Guild Wars 2

I just returned to GW2 today after having been away from home for Christmas with family. I logged into one of my alts to do the daily and found, as soon as I logged in, that there were people chatting in /map (to my surprise) in Caledon Forest. I don’t remember about what, but the conversation made obvious their newness to the game, and so I began to wonder if the population has really picked-up in the last few days.

I haven’t been on since the 23rd or 22nd, but I have no idea how many people received this game for Christmas, and was wondering who on the forums had or if any others had noticed a recent increase in server population. I play on Sorrow’s Furnace, if that’s relevant at all.

Game was half off on amazon and shot up to number 5 in video game sales, most likely that represents a good bunch of new accounts.

Also, consider that this is typically an off week from work and school is out for winter break.

yea. since Christmas Day, there have been a large number of new players on.

Its fun (and nice) to go to the new areas and say hi. Most will tell you they are new to the game as a result of getting it for Christmas.

They lifted the server cap just before Wintersday and about 1/2 the servers reached Full status again. They lifted it again this morning.

I’m seeing lots of new people in the starting areas, it’s fun to watch their excitement in mapchat. There was one person squealing about fireworks in Queensdale and I knew they found Beetletun

I’ve gone down and given out bags/silvers/xp magic find food and helped with some of the harder skill points – lots of fun!

Game has been growing and doing well.

Ace.1726:

Game has been growing and doing well.

Yep, truly one of best (if not the best) MMO ever played.

This is good news I play on TC so its really hard for new people to join my server.

Slightly yes by 3% or so due to the game of the year awards and christmas. They did 15 days ago increase the server capacity that makes it seem like it as well.

But the truth is they have lost 65% of the population since the launch.
The locusts left in Sept.
WvW is stale in unless in T1 never a Q
Spvp and Tpvp are on total life support.
Then came Ascend gear – That lost 30% of the pop right there.
Now there is the loot downgrades the constant changing of the goal posts.
And frankly some of the worst management of a game from a design studio I have seen with the exception of TOR it is on par with Bioware right now.

Revenue is being squeezed out of every non dungeon player. For some reason Anet went against what they thought and put the best gear and loot in one place and made it available at one place and gated the content. They then went out and killed open world loot to force people to buy gems to keep up with the dungeon runners.

What you see now is up upswing for holidays about 10% pop increase (returning players not the 3% new accounts) for a few days then people exodus again as they see Anet hasnt fixed the issues they left about.
It was the same with Halloween.
The game is in trouble yes. No not critically yet but I do predict that with the epic new content in FEB that there will be a F2P announcement to bring in new accounts and increase the revenue stream as they have bled the non dungeon runners dry.

Open worlds are empty and barren and DE’s are solo or arent done. Really sad.
WvW – borderlands are always outmanned/breakout event constantly ready. Bad
– EB still manageable and fun at times but the only place to fight. Sad
Spvp -4 hours a day can you get a hot join match
Tpvp – dead – no one does them any more.
Dungeons – seems ok somewhat. Use the lfg site and map chat. Still non fractal is next to impossible to do.

Yes they come back from this but it will take a significant effort and they must listen to the community instead of trying to silence them. Most people here want the best game possible but when the devs constantly attack you as a player you wonder why bother.

Narkosys.5173:

Slightly yes by 3% or so due to the game of the year awards and christmas. They did 15 days ago increase the server capacity that makes it seem like it as well.

But the truth is they have lost 65% of the population since the launch.
The locusts left in Sept.
WvW is stale in unless in T1 never a Q
Spvp and Tpvp are on total life support.
Then came Ascend gear – That lost 30% of the pop right there.
Now there is the loot downgrades the constant changing of the goal posts.
And frankly some of the worst management of a game from a design studio I have seen with the exception of TOR it is on par with Bioware right now.

Revenue is being squeezed out of every non dungeon player. For some reason Anet went against what they thought and put the best gear and loot in one place and made it available at one place and gated the content. They then went out and killed open world loot to force people to buy gems to keep up with the dungeon runners.

What you see now is up upswing for holidays about 10% pop increase (returning players not the 3% new accounts) for a few days then people exodus again as they see Anet hasnt fixed the issues they left about.
It was the same with Halloween.
The game is in trouble yes. No not critically yet but I do predict that with the epic new content in FEB that there will be a F2P announcement to bring in new accounts and increase the revenue stream as they have bled the non dungeon runners dry.

