Guild Wars 2

wacko.7543:

kids have short attention spams… they need new things every 5 minutes, or their heads will explode

How exactly is it that you know that most people who bought the game can be placed into the age category which you define as “kids”? How is it that you know it’s not adult players leaving the game? Is everyone defending the game privy to some sort of secret statistics that the rest of us are not?

I can’t believe nobody addressed this.

Soulwatcher.2604:

It goes both ways! Show me the zones are packed thread and a net announcing selling 3~4million copies and all of the new servers they added.

GW2 sold 1 million before launch and had over 400k concurrent users. ANet added 3 European worlds and 3 US worlds to compensate (check the pre-release server list and compare it with the server list in-game). They broke 2 million sales earlier this month. By comparison, Mists of Pandaria has yet to break 1 million post launch, and there is no word anywhere about what its pre-order numbers look like, so it’s very likely that it undersold compared to GW2.

But none of this info really says anything about what the population is right now. What does, though, are the still-sky-high WvW queue times and LA overflows.

But what about the population drop? Here’s some more cool news. According to those Xfire graphs we’re all linking, WoW’s post-MoP’s population numbers are seeing a sharper decline than GW2’s. Twice as fast, actually (4% for GW2 compared to WoW’s 8%) and their peak for Xfire users was also smaller than GW2’s by nearly 30,000.

Anyone consider RIFT dead? Because according to those lovely Xfire graphs, GW2 even at its lowest point has over 20 times the population of RIFT.

The moral of this post? If you’re going to use Xfire graphs to attempt to make some point that “GW2’s dying,” don’t hold a double-standard; because according to that logic, RIFT’s dead and WoW’s dying faster.

Now to wait until someone insists that my thought-out argument backed by verifiable facts is nothing more than rabid fanboyism because they themselves are incapable of a logical counter-argument.

jamescowhen.1562:

There are a lot places that’s quite dead even on a full server like Jade Quarry. Lornar’s Pass, Harathai hinterlands, Sparkfly Fen, Timberline Falls are deserted almost all the time.

Sadly. this is so true, and this is the situation in Gate of Madness too.
its even impossible to find a team for Sorrow’s Embrace
how can a new game show so low player traffic in places and outposts that should be elementary?

perhaps there are too little players scattered over too many worlds? (Probably)
why not making the Dungeon/Mission outposts into Non-World bound outposts, just like it was in GW.
the only problem with that is the whole Influence/Guild bound to specific world should be reworked and changed. imho, this is killing the sociability of GW2 and this thing slowly grows into a major problem.

just to make my point i stood near the Asuran Portal from DR to LA in Divinity’s Reach, for 15 minutes, and decided to count how many people i will see using this portal. (both ways) or even pass near it.
Sadly i was Shocked to find out that i had not seen more than 10 people during this whole time. and now just imagine, how gigantic the towns are, how we can not even see other players location on the mini maps, and the small amounts of players present due to the World division in any given town or outpost, is minimal.

seriously, the game is amazingly beautiful, charming, yes it has its bugs, flaws and design mistakes.

but… i never felt So Lonely in an MMO as i feel in GW2
(and i have a guild, and friends from gw playing on too)
i am still amazed to log in to Kamadan in GW America 1 and see more life and busier chat there than i see in Hoelbrak or Divinitys Reach.

DusK.3849:

I can’t believe nobody addressed this.

Soulwatcher.2604:

It goes both ways! Show me the zones are packed thread and a net announcing selling 3~4million copies and all of the new servers they added.

GW2 sold 1 million before launch and had over 400k concurrent users. ANet added 3 European worlds and 3 US worlds to compensate (check the pre-release server list and compare it with the server list in-game). They broke 2 million sales earlier this month. By comparison, Mists of Pandaria has yet to break 1 million post launch, and there is no word anywhere about what its pre-order numbers look like, so it’s very likely that it undersold compared to GW2.

But none of this info really says anything about what the population is right now. What does, though, are the still-sky-high WvW queue times and LA overflows.

