Guild Wars 2

playandchill.3908:

I dunno.

But i can say that minecraft has more streamer.

Said game also has an XBox 360 version. And more balanced PvP.

. . . what? It’s balanced. Honest.

Of the 80 or so people in my guild that started playing about 60 of them still play. Not all of them have stayed in the guild. Some moved to other guilds but still play. I know this because they’re still on my friend’s list.

I think the numbers are way less than we think.

I regularly watch streams on Twitch, and have seldomly seen GW2 reach more than 500 viewers. To put in into perspective, LoL fluctuates between 30 000 and 130 000 viewers at any given time. Even games like Tera roflstomps GW2 with regards to viewers.

Anyway,
I know this does not nescesarily mean GW2 sucks, but we do need to ask why?

Short answer is: it is too boring to watch, and after L80 it becomes boring to play. I’d argue that if it aint interesting to watch, it can never be interesting to play.
Whether its sPvP or WvWvW, this game doesn’t offer much in terms of reward and diversity.

So in conclusion,
I think GW2 is the type of game where a lot of people wil try out, but only a small amount will play for an extended period of time.
Because of the mounting mistakes and decisions the devs have made, this game is (in the short term at least) doomed be be another game with unrealised potential. Possibly never to be realised if I look it its direction.

./shrugs… I wish it was different

Nymphetamine.2103:

I think the numbers are way less than we think.

I regularly watch streams on Twitch, and have seldomly seen GW2 reach more than 500 viewers. To put in into perspective, LoL fluctuates between 30 000 and 130 000 viewers at any given time. Even games like Tera roflstomps GW2 with regards to viewers.

Anyway,
I know this does not nescesarily mean GW2 sucks, but we do need to ask why?

Short answer is: it is too boring to watch, and after L80 it becomes boring to play. I’d argue that if it aint interesting to watch, it can never be interesting to play.
Whether its sPvP or WvWvW, this game doesn’t offer much in terms of reward and diversity.

So in conclusion,
I think GW2 is the type of game where a lot of people wil try out, but only a small amount will play for an extended period of time.
Because of the mounting mistakes and decisions the devs have made, this game is (in the short term at least) doomed be be another game with unrealised potential. Possibly never to be realised if I look it its direction.

./shrugs… I wish it was different

It could be because no one cares about t/s pvp (except the devs, Go esport yay!). It’s the smallest portion of the GW2 player base.

Everyone I know stopped playing the game completely. I’ve witness multiple guilds just die. Twitch viewers are lower than warhammer online some days and about about 20 times lower than games like runescape in viewers. Google searches have slowed down to match other “dead” mmos. Not to mention, NCsoft stock has actually consistently dropped since the release of GW2.

Fernling.1729:

Everyone I know stopped playing the game completely. I’ve witness multiple guilds just die. Twitch viewers are lower than warhammer online some days and about about 20 times lower than games like runescape in viewers. Google searches have slowed down to match other “dead” mmos. Not to mention, NCsoft stock has actually consistently dropped since the release of GW2.

I guess the people I see on the server, pretty much everywhere, and the zergs in WvW must be completely imaginary. And it’s a whole lot more servers than Warhammer.

I think people who think the game is dying have no more evidence than people who think the game is thriving, but one thing for sure.

The forums get a lot of posts.

Vayne.8563:

I guess the people I see on the server, pretty much everywhere, and the zergs in WvW must be completely imaginary. And it’s a whole lot more servers than Warhammer.

I think people who think the game is dying have no more evidence than people who think the game is thriving, but one thing for sure.

The forums get a lot of posts.

Quoted for emphasis and for truth.

Seryi.7936:

Vayne.8563:

I guess the people I see on the server, pretty much everywhere, and the zergs in WvW must be completely imaginary. And it’s a whole lot more servers than Warhammer.

I think people who think the game is dying have no more evidence than people who think the game is thriving, but one thing for sure.

The forums get a lot of posts.

Quoted for emphasis and for truth.

You got sources?

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Everyone I know stopped playing the game completely. I’ve witness multiple guilds just die. Twitch viewers are lower than warhammer online some days and about about 20 times lower than games like runescape in viewers. Google searches have slowed down to match other “dead” mmos. Not to mention, NCsoft stock has actually consistently dropped since the release of GW2.

I guess the people I see on the server, pretty much everywhere, and the zergs in WvW must be completely imaginary. And it’s a whole lot more servers than Warhammer.

I think people who think the game is dying have no more evidence than people who think the game is thriving, but one thing for sure.

The forums get a lot of posts.

