Guild Wars 2

Arnox.5128:

The core of any MMO is the players. When people ask if this game is still being played a lot, that’s actually a good question. If an MMO doesn’t have very many players at all then it turns into a single player game. And since any MMO worth anything is meant to be played with others, it’s gonna lose around 70% of what makes the game fun.

Absolutely.. the players are the core.. and many potential new or returning players look to the forums to gain insight when considering whether or not to spend some of their coin on it.
But when you, I or the OP make threads that asks for opinion on such things as “Is it dieing or not?” or " is an expansion feasible for GW2 and its F2P business model" without any facts other than “my server was quiet at 2am , it must be struggling” doesn’t really do much for the game as a whole.. and if players like the OP really enjoy and care about the game being successful, then such threads will likely hurt it as much as aid it… because that’s what guess work does.

However I will add one small opinion… GW2 to me has many issues for sure, show me an MMO that doesn’t… but I, in no way feel its anywhere close to being a Single Player game because of player population, although many players enjoy that even within an MMO, especially one like GW2 that has attempted to breakdown some of the traditional MMO concepts.
What I see GW2 having problems with is content replay value, something every MMO has to deal with. ANET try to keep the game fresh with small added value content patches, which works for and against the game.. it gets players interest, it draws payers in/back… but it also hives players into areas.. e.g Southsun is always on Overflow so its a sign players kinda like it… but it also means they are not getting around the other maps quite so much and they feel empty.. when the event is over so the population shifts again, some leave till the next thing and others spread out within the game to do whatever they want.
One thing I will say ANET so far have kept their end of the bargain in delivering additional content, features, patches etc ever month.. yes and issues have often dogged their work.. but many other MMO’s I have played fail miserably and often use that “we will deliver stuff to you regularly” as nothing more than a smokescreen for fire fighting issues (SWTOR is a big example of that).

Another thing that needs to be considered is that the game will always fall back in player numbers at some point after launch…. its normalisation of the game – every MMO goes through that phase and will then see peaks and troughs as players grow bored, come back to try new things, expansions tempt them and new players, bugs and issues turn them away…. not to mention things like global economics, trends, new titles being launched etc etc… its a jungle out there, doesn’t mean the game is dieing or expanding… not just yet anyway I hope

Rooks Zaer.5846:

They are definitely going to want to have an expansion waiting in the wings with TESO, Wildstar, FF14: ARR, Archeage, etc. on the horizon. I hope they don’t think that the living story is fun and compelling enough to hang on to players.

I hope they don’t think that as well. I quit after the first part of the living story was released, mostly due to RL stuff. But since RL has settled down again and I have time, I still haven’t had a desire to log in and play any more. There’s not enough new or interesting for my taste.

By the time any real content comes out, many will have already moved on.

One nice (or not) thing about the game is that aside from skins, gear is easy to get. So while I’ve taken a break for a while now, if an expansion comes out I can get back into the game without too much trouble and still be on relatively equal footing to everyone else

I think it does well enough, if you think about the amount and quality of new content on top of lengthy monthly fixes and changes, it is clear that there is a team actively working on GW2, which means that the income they get from it is sufficient enough to invest it back into the game.

As for expansion, I am pretty sure we won’t see any for a long time. I think IF it will arrive, it will at least be one year from now. The decision for expansion is not in the hands of Colin or Anet – it is in hands of NCsoft – it will happen when NCsoft will let it happen, it’s just they are not interested in it at this point.

f                              

Given that GW2 is the only MMO that’s compatible with having a real life, literally the only one, and given that there’s a huge portion of the population that has both a job and kids, GW2 is here to stay. There’s just no other MMO currently on the market that caters to people with responsibilities on that scale.

It’s the kind of people who have half an hour to play if they’re lucky. In GW2 that’s enough to get a laurel and make meaningful progress. In other games you don’t even have a group yet.

From my own perspective no GW2 is not doing as well as it was, things were nerfed populations have declined places are empty, fixes and were too slow and content was too temporary..

Others disagree, that’s cool, but i still see the much emptier servers everyday.

My favorite game so far.

kokiman.2364:

f                              

What this guy said.

On the contrary, I think Gw2 is doing well and is bringing in enough money for an xpac. However, it is way too early for one. I would hope one is not released for at least another year…at least.

With that said, I do think that Arenanet has turned its back on its core from GW1, as well as people that bought into its manifesto(such as myself). With that said, I think that these people might be less inclined to spend in the cash shop, at least not as much as they would have…

marnick.4305:

Given that GW2 is the only MMO that’s compatible with having a real life, literally the only one, and given that there’s a huge portion of the population that has both a job and kids, GW2 is here to stay. There’s just no other MMO currently on the market that caters to people with responsibilities on that scale.

It’s the kind of people who have half an hour to play if they’re lucky. In GW2 that’s enough to get a laurel and make meaningful progress. In other games you don’t even have a group yet.

Oh no trust me there are far far better ones designed just for that purpose with better economies and better rewards where it doesn’t take 16 months to gear the highest gear. I’m playing them right now as we speak. That’s the other thing, the economy is the absolute worst in this game compared to every other game I’ve ever played, Nowhere else have I ever seen a steady inflation in prices by hundreds of a percent continuously due to loot being terribly restricted to the point of craziness.

When you no longer have rewards for playing what’s the point if you’re not an RPer? That’s what games are for, to give the feeling that only a carrot on a stick can fulfill. Even with the insignificant rewards from the minigames in these types of mmos.

False, from my point of view.

Piken Square is busy and I’m always running into people in the low level areas when on my alts.

Things are going down quickly. In the past months you could have seen crowds of people everywhere. The lack of new content once you reach level 80 is driving good players away. Now it’s only empty lands. There are a few constantly roaming the dungeons for a legendary item but unfortunately when they’re done there won’t be anyone to see it.

My friends already quit. I’m sure an expansion will NOT bring them back. Lucky I found a nice guild but it also seems to have only 5% of it’s members online

Fernling.1729:

Paul.4081:

http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2

Guidelines

9 viewers, that doesn’t even count. Does anybody even use xfire anymore?