But what about the population drop? Here’s some more cool news. According to those Xfire graphs we’re all linking, WoW’s post-MoP’s population numbers are seeing a sharper decline than GW2’s. Twice as fast, actually (4% for GW2 compared to WoW’s 8%) and their peak for Xfire users was also smaller than GW2’s by nearly 30,000.

Anyone consider RIFT dead? Because according to those lovely Xfire graphs, GW2 even at its lowest point has over 20 times the population of RIFT.

The moral of this post? If you’re going to use Xfire graphs to attempt to make some point that “GW2’s dying,” don’t hold a double-standard; because according to that logic, RIFT’s dead and WoW’s dying faster.

You’re so cool, Dusk. You know he won’t accept it though.

Zale.9645:

You know he won’t accept it though.

We’ll wait and see. Consider it his test of reasonableness. He’ll either recognize that his viewpoint was based more on ignorance than anything else and change it, or he’ll continue his belief despite strong evidence that it’s wrong.

Either way, the point’s been made, and anyone with any lack of bias will accept the fact that all this doom-and-gloom “the game is dead” crap is completely false.

as for Xfire…

i started using Xfire only this month, never really needed it. but i am statistics fan.
then i with Xfire on i logged into the old Guild Wars for maybe 4 hours.
on the next morning the Rating of Guild Wars on Xfire raised from #139 to #117
the next day i did not play the game, and it declined back into the #132 region.
Xfire has very specific customer core. they clearly prefer games as LoL and CoD
i would also like to say that i doubt that many of the WoW users there are actually playing the paid version of the game… Xfire does not discriminate upon the servers players are using, it only counts game application run time.
the fact that GW2 still shows very decent activity numbers on Xfire is an achievement due to the limits of Xfire Stats. (and User Base gaming preferences)

The funny thing is, back when I was playing WoW, the forums were full of these same kinds of posts claiming and foretelling “gloom and doom” unless Blizzard changed the game to [insert whatever any particular individual or group wanted here].

When people want some feature in a game added, changed or removed, just saying “Hey, I personally would like it more if ….” doesn’t have the same punch as “OMG this game is already dead unless you change X immediately!!”

Or in other words: I don’t like this, so I will quit if you do not do what I want. But since I am just one small person and feel Anet would never pay attention to little old me I will exaggerate and stamp my feet….but wait, I feel so strongly about this, that I simply must be right. So therefore I know that I am representative of the majority of players.

And thus:

Anet, your game sucks and everybody knows you don’t listen to the community and because we all know this, we will all leave until you change it. But since you don’t listen, I predict this game will fail….and I will even twist the facts and make loose interpretations if it helps you change the game for me, I mean us. And any player that doesn’t feel the same as I do, is a white knight, fanboi, idiot, traitor and needs to be convinced of my opinion.

uh huh.

I love how all of these threads end up with a ton of the GW2 community defending the game when this site is dedicated to the game.

yeah, brick, it is really strange that people hang out at a place they like.

DusK.3849:

Zale.9645:

You know he won’t accept it though.

We’ll wait and see. Consider it his test of reasonableness. He’ll either recognize that his viewpoint was based more on ignorance than anything else and change it, or he’ll continue his belief despite strong evidence that it’s wrong.

Either way, the point’s been made, and anyone with any lack of bias will accept the fact that all this doom-and-gloom “the game is dead” crap is completely false.

Don’t waste your breath, these kind of ‘people’ pop up in any MMO, they declare the game is dying/dead/going F2P. They never really add anything vaguely constructive to their posts. They are a mix of concern trolls, passive/aggressive trolls and wowkiddies.

Pointless arguing with them, they never listen or use logic. They just want to create distress on the forum in the hope of ‘killing’ the game (considering how badly MoP flopped I can see where they come from…). Only thing we can do is ignore them and report them as trolls/flamers hoping they get banned

Gehenna.3625:

Or in other words: I don’t like this, so I will quit if you do not do what I want. But since I am just one small person and feel Anet would never pay attention to little old me I will exaggerate and stamp my feet….but wait, I feel so strongly about this, that I simply must be right. So therefore I know that I am representative of the majority of players.