I’m not saying the game is dead, or unpopulated, i’m simply saying that I believe a ton of people have quit already. There could still be a few hundred thousand people still actively playing and you would without a doubt experience people everywhere. I just don’t think the game kept up with the hype. I also think people will call games that fail “another guild wars 2”, but mostly for its pathetic attempt at becoming an esport.
and about the " a lot of posts on the forum", mmo champ months ago would have a very active base of 300+ people viewing gw2 subforum at once and is now down to about 50-75, GW2guru has significantly dropped in active posts, and not more than a few months ago, you couldn’t make a thread on this page without it being pushed to the 2nd or 3rd page within minutes.
sloppy and hard to read… from my phone lol

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Everyone I know stopped playing the game completely. I’ve witness multiple guilds just die. Twitch viewers are lower than warhammer online some days and about about 20 times lower than games like runescape in viewers. Google searches have slowed down to match other “dead” mmos. Not to mention, NCsoft stock has actually consistently dropped since the release of GW2.

I guess the people I see on the server, pretty much everywhere, and the zergs in WvW must be completely imaginary. And it’s a whole lot more servers than Warhammer.

I think people who think the game is dying have no more evidence than people who think the game is thriving, but one thing for sure.

The forums get a lot of posts.

I’m not saying the game is dead, or unpopulated, i’m simply saying that I believe a ton of people have quit already. There could still be a few hundred thousand people still actively playing and you would without a doubt experience people everywhere. I just don’t think the game kept up with the hype. I also think people will call games that fail “another guild wars 2”, but mostly for its pathetic attempt at becoming an esport.

I don’t think it’s attempted to become an esport yet. They’re only just introducing leaderboards now, and they are working on observer mode. They want to eventually make it an esport, which is not what they focused on at launch.

No game keeps up with its pre launch hype, which is the problem with hype. Those who temper hype with a dose of reality aren’t disappointed. Those who allow hype to rule them are bound to be disappointed.

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Everyone I know stopped playing the game completely. I’ve witness multiple guilds just die. Twitch viewers are lower than warhammer online some days and about about 20 times lower than games like runescape in viewers. Google searches have slowed down to match other “dead” mmos. Not to mention, NCsoft stock has actually consistently dropped since the release of GW2.

I guess the people I see on the server, pretty much everywhere, and the zergs in WvW must be completely imaginary. And it’s a whole lot more servers than Warhammer.

I think people who think the game is dying have no more evidence than people who think the game is thriving, but one thing for sure.

The forums get a lot of posts.

I’m not saying the game is dead, or unpopulated, i’m simply saying that I believe a ton of people have quit already. There could still be a few hundred thousand people still actively playing and you would without a doubt experience people everywhere. I just don’t think the game kept up with the hype. I also think people will call games that fail “another guild wars 2”, but mostly for its pathetic attempt at becoming an esport.

I don’t think it’s attempted to become an esport yet. They’re only just introducing leaderboards now, and they are working on observer mode. They want to eventually make it an esport, which is not what they focused on at launch.

No game keeps up with its pre launch hype, which is the problem with hype. Those who temper hype with a dose of reality aren’t disappointed. Those who allow hype to rule them are bound to be disappointed.

I mostly agree. I definitely agree with the hype thing though. I spent countless hours with GW1, followed GW2 development since the beginning. Needless to say I was beyond hyped, until I played it at a convention. I guess I had much higher expectations from the company that brought us GW1.

P.s.
Does anyone have any insight on why NCsoft stock has made a steady decline since the release of GW2? I don’t have any knowledge in this area and it makes me very curious.

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Everyone I know stopped playing the game completely. I’ve witness multiple guilds just die. Twitch viewers are lower than warhammer online some days and about about 20 times lower than games like runescape in viewers. Google searches have slowed down to match other “dead” mmos. Not to mention, NCsoft stock has actually consistently dropped since the release of GW2.

I guess the people I see on the server, pretty much everywhere, and the zergs in WvW must be completely imaginary. And it’s a whole lot more servers than Warhammer.

I think people who think the game is dying have no more evidence than people who think the game is thriving, but one thing for sure.

The forums get a lot of posts.

I’m not saying the game is dead, or unpopulated, i’m simply saying that I believe a ton of people have quit already. There could still be a few hundred thousand people still actively playing and you would without a doubt experience people everywhere. I just don’t think the game kept up with the hype. I also think people will call games that fail “another guild wars 2”, but mostly for its pathetic attempt at becoming an esport.

I don’t think it’s attempted to become an esport yet. They’re only just introducing leaderboards now, and they are working on observer mode. They want to eventually make it an esport, which is not what they focused on at launch.

No game keeps up with its pre launch hype, which is the problem with hype. Those who temper hype with a dose of reality aren’t disappointed. Those who allow hype to rule them are bound to be disappointed.

I mostly agree. I definitely agree with the hype thing though. I spent countless hours with GW1, followed GW2 development since the beginning. Needless to say I was beyond hyped, until I played it at a convention. I guess I had much higher expectations from the company that brought us GW1.

You’re a PvPer, clearly. I’m a Pve’er mostly. That makes a lot of difference in what you expect in the first place.

This game isn’t a great jump from Guild Wars 1 PvP to here. But for me anyway, it’s a huge step up in PVe.

Only Arenanet will know how many active players they have left.
The rest of us have to guess by looking at our guild rosters and friends list.