Open worlds are empty and barren and DE’s are solo or arent done. Really sad.
WvW – borderlands are always outmanned/breakout event constantly ready. Bad
– EB still manageable and fun at times but the only place to fight. Sad
Spvp -4 hours a day can you get a hot join match
Tpvp – dead – no one does them any more.
Dungeons – seems ok somewhat. Use the lfg site and map chat. Still non fractal is next to impossible to do.

Yes they come back from this but it will take a significant effort and they must listen to the community instead of trying to silence them. Most people here want the best game possible but when the devs constantly attack you as a player you wonder why bother.

As a statistics and graphs junkie, could you please link me where you found those numbers? I find that stuff interesting.

Ace.1726:

Game has been growing and doing well.

The game has lost a ton of players lol. Most of those who got it for the holidays will be gone within a month just like the people at launch.

Weak class design and designing the game around enticing people to use the shop has doomed this game to mediocrity.

I’m sure it’s a result of:

- Christmas presents
- Amazon’s 1/2 off deal
- Existing players on vacation
- General game growth due to it being awesome

Narkosys.5173:

Slightly yes by 3% or so due to the game of the year awards and christmas. They did 15 days ago increase the server capacity that makes it seem like it as well.

But the truth is they have lost 65% of the population since the launch.
The locusts left in Sept.
WvW is stale in unless in T1 never a Q
Spvp and Tpvp are on total life support.
Then came Ascend gear – That lost 30% of the pop right there.
Now there is the loot downgrades the constant changing of the goal posts.
And frankly some of the worst management of a game from a design studio I have seen with the exception of TOR it is on par with Bioware right now.

Revenue is being squeezed out of every non dungeon player. For some reason Anet went against what they thought and put the best gear and loot in one place and made it available at one place and gated the content. They then went out and killed open world loot to force people to buy gems to keep up with the dungeon runners.

What you see now is up upswing for holidays about 10% pop increase (returning players not the 3% new accounts) for a few days then people exodus again as they see Anet hasnt fixed the issues they left about.
It was the same with Halloween.
The game is in trouble yes. No not critically yet but I do predict that with the epic new content in FEB that there will be a F2P announcement to bring in new accounts and increase the revenue stream as they have bled the non dungeon runners dry.

Open worlds are empty and barren and DE’s are solo or arent done. Really sad.
WvW – borderlands are always outmanned/breakout event constantly ready. Bad
– EB still manageable and fun at times but the only place to fight. Sad
Spvp -4 hours a day can you get a hot join match
Tpvp – dead – no one does them any more.
Dungeons – seems ok somewhat. Use the lfg site and map chat. Still non fractal is next to impossible to do.

Yes they come back from this but it will take a significant effort and they must listen to the community instead of trying to silence them. Most people here want the best game possible but when the devs constantly attack you as a player you wonder why bother.

Numbers / graphs to support this?

To me it always depends on the map im at regardless of server (since ive been jumping servers lately trying to find one with a good community/decent pop/ and actual talkitive guilds who run dungeons daily, finding all this together seems to be the issue lol…why u no talk in guild! lol…swear some guilds i find have 50+ people on at a time…no one talks)

But i generally find a lot of map chatter in the human starting zone, while finding sylvari/asura completely dead…charr is less talkitive but at least i see other players

There is no reason ppl to play GW2 more than 1-2 month, there is not so called end gaming. So things are not good. I’m sure drop of population is not 65%, but I’m sure there is big drop. Instead Anet would give us big fat numbers, but they did not, cause if numbers are lower, it will be bad advertising. New sales for Christmas change nothing, cause main problems in GW2 still stand. There is not enough reasons ppl to play this game.

Seriously though… those links would be great. Otherwise there’s really no counter-argument to the growth of GW2 yet other than players posting how much they dislike the game every now and then lol.

So many medium servers. is the game dying or has the capacity increased?

Smoothy.1085:

So many medium servers. is the game dying or has the capacity increased?

According to earlier posts, the capacity has definitely increased. Where you from? I’m in NA and about half of the servers are High to Very High for me. Not very many Medium ones.

Europe here though europe has a few more servers

12 Medium, 6 High, 9 Very High at the moment in Europe 14:45 GMT, It’s not what I’d call prime time though.

US has 3 Medium, 3 High and 18 Very High atm

maddoctor.2738:

Narkosys.5173:

Slightly yes by 3% or so due to the game of the year awards and christmas. They did 15 days ago increase the server capacity that makes it seem like it as well.

But the truth is they have lost 65% of the population since the launch.
The locusts left in Sept.
WvW is stale in unless in T1 never a Q
Spvp and Tpvp are on total life support.
Then came Ascend gear – That lost 30% of the pop right there.
Now there is the loot downgrades the constant changing of the goal posts.
And frankly some of the worst management of a game from a design studio I have seen with the exception of TOR it is on par with Bioware right now.