And thus:

Anet, your game sucks and everybody knows you don’t listen to the community and because we all know this, we will all leave until you change it. But since you don’t listen, I predict this game will fail….and I will even twist the facts and make loose interpretations if it helps you change the game for me, I mean us. And any player that doesn’t feel the same as I do, is a white knight, fanboi, idiot, traitor and needs to be convinced of my opinion.

uh huh.

You beat me to it… Essentially all you said. I am really disappointed Anet hasn’t taken serious measures to prevent this. The only good thing about GW1 (for me at least, I never was a fan of the game) was it didn’t have forums…

muthax.4720:

DusK.3849:

Zale.9645:

You know he won’t accept it though.

We’ll wait and see. Consider it his test of reasonableness. He’ll either recognize that his viewpoint was based more on ignorance than anything else and change it, or he’ll continue his belief despite strong evidence that it’s wrong.

Either way, the point’s been made, and anyone with any lack of bias will accept the fact that all this doom-and-gloom “the game is dead” crap is completely false.

Don’t waste your breath, these kind of ‘people’ pop up in any MMO, they declare the game is dying/dead/going F2P. They never really add anything vaguely constructive to their posts. They are a mix of concern trolls, passive/aggressive trolls and wowkiddies.

Pointless arguing with them, they never listen or use logic. They just want to create distress on the forum in the hope of ‘killing’ the game (considering how badly MoP flopped I can see where they come from…). Only thing we can do is ignore them and report them as trolls/flamers hoping they get banned

Yeah they’re still here, apparently, because MoP is turning into an absolute disaster for Blizzard. Sales are low. We don’t know how low, because Blizzard hasn’t said how low they are — but if they were not low, we’d know by now because as we have seen from past WoW releases, Blizzard is never, ever shy about tooting its own horn in terms of its sales successes. It looks like the combo of D3 anger plus KungFuPanda skepticism plus simple fatigue with an 8 year old, tired game has finally come home to roost in Irvine. But the side effect of that is that the blizz kiddies are now going to be continuing to spread their venom here and elsewhere.

To be fair, GW2 fans talk about WoW constantly. I browsed their forum and nobody talks about GW2 and their players seem much happier.

Just an observation.

Strange…Some people are unhappy with the situation that the servers either have high population or are full. Guys, this is something you should be happy with, unless you’re haters.

Nonetheless, I haven’t logged into my level 80 character for a week now. Leveling my alt which is level 40 at the moment.

The people who claim it is dying are people who hit 80 and have no idea what to do because they don’t get the concept of the game and the whole map being their endgame at that point. You know what is ironic. The people rushing to level 80 are the noobs compared to the rest of us taking our time.

Just going to report this nonsense and move on.

You do know that server population =/= amount of people logged on at the time, right?
And that server population =/= How many people chose it to be their home server, regardless wether they’re online or offline.

PSA: When presented with posts like Muth’s it’s better to simply report and move on. The moderators here are good, it works.

Soulwatcher.2604:

The game is 5 weeks out why are not the all servers full? Why are they not making new servers? Ohhhh……… I know the game peaked and its all down hill from here!

You do know how there overflow servers work right??? if you dont than you have not been playing this game.

Why do you have this acount if not to play the game???

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Soulwatcher.2604:

The game is 5 weeks out why are not the all servers full? Why are they not making new servers? Ohhhh……… I know the game peaked and its all down hill from here!

You do know how there overflow servers work right??? if you dont than you have not been playing this game.

Why do you have this acount if not to play the game???

Well, astroturfing? Or simply to come here and try rile people up?

also there’s still a steady flow of this game being sould out of the store I work at. sold out on the 25th got more in the day befor yesterday and sold about half of them.

There’s a strong possibility that many of the people complaining about the game remain purely to bash GW2 for the sake of twisted enjoyment. For whatever reason, they may enjoy another MMO more – which is fine – though the constant comparisons grow tiresome considering this game has never claimed to be the next big WoW clone. I’m loving GW2 and I know a fair few people who are as well. Some have left, but that’s normal and natural.

