Guild Wars 2

This could be viewed as another “OHH NUU THE GAME IS DYING” post, but I’m not posting this our of hate, I respect this game and the fun it has brought me and my guild. I’m posting this because I want the game to grow, and HoT in the long run, did more damage than good. For every new shiny feature added, something else was dismantled and left unattended for months. My opnion I could say holds a little weight as I have been here since the very beginning, even going as far as guild wars 1. So what happened?

Let’s take a small review of some the features that were prevalent in the last two years that have slowly been taken away:

PVP: Build diversity is gone, two years ago I could make my own builds and people would try weird things and have some success with it, diversity was slowly dying before, but HoT introduced elite specs and have shoehorned everyone into taking that traitline. Warrior was flat out unusable for MONTHS, Esports was a disaster with the overpowered bunker meta, yeah that was their foot in the door. No creativity anymore.

WvW: In better shape now, but HoT’s launch killed nearly all the maps except for EB in which everyone was crammed into, some servers just straight up died such as IoJ.

Stronghold: A new game mode and it has been almost completely ignored, there isn’t even a category for it on metabattle because it’s that forgettable.

New choices: A lot of the new amulets and runes that were prevalent in pvp were removed, undeniably some made for too much versatility but it’s also strange that these new choices I was excited about were removed from the game again because they were too strong, making people go back to picking the same amulets and runes as before but with even less choices on traitlines.

Guild Hall: A fun feature, looks great and a hangout but honestly, what motivates guild members to donate their gold to this? Exclusive mini pets? Other than visuals, I don’t see anything the guild hall really offers that is truly unique you couldn’t find out on your own. I know it’s a place for guild unity, but people want to feel like theyre getting something out of it.

These are just a few examples, but something needs to be done to push this game further, an expansion shouldn’t hurt two out of the three game modes.

IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.

WvW: definitely no where close on dying, we are seeing huge queues across most servers on peak hours. WvW is in amazing shape after spring update.

Stronghold: Anet need to increase the reward for it, the main reason people don’t play stronghold is because the time and reward is not up to par and people generally want faster games.

Monk Tank.5897:

IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.

That is not the problem, again this was discussed to the death at HoT launch. Any experienced player can solo HoT area just fine and you can constantly find people around that this is not a big problem at all. The game has many problems plague it but this is not one.

warbignime.4610:

WvW: definitely no where close on dying, we are seeing huge queues across most servers on peak hours. WvW is in amazing shape after spring update.

Stronghold: Anet need to increase the reward for it, the main reason people don’t play stronghold is because the time and reward is not up to par and people generally want faster games.

I can agree this was fixed after the spring update, HoT came out in October, that is a long time to make a game mode playable again.

I don’t think WvW is ‘saved’ by any means yet, activity increased, but it’s dropped after the initial hype and still not many Guilds on the EU side came back, after they quit months after HoT.

warbignime.4610:

WvW: definitely no where close on dying, we are seeing huge queues across most servers on peak hours. WvW is in amazing shape after spring update.

While this is true, it’s because they merged the servers, scaling the system from 8 tiers to 4. While the people that still play WvW have more people to play with, at one time, there were 8 tiers worth of players, and now there is 4 tiers, so there is distinctly less overall players, playing WvW.

warbignime.4610:

WvW: definitely no where close on dying, we are seeing huge queues across most servers on peak hours. WvW is in amazing shape after spring update.

Stronghold: Anet need to increase the reward for it, the main reason people don’t play stronghold is because the time and reward is not up to par and people generally want faster games.

That’s an illusion from merging of servers.

Well, not according to the Devs.

But, no one believes anything the Devs say…just what posters say, of course.

Guild Halls are blatant useless in my opinion, but people were all over them.
The desert map simply was not good in many aspects. Not to say that the alpine map is the solutiuon to the wvw problem, but it is better in the eyes of many players.
anet corrected many points lately.

Agreed op. Guildwars 2 is not in a good state imo, i understand certain groups on the forums here like to pretend its not so which i think is fine for them to stick their heads in the sand and ignore everyone elses views, but it will bite them at a later date.

I also agree the solo (casual) aspect in GW2 is dead, as per the the second poster, small guilds casual and solo customers just have given up now since hot arrived, its not fun anymore and i think Arenanet need to make some over hauls for their future plans asap..

The small hardcore minorities need to understand casual customers make their game work, without them the game will not live on..

It was after much hardwork, my guild reach 100 peak online again on weekend though many player did quit at HOT.

I doubt the game is dying.

The good thing about GW2 is that as long as you have bought GW2 and/or GW2:HoT you won’t have to pay anything to play it again. Just install it and se if it is fun again. Many people will come and go, and as game evolve there will be new good and bad thing. Some people will leave and some people will come back.

I am starting to get realy tired of PvP, this season doesn’t let you play nice matches with your friends who are in different divisions for example.

I always disliked GH system, it is to grindy and I loathe grind. On top of that it is to hard to get your Guild Members to even bother to donate crafting mats for your guild. Some mats require you to craft and a big portion of players havent even picked up a crafting profession and just sells all crafting mats. We are around 150 members and we are like 7 or 8 members (me included) who have atleast donated once to the guild (I do not force people to do it).

I also like Dungeons, and there will be no more dungeons… Instead they aim for Raids that I do not like at all.

Even though all these stuff I hate there are alot of the game I like and I still play it alot, now with the recent changes in WvW I have been going there more now. You can’t like all the game modes but maby there is one that you like atleast.

The hypocrisy of “Not enough diversity”, then going to say but “there’s not even a metabattle guide section”. Pick one ?

The game has problems sure, diversity is one of them. However, what i think most people find the more annoying facet to be is cadence. Season 2 spoiled us greatly in the fact that we had very frequent releases, fixes and changes. Now, we’re doing the new MMO-hype of Quarterly updates. This is likely what’s driving people away, just as it does when people have to wait for expansions.

Sure the systemic issues still reside, but ultimately once those are fixed people will return. See again, the waiting game is whats actually killing the game. The longer issues sit on the table, in development, indefinitely suspended etc… the worse shape the game begins to take on the communities within it.

Dante.1508:

Agreed op. Guildwars 2 is not in a good state imo, i understand certain groups on the forums here like to pretend its not so which i think is fine for them to stick their heads in the sand and ignore everyone elses views, but it will bite them at a later date.

I also agree the solo (casual) aspect in GW2 is dead, as per the the second poster, small guilds casual and solo customers just have given up now since hot arrived, its not fun anymore and i think Arenanet need to make some over hauls for their future plans asap..

The small hardcore minorities need to understand casual customers make their game work, without them the game will not live on..

The hardcore is far from the minority, the game is more challenging, being casual has nothing to do with hot I’m sorry but it really doesn’t. Just because it isn’t instant gratification doesn’t make it hardcore. And I’m pretty sure the majority of players prefer pve over pvp, what you consider Hardcore players play both pvp and pve.

People do pop in and out, which is one thing I like about the game. I left a year ago, just was kinda bored. The other day I was wondering what was new in game. I found HoT hard as heck the first day, but now I think its weird and fun. I love WvW and it seems livelier then before. I like solo play so raids and dungeons arent even something I will bother with probably. There are so many options for play styles and thats a real plus for the game. All in all I am glad I came back.

TexZero.7910:

The hypocrisy of “Not enough diversity”, then going to say but “there’s not even a metabattle guide section”. Pick one ?