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Everyone I know stopped playing the game completely. I’ve witness multiple guilds just die. Twitch viewers are lower than warhammer online some days and about about 20 times lower than games like runescape in viewers. Google searches have slowed down to match other “dead” mmos. Not to mention, NCsoft stock has actually consistently dropped since the release of GW2.

I guess the people I see on the server, pretty much everywhere, and the zergs in WvW must be completely imaginary. And it’s a whole lot more servers than Warhammer.

I think people who think the game is dying have no more evidence than people who think the game is thriving, but one thing for sure.

The forums get a lot of posts.

I’m not saying the game is dead, or unpopulated, i’m simply saying that I believe a ton of people have quit already. There could still be a few hundred thousand people still actively playing and you would without a doubt experience people everywhere. I just don’t think the game kept up with the hype. I also think people will call games that fail “another guild wars 2”, but mostly for its pathetic attempt at becoming an esport.

I don’t think it’s attempted to become an esport yet. They’re only just introducing leaderboards now, and they are working on observer mode. They want to eventually make it an esport, which is not what they focused on at launch.

No game keeps up with its pre launch hype, which is the problem with hype. Those who temper hype with a dose of reality aren’t disappointed. Those who allow hype to rule them are bound to be disappointed.

I mostly agree. I definitely agree with the hype thing though. I spent countless hours with GW1, followed GW2 development since the beginning. Needless to say I was beyond hyped, until I played it at a convention. I guess I had much higher expectations from the company that brought us GW1.

You’re a PvPer, clearly. I’m a Pve’er mostly. That makes a lot of difference in what you expect in the first place.

This game isn’t a great jump from Guild Wars 1 PvP to here. But for me anyway, it’s a huge step up in PVe.

Not really a PvPer per se, but an elitist of some sort. I am a very competitive person and liked to be pushed beyond my own capabilities. I find this in PvE and PvP depending on the game, which WoW was able to do extremely well. I guess I am really disappointed with the lack of competitive/exclusive content that could push myself and friends. As far as PvE goes, I couldn’t be pleased until we received WoW type raids, which I don’t expect, nor think belongs in this game. I am also really disappointed in the conquest mode that we have in PvP. Anet could add solo queue, leaderboards, ranking, spectator mode and perfect balance and I wouldn’t be happy because I just don’t find SPvP to be fun the way Anet has implemented it.
Honestly, the game simply isn’t for me. I have a difficult time accepting it though. I wait around lurking the forums with my negativity in hopes that something will happen to change my mind, but deep down I know that it will never happen.

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Vayne.8563:

Fernling.1729:

Everyone I know stopped playing the game completely. I’ve witness multiple guilds just die. Twitch viewers are lower than warhammer online some days and about about 20 times lower than games like runescape in viewers. Google searches have slowed down to match other “dead” mmos. Not to mention, NCsoft stock has actually consistently dropped since the release of GW2.

I guess the people I see on the server, pretty much everywhere, and the zergs in WvW must be completely imaginary. And it’s a whole lot more servers than Warhammer.

I think people who think the game is dying have no more evidence than people who think the game is thriving, but one thing for sure.

The forums get a lot of posts.

I’m not saying the game is dead, or unpopulated, i’m simply saying that I believe a ton of people have quit already. There could still be a few hundred thousand people still actively playing and you would without a doubt experience people everywhere. I just don’t think the game kept up with the hype. I also think people will call games that fail “another guild wars 2”, but mostly for its pathetic attempt at becoming an esport.

I don’t think it’s attempted to become an esport yet. They’re only just introducing leaderboards now, and they are working on observer mode. They want to eventually make it an esport, which is not what they focused on at launch.

No game keeps up with its pre launch hype, which is the problem with hype. Those who temper hype with a dose of reality aren’t disappointed. Those who allow hype to rule them are bound to be disappointed.

I mostly agree. I definitely agree with the hype thing though. I spent countless hours with GW1, followed GW2 development since the beginning. Needless to say I was beyond hyped, until I played it at a convention. I guess I had much higher expectations from the company that brought us GW1.

You’re a PvPer, clearly. I’m a Pve’er mostly. That makes a lot of difference in what you expect in the first place.

This game isn’t a great jump from Guild Wars 1 PvP to here. But for me anyway, it’s a huge step up in PVe.

Not really a PvPer per se, but an elitist of some sort. I am a very competitive person and liked to be pushed beyond my own capabilities. I find this in PvE and PvP depending on the game, which WoW was able to do extremely well. I guess I am really disappointed with the lack of competitive/exclusive content that could push myself and friends. As far as PvE goes, I couldn’t be pleased until we received WoW type raids, which I don’t expect, nor think belongs in this game. I am also really disappointed in the conquest mode that we have in PvP. Anet could add solo queue, leaderboards, ranking, spectator mode and perfect balance and I wouldn’t be happy because I just don’t find SPvP to be fun the way Anet has implemented it.
Honestly, the game simply isn’t for me. I have a difficult time accepting it though. I wait around lurking the forums with my negativity in hopes that something will happen to change my mind, but deep down I know that it will never happen.