Should’ve phrased it better earlier back there but anyway,

The game isn’t being sold out, it’s just stabilising, you’ll see people leave, temporarily or permanently simply because they expected something different or wanted more. But then there’s the other group of people who stay for the long haul. All games have this in them, so if you see a drop in population, just wait a while, some might be back, or maybe some new folks will come along.

Garenthal.1480:

There’s a strong possibility that many of the people complaining about the game remain purely to bash GW2 for the sake of twisted enjoyment. For whatever reason, they may enjoy another MMO more – which is fine – though the constant comparisons grow tiresome considering this game has never claimed to be the next big WoW clone. I’m loving GW2 and I know a fair few people who are as well. Some have left, but that’s normal and natural.

I have a few friends who have ALWAY"S been MMO hoppers they enjoy GW2 but there always looking for the next big game/MMO as soon as an Expack come’s out thay have already said they plan to be back ((just as thay do with most game’s))

The game is wildly popular, not dying. It was released near the end of summer vacation, which would explain the decline in average hours played per person. People also tend to play more in the honeymoon phase of the game, but still nevertheless enjoy it afterwards.

Lambdadelta.8096:

Come back when you’re 80.

I have 2 lvl 80s and still don’t see the point of all the complaints.

Guild Wars 2 is NOT dying.

It is, however, going through the normal population balancing that occurs in every major modern MMORPG title. There is an explosion of population for the first month or two, and then a dramatic drop off. That is one reason why I think Anet did not scramble to buy up new servers, but used the Overflow system instead.

The reasons behind this decline are fairly easy to figure out, and include;
1) People lose interest and/or it failed to meet expectations.
2) People complete the game to their satisfaction.
3) Something else becomes more interesting.
4) People want to wait until the game is done being balanced/patched and they will come back “later”.

The first three reasons apply to any video game, really. The fourth is the only one that Anet has any real say in at this point. In every MMORPG the game launches and undergoes changes, sometimes very large ones. From the various reboots of Star Wars Galaxy to the ever changing classes of WoW, the game you play at launch is rarely the game you play a year later. Quite a few gamers are aware of this, myself included, and so we are waiting to see what direction Anet will take this game in terms of content progression, balance and content addition. Will we need to “buy” content packs, ah-la DDO, or will they release more traditional expansions? How will the game move forward in terms of balance?

As to the first two points the “game” itself, its core mechanics and world-scape are done. I highly doubt that any of these things will be altered dramatically. Personally, I would love to see every weapon and weapon set gain an alternate ability or two that can be placed on the bar and swapped like utility skills, but I don’t think that will happen as it would be a huge amount of content to create, along with animations and etc. They couldn’t include it in an expansion only, as that would severely impact PvP balance.

Right now, after getting a character to max level, seeing 50%+ of the content and doing some WvWvW… I don’t feel the desire to do more. The “Effort Vs. Reward” ratio jumps dramatically at this point, requiring me to grind for hours to get better gear than the 80 rares that I have. Simply put, that isn’t fun to me. Because the leveling is so fast and so easy, I think the game creates an expectation that all of the progression will follow that same rate. Personally, I think increasing the XP needed to level on every level by 25-50% would have been a good idea, as it would give players more time to see all of the content in an area as well as giving them more incentive to see more areas in the world. Right now, it’s almost too fast, but that is simply my personal opinion. The cat is out of the bag in that regard, but it still could have helped make the game feel more drawn out so that way people wouldn’t be “done” with it so soon.

This is all just my opinion, so take it as that alone.

IomegadriveOne.5291:

The people who claim it is dying are people who hit 80 and have no idea what to do because they don’t get the concept of the game and the whole map being their endgame at that point. You know what is ironic. The people rushing to level 80 are the noobs compared to the rest of us taking our time.

what about people that wasted 1+hours in an instance to find tha there’s a game breaking bug on the last boss and they cant finikitten and wont get any reward?

My interest in the game was starting to decline even before being hacked. But now…yea not a lot of interest in a game where all my mats, gold, unique pquest items, etc are gone, server transferred with no way of getting back to my guild/friends(server is full)…

All in all the game is ok, with the leveling experience probably being the best aspect. Dungeons and WvW are hit or miss, but WvW is about the only lasting aspect of the game for me anymore. I had amassed my tokens and armor skins, but most of that is gone(simply destroyed to make bank room for the hacker).