The game has problems sure, diversity is one of them. However, what i think most people find the more annoying facet to be is cadence. Season 2 spoiled us greatly in the fact that we had very frequent releases, fixes and changes. Now, we’re doing the new MMO-hype of Quarterly updates. This is likely what’s driving people away, just as it does when people have to wait for expansions.

Sure the systemic issues still reside, but ultimately once those are fixed people will return. See again, the waiting game is whats actually killing the game. The longer issues sit on the table, in development, indefinitely suspended etc… the worse shape the game begins to take on the communities within it.

You have proven my point by associating metabattle with only one working build by making me choose lol. Two years ago I could go on metabattle for 2-3 mesmer builds, condi, meta power shatter and lockdown. Same for warrior. Now people associate metabattle with the only working build of the class they want which is NOT a good thing.

Stronghold has been out since October, this is a new game mode in pvp and should at least have a section of working builds on metabattle, even raids and GvG have their own section on metabattle. Stronghold is so ignored that nobody is playing it competitively, Anet isn’t pushing it, its almost like it doesn’t even exist. Yeah that new game mode that was advertised before release, no competitive play lol

Yeah, I don’t really see what the OP is saying. Just to illustrate one thing:

I don’t actually see how build diversity is LESS if you have more options for traits. From where I sit, you have the same 5 traits you had before AND one more. Not sure if the OP even understands that there are some builds that are still optimal with the core professions.

There is some other things there, but it’s not really worth arguing with people waving the ‘dying game’ banner anymore. if it’s old to you and you’re bored, do us a favour and take a break. I know the OP want’s everyone to chime in and agree with him, just like everyone else wanting reassurance that they are correct with all these things that GW2 is doing wrong and killing the game with.

I mean, LAWL at pointing to metabattle builds as evidence for a lack of diversity and failed game elements … you do know that metabattle builds have zero to do with diversity right? The lack of a section in metabattle for Strongholds could mean any number of things that aren’t related to Strongholds being a failure right?

Obtena.7952:

Yeah, I don’t really see what the OP is saying. Just to illustrate one thing:

I don’t actually see how build diversity is LESS if you have more options for traits. From where I sit, you have the same 5 traits you had before AND one more. Not sure if the OP even understands that there are some builds that are still optimal with the core professions.

There is some other things there, but it’s not really worth arguing with people waving the ‘dying game’ banner anymore. if it’s old to you and you’re bored, do us a favour and take a break. I know the OP want’s everyone to chime in and agree with him, just like everyone else wanting reassurance that they are correct with all these things that GW2 is doing wrong and killing the game with.

I mean, LAWL at pointing to metabattle builds as evidence for a lack of diversity and failed game elements … you do know that metabattle builds have zero to do with diversity right? The lack of a section in metabattle for Strongholds could mean any number of things that aren’t related to Strongholds being a failure right?

Adding an extra traitline sounds great on paper, “Ooohhh I have more options!” Then you take into account that the traitline is not an addition to variety, but superior. Dragonhunter virtues are just straight up superior to core guardian, you get more options, then you find out that the elite spec traitline has good synergy with specific traitlines. So you wanna experiment, try something different, but even considering dropping the elite spec is a flat out downgrade. This is why earning elite specs are more end game in PVE, they’re designed to be STRONG, as in, something you work for to improve yourself.

Run condi warrior without berserker, run marauder guardian without dragonhunter, don’t use bristleback or smokescale, it’s not like they have superior health and overall damage to other pets right?

STIHL.2489:

warbignime.4610:

WvW: definitely no where close on dying, we are seeing huge queues across most servers on peak hours. WvW is in amazing shape after spring update.

While this is true, it’s because they merged the servers, scaling the system from 8 tiers to 4. While the people that still play WvW have more people to play with, at one time, there were 8 tiers worth of players, and now there is 4 tiers, so there is distinctly less overall players, playing WvW.

Not sure how you figure. The bottom tiers haven’t had enough people playing WvW for ages. It seems to me entirely likely that a whole new generation of people, including free to play players, can now avail themselves of something that was just no fun before because there were very few fights.

You’re think it’s like a full server, and another full server. It’s not. It’s a very high server added to a server where almost no one played WvW…and not they can.

So unless you have more information than just server merges mean less people playing, I’d love to know your source.

Several things that didnt help Gw2 at all with HoT’s Inception:

- Raiding: This might have been a thing for GW1 fans and for WoW fans but it has NO place at all in GW2, its clear not that many if any people raid in this game, really, what they need to do is reduce the raid into a 5 man dungeon and just add it as a “new” dungeon instead, aswell as adding future “new” dungeons.

- Group Content: Yes, it is possible to solo SOME aspects of HoT, but some such as skill challenges require legendary levels of extremely talented play, which means skill grinding alts elite specs is going to be hell for a solo player.

- Mastery being Gated behind a Grind: This was a terrible idea, lets just completley add 8 level 80’s worth of grinding to fully gear out an account wide leveling system. Look, the theory is nice, but the practice is terrible, dont ever do this again, its really not healthy for the game.

How to Fix these issues:

- Dungeons Over Raids anyday: 5 man content is more appealing to most than 10, its hard enough to find a dedicated and geared group for a 10 man raid that have the patience to die enough times to kill a boss without being forced to join a dedicated raiding guild and gearing specific to the guild leaders demand. People are casual on this mmo, they want casual content, end of story. Remove raiding entirley, and reduce it to dungeon content, you even “admitted” A-net that only a minority actually raids.

- Solo Content is paramount to the survival of GW2, GW2 was meant to feel like “the” casual mmo, to be a relaxing game, not a game about challenge, it was meant to be something you could play at your own leisure, not be forced into zergs, or groups, to enjoy. Going forwards, zones need less group oriented content and rush hour timers, and more relaxed areas you can just sit down and admire the scenery for hours in.

- Mastery should be something you gain via questing, not via levels: Mastery was a disasterous concept in practice because all it did was add more grind to a game that was already exhausted by grinding, really what you should do is simply give people the mastery after completing various parts of the personal story, allowing them to feel a natural sense of progress and growth as their char evolves in the world of Tyria, it also lets it feel more like an actual reward, as opposed to more random gear.

Personally, the only thing i really love in this game now is raiding, the rest of HoT is pretty kitten ed awful. The mastery system is the biggest heap of crap i’ve ever seen in a game as well.

Some people certainly quit because of HoT but many joined after it, I for one came back after HoT because Pre-Hot GW2 you could just sleep on your keyboard and kill everything, was really boring, now it is really more fun, it has its challenges ( just like GW1 have challenge content ) and still have chill content ( come on you still have all your boring only want to admire scenery for hours maps ), and GW2 is the most profitable game NCSoft so its really doing better not worst after HoT.

warbignime.4610:

Monk Tank.5897:

IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.

That is not the problem, again this was discussed to the death at HoT launch. Any experienced player can solo HoT area just fine and you can constantly find people around that this is not a big problem at all. The game has many problems plague it but this is not one.

Vast majority of players are casual though – they just love running around the MANY big maps in the old world, exploring and discovering and doing random stuff. HoT doesnt offer that, with the old worlds level of ease. It just doesn’t. Making harder content is fine, but it doesn’t cater to the majority.