Says 2200 players…. More than enough to draw reasonable inferences.

Best game hands down at the moment even though needs alot fixes.

Reasons:

1. No stupid pay to win or grind to win content. When u enter battle its up to u and ur comrades how fight will end. —> No big virtual egos.

2. WvW. I truely wish anet will realize this will be their backbone. 24/7 battle and in years to come servers will get more players to WvW throughtout time zones. Biggest dev focus should be here

3. Not too many pfofessions. Anet shouldnt add any new professions atleast in 2-3 years. Rather make all profession viable, you alll have seen what happens when constantly new professions appear (some old originals die out)

4. Every content of the game is doable. Though PVE should give more challenge and add new values like t6 chests, laurells chests. Why would anyone do hard dungeon for gold grind if u can just run cof1?

mjharrison.3209:

Fernling.1729:

Paul.4081:

http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2

Guidelines

9 viewers, that doesn’t even count. Does anybody even use xfire anymore?

Says 2200 players…. More than enough to draw reasonable inferences.

2200/3,000,000+ is enough to draw a conclusion?

I’m not sure why everyone suggests an expansion pack. There is tons to do now as it is. I’m very new to GW2…never played GW at all before. But I have to say….I’ve never been so bored with a game that offers so much to do. I think they really need to readjust some things.

I could list a million issues as to why I’ve only been playing for a few months but am utterly bored with this game. The chances that staff/developers read this information is at best minimal. I’m beginning to feel as if I wasted $60.00 on purchasing this game. If GW2 continues as it has, I won’t be purchasing anything else developed by ArenaNet. In essence, I’ve paid real money to not want to play a game, and that’s just silly.

Geotherma.2395:

mjharrison.3209:

Fernling.1729:

Paul.4081:

http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2

Guidelines

9 viewers, that doesn’t even count. Does anybody even use xfire anymore?

Says 2200 players…. More than enough to draw reasonable inferences.

2200/3,000,000+ is enough to draw a conclusion?

Nielsen rating uses 25,000/120,000,000 households to come up with their numbers that the advertisers use to determine they will advertise on a particular show or not.

Bedazzle.5746:

I’m not sure why everyone suggests an expansion pack. There is tons to do now as it is. I’m very new to GW2…never played GW at all before. But I have to say….I’ve never been so bored with a game that offers so much to do. I think they really need to readjust some things.

I could list a million issues as to why I’ve only been playing for a few months but am utterly bored with this game. The chances that staff/developers read this information is at best minimal. I’m beginning to feel as if I wasted $60.00 on purchasing this game. If GW2 continues as it has, I won’t be purchasing anything else developed by ArenaNet. In essence, I’ve paid real money to not want to play a game, and that’s just silly.

Can you be specific on what your issues are? For me there seems plenty to do in the game.

The biggest issue for me is zones being empty and not being able to find groups for dungeons.

Even though I doubt this is possible, but it would be sweet if ANet could offer an option to put a bunch of people in the same zone, much like an overflow server but it does the opposite.

Instead it puts people around the same level in a zone together so it helps populates empty zones.

Tharjax.9068:

To make a long story short, he basically was saying based upon what Colin was saying, that GW2 is doing ok, but not well enough (bringing in enough money) to warrant an expansion.

Instead of thinking like this, why don’t we think that the game is doing so well that they will keep providing extra content monthly instead of leaving us a whole year (or more) with the same content just to profit from expansions?

They don’t sell high end gear for cash, just vanity items. They allow you to buy cash with gold. They provide extra content monthly. They don’t charge a subscription fee.

If the game wasn’t doing well, don’t you think it would require an expansion to make up for it?

Bloodstealer.5978:

Oooh look another one of these threads… who really cares, whatever anyone says in answer to your question is merely guessing. The only people who really know the answer to your question are the bean counters back at HQ and can you really imagine them coming here to help allay your curiosity.
What is the point of your question, why does it matter really…. the only thing you need to worry about is whether your having fun or not.

The “point” of this thread is… people want to know if they are wasting their time investing in a dead game. Why bother progressing in a game that’s dying, spend money on items, etc. Even if you’re having “fun” these games are about progression and longevity and requires population.

Once they start realizing it isn’t happening, they’re going to turn the corner in the cash shop as far as what they are willing to sell… mark my words.

Danicco.3568:

Tharjax.9068:

To make a long story short, he basically was saying based upon what Colin was saying, that GW2 is doing ok, but not well enough (bringing in enough money) to warrant an expansion.

Instead of thinking like this, why don’t we think that the game is doing so well that they will keep providing extra content monthly instead of leaving us a whole year (or more) with the same content just to profit from expansions?

They don’t sell high end gear for cash, just vanity items. They allow you to buy cash with gold. They provide extra content monthly. They don’t charge a subscription fee.

If the game wasn’t doing well, don’t you think it would require an expansion to make up for it?

It’s safe to say the majority of monthly “content” updates haven’t lived up to players’ expectations or even comparisons to other games. So if that’s all they have in mind for content without an expansion… eek.

Tharjax.9068:

Bedazzle.5746:

I’m not sure why everyone suggests an expansion pack. There is tons to do now as it is. I’m very new to GW2…never played GW at all before. But I have to say….I’ve never been so bored with a game that offers so much to do. I think they really need to readjust some things.

I could list a million issues as to why I’ve only been playing for a few months but am utterly bored with this game. The chances that staff/developers read this information is at best minimal. I’m beginning to feel as if I wasted $60.00 on purchasing this game. If GW2 continues as it has, I won’t be purchasing anything else developed by ArenaNet. In essence, I’ve paid real money to not want to play a game, and that’s just silly.

Can you be specific on what your issues are? For me there seems plenty to do in the game.

The biggest issue for me is zones being empty and not being able to find groups for dungeons.

Even though I doubt this is possible, but it would be sweet if ANet could offer an option to put a bunch of people in the same zone, much like an overflow server but it does the opposite.

Instead it puts people around the same level in a zone together so it helps populates empty zones.

Empty zones is a part of it. One example; I got bored of having nothing to do. I’m not very good a jump puzzles so I decide to do Living Story. Surprise!!, Living Story is bugged for me and I cannot complete it. So that means I’ve wasted my time completing almost all of it except two achievements.