But Anet said from day one they’d only have conquest to start and it’s what they promoed. I’m not sure why you expected anything else.

As for WoW style raids, I’d hate them. I hate the trinity, I hate being locked out of content because of gear, I hate the idea that the game encourages elitism.

We’re definitely coming at games from a different perspective. I’ve always been challenged enough in real life (competitive jobs mostly) that I don’t feel the need to be competitive in my down time.

Morthur.3894:

Hawkian.6580:

This was an extremely unsettling read. :-/

So far as I can tell, you pulled literally every number in this post except for the final “1500” completely out of thin air:
10%
100,000
20,000-50,000
50
a few thousand

It appears that you are estimating these numbers yourself based on anecdotal experience or just your own instincts, and not a single data source. If you want to engage in wild speculation of this nature, please start by saying something like, “I’m just making these numbers up, but…” or, “This is completely speculative, but…” so that people will not be mistaken into thinking what you’re saying is true.

Haha, sorry if I unsettled you with my post but since there are no official numbers the only two possible responses to this thread are either speculations or posting “I don’t know”. Since the latter would be boring I decided to speculate (as clearly indicated by my use of the term “guesstimate”).

And the numbers I’ve estimated are not totally random: it’s well known that the huge majority of people that buy MMOs (especially right on release) quit after the first month. That’s why I guesstimated 90% of the players quit.

The other numbers are guesstimated because of the server capacity and number of worlds. There are definitely not 10 million players (or there would have to be way more servers) and there are definitely not less then 10’000 (because then they’d be working on server merges ASAP to cut costs). There are likely also not 1’000’000 players because again, that would require 20’000 people per world and by my experience of server hosting and the capacity of zones (especially WvW) this would be far to many. Futhermore, many worlds are not “full” but only “medium” (and what that means in numbers is frankly anyone’s guess). Still – there are definitely more then 10’000 and less then 1’000’000 players and likely way way less (because 1 million would require over 30% of people that bought the game to still be playing which is clearly not the case).

That’s what brought me to the estimate of roughly 20-50k players (maybe 100k with luck during peaks).

Hawkian.6580:

But anyway… no numbers from the devs = it’s not going well. Otherwise they’d be hyping it to attract more investors for their future products and expansions etc.

I hate to dismiss this so handily, but this is deeply flawed logic. ArenaNet is not a publicly traded company. As long as their private investors and corporate owners are happy, there is no tangible benefit whatsoever to revealing sales information on a regular basis, whereas there are many potential benefits to intentionally withholding this information from the public.

Sure sure, they are not releasing any numbers because they want to be humble.. lol… come on… pull the other one mate. Again: If the numbers were impressive then the quacks from marketing would be the first to publish them to attract new players. That’s simply how it works. Why do you think that all successful MMOs are publishing numbers and as soon as they stop publishing them you can be sure that the numbers are not in their favour? The fact that the only numbers available for GW2 are initial sales (and other meaningless talk like “baseline players” etc. which are just euphemisms for “small playerbase”) should be enough of a hint for anyone that the numbers are not as healthy as Anet would have liked.

But it’s funny to see to what lengths people will go just to make themselves believe that their favourite game is thriving, that’s for sure. :-)

Bad logic is bad logic. If the numbers would good, and they annouced it and they had a sudden drop in numbers, then they’d look bad, which is another reason it’s not announced. It works this way in lots of industries, btw.

Another thought process is number of sales vs how many people have left. You say it’s well know that 90% of people leave a game, but I’m not sure that number is accurate at all. I suspect it’s greatly inflated.

90% might not resub to a pay to play game (though I think that’s unlikely too), but that says nothing about free to play or buy to play games. Because there’s no unsubscription.

Guild Wars 2 is still selling at least on Amazon.com (I think it’s the #2 computer RPG and the number 3 computer adventure game right now), and it’s still in the top 100 for computer products, which includes things like joysticks and mice and stuff. It’s in the 60s.

So a bunch of people buy the game and a bunch of people leave, okay, I get that. But people keep buying it. There’s lots of new people floating around.

And I know people that have left and have come back after not finding the grass greener on the other side after all.

Basically there’s no real data anyone can point to, but my server is pretty kitten busy, all day and all night.

killcannon.2576:

Also, not saying that Guild Wars 2 isn’t a great game, or hasn’t sold well. But in the end, the numbers don’t matter, the community does.

We’re doomed then! :p

For populations, only Anet can tell us that. What I can do is tell you my guilds numbers and extrapolate from that.

70 members
6 regulars – 8.5%
11 Occasional – 15.7%

Extrapolating this out to the 3 million copies sold would give:

255,000 regular players
471,000 occasional players

This is only representative of my guild…if more people were to add thier figures we could get a much better average.

Vayne.8563:

Bad logic is bad logic. If the numbers would good, and they annouced it and they had a sudden drop in numbers, then they’d look bad, which is another reason it’s not announced. It works this way in lots of industries, btw.

Oh, but the numbers were good, and they did announce them (the 3 mil copies sold). Only later they decided to be far less informative, which suggests something did change (and not for the better).