ANet has a lot of work ahead to get not only the game in shape(fix BUGs out the whazzoo), but they need to work on customer support in general. I honestly have not ONCE felt like a customer in my entire experience. They sent the shortest of emails in reply to mine about being hacked, and then in small print at the VERY bottom put “Sorry, at this time we cannot restore items, gold, or gems”…gee thanks a LOT!

I would recommend the game to people who don’t care about losing items or who find interest in running the same dungeons many times to get a simple skin. Past that it’s WvW and exploring the world(which can be fun I guess). But otherwise, kind of a dead game atm until expansion.

BurningLobster.1953:

Guild Wars 2 is NOT dying.
In every MMORPG the game launches and undergoes changes, sometimes very large ones. From the various reboots of Star Wars Galaxy to the ever changing classes of WoW, the game you play at launch is rarely the game you play a year later. Quite a few gamers are aware of this, myself included, and so we are waiting to see what direction Anet will take this game in terms of content progression, balance and content addition.

I’m not going to argue this is the norm, but this is also probably the real reason most MMORPG’s die. The death of an MMORPG is a subjective thing For example. the remaining population of SWTOR would probably scream “it’s not dead” but I would say it certainly is relative to its launch numbers.

We’re all waiting for that MMORPG that doesn’t see this huge decline in numbers after the first few months. GW2 has all the design elements to be that game but it’s a bug ridden, unbalanced mess. I love the game. I played it five hours yesterday, I’m not leaving it, but I’m also not sugar coating what it currently is because that does no one any good. It’s not good enough to loose 40-50% of your user base and then say “well, they will come back when new content comes”. If that happens to your game then as a MMORPG developer you have failed.

In terms of having to go back and redesign systems in game, perform significant balancing. Yes, there will be a certain level of this happening, but what happened with SWTOR was unacceptable. That’s an example of failure on the part of the dev team to flush out things in beta testing. I know several players who quit in anger over some of those things. That’s not healthy for the game. I don’t think a post telling the community here “guys this is the norm” is healthy either. An MMO doesn’t die when they shut the servers down, it does when the population of the community falls off. As you pointed out, there are naturally going to be some who will leave, but when you have people who loved what the game was at launch and then leave because of broken systems and bugs that’s the fault of the game studio. They need to own that failure and work whatever hours are needed to fix things quickly. None of us want to see that happen. We don’t want this MMORPG to go the way so many before it have. Sadly at this point we have some reasons to be alarmed.

Here’s something I’ve been thinking of lately:
Beta testing is an important phase that fails often for MMORPGs. It seems to be a very difficult thing to get right. When you have major systems that have to be changed post launch so soon after launch that means the beta testing did not do its job. It also means you have a launch product in flames. Those flames must be put out quickly or the angry customers mount and leave in droves. I don’t think I’m the only one who believes it’s unacceptable. Just because every other MMO that comes out goes through all these things doesn’t mean we should accept that. I expected higher quality from an ArenaNet product.

I can fully understand why they sold 2 million and I fully understand why lots would leave ,you do not need any figures to identify why .
The facts :-
High sales figures due to heavy marketing and the idea that there is no sub and as stated by the ceo added content will also be free ,which will not happen in the long term if players are not active and purchasing from the cash shop .
The cash shop is your subscriptions and for quality content they need to make money to fund it .

One glaringly obvious reason players that got to 80 and left is the fact that there is no reason to do any of the content past getting a set of exotics .

Obvious reasons that players would only play casual if at all :-

Do the dungeons for fun a couple times but since there is no progression once you got exotic set which you do not actually need for anything as far as I know thats you done really .

WvW .simply run with the herd or die, got all the organisation of a 150 man pug raid lol,with perhaps 3 commanders that the only qualification to hold the title is gold so its understandable that it’s one clueless person organising a zerg of sheep .

Spend money on seige equipment and be lucky if it survives the next zerg or night cappers so it is easy to understand why players do not bother .

You cannot form a large party of organised guild members and join ,so strategy is non existent since it is the luck of the draw whether you get in or not so no organising which map to focus on because no one knows when or if you will be there .