You have to spend hours and hours in Fractals in order to advance to higher levels which you cannot do without having to do dailies for a few months in order to get your AR. I finally caved, I ended up going to Fractals with a pub group…3/4th of the way through everyone decided to quit…to hard for them.

A large number of achievements need groups to do it and it’s difficult to find groups for many things. You can do Slayer achievements, but how interesting can that be when you have to kill 100, 500, and 1000 of the same thing. Kill 1,000 giants to get an achievement? I call that boring.

I tried to get hydra queen to complete the Boss achievement. Turns out Hydra Queen is a small chance of spawning even after you complete the pre boss starting. So, you can attempt the pre start 22 times and never actually start the hydra Queen boss. That’s a huge waste of time and no one wants to spend that much time doing something.

WvW is a Zergfest, and I happen to be on one of the low end servers that doesn’t normally have a Zergfest going, so that is a useless endeavor. It’s not very motivating when you are continually mowed down by a zerg. So, I don’t bother going there anymore.

Spvp is great, but when you do the same thing over and over and over again, it loses it’s excitement.

At first the game was fun…but now it’s just become tideous. Why would anyone want to spend.

I think my biggest issue is that it takes soooooo long…and soooooo much time to even feel like you’ve made progress. Things feel very stagnant with not much to keep interest. A large number of my guild have started playing other games because they are bored with GW2 already.

marnick.4305:

Given that GW2 is the only MMO that’s compatible with having a real life, literally the only one, and given that there’s a huge portion of the population that has both a job and kids, GW2 is here to stay. There’s just no other MMO currently on the market that caters to people with responsibilities on that scale.

It’s the kind of people who have half an hour to play if they’re lucky. In GW2 that’s enough to get a laurel and make meaningful progress. In other games you don’t even have a group yet.

And you know what? It’s turning out not to matter. People miss the commitment, progression and immersion real MMOs have given them, and they’re fleeing GW2.

If ArenaNet wanted to make a game for people who don’t have time to play games, then… score.

Tharjax.9068:

Bedazzle.5746:

I’m not sure why everyone suggests an expansion pack. There is tons to do now as it is. I’m very new to GW2…never played GW at all before. But I have to say….I’ve never been so bored with a game that offers so much to do. I think they really need to readjust some things.

I could list a million issues as to why I’ve only been playing for a few months but am utterly bored with this game. The chances that staff/developers read this information is at best minimal. I’m beginning to feel as if I wasted $60.00 on purchasing this game. If GW2 continues as it has, I won’t be purchasing anything else developed by ArenaNet. In essence, I’ve paid real money to not want to play a game, and that’s just silly.

Can you be specific on what your issues are? For me there seems plenty to do in the game.

The biggest issue for me is zones being empty and not being able to find groups for dungeons.

Even though I doubt this is possible, but it would be sweet if ANet could offer an option to put a bunch of people in the same zone, much like an overflow server but it does the opposite.

Instead it puts people around the same level in a zone together so it helps populates empty zones.

Empty zones is a part of it. One example; I got bored of having nothing to do. I’m not very good a jump puzzles so I decide to do Living Story. Surprise!!, Living Story is bugged for me and I cannot complete it. So that means I’ve wasted my time completing almost all of it except two achievements.

You have to spend hours and hours in Fractals in order to advance to higher levels which you cannot do without having to do dailies for a few months in order to get your AR. I finally caved, I ended up going to Fractals with a pub group…3/4th of the way through everyone decided to quit…to hard for them.

A large number of achievements need groups to do it and it’s difficult to find groups for many things. You can do Slayer achievements, but how interesting can that be when you have to kill 100, 500, and 1000 of the same thing. Kill 1,000 giants to get an achievement? I call that boring.

I tried to get hydra queen to complete the Boss achievement. Turns out Hydra Queen is a small chance of spawning even after you complete the pre boss starting. So, you can attempt the pre start 22 times and never actually start the hydra Queen boss. That’s a huge waste of time and no one wants to spend that much time doing something.

WvW is a Zergfest, and I happen to be on one of the low end servers that doesn’t normally have a Zergfest going, so that is a useless endeavor. It’s not very motivating when you are continually mowed down by a zerg. So, I don’t bother going there anymore.

Spvp is great, but when you do the same thing over and over and over again, it loses it’s excitement.

At first the game was fun…but now it’s just become tideous.

I think my biggest issue is that it takes soooooo long…and soooooo much time to even feel like you’ve made progress. Things feel very stagnant with not much to keep interest. A large number of my guild members have started playing other games because they are bored with GW2 already, and many of them played GW1. This is my first time in GW and I finding it boring as well.

Loaded questions really are a bad idea. “Are you still beating your wife?” is and extreme example of this but your question follows that trend.

Well, seems you have to buy access now [gear], particularly in WvW. Having played GW1 for many years the true spiritual successor is Skyrim even if it isn’t an MMO, it feels more like what GW2 should have been sans the multiplay. And the sales 10+ million reflect the trend towards near stat-free rpg experience. And that’s a game with an 18+ rating. Want to understand market trends, just do a quick survey of what’s on YouTube, .. and what is not. Farming stats in GW2 to maintain a semblance of balance in WvW pvp is just pve pretending pvp. Maybe new changes to WvW will fix this, likely not. Grinding for pve gear in pvp is goofy gaming.

Rebuild the core game structure with skyrim mechanics (gw1) would dramatically improve sales.

ikiturso.4026:

Best game hands down at the moment even though needs alot fixes.

Reasons:

1. No stupid pay to win or grind to win content. When u enter battle its up to u and ur comrades how fight will end. —> No big virtual egos.

2. WvW. I truely wish anet will realize this will be their backbone. 24/7 battle and in years to come servers will get more players to WvW throughtout time zones. Biggest dev focus should be here

3. Not too many pfofessions. Anet shouldnt add any new professions atleast in 2-3 years. Rather make all profession viable, you alll have seen what happens when constantly new professions appear (some old originals die out)

4. Every content of the game is doable. Though PVE should give more challenge and add new values like t6 chests, laurells chests. Why would anyone do hard dungeon for gold grind if u can just run cof1?