I was watching teapot time (or whatever its called, with Brazil & Inks, etc) and something Inks said stuck in my brain. He mentioned that his wife plays, and she plays casually, and that HoT was a huge turnoff to her – she just went back to playing core Tyria. My suspicion is, that the bulk of the people playing the game are like her – casual. They just want to log in, roam about adventuring and exploring, with little to no stress. Its not that they are stupid, or idiots or can’t play – they dont want to. HoT offers that demograph little to nothing – maps are harder and confusing, no interest in raids, what maps thier are are gated behind heavy grind and heavy repetition. It really just doesn’t offer that vast, open exploring dynamic like the old world.

HoT is almost everything the old game isn’t in many ways. This is the main problem. They made the original game one way, then did a 90 degree turn. If that’s what ANet wants, and it seems to be as they listened to the crowd that was demanding this, they now have to live with the result – its a massive turnoff to many who liked the old game world. If Living Story 3 bombs I’d be very concerned. Gemstore sales and raids can only paper over the cracks for so long.

warbignime.4610:

Stronghold: Anet need to increase the reward for it, the main reason people don’t play stronghold is because the time and reward is not up to par and people generally want faster games.

Nah, Stronghold matches are really fast. They are more like an Dungeon SpeedRun.

Most people don’t play it because it is PvE. You protected NPCs (Doorbreaker) mainly against NPCs (Guards) so that they can destroy the gates and you can kill an NPC (Lord). Sorry, but that doesn’t feel like PvP.

warbignime.4610:

Monk Tank.5897:

IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.

That is not the problem, again this was discussed to the death at HoT launch. Any experienced player can solo HoT area just fine and you can constantly find people around that this is not a big problem at all. The game has many problems plague it but this is not one.

Well, I appreciate your chutzpah in pronouncing it not a problem, but as long as it is a problem for people it will continue to be a problem. (I know, it’s almost too simple.)

It is a problem for me, a largely solo casual player. It’s similar to the issues we went through with Orr very early in the game. Mob densitity, respawn rate, hard CC, all combined to make play un-fun. They addressed this and my play experience improved. Can I get through the packs of mobs in HoT? Yes. Is it fun? No. I also agree with the poster on the verticality of the maps being a contributing factor. The maps are confusing and not navigable on entry, you have to acquire mastery points to function in the area you are expected to function. When you add the mobs nipping at your heels while you are simply trying to get from point A to point B, it becomes annoying. I have to admit I’m not a platform gamer; that is why I pick MMO’s and ARPG’s.

As to whether all this is a general problem, only Anet is in a position to know really. They have all the data necessary to understand players response to HoT. Hopefully, they will respond in a manner appropriate to that data.

Monk Tank.5897:

IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.

They are the only publisher to put in tiered maps.

It’s incredibly innovative and awesome. First of it’s kind.

Oy- The map. And this is me projecting- So a bit of a rant. Why does everyone want their hand to be held while exploring?

I like not knowing where i am or where i am going. TD was the first map i actually memorized because for once i had to pay attention to where i actually was in the world. It felt so much more immersive.

Now alot of this is because the new Doom has a compass- and i’m salty. But i just don’t understand- why people want to be told where to go, whether it be guided towards certain content, or pushed into certain content.

What’s so wrong about not knowing where your going? Or forming your own goals based on your personal bias instead of having devs push you into streamlined content-

Can i get a flow chart? Can someone break it down.

DrDivine.5378:

Obtena.7952:

Yeah, I don’t really see what the OP is saying. Just to illustrate one thing:

I don’t actually see how build diversity is LESS if you have more options for traits. From where I sit, you have the same 5 traits you had before AND one more. Not sure if the OP even understands that there are some builds that are still optimal with the core professions.

There is some other things there, but it’s not really worth arguing with people waving the ‘dying game’ banner anymore. if it’s old to you and you’re bored, do us a favour and take a break. I know the OP want’s everyone to chime in and agree with him, just like everyone else wanting reassurance that they are correct with all these things that GW2 is doing wrong and killing the game with.

I mean, LAWL at pointing to metabattle builds as evidence for a lack of diversity and failed game elements … you do know that metabattle builds have zero to do with diversity right? The lack of a section in metabattle for Strongholds could mean any number of things that aren’t related to Strongholds being a failure right?

Adding an extra traitline sounds great on paper, “Ooohhh I have more options!” Then you take into account that the traitline is not an addition to variety, but superior. Dragonhunter virtues are just straight up superior to core guardian, you get more options, then you find out that the elite spec traitline has good synergy with specific traitlines. So you wanna experiment, try something different, but even considering dropping the elite spec is a flat out downgrade. This is why earning elite specs are more end game in PVE, they’re designed to be STRONG, as in, something you work for to improve yourself.

Run condi warrior without berserker, run marauder guardian without dragonhunter, don’t use bristleback or smokescale, it’s not like they have superior health and overall damage to other pets right?

Wait a minute … diversity AND optimization have never mixed well in this game, so to claim that’s a result of HoT makes no sense.

make no mistake, you got diversity … unless you want to run optimized builds, which is exactly (or what they claim) they give you on metabattle. Then you get a few … and it’s ALWAYS been that way, before and after HoT.

Vayne.8563:

STIHL.2489:

warbignime.4610:

WvW: definitely no where close on dying, we are seeing huge queues across most servers on peak hours. WvW is in amazing shape after spring update.

While this is true, it’s because they merged the servers, scaling the system from 8 tiers to 4. While the people that still play WvW have more people to play with, at one time, there were 8 tiers worth of players, and now there is 4 tiers, so there is distinctly less overall players, playing WvW.

Not sure how you figure. The bottom tiers haven’t had enough people playing WvW for ages.

Be that as it may, at one time they did which means that there is sufficiently less players playing in lower tier servers today then there were before, that’s one of those self evident things.

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

STIHL.2489:

warbignime.4610:

WvW: definitely no where close on dying, we are seeing huge queues across most servers on peak hours. WvW is in amazing shape after spring update.

While this is true, it’s because they merged the servers, scaling the system from 8 tiers to 4. While the people that still play WvW have more people to play with, at one time, there were 8 tiers worth of players, and now there is 4 tiers, so there is distinctly less overall players, playing WvW.

Not sure how you figure. The bottom tiers haven’t had enough people playing WvW for ages.

Be that as it may, at one time they did which means that there is sufficiently less players playing in lower tier servers today then there were before, that’s one of those self evident things.

Actually I’m not sure how true that was. Because in the early days, server transfers were free. The problem exists because one server was number 1 and everyone who was serious about WvW tried to get into one of the top tier servers. That problem has existed pretty much since launch due to the free transfers back then.

After the first couple of months, the problem existed. Are you saying 3.5 years ago with the big launch there were more people playing at one time. Sure there were.

But then it’s normal to lose people over time as new games come out and the migrating masses move on. But I don’t think the population of WvW is signficantly less than it was back then, and certain compared to the last couple of years, it’s probably over all better now.

Vayne.8563:

After the first couple of months, the problem existed. Are you saying 3.5 years ago with the big launch there were more people playing at one time. Sure there were.

But then it’s normal to lose people over time as new games come out and the migrating masses move on.

While it true that games often have a spike and a drop at launch, but for a game to remain profitable, they need to continually grow their numbers, which means there should be more people playing today there there were 3 years ago, or even last year.

It’s actually very bad for the game if there were more players playing 3.5 years ago then there are today, that means the game is in declined. Which is.. well that means literally ‘the game is dying’ and while there is turnover, which gets people to claim the game is dying, in truth, what happens is while some people leave, more people join, so the population grows.