You cannot jump into another map easily to help your guild if they require you ,basically the game as it is cripples any attempt at the organisation that would be needed to get some feeling of accomplishment .
The further north you go the further you have to run to get back into a fight you got killed in and the long lonely journey back can result in small packs of players killing you causing repeated attempts to reach your team and generally the event is done if you do get there .

Spvp 3 small maps of controlling 3 points gets old especially since again it is mostly pugs .

Dynamic events ,
A great idea to get you a set of exotics for karma but currently on Orr there are about 3 events that work reliably and the rest bug out as you head south ,you get told that your needed in an area ,you go there an nothing happens .
To be notified that an event is happening you need to either be virtually on top of it or keep spamming map chat for anyone that may know were one is happening ,they link the waypoint and if your lucky you get there as the event finishes and the following event bugs and you stand there spamming map again or go to the very north of cursed shore and repeat the 3 you know work but then the famous anti farm code hits and you are doing it for fun again since the rewards dry up .

levelling .
After the early zones skill challenges bug out.
Events don’t happen even though there is a giant orange circle you are stood inside .
Lots of mobs both on land and under water suddenly go invulnerable and there health start regenerating they then proceed to attack you again rinse and repeat .
Attacking objects in the world such as turrets or cannons or the trebuchets in orr seem to only take damage from one side .

Now the topping on the pile is that if any of the above affects you ,there is no in game help ,no live chat ,no telephone number ,apart from random replies on the forum and a twitter that tells you to contact customer support ,basically thats it 2 million people that have no way to resolve an issue in game unless you wish to send an e-mail and pray you do not get a “keep an eye on patch notes” response .

If anyone finds it difficult to replicate any of the issues above I would happily fraps anything addressed above and post it to were ever you want .
I would even fraps a explorer run and show the lack of advertised tokens on defeating the last boss .
If I can do this I find it hard to believe the developers find it hard to replicate these issues ,anyone who plays any length of time would be lucky not to randomly encounter at least one of these issues.

I truly hope they can correct these issues before to many get disheartened but considering the amount of issues I would imagine it would take a long time .
I have got my £34.99 worth from the game but would like to see it have a future .

Those that rushed to 80 are the ones complaining. Those of us taking it slow and easy are having a ball. Game is a GREAT SUCCESS and will just keep getting better and better. See Anet has the DATA on the players of this game, those that complain and whine don’t. They will always see the glass half empty when it surely is half full and filling up right now.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

We’re all waiting for that MMORPG that doesn’t see this huge decline in numbers after the first few months. GW2 has all the design elements to be that game but it’s a bug ridden, unbalanced mess. I love the game. I played it five hours yesterday, I’m not leaving it, but I’m also not sugar coating what it currently is because that does no one any good. It’s not good enough to loose 40-50% of your user base and then say “well, they will come back when new content comes”. If that happens to your game then as a MMORPG developer you have failed.

Why not?

I have done this multiple times with MMORPG style games. For example, I played DDO when it first launched, capped my character and then stopped playing for a year or more. When the game went F2P I actually signed back up, paid the subscription fee and played for another 3-4 months to see the new stuff. If a game has 80 hours of content in it until I feel it is “done” and I play it for 80 hours… then go back when they add another 20 hours of content, how is that failure? I view games as having a limited life span rather than being an endless experience; even MMO titles. Even online shooters get dull after a while… I enjoy novelty. I am a casual gamer.

I would imagine I am not alone in this. It’s not that the game has failed… it’s given me my monies worth and I feel satisfied with that. I have “been there and done that” so to speak. I’ve helped killed a dragon, I’ve saved the damsel in distress. I’ve fought in pitched battles and seen keeps fall and driven off invaders with an army of cohorts at my back. I’ve played the game, it has been a blast and I just don’t have the desire to do it all over again. I rarely watch the same movie multiple times without months or years between viewings, and the same goes for video game content. I almost wish the game took longer, hence my comment about slowing down the level progression and making the game take a little longer to get through, allowing me to savor the novel experience a bit more.