I agree with you, particularly on the WvW part of the deal.

I wonder what would happen if they add the best farming areas and the best mob bosses and champions to WvW maps. We might get to see guilds battling over boss spawns and lots of interesting stuff!.

Zeldain.5710:

And you know what? It’s turning out not to matter. People miss the commitment, progression and immersion real MMOs have given them, and they’re fleeing GW2.

If ArenaNet wanted to make a game for people who don’t have time to play games, then… score.

One way you can tell how well the game is doing is by how hard the Stop Having Fun Hardcores are whining.

eisberg.2379:

Geotherma.2395:

mjharrison.3209:

Fernling.1729:

Paul.4081:

http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2

Guidelines

9 viewers, that doesn’t even count. Does anybody even use xfire anymore?

Says 2200 players…. More than enough to draw reasonable inferences.

2200/3,000,000+ is enough to draw a conclusion?

Nielsen rating uses 25,000/120,000,000 households to come up with their numbers that the advertisers use to determine they will advertise on a particular show or not.

Exactly why shows get shut down, terrible ratings metrics.. 3m viewers watch a show on tv, 8 million watch it online, show gets shut down because the 3m looks small. Bad samples are bad. Commercials are just as bad, advertisers and companies are lazy, spamming the same Phoenix commercial every 4 minutes is not intelligent. Smart people administer surveys that makes sense, not smart people work and ABC closing down shows.

“Another criticism of the measuring system itself is that it fails the most important criterion of a sample: it is not random in the statistical sense of the word. A small fraction of the population is selected and only those that actually accept are used as the sample size. In many local areas of the 1990s, the difference between a rating that kept a show on the air and one that would cancel it was so small as to be statistically insignificant, and yet the show that just happened to get the higher rating would survive.¹³ And yet in 2009 of the 114,500,000 U.S. television households¹⁴ only 25,000 total American households (0.02183% of the total) participated in the Nielsen daily metered system ¹⁵ In addition, the Nielsen ratings encouraged a strong push for demographic measurements. This caused problems with multiple TV households or households where viewers would enter the simpler codes (usually their child’s) raising serious questions to the quality of the demographic data.¹³ The situation further deteriorated as the popularity of cable TV expanded the number of viewable networks to the point that the margin of error has increased due to the sampling sizes being too small.¹³¹⁶¹⁷ Compounding matters is the fact that of the sample data that is collected, advertisers will not pay for time shifted (recorded for replay at a different time) programs,¹⁸ rendering the ‘raw’ numbers useless.”

Just because one system (that imo is failing) using a type doesn’t mean it will work here. The fact that hardly anyone even uses the gaming app that figures out users is enough bias to completely ignore its ratings altogether.

Zeldain.5710:

Bloodstealer.5978:

Oooh look another one of these threads… who really cares, whatever anyone says in answer to your question is merely guessing. The only people who really know the answer to your question are the bean counters back at HQ and can you really imagine them coming here to help allay your curiosity.
What is the point of your question, why does it matter really…. the only thing you need to worry about is whether your having fun or not.

The “point” of this thread is… people want to know if they are wasting their time investing in a dead game. Why bother progressing in a game that’s dying, spend money on items, etc. Even if you’re having “fun” these games are about progression and longevity and requires population.

Once they start realizing it isn’t happening, they’re going to turn the corner in the cash shop as far as what they are willing to sell… mark my words.

You miss the point by a country mile… you are basing your decision to keep playing a game that you enjoy on nothing more than other people’s heresay.
You, nor I have any conclusive information to suggest how well or not this game is doing… but these threads only serve to act as a scaremongering tool, where speculation and conjecture only hurt player numbers not aid them.

If ANET came on and gave a factual account of how well the game is doing.. then I would be more than happy to wade in with an opinion based on facts not pie in the sky rumour mills.

If your prepared to make a decision to stop playing a game that you enjoy based on a sample size of conjecture no bigger than the size of a pin head (yes these forums are a mere smidge of the actual players base) then… well the term sheep comes to mind. I personally base my decisions on much more than that.

By the way if the game was failing what meaningful things in the cashshop do you think could really turn that around… the core of the game has to be its content.. only there can the real stability of the game be influenced .. from there the cashshop is merely added value fluff with a view value items to enhance your game.. no different to any other P2P or F2P MMO out there currently.
If a games core content is deemed by its playerbase to have a poor replay value, well there in lies your biggest issue.. bugs come and go but bad content design or lacklustre ideas akittens core will see the game decline rapidly.. that’s when the developers have to up their game and quickly, but I don’t see that as a major issue in GW2 personally.. its got issues for sure but nothing that any other MMO has got as well. Its up to ANET to put those right and to keep pushing the boat out to us to attract us back each day. I think they do a pretty good job in a lot of areas, some have struck a bad taste with me for sure but longer term I think its got a pretty solid game core.. it just needs time to get it polished, improved and eveolved – these “is the game dieing threads” do not help to improve the game or swell the numbers, they only serve to drag it down.

Geotherma.2395:

eisberg.2379:

Geotherma.2395:

mjharrison.3209:

Fernling.1729:

Paul.4081:

http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2

Guidelines

9 viewers, that doesn’t even count. Does anybody even use xfire anymore?

Says 2200 players…. More than enough to draw reasonable inferences.

2200/3,000,000+ is enough to draw a conclusion?

Nielsen rating uses 25,000/120,000,000 households to come up with their numbers that the advertisers use to determine they will advertise on a particular show or not.

Exactly why shows get shut down, terrible ratings metrics.. 3m viewers watch a show on tv, 8 million watch it online, show gets shut down because the 3m looks small. Bad samples are bad. Commercials are just as bad, advertisers and companies are lazy, spamming the same Phoenix commercial every 4 minutes is not intelligent. Smart people administer surveys that makes sense, not smart people work and ABC closing down shows.