That is why some older guilds can feel vacant, and other guilds are bursting at the seams.

As such there should not be less people playing WvW today then there were 3.5 years ago, there should be more, which means there should have been no need for a merger.. yet there was.

Now that can be caused by two factors. The first being, there are in fact less people playing the game, or there are just less people playing WvW.

Given the numbers by NCsoft about GW2’s Earnings, which looked real good, it’s a safe bet that that there are just less people playing WvW, but more people playing the actual game.

I don’t think one could expect more people playing 3 1/2 years after launch, as there were at launch. Sure, there are new people all the time, but nothing brings in purchases like a bright and shiny new game. Especially one that was talked about for 5 years before launch.

If there were more people playing now than the, what was it?, 2 million that initially purchased, one would think there would have been more Heart of Thorns purchases.

Regardless, it seems, even with less players than at launch, the game is doing well enough.

Edit: Here are a Dev statement about WvW population:

We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands.

You can peruse the full statement via the link below.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Additional-World-Linking-Information

Good luck.

To be honest, I do think HoT has become stale. As someone who had been playing GW2 for three years +, I’ve come to a point where I find myself no longer wanting to play it anymore. I think what kept me going for so long was my friends playing with me and the sense of community, but even they’ve stopped playing, so that feeling has greatly diminished.

I think if one were to point out some of the issues that have lead to this loss of interest, it would quickly become obvious. The first main issue is that HoT really just didn’t add enough new end game content to keep the game interesting. In fact, it did quite the opposite, it ended up invalidating some of the end game content like dungeons by nerfing rewards and trying to force a focus on Raids.

The second issue is Raids themselves. They have a very narrow target base as far as players are concerned. Not everyone wants super difficult, hardcore content, and while I myself have no issue doing difficult content, the inaccessibility of Raids for a majority of players and the subsequent difficulty of finding groups simply makes it too frustrating to bother with. Couple that with the complete lack of new dungeons and fractals, and it leads to a situation where the end game in HoT really feels bare bones at best.

Lastly, my main issue is there severe lack of new content that has come out since the release of HoT. We’ve been promised a lot of things, but very few of them have been delivered on. Where’s living story Season 3? Where’s all the new legendary weapons we were meant to get (we’ve only gotten 3 weapons over the course of six months)? Where’s the legendary armor that we were meant to get when Raids were introduced? Where are the new Fractals? It’s been about six months since HoT launched and we still haven’t been given a lot of the stuff we were told we were going to get pre-launch. Instead, all we’ve gotten is rehashes of old events that we’ve already done before and the odd new gem store outfit/wings or Black Lion weapon set.

The current pace for new content is abysmal. There is no other way to put it. ANet is really going to have to up the tempo if they want players like myself to come back and reinvest any reasonable amount of time or interest in GW2. It’s really sad because I feel like I spent more money than I should have buying the Deluxe edition for the expansion, and the return on investment has been very inadequate.

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

After the first couple of months, the problem existed. Are you saying 3.5 years ago with the big launch there were more people playing at one time. Sure there were.

But then it’s normal to lose people over time as new games come out and the migrating masses move on.

While it true that games often have a spike and a drop at launch, but for a game to remain profitable, they need to continually grow their numbers, which means there should be more people playing today there there were 3 years ago, or even last year.

It’s actually very bad for the game if there were more players playing 3.5 years ago then there are today, that means the game is in declined. Which is.. well that means literally ‘the game is dying’ and while there is turnover, which gets people to claim the game is dying, in truth, what happens is while some people leave, more people join, so the population grows.

That is why some older guilds can feel vacant, and other guilds are bursting at the seams.

As such there should not be less people playing WvW today then there were 3.5 years ago, there should be more, which means there should have been no need for a merger.. yet there was.

Now that can be caused by two factors. The first being, there are in fact less people playing the game, or there are just less people playing WvW.

Given the numbers by NCsoft about GW2’s Earnings, which looked real good, it’s a safe bet that that there are just less people playing WvW, but more people playing the actual game.

What you’re saying here is patently untrue. I mean demonstrably untrue. You have outliers like WoW, who are the exception to almost every rule. I can’t think of very many MMOs, hardly any, that have more people playing three years after launch. It’s not only true of MMOs, but games in general and almost all entertainment and this is something I know well and intimately from business experience.

The most any form of entertainment will generally sell is in the first 30 days of it’s existence. That’s when the press is there. That’s when the launch is. That’s the big money influx. That’s the business. You work for five years to produce an MMO, you hope the launch pays for it, and then you hope to make profit moving forward. You don’t expect it to grow, because I can’t list five western MMOs that have grown after three years. Runescape and WoW maybe from the old old days which were far less competitive Eve Online. That’s about all I can think of. Everyone else went downhill fast. And they’re mostly still viable.

I mean you have Final Fantasy XIV which had a dreadful launch and managed to rebuild. You have SWToR and TSW who laid off stuff and when free to play. ESO isn’t a growing market. I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from but you might want to check some sources.

Most MMOs, the vast majority, exist off a group of loyal die hard fans and a few new players here and there to offset natural attrition. That’s how the industry works and how it’s almost always worked.

Again, exceptions are there, but they’re few and far between.

DrDivine.5378:

This could be viewed as another “OHH NUU THE GAME IS DYING” post

I’m actually confused because what does your guild quitting have to do with this post?
Having said that what does HoT have to do with most of this post?
The only HoT thing I saw was guild halls and if you don’t get what they are, join a large guild and see for yourself.

Dahmerkitten.1385:

Oy- The map. And this is me projecting- So a bit of a rant. Why does everyone want their hand to be held while exploring?

I like not knowing where i am or where i am going. TD was the first map i actually memorized because for once i had to pay attention to where i actually was in the world. It felt so much more immersive.

Now alot of this is because the new Doom has a compass- and i’m salty. But i just don’t understand- why people want to be told where to go, whether it be guided towards certain content, or pushed into certain content.

What’s so wrong about not knowing where your going? Or forming your own goals based on your personal bias instead of having devs push you into streamlined content-

Can i get a flow chart? Can someone break it down.

I still play daily, and still look forward to the weekly guild missions with my guild, but I have been a lot less enthusiastic about GW2 since the second half of LS2, and I think the reason why will provide my answer to your question.

I started GW2 as something of a completionist. I had to try everything. I did all the LS events. About the time of the Crown Pavilion, I started running into events I couldn’t do, like the higher bosses in the Pavilion, and I was fine with that, because I didn’t feel as tied to those as I did the big story events. Then came the Silverwastes and the latter half of LS2…

I love the massive jumping puzzle in the Silverwastes. It’s fun to explore even without an intention to complete the JP. Yet, every time I do so, I’m constantly nagged about the events I’m not doing to progress the meta-event. Exploring the zone, knowing that by doing so I’m not helping the other players, is frustrating. And the meta-event is frustrating, so I don’t like doing that either. I don’t like fighting the same bosses over and over and over, hoping that I and everyone around me is doing the right thing, because if we fail, it’s a waste, and if we succeed I still will likely not get the rewards I need for the collection. Yet, still, had that been it, the completionist in me would have braved farming the events for the armor…

What made the whole situation intolerably worse was the end of LS2. See, I can’t get the nice armor with just farming the map. I also have to do all the LS2 achievements. I tried, for a while. But being stuck playing as another character with a different and somewhat useless set of skills, stuck doing a poorly implemented stealth mini-game and with another achievement that’s (for one of mediocre skill like me) essentially luck based (Dodgy Crowd) was too much.