Your logic would be valid if there was no initial announcement, but it’s obvious now that Anet has nothing against revealing the numbers… as long as they are good.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Bad logic is bad logic. If the numbers would good, and they annouced it and they had a sudden drop in numbers, then they’d look bad, which is another reason it’s not announced. It works this way in lots of industries, btw.

Oh, but the numbers were good, and they did announce them (the 3 mil copies sold). Only later they decided to be far less informative, which suggests something did change (and not for the better).

Your logic would be valid if there was no initial announcement, but it’s obvious now that Anet has nothing against revealing the numbers… as long as they are good.

They didn’t announce it just to announce it. The numbers were in a quarterly report for a public company, namely NCsoft. They didn’t trumpet it or shout it from the rooftops. They did what all public companies do. They report to their investors.

All companies are required to do that whether they do well or not.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

and yeah Voltron GW2 holds the record for fastest selling MMO of all time.

Western MMO. Asia kicks all sorts of kitten with MMOs. Numbers in the West don’t really come close.

Fyrebrand.4859:

Krustydog.3072:

World of Tanks holds the honor of most players on at one time on a server by breaking their own record.

Yeah, most players on a single server. As long as there are enough people on any given server, who cares how many there are? Any time there’s a major group event in GW2, like Frozen Maw, one of the dragons, or Champion this or that, I look around and see tons of players swarming the area. Any more than is needed, and there’s no benefit to having them all crammed into one server. I’d rather just have more servers.

How many servers does World of Tanks even have? I don’t see how your point is relevant to this thread. A good MMORPG, especially one with cross-server competitive elements like WvW, makes efforts to spread out server population across all servers evenly. At the time of this writing, ArenaNet is offering free transfers to medium-pop servers. They don’t want everybody crowding the same server.

Krustydog.3072:

EVERY single player I came into this game with, myself included, no longer plays.

Personal anecdote, impossible to verify, and completely vague.

What does it even mean to “leave” GW2, when it’s free to play after you’ve purchased it? Anyone who told you they “no longer play” GW2 could literally start playing again any second now, and keep playing until they “no longer play” again.

Krustydog.3072:

WvWvW is nothing more than a lemming gibb fest where nothing you do really matters. Take a keep-move on-other side retakes keep. Next week the whole cycle resets. For pvp WoT smokes and I mean SMOKES GW2.

Whooooaaaa!!! Dude, I’d better get on over to World of Tanks right now! Thanks for the advertisement!

Krustydog.3072:

To the guys saying they read the manifesto and think GW2 held to it-NOT! There is NOTHING that distinguishes this game from any other run of the mill AAA fail mmo.

Slow day on the WoT forums, or what?

http://worldoftanks.com/news/2162-wargaming-at-gdc/

my whole point is that WoT knows what pvp’ers want and much like how WoW stole the best parts of other games and made a better game GW2 could learn a pvp lesson from WoT. When pvp’ers get disgusted and leave a game en masse the game is done and its just a matter of time. GW2 is not a good pvp game at the moment.

Hawkian.6580:

Can you explain why you think this (unless what you put in parentheses is your reasoning)?

I’ll admit, I may be jumping the gun, but usually game devs don’t state stuff that isn’t in their favour PR wise, which of course, makes sense. While 3m+ sales is great for them, for anyone in fact, it doesn’t make it an automatic success.
We have to throw the same reasoning behind this as we do with F2P’s having XX mil registered accounts but no details on how many active accounts there are.

maddoctor.2738:

Really? I actually watch Anet’s announcements and they said that the population is growing since around December, they don’t give numbers but they DO say that the population is growing steadily.

Analogy time!: “I’m getting better at the French horn every day”…does that mean I am, without showing any evidence? Personally, It doesn’t mean your actually doing it.
I don’t know how they would display that, but it’d have to be better than just “Yup, we’re going from strength to strength”
I tried to check the earnings call to see if numbers were stated on anything beyond sales, but there isn’t and that’s from Q4 of 2012 only (admittedly Jan was when they made the announcement they are increasing every time, but now it’s almost April)

I’m completely fine being proven wrong. I’m even unsure about my own stance because of a lack of evidence.

PVStar.3658:

Apart from broadcasting initial sales and Blizzard boasting that WoW had 12 million players, companies generally don’t give out that information, or they’re very vague with it. Not hearing much about it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re not doing as well as they thought.

Anyways, I wouldn’t doubt that the population is growing. When I quit playing back in November it was looking pretty gloom, but since I’ve been back I’m actually surprised at the amount of activity I’m seeing. Apart from the lack of true support for structured PvP, ANet is improving the game pretty decently and people are noticing. People need to realize that most MMOs that are designed around keeping players playing were doing terrible 7 months after release (pretty much every AAA MMO that’s been released since WoW other than Rift), for a MMO like GW2 to still have an active playerbase after 7 months isn’t something to be overlooked.