“Another criticism of the measuring system itself is that it fails the most important criterion of a sample: it is not random in the statistical sense of the word. A small fraction of the population is selected and only those that actually accept are used as the sample size. In many local areas of the 1990s, the difference between a rating that kept a show on the air and one that would cancel it was so small as to be statistically insignificant, and yet the show that just happened to get the higher rating would survive.¹³ And yet in 2009 of the 114,500,000 U.S. television households¹⁴ only 25,000 total American households (0.02183% of the total) participated in the Nielsen daily metered system ¹⁵ In addition, the Nielsen ratings encouraged a strong push for demographic measurements. This caused problems with multiple TV households or households where viewers would enter the simpler codes (usually their child’s) raising serious questions to the quality of the demographic data.¹³ The situation further deteriorated as the popularity of cable TV expanded the number of viewable networks to the point that the margin of error has increased due to the sampling sizes being too small.¹³¹⁶¹⁷ Compounding matters is the fact that of the sample data that is collected, advertisers will not pay for time shifted (recorded for replay at a different time) programs,¹⁸ rendering the ‘raw’ numbers useless.”

Just because one system (that imo is failing) using a type doesn’t mean it will work here. The fact that hardly anyone even uses the gaming app that figures out users is enough bias to completely ignore its ratings altogether.

They got you to reference that Phoenix commercial. They just won.

killcannon.2576:

Geotherma.2395:

eisberg.2379:

Geotherma.2395:

mjharrison.3209:

Fernling.1729:

Paul.4081:

http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2

Guidelines

9 viewers, that doesn’t even count. Does anybody even use xfire anymore?

Says 2200 players…. More than enough to draw reasonable inferences.

2200/3,000,000+ is enough to draw a conclusion?

Nielsen rating uses 25,000/120,000,000 households to come up with their numbers that the advertisers use to determine they will advertise on a particular show or not.

Exactly why shows get shut down, terrible ratings metrics.. 3m viewers watch a show on tv, 8 million watch it online, show gets shut down because the 3m looks small. Bad samples are bad. Commercials are just as bad, advertisers and companies are lazy, spamming the same Phoenix commercial every 4 minutes is not intelligent. Smart people administer surveys that makes sense, not smart people work and ABC closing down shows.

“Another criticism of the measuring system itself is that it fails the most important criterion of a sample: it is not random in the statistical sense of the word. A small fraction of the population is selected and only those that actually accept are used as the sample size. In many local areas of the 1990s, the difference between a rating that kept a show on the air and one that would cancel it was so small as to be statistically insignificant, and yet the show that just happened to get the higher rating would survive.¹³ And yet in 2009 of the 114,500,000 U.S. television households¹⁴ only 25,000 total American households (0.02183% of the total) participated in the Nielsen daily metered system ¹⁵ In addition, the Nielsen ratings encouraged a strong push for demographic measurements. This caused problems with multiple TV households or households where viewers would enter the simpler codes (usually their child’s) raising serious questions to the quality of the demographic data.¹³ The situation further deteriorated as the popularity of cable TV expanded the number of viewable networks to the point that the margin of error has increased due to the sampling sizes being too small.¹³¹⁶¹⁷ Compounding matters is the fact that of the sample data that is collected, advertisers will not pay for time shifted (recorded for replay at a different time) programs,¹⁸ rendering the ‘raw’ numbers useless.”

Just because one system (that imo is failing) using a type doesn’t mean it will work here. The fact that hardly anyone even uses the gaming app that figures out users is enough bias to completely ignore its ratings altogether.

They got you to reference that Phoenix commercial. They just won.

Well if they are trying to advertise things that suck, they definitely got my attention :P However, Defiance commercial was right after, and I just love that song in the video by Imagine Dragons.. Wikitten would play while fighting Zhaitan.

Tharjax.9068:

Bedazzle.5746:

I’m not sure why everyone suggests an expansion pack. There is tons to do now as it is. I’m very new to GW2…never played GW at all before. But I have to say….I’ve never been so bored with a game that offers so much to do. I think they really need to readjust some things.

I could list a million issues as to why I’ve only been playing for a few months but am utterly bored with this game. The chances that staff/developers read this information is at best minimal. I’m beginning to feel as if I wasted $60.00 on purchasing this game. If GW2 continues as it has, I won’t be purchasing anything else developed by ArenaNet. In essence, I’ve paid real money to not want to play a game, and that’s just silly.

Can you be specific on what your issues are? For me there seems plenty to do in the game.

The biggest issue for me is zones being empty and not being able to find groups for dungeons.

Even though I doubt this is possible, but it would be sweet if ANet could offer an option to put a bunch of people in the same zone, much like an overflow server but it does the opposite.

Instead it puts people around the same level in a zone together so it helps populates empty zones.

Use www.GW2lfg.com if you want to find groups. I’ve been able to find groups in a couple minutes easily this way.

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

Geotherma.2395:

killcannon.2576:

Geotherma.2395:

eisberg.2379:

Geotherma.2395:

mjharrison.3209:

Fernling.1729:

Paul.4081:

http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2

Guidelines

9 viewers, that doesn’t even count. Does anybody even use xfire anymore?

Says 2200 players…. More than enough to draw reasonable inferences.

2200/3,000,000+ is enough to draw a conclusion?

Nielsen rating uses 25,000/120,000,000 households to come up with their numbers that the advertisers use to determine they will advertise on a particular show or not.

Exactly why shows get shut down, terrible ratings metrics.. 3m viewers watch a show on tv, 8 million watch it online, show gets shut down because the 3m looks small. Bad samples are bad. Commercials are just as bad, advertisers and companies are lazy, spamming the same Phoenix commercial every 4 minutes is not intelligent. Smart people administer surveys that makes sense, not smart people work and ABC closing down shows.