Had it been one requirement, I could have handled it. I could have just farmed Silverwaste breaches or just begged someone to do the LS2 achievements I was missing, but I’m not wasting my time on both, because I can spend all my time doing one and still not get the reward because the other is still blocked. (Same issue with the Wintersday events. I failed the JP due to lag far more often than I failed due to bad jumps. It was not worth it for me to keep pushing through the JP for a completion because I still needed to farm the consumables, and it wasn’t worth it to farm the consumables without getting through the JP.)

Then HoT arrived. Every map was the Silverwastes all over again, with extra annoying enemies so you had to stick to the people doing the meta event to get anywhere, and the rewards are all tied to the events anyways so there was no reason to do anything else, and you’re tied to the map for the duration of the event if you want anything. And while there are promises of interesting spots to find, they’re all hidden by masteries tied to exploration (a case of hiding the key behind the locked door) or by doing the stupid Personal Story over and over again in hopes of getting the achievements.

The HoT meta-events and swarms of annoying enemies and lack of usable respawn points and mastery-gated areas are designed to push you into what the developers want to do. I enjoyed maps I could explore. I love finding off-beat places and out of the way sites. I can’t really do that in HoT. I’ve discovered what I want to do: Guild Missions with the friends I’ve made in the game, then play something else.

Monk Tank.5897:

IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.

I don’t see it. I’m primarily a solo open-world player and I love the vertical maps. There’s nothing wrong with these maps that can’t be solved by taking your time exploring them. Perhaps you lack the patience for that, but don’t assume that this is a “solo player” issue with HoT.

I also spend a lot of time helping other players who express frustration with these maps. For instance, just yesterday someone was complaining in map chat that they couldn’t get anywhere in TD. It turns out they were new and decided to try and explore TD with hardly any masteries unlocked. They didn’t even have updrafts unlocked yet!

No problem. I know my way around TD well enough that I can find alternative routes to many of the waypoints and other objectives. After a couple of hours of running around TD with me, this guy who was literally complaining that he wished he was back in “Queensdale” before I teamed up with him, was instead praising TD map design.

I’m not suggesting that this style of map is for everyone, but clearly it can be appreciated even by a player who started out wishing he was back in Queensdale. You just need to understand that it is intended that these maps be difficult to navigate initially and also that the maps are intended to be completed in sequence, allowing players to unlock the masteries they need to explore deeper into the jungle.

If, like the player I helped yesterday, you expect to be able to fully explore the jungle as you would a map like Queensdale, of course you’re going to be frustrated. It simply wasn’t the design intent for these maps.

So, if you don’t like maps like TD and VB, I understand. But it isn’t a solo player issue. I’m a solo player and I spend nearly all of my time in TD or VB. I just enjoy these maps more than any others in this game. I hope they’ll provide more like them in the future, but I also hope they’ll provide maps for players who don’t enjoy exploring these types of maps. Do try to give them a chance though. If you can start to get your bearings, I think TD is the most enjoyable map anywhere in the game!

MashMash.1645:

warbignime.4610:

Monk Tank.5897:

IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.

That is not the problem, again this was discussed to the death at HoT launch. Any experienced player can solo HoT area just fine and you can constantly find people around that this is not a big problem at all. The game has many problems plague it but this is not one.

Vast majority of players are casual though – they just love running around the MANY big maps in the old world, exploring and discovering and doing random stuff. HoT doesnt offer that, with the old worlds level of ease. It just doesn’t. Making harder content is fine, but it doesn’t cater to the majority.

I was watching teapot time (or whatever its called, with Brazil & Inks, etc) and something Inks said stuck in my brain. He mentioned that his wife plays, and she plays casually, and that HoT was a huge turnoff to her – she just went back to playing core Tyria. My suspicion is, that the bulk of the people playing the game are like her – casual. They just want to log in, roam about adventuring and exploring, with little to no stress. Its not that they are stupid, or idiots or can’t play – they dont want to. HoT offers that demograph little to nothing – maps are harder and confusing, no interest in raids, what maps thier are are gated behind heavy grind and heavy repetition. It really just doesn’t offer that vast, open exploring dynamic like the old world.

HoT is almost everything the old game isn’t in many ways. This is the main problem. They made the original game one way, then did a 90 degree turn. If that’s what ANet wants, and it seems to be as they listened to the crowd that was demanding this, they now have to live with the result – its a massive turnoff to many who liked the old game world. If Living Story 3 bombs I’d be very concerned. Gemstore sales and raids can only paper over the cracks for so long.

This, and one step further.

Many of these types of players are playing for the social aspect. This is not one of my gaming needs, but it is for so many others. They don’t log in to play content that requires constant focus for the duration of their game time. Instead they want to be able to chat away with friends and guildies while doing content that requires much less concentration for the most part.

These people don’t mind challenging content if they can avoid it or take in smaller doses. If the whole map is made up of challenging content, these folks avoid it entirely unless there is a real need for them to complete it. It isn’t fun for them, it is a chore, and they are very vocal about that as we see frequently on the forums.

GW2 attracted these players for about 3 years. HoT has pushed them into a corner, albeit a large corner known as central Tyria, but a corner none the less.

Personally I don’t mind the HoT maps. I just don’t like meta content gating my progress. I prefer to explore maps in my own way and at my own pace. I don’t want to do it on timers and via large group content. I believe that this is what instance maps in MMOs are for; people that want challenging content without affecting the rest of the map.

We have no idea what peoples demographics are or why they are playing.
Anet has the metrics so claiming HoT is doing it wrong for anyone is just projection.

Raine.1394:

warbignime.4610:

Monk Tank.5897:

IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.

That is not the problem, again this was discussed to the death at HoT launch. Any experienced player can solo HoT area just fine and you can constantly find people around that this is not a big problem at all. The game has many problems plague it but this is not one.

Well, I appreciate your chutzpah in pronouncing it not a problem, but as long as it is a problem for people it will continue to be a problem. (I know, it’s almost too simple.)

It is a problem for me, a largely solo casual player. It’s similar to the issues we went through with Orr very early in the game. Mob densitity, respawn rate, hard CC, all combined to make play un-fun. They addressed this and my play experience improved. Can I get through the packs of mobs in HoT? Yes. Is it fun? No. I also agree with the poster on the verticality of the maps being a contributing factor. The maps are confusing and not navigable on entry, you have to acquire mastery points to function in the area you are expected to function. When you add the mobs nipping at your heels while you are simply trying to get from point A to point B, it becomes annoying. I have to admit I’m not a platform gamer; that is why I pick MMO’s and ARPG’s.

As to whether all this is a general problem, only Anet is in a position to know really. They have all the data necessary to understand players response to HoT. Hopefully, they will respond in a manner appropriate to that data.

+1 for using a word I don’t know O_O chutzpah O_O

Vayne.8563:

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

After the first couple of months, the problem existed. Are you saying 3.5 years ago with the big launch there were more people playing at one time. Sure there were.

But then it’s normal to lose people over time as new games come out and the migrating masses move on.

While it true that games often have a spike and a drop at launch, but for a game to remain profitable, they need to continually grow their numbers, which means there should be more people playing today there there were 3 years ago, or even last year.