You are correct. Vague indeed, across all parties, until it becomes a problem and gets mentioned on news outlets.
You are correct though – it doesn’t mean it’s doing badly at all, but knowing that they built an MMO, not a single player game, it’s known that sales alone don’t determine how busy an MMO really is. The difference between WoW and and non Subbed games is that, usually Subs can be linked to time played. Yes, there are few people that sub for a game and then never play it, but I’m sure the majority of players on subs feel that they’re not getting their money’s worth if they don’t play a significant amount during that alotted Sub time.
B2P’s quoting sales numbers holds little weight if they rely on a cash shop to keep them going. Similarly, F2P’s quoting registered accounts instead of active players also hold little weight, and I feel those two, based on their payment model, can be related.

I guess that’s what I was trying to say all along, just in a very, very, bad way.

However, I’d thought that November was when the rush of people came in (the karka event, the game trial keys being used for that karka weekend, big patch/update with content, fractals/ascended gear etc.)

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Only Arenanet will know how many active players they have left.
The rest of us have to guess by looking at our guild rosters and friends list.

You know, it’s also a neat little conundrum as well. ArenaNet says the game is doing fine, they must be lying to cover up the fact it’s dying so it’s okay to abandon it.

. . . they say sales or player count fell, and the game is dying, abandon ship!

No matter what they answer it’ll be used however people want it to be. So . . .

The real question of this thread? “Are you still going to play?”

Rochambeau.4502:

clay.7849:

Rochambeau.4502:

I would suspect that the regular playerbase is declining, just like ti does in every MMO after 4-6 months.

The PvE aspect of the game is very limited – “Dress Up Barbie” progression doesn’t make for much longevity for PvE players.

The PvP/WvW component will keep the game strong, as kitten is never ending market to be tapped.

Well, ANet has stated the exact opposite. They said that one they reached their baseline of post release players, that number has increased. The only other company to do that has been EVE.

Furthermore, your logic of no progession = no players is so very flawed. There once was this company called ArenaNet that made a game called Guild Wars that was based around no vertical progression. They lasted 7 years and were one of the most successful online PC games ever sold.

But, nice try.

First, EVE has never released verifiable numbers. That game has been the biggest urban legend in gaming history. Any reference to a subscriber number can be traced back to comments from the developer without any tangible proof.

The last game that published real numbers was DAoC and they eventually stopped doing it.

Now, everyone uses completely subjective “High Medium Low” designations, which can be changed at the whim of the developer.

So, nice try to you too.

So a developer needs to not only release their numbers, they need to make them verifiable? Weak argument bro.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/02/28/eve-online-hits-500-000-subscribers-heads-into-second-decade/

I don’t understand the low, medium, high comment either. I thought subscribers are subscribers?

I see loads of people in pve, more than when I started in November.

danbuter.2314:

Syphen.1980:

And how many people are playing and player retention means what to you? It doesn’t affect your enjoyment of the game in any way shape or form. .

Because if the number is too low, the game will be canceled (see City of Heroes). NCSoft is not shy about killing slow games.

Rest assure GW2 is far from being canceled. Look at GW1 it is still around to this day.

when i started at head start it was busy, now its packed out seriously i see more people every other week at least.

GW2 as with any other free MMO is tough to really say how many people play as all accounts are flagged as active all the time, i’m sure they detect server traffic and such and can get an estimate though but there not going to release that information.

For Example when WoW stated ‘’10million players’’ what they actually meant was ‘’10 million ACTIVE accounts’’ that included bots and china / middle east that sector alone counted for a couple of million, more by blizzards estimate, as when it was banned over there 3million active accounts dropped off of the face of the earth until they re-instated ‘’pay by the time you play’’

now 3 million copies sold, content released EVERY month no matter how big or small that is a fast churn out time and i have been pretty happy thus far, the world feels far more ‘’active and living’’ than any other MMO i have played because of this new story shoots taking you to different area’s one time events etc its all more…i dunno intriguing.

anyway my main point is on a F2P game you come and go as you please so…one day you have a couple of mill next day you have less…..new patch more, after patch is old less…ya’know….

Wirldwide.8046:

With all due respect, this is misleading information.

Was this post meant to illustrate how people can take incontrovertible facts and still use them to make the opposite point of what they indicate? If so, it was well-done. It’s almost as though you’re saying- “yes, they are the fastest-growing, but the way they got there means the game is a failure!”

If not… eek. :-[ Maybe I can clarify:

1) Of course pre-purchases are counted. They are purchases before release date, how could you possibly avoid using them for a “fastest-selling” metric? For all intents and purposes they are day-1 sales; if anything they should be weighted higher. :P
2) Why on earth would pre-orders not be counted as day-1 sales upon release and factor into reported sales figures?
3) You seem to be implying that a significant enough number of people have requested a product refund for Guild Wars 2 to impact the total population or lower sales figures (i.e.: not be outpaced by new sales). Do you have any data regarding this implication?