“Another criticism of the measuring system itself is that it fails the most important criterion of a sample: it is not random in the statistical sense of the word. A small fraction of the population is selected and only those that actually accept are used as the sample size. In many local areas of the 1990s, the difference between a rating that kept a show on the air and one that would cancel it was so small as to be statistically insignificant, and yet the show that just happened to get the higher rating would survive.¹³ And yet in 2009 of the 114,500,000 U.S. television households¹⁴ only 25,000 total American households (0.02183% of the total) participated in the Nielsen daily metered system ¹⁵ In addition, the Nielsen ratings encouraged a strong push for demographic measurements. This caused problems with multiple TV households or households where viewers would enter the simpler codes (usually their child’s) raising serious questions to the quality of the demographic data.¹³ The situation further deteriorated as the popularity of cable TV expanded the number of viewable networks to the point that the margin of error has increased due to the sampling sizes being too small.¹³¹⁶¹⁷ Compounding matters is the fact that of the sample data that is collected, advertisers will not pay for time shifted (recorded for replay at a different time) programs,¹⁸ rendering the ‘raw’ numbers useless.”

Just because one system (that imo is failing) using a type doesn’t mean it will work here. The fact that hardly anyone even uses the gaming app that figures out users is enough bias to completely ignore its ratings altogether.

They got you to reference that Phoenix commercial. They just won.

Well if they are trying to advertise things that suck, they definitely got my attention :P However, Defiance commercial was right after, and I just love that song in the video by Imagine Dragons.. Wikitten would play while fighting Zhaitan.

I agree with you, from the Nielsen Ratings to advertising. If it can’t be compelling, they make it annoying. Anything to get their message to stick.

Chris.7653:

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

Who are you going to believe, the ‘Full’ status markers, the getting kicked into overflow trying to visit Southsun, the fact that only now nine months later has Anet reduced the box cost, or the desperate trolls of the First Name Only Haters Club?

Uruz Six.6594:

Chris.7653:

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

Who are you going to believe, the ‘Full’ status markers, the getting kicked into overflow trying to visit Southsun, the fact that only now nine months later has Anet reduced the box cost, or the desperate trolls of the First Name Only Haters Club?

I’m going to believe 200+ players offline for months in my ex guild(s), i’m going to belive no queue in wvw (except prime time, but even then outmanned or close to it on 2 border, t2 server) while 4-5 months ago it was min 1h queue on every border, i’m going to believe biggest spvp tournament with 4k views with is joke comparing to gw1.

Sovta.4719:

Uruz Six.6594:

Chris.7653:

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

Who are you going to believe, the ‘Full’ status markers, the getting kicked into overflow trying to visit Southsun, the fact that only now nine months later has Anet reduced the box cost, or the desperate trolls of the First Name Only Haters Club?

I’m going to believe 200+ players offline for months in my ex guild(s), i’m going to belive no queue in wvw (except prime time, but even then outmanned or close to it on 2 border, t2 server) while 4-5 months ago it was min 1h queue on every border, i’m going to believe biggest spvp tournament with 4k views with is joke comparing to gw1.

First of all, the players do not decide where they get to go. Southsun is a perfect example of Anet funneling all the players in Guild Wars to one location to make it seem like there are more players than there actually are, so it’s really Anet deciding where the players will go. Secondly, you really believe the “full” markers? Have you walked around any maps recently? You’ll see two people in like 5 hours. Lastly, I’ve switched guilds multiple times because they’ve all gone over to other mmorpgs, and there were 400+ people in each of those guilds. 30 people were leftover when everyone went back to WoW and Neverwinter. The lack of permanent content and lack of actual accomplishment finally got to people I guess. I know for me the big part of an mmorpg is forever getting better by gaining new armor/weapons/money. Anet has taken every single one of those things away with this game and most people don’t like that. New armor, weapons, and easier money can easily improve this game.

Galtrix.7369:

Sovta.4719:

Uruz Six.6594:

Chris.7653:

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

Who are you going to believe, the ‘Full’ status markers, the getting kicked into overflow trying to visit Southsun, the fact that only now nine months later has Anet reduced the box cost, or the desperate trolls of the First Name Only Haters Club?

I’m going to believe 200+ players offline for months in my ex guild(s), i’m going to belive no queue in wvw (except prime time, but even then outmanned or close to it on 2 border, t2 server) while 4-5 months ago it was min 1h queue on every border, i’m going to believe biggest spvp tournament with 4k views with is joke comparing to gw1.

First of all, the players do not decide where they get to go. Southsun is a perfect example of Anet funneling all the players in Guild Wars to one location to make it seem like there are more players than there actually are, so it’s really Anet deciding where the players will go. Secondly, you really believe the “full” markers? Have you walked around any maps recently? You’ll see two people in like 5 hours. Lastly, I’ve switched guilds multiple times because they’ve all gone over to other mmorpgs, and there were 400+ people in each of those guilds. 30 people were leftover when everyone went back to WoW and Neverwinter. The lack of permanent content and lack of actual accomplishment finally got to people I guess. I know for me the big part of an mmorpg is forever getting better by gaining new armor/weapons/money. Anet has taken every single one of those things away with this game and most people don’t like that. New armor, weapons, and easier money can easily improve this game.

My experience and so many others that I know (most of which I do not play with, nor on the same servers) have the exact opposite of you. Everywhere I go I see a crap ton of players, and this is on any maps from at least level 1-65, never being at an event without it being a zerg. In a guild with 200+ active people out of the 230 on our roster, have a co worker who is in a guild with 1100 people, with a 75% active rate.

In other words, you people need to quit using your own personal experience as “proof” because there are going to be plenty of people with the exact opposite of you.

People are spread between this:

Fractals
Dungeons
WvW
World Bosses
Living Story maps.
Farming Spots

This shows an aged but stable population. You can track the growth and amount of online members on guilds if you want.

Uruz Six.6594:

Chris.7653:

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

Who are you going to believe, the ‘Full’ status markers, the getting kicked into overflow trying to visit Southsun, the fact that only now nine months later has Anet reduced the box cost, or the desperate trolls of the First Name Only Haters Club?

ANet already came out and said that the “Full” status is not indicating how many people are online but how many characters reside on the server.

eisberg.2379:

Galtrix.7369:

Sovta.4719:

Uruz Six.6594:

Chris.7653:

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

Who are you going to believe, the ‘Full’ status markers, the getting kicked into overflow trying to visit Southsun, the fact that only now nine months later has Anet reduced the box cost, or the desperate trolls of the First Name Only Haters Club?