I have read most of the replies and i would like to make a comparison to Swtor and Gw2 the latest 2 big Mmorpgs…Even though the forum represents a handfull % of the playerbase the forums of Swtor when all the whining started after 2 weeks maybe 3 if i remember correctly the people in those threads were 90% “attacking” the game and 10% defending the game and what i see here is 50%-50% and maybe more for the defending side which leads me to say that this game has a very brighter future and such and the release was way better than Swtor.

I think the decline is in other words stabilizing plus all the things been said before in this thread like : People studying,working, doing more stuff in their RL (remember is not your standard P2P game that you want to come back and play for hours before you pay again). Sure it has its flaws and stuff but which game hasnt?

Also one more thing is the metrics of X-fire…really guys? I dont think it is very precise…

HF above all else!

CC Eva.6742:

Hi everyone.

We would ask you to stay on the original topic and do not start personal accusations towards each other, please, as this does not help the community in any meaningful way. Thanks.

What would help the community is some feedback to the customer base about what the devs are working on, future patches, etc….detail! Not just “we fixed various de’s” How many? 2? 3? 10?

1 patch a week is not enough and seeing how other mmo’s were able to patch more updates AND communicate better means that it is possible. The better patch notes is NOT too much to ask by itself…

“We are aware of __________ problem and are adding it to the to do list.”

That response on the dev tracker is getting old.

It’s not good enough to loose 40-50% of your user base and then say “well, they will come back when new content comes”. If that happens to your game then as a MMORPG developer you have failed.

Based on an MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION FEE MMO you would be correct, but, based on an MMO that doesn’t require a monthly fee you are incorrect as Anet/NCsoft doesn’t rely on repeated monthly fees to survive or be a success. Look at GW1 for 6 years + no monthly fees and until recently no mini purchases from the cash shop. So it did real well and is a success for the first 4 years easily without any monthly fees or worrying about the playing population size.

sever que for WvW and plenty of people all around the area’s in my sever…. on a sunday morning

Why nobody mentions the focus of this game, that is PvP?

Are you all rank 100 already?
I have levelled up, completed stuff and so on but I am still at the beginning of PvP, before I am good enough for tourneys it’ll take months and months and then they’ll release an expansion.

How does a game die when it does not have a subscription base, does not rely on a real money trades? Guild Wars 1 fit me since I refuse to grind and I don’t feel I have to grind and Guild Wars 2 is giving me the same impression.

I play in the morning, finding a group is hard but it has not been impossible. People I added to my friends list in BETA and Guild Wars 1 have been great.

So we are all going to assume that the release of WoW MoP has absolutely NOTHING to do with the decline?

Ohhh cmon people, there is a reason for a sharp decline of GW2, and it’s pretty obvious its because of WoW MoP.

Don’t worry though, by the time those people get tired of their pokemons and Kongfu pandas, Anet will make some FREE new content and they all will jump back.

ravinhood.3981:

It’s not good enough to loose 40-50% of your user base and then say “well, they will come back when new content comes”. If that happens to your game then as a MMORPG developer you have failed.

Based on an MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION FEE MMO you would be correct, but, based on an MMO that doesn’t require a monthly fee you are incorrect as Anet/NCsoft doesn’t rely on repeated monthly fees to survive or be a success. Look at GW1 for 6 years + no monthly fees and until recently no mini purchases from the cash shop. So it did real well and is a success for the first 4 years easily without any monthly fees or worrying about the playing population size.

Hes…not …talking about cash flow…

The customer service should be at least the same regardless of the way they earn their money.

This is about the customers being happy. If someone leaves the game because thy had a bad experience with content, bugs, bots, DR, w/e the excuse maybe….thats bad.

The chances of me returning to a game after leaving it due to bad experiences like that are slim to none.

Remember its not JUST the issues but how efficient they are at fixing it and how good the communication is regarding those issues to the community.

Tharjax.9068:

Stop with the bullhonky tonk people! The game is fine and in great shape, ANet has made a masterpiece and will continue to make great changes to this game for an even better experience. Stop with the doom and gloom and the lies.

Good Job ANet keep up the good work!