Revenue is being squeezed out of every non dungeon player. For some reason Anet went against what they thought and put the best gear and loot in one place and made it available at one place and gated the content. They then went out and killed open world loot to force people to buy gems to keep up with the dungeon runners.

What you see now is up upswing for holidays about 10% pop increase (returning players not the 3% new accounts) for a few days then people exodus again as they see Anet hasnt fixed the issues they left about.
It was the same with Halloween.
The game is in trouble yes. No not critically yet but I do predict that with the epic new content in FEB that there will be a F2P announcement to bring in new accounts and increase the revenue stream as they have bled the non dungeon runners dry.

Open worlds are empty and barren and DE’s are solo or arent done. Really sad.
WvW – borderlands are always outmanned/breakout event constantly ready. Bad
– EB still manageable and fun at times but the only place to fight. Sad
Spvp -4 hours a day can you get a hot join match
Tpvp – dead – no one does them any more.
Dungeons – seems ok somewhat. Use the lfg site and map chat. Still non fractal is next to impossible to do.

Yes they come back from this but it will take a significant effort and they must listen to the community instead of trying to silence them. Most people here want the best game possible but when the devs constantly attack you as a player you wonder why bother.

Numbers / graphs to support this?

I would love to see ArenaNet release these stats actually, particularly the effect on the playerbase the lost shores patch had.

Karizee.8076:

They lifted the server cap just before Wintersday and about 1/2 the servers reached Full status again. They lifted it again this morning.

I’m seeing lots of new people in the starting areas, it’s fun to watch their excitement in mapchat. There was one person squealing about fireworks in Queensdale and I knew they found Beetletun

I’ve gone down and given out bags/silvers/xp magic find food and helped with some of the harder skill points – lots of fun!

Out of curiosity, is that info posted anywhere? I’ve seen people claiming the opposite, that they’re lowering the cap to make servers look full, and would love to see facts.

When a company doesn’t release any stats of their customer population, I’m sure its a great sign.

maddoctor.2738:

12 Medium, 6 High, 9 Very High at the moment in Europe 14:45 GMT, It’s not what I’d call prime time though.

US has 3 Medium, 3 High and 18 Very High atm

Holy smokes

nofo.8469:

When a company doesn’t release any stats of their customer population, I’m sure its a great sign.

Its only been a few months. You can’t take it as a sign lol. I’d rather see the data of a full year in an MMO’s lifespan than a few months.

Countdown to Tarnished Coast becoming full?

Wait until they see what ANet did to the drop rates and how they nerfed the hell out of the game, it’ll drop back down again after the holidays...

mavet.3047:

Wait until they see what ANet did to the drop rates and how they nerfed the hell out of the game, it’ll drop back down again after the holidays…

why is there a smiley face?

on topic, the game is now in it’s post launch phase. The majority of the players still playing should be considered it’s core audience. What will cause growth or decline are ANet’s policies from here on in.

And welcome to the new people

Vorch.2985:

mavet.3047:

Wait until they see what ANet did to the drop rates and how they nerfed the hell out of the game, it’ll drop back down again after the holidays...

why is there a smiley face?

I love irony... new ppl will come here thinking it’s great, see all the crap ANet did and then leave.

nofo.8469:

When a company doesn’t release any stats of their customer population, I’m sure its a great sign.

When a company doesn’t release any stats of their customer population, it’s normal practice and not surprising at all.

Cheers.

I have sources just like others and also see/play the game + what people in the industry are saying.
Dont forget that the server status has nothing to do with how many are playing or active. It is just the amount of accounts tied to that server. CC eva said that in one of her posts.

Lankybrit:Most do release #‘s
Honestly if they were doing fantastic pop #’s would be front and center. All major MMO’s release pop #‘s although usually vague to a degree they are released.
Rift,Eve,Tor,Wow,LOTRO all release pop #’s.

Narkosys.5173:

I have sources just like others and also see/play the game + what people in the industry are saying.
Dont forget that the server status has nothing to do with how many are playing or active. It is just the amount of accounts tied to that server. CC eva said that in one of her posts.

Lankybrit:Most do release #‘s
Honestly if they were doing fantastic pop #’s would be front and center. All major MMO’s release pop #‘s although usually vague to a degree they are released.
Rift,Eve,Tor,Wow,LOTRO all release pop #’s.

Still wondering what your sources are… would be nice.

Lankybrit.4598:

nofo.8469:

When a company doesn’t release any stats of their customer population, I’m sure its a great sign.