It’s actually very bad for the game if there were more players playing 3.5 years ago then there are today, that means the game is in declined. Which is.. well that means literally ‘the game is dying’ and while there is turnover, which gets people to claim the game is dying, in truth, what happens is while some people leave, more people join, so the population grows.

That is why some older guilds can feel vacant, and other guilds are bursting at the seams.

As such there should not be less people playing WvW today then there were 3.5 years ago, there should be more, which means there should have been no need for a merger.. yet there was.

Now that can be caused by two factors. The first being, there are in fact less people playing the game, or there are just less people playing WvW.

Given the numbers by NCsoft about GW2’s Earnings, which looked real good, it’s a safe bet that that there are just less people playing WvW, but more people playing the actual game.

What you’re saying here is patently untrue. I mean demonstrably untrue. You have outliers like WoW, who are the exception to almost every rule. I can’t think of very many MMOs, hardly any, that have more people playing three years after launch. It’s not only true of MMOs, but games in general and almost all entertainment and this is something I know well and intimately from business experience.

The most any form of entertainment will generally sell is in the first 30 days of it’s existence. That’s when the press is there. That’s when the launch is. That’s the big money influx. That’s the business. You work for five years to produce an MMO, you hope the launch pays for it, and then you hope to make profit moving forward. You don’t expect it to grow, because I can’t list five western MMOs that have grown after three years. Runescape and WoW maybe from the old old days which were far less competitive Eve Online. That’s about all I can think of. Everyone else went downhill fast. And they’re mostly still viable.

I mean you have Final Fantasy XIV which had a dreadful launch and managed to rebuild. You have SWToR and TSW who laid off stuff and when free to play. ESO isn’t a growing market. I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from but you might want to check some sources.

Most MMOs, the vast majority, exist off a group of loyal die hard fans and a few new players here and there to offset natural attrition. That’s how the industry works and how it’s almost always worked.

Again, exceptions are there, but they’re few and far between.

I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. If you did any study into the old successful MMO’s, you would have found it very easy to find 5 MMO’s that were rocking more people years later then at launch, all you had to do was look at all the widely successful ones.

Case in point, Everquest, their best year was in 2005, that was 6 years after launch, they had near 5 times the amount of subs then they did in their first year.

Just to List a Few:

• World of Warcraft
• Runescape
• Everquest
• EvE
• Ulitima Online
• Second Life
• Lord of the Rings Online
• Dungeons and Dragons Online
• Tibia
• Final Fantasy XI
• Lineage
• Starwars Galaxies

All of these games had more subs years after launch then they did at their start.

It was easy back in the day to chart MMO’s as they were mostly Sub Based, so, simply seeing their sub numbers was enough to see their growth. In today’s F2P, or in the case if GW2, B2P, it’s much harder to get absolute numbers of players.

But, think about this. Anet sold 2 Million copies at lunch in 2012, by 2015, (3 years) they sold 5 million copies. So they were selling around a million copies a year, since launch. They Mentioned that they reach 7 million Accounts when they went F2P with HoT. So that was another 2 Million account Jump, in 2016. That right there is more active accounts then they had at launch, because that was a 2 Million Jump in Accounts, along with all the existing players.

So, I have no idea where you subscribe for your insider gamer info, but, it’s simply not true for MMO’s. I would believe that Console Games are like that, since they are selling a completed game, movies, and other instant entertainment sources, sure, but MMO’s are built around longer term customer investment.

MMO’s, are like a TV series. The better they, the more people they attract over time.

I was a late comer to GW2, starting a month or so before the release of HoT. While I certainly don’t love spending all of my time in the new HoT zones, I can see their appeal and I do feel they add a bit more variety to the game. Rather than armchair dev what they did wrong I would rather instead focus on what I would like to see moving forward.

In the next expansion, I am hoping we see more of a return to the core tyria style maps, I prefer to amble along at my own pace and choosing my route through the game is one of my most enjoyed aspects to the game. At this point I have gone through most zones enough that the shine is wearing off so it would be nice to have some fresh content to round that out. I feel like the HoT meta events work well for the theme of the expansion, but I would like to start seeing my map fill out with more zones to explore and more JPs to complete.

I would also like to see more world bosses get updated as the Shatterer has so that going back to those events feels rewarding again.

WvW is exciting thanks to the reward track addition, and the server linking but is far from perfect.

PvP does feel stale as far as builds are concerned but I’m not sure there is much to be done there really, the more builds that are viable means more to balance for which puts this mode at risk of not feeling as rewarding as it can be. It definitely could do with some new maps though, perhaps with more environmental events to add some spice.

While I think GHs are a bit too grindy (especially for smaller guilds) They do serve a purpose, but those purposes aren’t being spoonfed to anyone. The decoration system needs a severe reworking, but the core elements are working well and having a slew of boosts to apply is certainly exciting and provides some meaningful progression.

To sum up my thoughts, I would disagree that this game is in any major state of panic but there is always room for improvement. I at least feel like the devs are listening and doing what they can which is more than I can say for games I’ve played in the past.

Monk Tank.5897:

IMO : Anet tried to destroy the solo (casual) player but it backfired on them and everyone walked away. You can’t please everyone all the time but you can’t design your game for only one playstyle and expect everyone to like it.
Vertical maps seem like they have a lot of depth, but create unneeded confusion and frustration. To push this game further Anet needs to put the Fun back into the game.

But hey .. for that they now have got billions of new raiders i guess .. so the game
will no be even more successful than Wildstar ..

Personally i’m still happy in MH .. and there now even all raid items are craftable
but we know ANet does always the reverse of most other games .. so when raids
were popular they went without .. no where more an more brains get it that
raids are stuff fro a small minoroty they invent them.

The same how they invented the fractals stuff when Lotro finally removed “Strahlen”
(sorry forgot the english word for it)

chefdiablo.6791

Many of these types of players are playing for the social aspect. This is not one of my gaming needs, but it is for so many others. They don’t log in to play content that requires constant focus for the duration of their game time. Instead they want to be able to chat away with friends and guildies while doing content that requires much less concentration for the most part.

These people don’t mind challenging content if they can avoid it or take in smaller doses. If the whole map is made up of challenging content, these folks avoid it entirely unless there is a real need for them to complete it. It isn’t fun for them, it is a chore, and they are very vocal about that as we see frequently on the forums.

GW2 attracted these players for about 3 years. HoT has pushed them into a corner, albeit a large corner known as central Tyria, but a corner none the less.

I was watching teapot time (or whatever its called, with Brazil & Inks, etc) and something Inks said stuck in my brain. He mentioned that his wife plays, and she plays casually, and that HoT was a huge turnoff to her – she just went back to playing core Tyria. My suspicion is, that the bulk of the people playing the game are like her – casual. They just want to log in, roam about adventuring and exploring, with little to no stress. Its not that they are stupid, or idiots or can’t play – they dont want to. HoT offers that demograph little to nothing – maps are harder and confusing, no interest in raids, what maps thier are are gated behind heavy grind and heavy repetition. It really just doesn’t offer that vast, open exploring dynamic like the old world.

This.. this is so completely different from my gaming needs. So we’re basically saying there’s a demographic of players which login to socialize while autoattacking worldbosses and doing event trains (more autoattack) and chest farm is the most amount of effort they want to do, because these things are a chore to me and I couldn’t stand more than 2 hours of FGS train this week just because it was so horribly repetitive I don’t think I will do it again for a few months no matter how profitable it might be.