I’m going to believe 200+ players offline for months in my ex guild(s), i’m going to belive no queue in wvw (except prime time, but even then outmanned or close to it on 2 border, t2 server) while 4-5 months ago it was min 1h queue on every border, i’m going to believe biggest spvp tournament with 4k views with is joke comparing to gw1.

First of all, the players do not decide where they get to go. Southsun is a perfect example of Anet funneling all the players in Guild Wars to one location to make it seem like there are more players than there actually are, so it’s really Anet deciding where the players will go. Secondly, you really believe the “full” markers? Have you walked around any maps recently? You’ll see two people in like 5 hours. Lastly, I’ve switched guilds multiple times because they’ve all gone over to other mmorpgs, and there were 400+ people in each of those guilds. 30 people were leftover when everyone went back to WoW and Neverwinter. The lack of permanent content and lack of actual accomplishment finally got to people I guess. I know for me the big part of an mmorpg is forever getting better by gaining new armor/weapons/money. Anet has taken every single one of those things away with this game and most people don’t like that. New armor, weapons, and easier money can easily improve this game.

My experience and so many others that I know (most of which I do not play with, nor on the same servers) have the exact opposite of you. Everywhere I go I see a crap ton of players, and this is on any maps from at least level 1-65, never being at an event without it being a zerg. In a guild with 200+ active people out of the 230 on our roster, have a co worker who is in a guild with 1100 people, with a 75% active rate.

In other words, you people need to quit using your own personal experience as “proof” because there are going to be plenty of people with the exact opposite of you.

Seeing as how the max amount of members in a guild is 500, I’ll assume you’re either ignorant or trolling. 75% active rate? Please. Even the strongest guild on my server couldn’t hit a 75% activity rate among its members, and they kick inactive members monthly. Plus they had about 500 members. I think the largest amount of members on at one time was 70% on a Saturday. A 75% activity rate with 1100 members would be nearly impossible. Other than that, I do not disagree that there are “some” servers that have a lot more people than my server. Every server I have guested on, which was almost all of them, has had the same amount of people that my server had. If your server was one of the few I didn’t guest to, I apologize, but it seems as though you are exaggerating to prove a point. And when you’ve played as long and as hard as I have, “Personal Experience” is as good as cold hard evidence. When I created my character, there were tons of people everywhere I went. Fast forward 9 months later…. and I don’t see anyone anymore except in LA and at the events that Anet gives. Ask around, you’ll find that many players on various servers don’t see anyone. Ever.

Chris.7653:

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

You might want to look up dying in the dictionary. I’m not sure it means what you think it means.

ANY MMO that’s dying will start reducing it’s staff. Most MMOs don’t have a staff of 300 to begin with. Games that did badly like Star Wars ToR and TSW (or at least well below expectation) fired percentages of their staff. And because these are public companies, they have to let people know when there’s a lay off or they can be in serious trouble.

NCsoft is also a public company. So if the game is doing badly why is Anet hiring?

Do you know why you don’t have an answer? Because you have nothing but anecdotal evidence that the game is dying. The game is making money or there would be lay offs. And if it’s making money…it’s not dying.

Cristobal.8640:

People are spread between this:

Fractals
Dungeons
WvW
World Bosses
Living Story maps.
Farming Spots

This shows an aged but stable population. You can track the growth and amount of online members on guilds if you want.

It does show an aged population, not sure how that syncs with certain groups who keep screaming “This game is new, give it time!!”. A stable population? Not so much.

From the examples listed we can see almost the entire population centered around endgame activities. What’s wrong with that? Well, GW2 was never set up to be an endgame type of MMO. It was set up and marketed as a Journey type MMO. Almost all of the content on offer in GW2 is Journey, with 90% of all worthwhile content found in the leveling areas. So you have a part of the playerbase hitting 80 and wondering where all the content is. Well, it’s in all the stuff you just passed by, especially if you decided to level by crafting, but there is no reason to go back because everything that you want to deck out your new 80 is in the limited endgame, be that exotics or cosmetics.

Why does this make a difference in GW2 since all other mmo’s seem to take this path? Because all the other mmo’s are focused on endgame and that’s where all their content is. A new player stepping into this world will be sorely pressed to find company to level up with in some of the beautifully designed content that is available. In other mmo’s there is reason to forgive this, because you know that waiting at the end is the best content. But here, it’s not. What you see is what you get, there’s nothing waiting at the end, just farming.

killcannon.2576:

Cristobal.8640:

People are spread between this:

Fractals
Dungeons
WvW
World Bosses
Living Story maps.
Farming Spots

This shows an aged but stable population. You can track the growth and amount of online members on guilds if you want.

It does show an aged population, not sure how that syncs with certain groups who keep screaming “This game is new, give it time!!”. A stable population? Not so much.

From the examples listed we can see almost the entire population centered around endgame activities. What’s wrong with that? Well, GW2 was never set up to be an endgame type of MMO. It was set up and marketed as a Journey type MMO. Almost all of the content on offer in GW2 is Journey, with 90% of all worthwhile content found in the leveling areas. So you have a part of the playerbase hitting 80 and wondering where all the content is. Well, it’s in all the stuff you just passed by, especially if you decided to level by crafting, but there is no reason to go back because everything that you want to deck out your new 80 is in the limited endgame, be that exotics or cosmetics.

Why does this make a difference in GW2 since all other mmo’s seem to take this path? Because all the other mmo’s are focused on endgame and that’s where all their content is. A new player stepping into this world will be sorely pressed to find company to level up with in some of the beautifully designed content that is available. In other mmo’s there is reason to forgive this, because you know that waiting at the end is the best content. But here, it’s not. What you see is what you get, there’s nothing waiting at the end, just farming.

Actually I don’t think the entire game is centered around end game activities. I think that those at end game activities are clearly present and easy to count. There’s no way to know many people are in the open world at any given time, because it really is large.

I know my guild isn’t typical but we have quite a few new players in the guild, who obviously can’t do end game content. It’s not possible.

However, right at this moment, new players CAN go to Southsun which takes them out of the world, making the world seem more empty than it would with just new players and players rolling alts.