When a company doesn’t release any stats of their customer population, it’s normal practice and not surprising at all.

Cheers.

Not quite true. In America, if they are a publically traded company, then they are required by law or face so many wonderful fines to release any and all information to their stakeholders; i.e., the player base. If they are not publically traded and are still private they are not required as they are not regulated by the government which is a pity as I’m sure there are a lot of "practices" that should be looked into.

nofo.8469:

When a company doesn’t release any stats of their customer population, I’m sure its a great sign.

And how exactly are they going to “measure” that customer population? By active subs?

Narkosys.5173:

I have sources just like others and also see/play the game + what people in the industry are saying.
Dont forget that the server status has nothing to do with how many are playing or active. It is just the amount of accounts tied to that server. CC eva said that in one of her posts.

Lankybrit:Most do release #’s
Honestly if they were doing fantastic pop #’s would be front and center. All major MMO’s release pop #’s although usually vague to a degree they are released.
Rift,Eve,Tor,Wow,LOTRO all release pop #’s.

Also if this game was doing so "fantastic," then they wouldn’t be trying to gouge and herd us into the gem store. But I suppose this is what happens when there is no monthly sub - make the game so tedious and frustrating that it forces us to spend rl money...

All we will ever get is units sold and total revenue, and we only will get this information in the quarterly financial releases.

Cheers

I’m doubting you’ll get more information about their financial statements or populations as they are not publicly traded being a subsiderary of NCSoft. Although, they do have some "interesting," history:

The founders of ArenaNet were former employees of Blizzard Entertainment who played important roles in developing the highly successful video games Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Diablo II, and the Battle.net gaming network.

ANet has also partnered with a company in China to send GW2 over there, and as such, needed to register with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). Can be found here:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1285137/000114420412048835/v322755_6k.htm

But then again, NCSoft is mired in trechary and scandal:

1) Worlds.com patent lawsuit-->> Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin claimed the idea of a "scalable virtual world with thousands of users" is patented by his organization and targeted NCsoft for patent infringement in 2008. This was the first of many lawsuits against NCSoft. The case was "settled" but then again on July 22, 2010, Worlds.com requested the case be reopened.

2)Then there’s the Richard Garriott termination-->> Richard Garriott, lead developer of Tabula Rasa, sued NCsoft for US$47 million in damages concerning his termination from the company. Garriott had asserted in his suit that he was forced out of the company and was made to sell his 400,000 shares in NCsoft’s stock, losing him millions of dollars. In addition, he claimed that the company was guilty of fraud by forging his resignation announcement. Then on July 30, 2010, a jury in a Texas federal court awarded him US$28 million in damages. NCsoft was foolish to appeal the ruling. And guess what??? Garriott again prevailed on appeal and NCsoft was required to pay an additional US$4 million, bringing the total damages awarded to Garriott to US$32 million. - I guess NCSoft has to make up those lost dollars somehow - the GEM STORE

3) Oh and how could we forget the closure of Paragon Studios and City of Heroes on August 31, 2012??? NCsoft liquidated Paragon Studios and announced the closure of City of Heroes. Over 21,000 players signed an online petition contesting the shut-down and many used social media to promote their criticisms.

Mmmhmmm.... a company with a FANTASIC reputation

maddoctor.2738:

Narkosys.5173:

Slightly yes by 3% or so due to the game of the year awards and christmas. They did 15 days ago increase the server capacity that makes it seem like it as well.

But the truth is they have lost 65% of the population since the launch.
The locusts left in Sept.
WvW is stale in unless in T1 never a Q
Spvp and Tpvp are on total life support.
Then came Ascend gear – That lost 30% of the pop right there.
Now there is the loot downgrades the constant changing of the goal posts.
And frankly some of the worst management of a game from a design studio I have seen with the exception of TOR it is on par with Bioware right now.

Revenue is being squeezed out of every non dungeon player. For some reason Anet went against what they thought and put the best gear and loot in one place and made it available at one place and gated the content. They then went out and killed open world loot to force people to buy gems to keep up with the dungeon runners.

What you see now is up upswing for holidays about 10% pop increase (returning players not the 3% new accounts) for a few days then people exodus again as they see Anet hasnt fixed the issues they left about.
It was the same with Halloween.
The game is in trouble yes. No not critically yet but I do predict that with the epic new content in FEB that there will be a F2P announcement to bring in new accounts and increase the revenue stream as they have bled the non dungeon runners dry.

Open worlds are empty and barren and DE’s are solo or arent done. Really sad.
WvW – borderlands are always outmanned/breakout event constantly ready. Bad
– EB still manageable and fun at times but the only place to fight. Sad
Spvp -4 hours a day can you get a hot join match
Tpvp – dead – no one does them any more.
Dungeons – seems ok somewhat. Use the lfg site and map chat. Still non fractal is next to impossible to do.