Morthur.3894:

I decided to speculate (as clearly indicated by my use of the term “guesstimate”).
…

I want to caution you against using the word “guesstimate” as you have here, as though it indicates anything in particular. You made those numbers up out of thin air; you are justifying having made them up by making more stuff up. Please stop putting such specific numbers into your posts on this topic.

For all we know, you could be right on the money! But I’m mentioning this because you are literally damaging your chances of winning any argument in which you engage in this behavior.

You’re also using multiple lapses and factual inaccuracies within the text surrounding the made-up numbers. You mention you are making these guesses “based on your experience with server capacity.” However, one would imagine that if server capacity is exceeded for a given zone in Guild Wars 2, either a queue or, technology allowing, an overflow server of some form would be employed. Surely you can think of a time or two when this has been the case in Guild Wars 2. Also, regarding “many worlds are medium”- in North America, as of 3/27/2013, two servers are medium. A third one went from Medium to High the night before. The rest are literally all Very High. This was simply factually wrong; I’m sure it was an oversight and not mendacity on your part however.

Still – there are definitely more then 10’000 and less then 1’000’000 players
…1 million would require over 30% of people that bought the game to still be playing…
…estimate of roughly 20-50k players (maybe 100k.

Again, I just want to recommend you not employ completely fabricated numbers in this capacity. Merely saying that something is an “estimate” is not enough indication to the reader that the number has literally no basis in evidence of any kind.

Finally, “1 million would require…”: the 3 million sales figure was released in January. Unless you believe they haven’t sold any copies since then, or sold negative copies, obviously it has increased to some degree in the meantime. So your calculation is also outdated.

Sure sure, they are not releasing any numbers because they want to be humble.. lol… come on… pull the other one mate. Again: If the numbers were impressive then the quacks from marketing would be the first to publish them to attract new players. That’s simply how it works.

I hate to put it in these terms, but you’re describing things in my field of employment and you do not have a full grasp of the topics at hand.

It’s simply incorrect that a company will merely release sales numbers as frequently and immediately as they are able to, just because the numbers “are impressive.” There are a large number of strategic reasons to make or not make a press release or make numbers public for an earnings call, and none of them have to do with humility. On the contrary, a company might for example withhold strong sales numbers until after the release of a competitor’s product, to drive positive press back in their direction due to the comparison.

Your position also contends that it would obviously follow that ArenaNet’s marketing team would want to immediately put out sales figures “to attract new players.” But for all we know they have no need to employ financial data this way if their current strategies are working. In corporate terms, strong sales figures may attract new players but are much more relevant to shareholders than gamers. A temporary discount is often a much more solid method by which to attract new customers without revealing internal data.

Why do you think that all successful MMOs…

I unfortunately have little insight into what any of this is supposed to mean. The vast majority of MMO games in the Western market never reach 1 million total sales.

I still barely play, log in to do the daily and that’s about it. Only problems I have with the game is the combat, clipping, and weapon stances.

clay.7849:

SneakyErvin.3056:

People claim server population doesnt indicate players, but it does. It indicates players online, and servers have a higher limit than they had at release, the limit has increased gradually since release. Some servers also have a much higher population now.

This is wrong, as confirmed by ANet:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Server-Populations/first#post703192

You can interprit that official answer anyway you like. But having switched servers a few time myself leads me more in the direction that it tracks people online. Also as I said, when mass transfers happened to certain servers, some guilds organized total logout schedules to get the transfering people onto their server.

This is another thing that leads me to the conclussion that population is based on people online. Otherwise the “full” servers would have been full even after organized log offs took places for people to get onto the servers.

The only thing is, this game doesnt have queues, once you get onto a server you get access to it, no matter if its full when you log on.

Reason there are less full servers now is because server capacity has increased, which with the lack of “low” pop servers in EU proves more people are playing now. After release we had plenty of low servers. If server capacity increased, chances to see “low” pop servers would be greater, since the number of players required to fill “low”, “medium”, “high” and so on would be greater.

But since “low” doesnt exsist, its only normal to assume there are more players on the servers now, same with the ones that are now high which used to be medium.

If we would have a significant drop in players along with the increased server cap it would be like this.

Full → Very High
Very High → Very High or High
High → High or Medium
Medium → Medium or Low
Low → Low

Depending how close to the above mark they were. Those close to the lower mark would most likely show a lower mark status compared to those closer to a higher mark.

But we currently have it the other way around, except there are no full servers now, since capacity is greater.

@SneakyErvin

You can try and rationalize it all you want, but wrong is wrong. The devs stated, in black and white, that server “fullness” is tied to accounts, not people online.

You can write 20 more pages about why you think your anecdotal evidence is right, but it would still be wrong.

clay.7849:

@SneakyErvin

You can try and rationalize it all you want, but wrong is wrong. The devs stated, in black and white, that server “fullness” is tied to accounts, not people online.

You can write 20 more pages about why you think your anecdotal evidence is right, but it would still be wrong.

Nor will it matter at all.

I really love GW2 but I could see why the OP would want to know this information. It is nice to know how many current active players are in the same server you’re on. Like in SWTOR I love how they have a number at the bottom or top or however you have your interface configured; displays the amount of active players. I’ve seen it as low as 4 people and as high as 250 players which I think is “full”. Is it possible to see these numbers in GW2?