Since I started doing HoT, it has become the only interesting pve content I can play besides dungeons and fractals (and even in HoT, I prefer to split out from large groups and solo defend camps during night in VB). I literally quit the game 3 years ago on release because the first class I picked (Guardian) was so mind numbingly boring I couldn’t stand playing it anymore. When I returned I discovered mesmer and elementalist and finally there was at least some interesting things you could do with them which are a bit more mechanically complex and fun to use.

I’m glad they did more “challenging” content, it brought me back to the game at least, I am really enjoying the new HoT maps, revised fractals and fixed dungeon rewards. I don’t come to socialize and autoattack, but to play something creatively.

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

After the first couple of months, the problem existed. Are you saying 3.5 years ago with the big launch there were more people playing at one time. Sure there were.

But then it’s normal to lose people over time as new games come out and the migrating masses move on.

While it true that games often have a spike and a drop at launch, but for a game to remain profitable, they need to continually grow their numbers, which means there should be more people playing today there there were 3 years ago, or even last year.

It’s actually very bad for the game if there were more players playing 3.5 years ago then there are today, that means the game is in declined. Which is.. well that means literally ‘the game is dying’ and while there is turnover, which gets people to claim the game is dying, in truth, what happens is while some people leave, more people join, so the population grows.

That is why some older guilds can feel vacant, and other guilds are bursting at the seams.

As such there should not be less people playing WvW today then there were 3.5 years ago, there should be more, which means there should have been no need for a merger.. yet there was.

Now that can be caused by two factors. The first being, there are in fact less people playing the game, or there are just less people playing WvW.

Given the numbers by NCsoft about GW2’s Earnings, which looked real good, it’s a safe bet that that there are just less people playing WvW, but more people playing the actual game.

What you’re saying here is patently untrue. I mean demonstrably untrue. You have outliers like WoW, who are the exception to almost every rule. I can’t think of very many MMOs, hardly any, that have more people playing three years after launch. It’s not only true of MMOs, but games in general and almost all entertainment and this is something I know well and intimately from business experience.

The most any form of entertainment will generally sell is in the first 30 days of it’s existence. That’s when the press is there. That’s when the launch is. That’s the big money influx. That’s the business. You work for five years to produce an MMO, you hope the launch pays for it, and then you hope to make profit moving forward. You don’t expect it to grow, because I can’t list five western MMOs that have grown after three years. Runescape and WoW maybe from the old old days which were far less competitive Eve Online. That’s about all I can think of. Everyone else went downhill fast. And they’re mostly still viable.

I mean you have Final Fantasy XIV which had a dreadful launch and managed to rebuild. You have SWToR and TSW who laid off stuff and when free to play. ESO isn’t a growing market. I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from but you might want to check some sources.

Most MMOs, the vast majority, exist off a group of loyal die hard fans and a few new players here and there to offset natural attrition. That’s how the industry works and how it’s almost always worked.

Again, exceptions are there, but they’re few and far between.

I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. If you did any study into the old successful MMO’s, you would have found it very easy to find 5 MMO’s that were rocking more people years later then at launch, all you had to do was look at all the widely successful ones.

Case in point, Everquest, their best year was in 2005, that was 6 years after launch, they had near 5 times the amount of subs then they did in their first year.

Just to List a Few:

• World of Warcraft
• Runescape
• Everquest
• EvE
• Ulitima Online
• Second Life
• Lord of the Rings Online
• Dungeons and Dragons Online
• Tibia
• Final Fantasy XI
• Lineage
• Starwars Galaxies

All of these games had more subs years after launch then they did at their start.

It was easy back in the day to chart MMO’s as they were mostly Sub Based, so, simply seeing their sub numbers was enough to see their growth. In today’s F2P, or in the case if GW2, B2P, it’s much harder to get absolute numbers of players.

But, think about this. Anet sold 2 Million copies at lunch in 2012, by 2015, (3 years) they sold 5 million copies. So they were selling around a million copies a year, since launch. They Mentioned that they reach 7 million Accounts when they went F2P with HoT. So that was another 2 Million account Jump, in 2016. That right there is more active accounts then they had at launch, because that was a 2 Million Jump in Accounts, along with all the existing players.

So, I have no idea where you subscribe for your insider gamer info, but, it’s simply not true for MMO’s. I would believe that Console Games are like that, since they are selling a completed game, movies, and other instant entertainment sources, sure, but MMO’s are built around longer term customer investment.

MMO’s, are like a TV series. The better they, the more people they attract over time.

First of all we’re talking about MMORPGs. Counting Second Life is completely silly for example. It’s a virtual world. It’s not even a game. Putting that down as an MMO RPG does a complete disservice to your entire argument. I also said western MMOs. Lineage didn’t do well three years after launch it failed here. Different markets always have different rules. Are you suggesting that Lineage as a western MMO was stronger 3 years after it launched here? Because it went out of business.

If you want to talk about asian MMOs, you can do that, but Anet is not an Asian company, and though it launched in China, it’s a western MMO, competing with other Western MMOs. I listed Eve and Runescape and WoW.

Do you notice how as we get further and further from ten years ago less and less MMOs make more profit? Because 10 years ago there was a lot less competition everything, was sub and there were no free to play MMORPGs.

Today’s climate is very very different, and these modern MMOs can’t play by the same rules.

SWToR can’t. ESO can’t. Archeage can’t. Rift couldn’t. TSW couldn’t. Guild Wars 2 couldn’t.

You can’t grow a business in this ecomony.

Even if you found 15 MMOs to use as an example, considering there are hundreds of MMOs they’re STILL outliers.

Considering you have to go back ten years for most examples, in an environment that changes quarterly, it the validity of what I’m saying.

Edit: Just to clarify you’re trying to make it a point that GW 2 is not growing. The market isn’t growing. The market is more divided and no one is growing. WOW isn’t growing it’s losing subs. They stopped reporting them. Eve isn’t growing.

As more and more people move from computer games to consoles, less and less people are around to play MMOs and there are more MMOs out there.

Pointing out this game isn’t growing doesn’t really say anything about the game’s relative success.

The MMORPG market has been dying for years for EVERY game, case and point. Even blizzard, as successful as they are, admitted their legendary project titan had to be cancelled after 7 YEARS of development because they believed it would fail in today’s market. Everquest Next, also cancelled, because the veteran devs believed the same idea. When a top company of PC games has to cancel their gem in the works, you know it isn’t the game, but the market itself. MOBAs and quick action games have been literally dominating the market. Guild wars 2 isn’t going to die, but no MMORPG is going to thrive like in the past in this market.

I think everyone should be grateful Arenanet still attempts to strive in such a dangerous investment, in my opinion at least, because in 10 years I don’t think MMORPGs will have a place in gaming.

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After the first couple of months, the problem existed. Are you saying 3.5 years ago with the big launch there were more people playing at one time. Sure there were.

But then it’s normal to lose people over time as new games come out and the migrating masses move on.

While it true that games often have a spike and a drop at launch, but for a game to remain profitable, they need to continually grow their numbers, which means there should be more people playing today there there were 3 years ago, or even last year.

It’s actually very bad for the game if there were more players playing 3.5 years ago then there are today, that means the game is in declined. Which is.. well that means literally ‘the game is dying’ and while there is turnover, which gets people to claim the game is dying, in truth, what happens is while some people leave, more people join, so the population grows.

That is why some older guilds can feel vacant, and other guilds are bursting at the seams.