We do know that this type of information is just as irrelevant and useless as the xfire data arguing GW2 collapse, right?

For one, server capacity only gives an indication of how many players live on a given server – it offers no value for their actual activity. Ie, each server could be at capacity with only a handful of players logging in daily. This may change, however as ANet gets more data regarding inactive players.

Also, the terminology used is entirely relative. Sure these servers could be “Full” or “High”, but you don’t know what the actual numerical cap is. “Full” could mean there are 20 players or 2000.

IMO, this thread holds just as much value as any one of the threads arguing GW2 is dying.

People seem a little bit too sure of their ability to predict the future through statisticomancy or anecdotomancy.

What we know for sure is that GW2 had a very successful release, when measured by sales and that the population is going through a period of pretty sharp decline.

We can speculate that the decline will continue to an unhealthy point, or that it will level off and the game will continue on with a healthy population. But noone can say which of those 2 it will be, and being so sure you can is a bit of a conceit.

My guess … the game will level off at a low population, but one that makes it worth keep it open. I suspect it will involve some server re-shuffles sooner or later.

It doesn’t seem as dire as SWToR to me, but then that game was very flawed in ways GW2 is not. On the other hand, the only MMOs I have since have any longevity at all were ones whose player base grew after release rather than shrunk. I wouldn’t like to wager on the outcome that’s for sure.

Simon De Borovsk.7460:

seriously, the game is amazingly beautiful, charming, yes it has its bugs, flaws and design mistakes.

but… i never felt So Lonely in an MMO as i feel in GW2
(and i have a guild, and friends from gw playing on too)
i am still amazed to log in to Kamadan in GW America 1 and see more life and busier chat there than i see in Hoelbrak or Divinitys Reach.

Sadly I often feel the same way.
Probably the whole thing is not that the game is realy empty, but there are no real places where people gather and trade an chat with each other and so it just feels empty.
So far I have only seen a few longer conversations in cities or explorable areas.
But often you need to wait for minutes to get an answer to a question or don’t get one at all.
Everything just feels totaly empty when you say someting and there is just no respons or there is no one fooling around in the chat.
Feeling alone amidst hundrets or thousands of people, a very strange thing.

Good job Vaerah mentioning PvP A lot of people play PvP in all its forms right now…e.g. we played tourneys with 4 friends for 5-6 hours practicing (Even though we are still “young” at it) and called it a day after that.

Maybe this game is destined to be populated only by people who are happy with PvP being the main end game (that would include me, btw).

If that’s the case, GW2 could easily still have a rosy future. Ironically, despite WoW’s hideous primary focus on loot treadmill and raiding, the sheer numbers of people it has brought to the MMO market mean there are now a lot of people out there looking for a decent PvP game.

I love playing GW2. But a masterpiece? guess that is why difference of opinions is such a great thing.

Hes…not …talking about cash flow…

The customer service should be at least the same regardless of the way they earn their money.

This is about the customers being happy. If someone leaves the game because thy had a bad experience with content, bugs, bots, DR, w/e the excuse maybe….thats bad.

The chances of me returning to a game after leaving it due to bad experiences like that are slim to none.

Remember its not JUST the issues but how efficient they are at fixing it and how good the communication is regarding those issues to the community.

EVERYTHING is about CASH FLOW and REVENUE and NET PROFITS everything else is just a side show. Companies BUDGET for LOSS of these things including CUSTOMERS. Of course they would like to keep as many as they can but with a GAME like this it’s not that important to them as much as the REMAINING base after the initial launch.

Every MMO out there gets new players upon launch and then loses a bunch of them afterwards. Known facts. A few malcontents of hardcore players aren’t going to hurt their BUDGETED bottom line. Now IF they happen to go below budgeted losses then it might become a concern. Otherwise it’s just collatteral damage like in a War and no major concern for the main players.

I know my company budgets a 2% loss of revenue per year. I’m pretty sure Anet/Ncsoft know what they are doing. Of course we have a loss prevention department but still the lossses add up to about 2%. They can give up 20% and still come out ahead which is about 200,000 players…..no biggie since they’ve already gotten the main bulk of revenue out of them.