I really do believe that we’ve lost players who’ve lost interest, but it’s not much greater than the number of returning and new players combined. This a relatively stable population.

killcannon.2576:

Cristobal.8640:

People are spread between this:

Fractals
Dungeons
WvW
World Bosses
Living Story maps.
Farming Spots

This shows an aged but stable population. You can track the growth and amount of online members on guilds if you want.

It does show an aged population, not sure how that syncs with certain groups who keep screaming “This game is new, give it time!!”. A stable population? Not so much.

From the examples listed we can see almost the entire population centered around endgame activities. What’s wrong with that? Well, GW2 was never set up to be an endgame type of MMO. It was set up and marketed as a Journey type MMO. Almost all of the content on offer in GW2 is Journey, with 90% of all worthwhile content found in the leveling areas. So you have a part of the playerbase hitting 80 and wondering where all the content is. Well, it’s in all the stuff you just passed by, especially if you decided to level by crafting, but there is no reason to go back because everything that you want to deck out your new 80 is in the limited endgame, be that exotics or cosmetics.

Why does this make a difference in GW2 since all other mmo’s seem to take this path? Because all the other mmo’s are focused on endgame and that’s where all their content is. A new player stepping into this world will be sorely pressed to find company to level up with in some of the beautifully designed content that is available. In other mmo’s there is reason to forgive this, because you know that waiting at the end is the best content. But here, it’s not. What you see is what you get, there’s nothing waiting at the end, just farming.

I quoted your reply because I believe you have touched on something that I really believe is an issue.

ANet did exactly what you said, they were not going to have an “end game” it’s going to be the whole journey, the whole carrot will be given at day 1.

But here is the problem just like you said, I’m a new player and wanting to journey through this great game, but alas I have no one to really journey with. There is no cool gear to be collected around my level or something desirable to make higher levels come back to these empty zones.

For me if I knew that when I hit 80 there was going to be a whole slew of cool things to explore with a bunch of other people, I would be really excited to get to 80.

Right now I am taking my time (which I like) but after talking to and reading posts about nothing to do at 80, is kind of disheartening.

I will still enjoy my time and am still hoping for the best. But I do hope that ANet realizes that there is a need for players to log on after they hit 80 to do things together.

@ Vayne Thank you for your good insight in your post!

Vayne.8563:

Chris.7653:

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

You might want to look up dying in the dictionary. I’m not sure it means what you think it means.

ANY MMO that’s dying will start reducing it’s staff. Most MMOs don’t have a staff of 300 to begin with. Games that did badly like Star Wars ToR and TSW (or at least well below expectation) fired percentages of their staff. And because these are public companies, they have to let people know when there’s a lay off or they can be in serious trouble.

NCsoft is also a public company. So if the game is doing badly why is Anet hiring?

Do you know why you don’t have an answer? Because you have nothing but anecdotal evidence that the game is dying. The game is making money or there would be lay offs. And if it’s making money…it’s not dying.

Haha I could say the same things about your arguments…

You don’t have any facts on why they are hiring or how well they are doing. You have no idea on their finances either..

What I can speak to is what I see….so go ahead and whiteknight all you want and get good and fired up, I don’t care…you aren’t trying to convince me really, you are trying to convince yourself that every thing is ok…and in doing so you don’t even realize people like you are a true cancer to a game.

Chris.7653:

Vayne.8563:

Chris.7653:

No GW2 is not doing well at all…it is dying.

Don’t let these whiteknights argue and tell you otherwise because all they are doing is trying to convince themselves.

If you want to see it for yourself just log in and look at the population declining before your very eyes…

You might want to look up dying in the dictionary. I’m not sure it means what you think it means.

ANY MMO that’s dying will start reducing it’s staff. Most MMOs don’t have a staff of 300 to begin with. Games that did badly like Star Wars ToR and TSW (or at least well below expectation) fired percentages of their staff. And because these are public companies, they have to let people know when there’s a lay off or they can be in serious trouble.

NCsoft is also a public company. So if the game is doing badly why is Anet hiring?

Do you know why you don’t have an answer? Because you have nothing but anecdotal evidence that the game is dying. The game is making money or there would be lay offs. And if it’s making money…it’s not dying.

Haha I could say the same things about your arguments…

You don’t have any facts on why they are hiring or how well they are doing. You have no idea on their finances either..

What I can speak to is what I see….so go ahead and whiteknight all you want and get good and fired up, I don’t care…you aren’t trying to convince me really, you are trying to convince yourself that every thing is ok…and in doing so you don’t even realize people like you are a true cancer to a game.

Actually their reports are listed as NCsoft is a publicly traded company. And they are hiring according to their page and have been for several months. They have said that numbers are steady and even growing steadily. And that micro-transactions are strong, and the company has gotten the go ahead for making an expansion. Calling everyone who supports the game a cancer to the game just makes you look petty and sort of sad. If you could talk intelligently and back your posts by facts perhaps you wouldn’t sound like your just simply whining.

I have no doubt the bottom line of NCSoft is doing great at the moment, possibly to do with RNG chests etc. But what makes money and what is fun are 2 different things in my book. I know a fun game is subjective, but my problem is I’ve been brought up on games that reward hard work.

For me NCSoft is doing a lot to take the fun out of games by fiddling with drop rates, diminishing returns, player nerfs etc… unsurprisingly this is why the last couple of months have seen me go back to single player games where big brother isn’t ruining my experience. Perhaps I’m just not a MMO kind of guy, it’s just too time consuming without any real reward for the effort. If they gave me some descent loot drops everyday I’d certainly change my mind pretty quick!

Chris.7653:

Haha I could say the same things about your arguments…

You don’t have any facts on why they are hiring or how well they are doing. You have no idea on their finances either..

What I can speak to is what I see….so go ahead and whiteknight all you want and get good and fired up, I don’t care…you aren’t trying to convince me really, you are trying to convince yourself that every thing is ok…and in doing so you don’t even realize people like you are a true cancer to a game.

Let’s see, there’s hiring announcements on Anet’s home page as well as NCSoft’s quarterly reports, so Vayne has that going for him.

You come back with ad hominems.

So is this how you learned how to make a convincing argument or are you here simply to be a kitten?