As such there should not be less people playing WvW today then there were 3.5 years ago, there should be more, which means there should have been no need for a merger.. yet there was.

Now that can be caused by two factors. The first being, there are in fact less people playing the game, or there are just less people playing WvW.

Given the numbers by NCsoft about GW2’s Earnings, which looked real good, it’s a safe bet that that there are just less people playing WvW, but more people playing the actual game.

What you’re saying here is patently untrue. I mean demonstrably untrue. You have outliers like WoW, who are the exception to almost every rule. I can’t think of very many MMOs, hardly any, that have more people playing three years after launch. It’s not only true of MMOs, but games in general and almost all entertainment and this is something I know well and intimately from business experience.

The most any form of entertainment will generally sell is in the first 30 days of it’s existence. That’s when the press is there. That’s when the launch is. That’s the big money influx. That’s the business. You work for five years to produce an MMO, you hope the launch pays for it, and then you hope to make profit moving forward. You don’t expect it to grow, because I can’t list five western MMOs that have grown after three years. Runescape and WoW maybe from the old old days which were far less competitive Eve Online. That’s about all I can think of. Everyone else went downhill fast. And they’re mostly still viable.

I mean you have Final Fantasy XIV which had a dreadful launch and managed to rebuild. You have SWToR and TSW who laid off stuff and when free to play. ESO isn’t a growing market. I’m not sure where you’re getting your information from but you might want to check some sources.

Most MMOs, the vast majority, exist off a group of loyal die hard fans and a few new players here and there to offset natural attrition. That’s how the industry works and how it’s almost always worked.

Again, exceptions are there, but they’re few and far between.

I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. If you did any study into the old successful MMO’s, you would have found it very easy to find 5 MMO’s that were rocking more people years later then at launch, all you had to do was look at all the widely successful ones.

Case in point, Everquest, their best year was in 2005, that was 6 years after launch, they had near 5 times the amount of subs then they did in their first year.

Just to List a Few:

• World of Warcraft
• Runescape
• Everquest
• EvE
• Ulitima Online
• Second Life
• Lord of the Rings Online
• Dungeons and Dragons Online
• Tibia
• Final Fantasy XI
• Lineage
• Starwars Galaxies

All of these games had more subs years after launch then they did at their start.

It was easy back in the day to chart MMO’s as they were mostly Sub Based, so, simply seeing their sub numbers was enough to see their growth. In today’s F2P, or in the case if GW2, B2P, it’s much harder to get absolute numbers of players.

But, think about this. Anet sold 2 Million copies at lunch in 2012, by 2015, (3 years) they sold 5 million copies. So they were selling around a million copies a year, since launch. They Mentioned that they reach 7 million Accounts when they went F2P with HoT. So that was another 2 Million account Jump, in 2016. That right there is more active accounts then they had at launch, because that was a 2 Million Jump in Accounts, along with all the existing players.

So, I have no idea where you subscribe for your insider gamer info, but, it’s simply not true for MMO’s. I would believe that Console Games are like that, since they are selling a completed game, movies, and other instant entertainment sources, sure, but MMO’s are built around longer term customer investment.

MMO’s, are like a TV series. The better they, the more people they attract over time.

First of all we’re talking about MMORPGs. Counting Second Life is completely silly for example. It’s a virtual world. It’s not even a game. Putting that down as an MMO RPG does a complete disservice to your entire argument. I also said western MMOs. Lineage didn’t do well three years after launch it failed here. Different markets always have different rules. Are you suggesting that Lineage as a western MMO was stronger 3 years after it launched here? Because it went out of business.

If you want to talk about asian MMOs, you can do that, but Anet is not an Asian company, and though it launched in China, it’s a western MMO, competing with other Western MMOs. I listed Eve and Runescape and WoW.

Do you notice how as we get further and further from ten years ago less and less MMOs make more profit? Because 10 years ago there was a lot less competition everything, was sub and there were no free to play MMORPGs.

Today’s climate is very very different, and these modern MMOs can’t play by the same rules.

SWToR can’t. ESO can’t. Archeage can’t. Rift couldn’t. TSW couldn’t. Guild Wars 2 couldn’t.

You can’t grow a business in this ecomony.

Even if you found 15 MMOs to use as an example, considering there are hundreds of MMOs they’re STILL outliers.

Considering you have to go back ten years for most examples, in an environment that changes quarterly, it the validity of what I’m saying.

Edit: Just to clarify you’re trying to make it a point that GW 2 is not growing. The market isn’t growing. The market is more divided and no one is growing. WOW isn’t growing it’s losing subs. They stopped reporting them. Eve isn’t growing.

As more and more people move from computer games to consoles, less and less people are around to play MMOs and there are more MMOs out there.

Pointing out this game isn’t growing doesn’t really say anything about the game’s relative success.

I’ve already addresses all your points before you made them.

But to Recap.

• Second Life is an MMORPG, in the purest sense, as it’s a massive multiplayer online game where you role play, but, I listed it, mainly because it is very well known. The same reason why I listed Runescape.

• I already explained that in the F2P market it’s near impossible to get hard numbers, that is why I used Sub Based Games.

Also, Major Point : That list was not the all the MMO’s that grew.

For example, I did not mention Ashron’s Call, Star Trek Online, Planetside, or Dark ages of Camelot, Because while they all did see growth or at the very least, maintained their subscription base for years after launch, I didn’t feel the need to just spam a bunch of names just to pad my list.

I also did not mention City Of Hero’s, which while they did maintain and even grew a bit after launch, in the end, I figured you would make a fuss that they closed doors.

You asked for 5, and I gave you far, far, more then 5, and I just now, gave you 5 more on top of my original list.

It seems, you’re opinion of “outliner” is anything that does not agree with you. And as I said, all you need to do, is look at the “Successful MMO’s”

So I’ll say it again. unlike Console games, which sell at launch and then trickle off into obscurity very quickly, much in the same vein as a Movie, an MMO’s is like a TV show, the good ones Grow Over the Years. There is no shortage of flash in the Pan MMO’s, just like there is no shortage of Bad TV shows, or perhaps, MMO’s believe the tripe you are saying that they are supposed to be flash int he pan with no longevity to them.

Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to successful MMO’s.

You do realize there is a big difference between MMO and MMORPG

I think the problem with HoT is that it tried to be an MMO expansion without any ofthe traditional MMO parts. People pay and play an expansion to make their character stronger, experience new story, and explore new content.

This is typically done through a complex interplay for grinding, repeatable content and story. New dungeons and story provide leveling and basic gear, which lead to repeatable dailies for slightly better gear, which lead to hard mode dungeons which lead to introductory raids which lead to normal raids which lead to hard mode raids. This process of leveling, gearing, and repeating keeps you progressing but at a slow pace. You repeat all the content a lot, but after a bit you move onto new content and story which you then repeat so you are constantly getting new content, but at a slow controlled pace.

In HoT however there is no leveling, there were no new dungeons, no gear grind. Everyone jumped right into the final stage, basically the holding stage when you are waiting for the next expansion. Anet skipped all the stuff that keeps players around during the production of the next expansion. There has been no new content, no gear to get, nothing, everything was there from the start and people got bored of it. They abandoned regular story releases, and raids are much shorter than in other MMO’s and require no gearing.

The expansion model can work like this, but Anet needs to have actual content to spread out between expansions. Not 9 month gaps with nothing.