Yes they come back from this but it will take a significant effort and they must listen to the community instead of trying to silence them. Most people here want the best game possible but when the devs constantly attack you as a player you wonder why bother.

Numbers / graphs to support this?

Here ya go!

Manoa.5897:

Narkosys.5173:

Slightly yes by 3% or so due to the game of the year awards and christmas. They did 15 days ago increase the server capacity that makes it seem like it as well.

But the truth is they have lost 65% of the population since the launch.
The locusts left in Sept.
WvW is stale in unless in T1 never a Q
Spvp and Tpvp are on total life support.
Then came Ascend gear - That lost 30% of the pop right there.
Now there is the loot downgrades the constant changing of the goal posts.
And frankly some of the worst management of a game from a design studio I have seen with the exception of TOR it is on par with Bioware right now.

Revenue is being squeezed out of every non dungeon player. For some reason Anet went against what they thought and put the best gear and loot in one place and made it available at one place and gated the content. They then went out and killed open world loot to force people to buy gems to keep up with the dungeon runners.

What you see now is up upswing for holidays about 10% pop increase (returning players not the 3% new accounts) for a few days then people exodus again as they see Anet hasnt fixed the issues they left about.
It was the same with Halloween.
The game is in trouble yes. No not critically yet but I do predict that with the epic new content in FEB that there will be a F2P announcement to bring in new accounts and increase the revenue stream as they have bled the non dungeon runners dry.

Open worlds are empty and barren and DE’s are solo or arent done. Really sad.
WvW - borderlands are always outmanned/breakout event constantly ready. Bad
- EB still manageable and fun at times but the only place to fight. Sad
Spvp -4 hours a day can you get a hot join match
Tpvp - dead - no one does them any more.
Dungeons - seems ok somewhat. Use the lfg site and map chat. Still non fractal is next to impossible to do.

Yes they come back from this but it will take a significant effort and they must listen to the community instead of trying to silence them. Most people here want the best game possible but when the devs constantly attack you as a player you wonder why bother.

Numbers / graphs to support this?

Here ya go! [/quote]

Sad panda face how unfortunate as I had hopes for this game... Oh well, chalk up another one to be flushed down the toilet of oblivion with the rest of the modern and recent games that just came out; SWTOR, TSW, TERA-BLE ONLINE, etc...

Manoa.5897:

Here ya go!

I loled

Narkosys.5173:

I have sources just like others and also see/play the game + what people in the industry are saying.

So you don’t have any, then. You’re just pulling this stuff out of your kitten 100% of people who are secretive about their sources are lying about them and the statistics they made up.

Put up or shut up.

Narkosys.5173:

I have sources just like others and also see/play the game + what people in the industry are saying.

You have no sources. There will be no sources until their earnings report. So a.) you are just pulling number out of your kitten or b.) your “sources” are feeding you a line of BS that you are fully buying in to.

Fact is, most of the people in the game that dont use forums could care less about the ascended change. And most of the people that said they were leaving over the change and never coming back have been playing regularly. That’s not a matter of opinion. Scan through the Ascended threads and add the “quitters” to your friends list. They are still quite active.

What the industry is saying: Game of the year from multiple outlets, MMO of the year, Best art Direction, and nominations for Best Multiplayer Game.

My own anecdotal experience: The weekend before Xmas, two Best-Buys, two Wal-Marts, and a target were sold entirely out of the game, while the other heavy hitters display’s barely had a dent.

So to answer the OP, yes server sizes have increased to accommodate the influx of players rather than make them sit up till 3am to pick a home server. And the game is perfectly healthy. People trying to sell you otherwise are just blowing smoke.

mavet.3047:

Lankybrit.4598:

nofo.8469:

When a company doesn’t release any stats of their customer population, I’m sure its a great sign.

When a company doesn’t release any stats of their customer population, it’s normal practice and not surprising at all.

Cheers.

Not quite true. In America, if they are a publically traded company, then they are required by law or face so many wonderful fines to release any and all information to their stakeholders; i.e., the player base. If they are not publically traded and are still private they are not required as they are not regulated by the government which is a pity as I’m sure there are a lot of “practices” that should be looked into.

Only if it relates to revenue, which in the case of GW2, it does not.

Yes, WoW has to release Subscription data because that impacts revenue.

All GW2 has to do is release number of copies sold, and info about in-game item purchases. Nothing about number of players logged in at all.

Cheers.