of people who will sign up for a free game that wouldn’t pay for a game.
It’s entirely possible that the number of free players have raised the population from where it was even a few months after launch.
I definitely knew people how had more than 12 wow accounts and I don’t know anyone in Guild Wars 2 that has that.
…Malediktus?
I’d agree with you if the game hadn’t gone free to play. But there are plenty of people who will sign up for a free game that wouldn’t pay for a game.
It’s entirely possible that the number of free players have raised the population from where it was even a few months after launch.
Possible, but would still be extremely unstandard (the highest wave is shortly after launch/going f2p usually, with a high percentage drop after that, and slow trickle thereafter. MMOs simply do not get that many new players that late in their lifetime) and thus i consider it to be unlikely.
By the way, many of the f2p accounts are likely secondary accounts of b2p players
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Why the hell do you care? Geez…to then complain in another post about how Gw2 in your opinion failed …?
No one outside of Anet knows for sure.
They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.
And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.
As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption
I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.
But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.
Even so, they would still announce their population at least to have an all time high. The game is good, it doesn’t bring up the old GW1 feeling for me, but it’s good nonetheless.