I know a guy who used to not play and now he does. Based on these trends, I can conclude the game has approximately 7 billion players.

Of course I can see why the OP would want to know this information. I’d love to have every bit of relevant data to this question. First of all, “Very High” by all rights must mean a freaking huge range of different things considered how many servers get that designation. It isn’t possible, though All of this information is private, which makes all of the speculative offers of advice or guesses about the population pretty irrelevant.

clay.7849:

@SneakyErvin

You can try and rationalize it all you want, but wrong is wrong. The devs stated, in black and white, that server “fullness” is tied to accounts, not people online.

You can write 20 more pages about why you think your anecdotal evidence is right, but it would still be wrong.

Actually, the dev link says nothing in black and white. It’s very vague, so I rather go after what has been said here on the forums earlier regarding server migrations.

But please do answer me, how all of a sudden a server marked as Full can suddenly, minutes later have enough room for a 500 man guild, or more in the case of a certain mass migration done by a US guild to a full EU server.

If it was account based, there wouldnt be a possibility to transfer to the server in those numbers, which has been done. This is no speculation about what if, since it has already happened. RUIN moving to desolation is a prime example.

The dev post only states the obvious, that full means full, due to too many people being on that server. It doesnt state if its current logged in numbers or not.

The mass migrations between servers, especially full ones, has given a better view how it works.

There is no explaination except the one I’ve given as to how full guilds, in the case of ruin multiple full guilds can transfer to a server labeled as full, unless enough people can mass log out to make room, as was stated by said guilds when it happened. Also when I transfered myself it was easier to do it at certain times of the day when servers were very high instead of full.

It’s also the obvious behavior to cap servers at active players logged on, since its a multi-regional game that spans the globe without zone restrictions. If it was tied to accounts only, some people would likely not be able to get in and during some time of the day there would be dead hours on the servers, which there is on some that are only EU or US servers. But then there are servers with a quite steady flow of people 24/7 since they are multi-regional.

It wont be that big when The Elder Scrolls Online gets release, I’m super hyped for that game, I loved morrowind, oblivion was ok and skyrim was pretty good but not as good as morrowind. One thing about video games you should learn is theres ALWAYS a better game that will come out.

uberkingkong.8041:

It wont be that big when The Elder Scrolls Online gets release, I’m super hyped for that game, I loved morrowind, oblivion was ok and skyrim was pretty good but not as good as morrowind. One thing about video games you should learn is theres ALWAYS a better game that will come out.

The it comes to the point of subscription fees, something many players stay away from. I’m one of them, I’ve payed MMO games during a period of 10+ years, but now playing GW2 really opened my eyes to how stupid it is with sub fees.

And the company making ESO are known for massive bugs, which are all fine and dandy in single player games, but wont be accetable in an MMO, especially if it has a sub fee.

I can’t give you a number as to how many people are playing, but I can tell you the higher populated servers (and there are many) are pretty kitten crowded.

It’s one of the only MMOs I can think of in recent years that hasn’t fallen apart population wise within months of coming out. So hurray for that

@Clay & killcannon, et al…

I’ve been monitoring the World Selection screen over the past 24 hours and it seems that you all are correct about server population (home vs logged in). Unless of course no-one has logged off any of the servers in the past day but that’s highly unlikely.

That is all…just wanted to admit my mistaken beliefs.

If you like the game or think you will like the game, does it really matter? As far as copies old, Diablo 3 sold pretty well when it came out from what I remember, and then it bombed huge time… I was there to see it. =(

clay.7849:

Rochambeau.4502:

clay.7849:

Rochambeau.4502:

I would suspect that the regular playerbase is declining, just like ti does in every MMO after 4-6 months.

The PvE aspect of the game is very limited – “Dress Up Barbie” progression doesn’t make for much longevity for PvE players.

The PvP/WvW component will keep the game strong, as kitten is never ending market to be tapped.

Well, ANet has stated the exact opposite. They said that one they reached their baseline of post release players, that number has increased. The only other company to do that has been EVE.

Furthermore, your logic of no progession = no players is so very flawed. There once was this company called ArenaNet that made a game called Guild Wars that was based around no vertical progression. They lasted 7 years and were one of the most successful online PC games ever sold.

But, nice try.

First, EVE has never released verifiable numbers. That game has been the biggest urban legend in gaming history. Any reference to a subscriber number can be traced back to comments from the developer without any tangible proof.

The last game that published real numbers was DAoC and they eventually stopped doing it.

Now, everyone uses completely subjective “High Medium Low” designations, which can be changed at the whim of the developer.

So, nice try to you too.

So a developer needs to not only release their numbers, they need to make them verifiable? Weak argument bro.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/02/28/eve-online-hits-500-000-subscribers-heads-into-second-decade/

I don’t understand the low, medium, high comment either. I thought subscribers are subscribers?

“EVE developer CCP Games told Massively today..”

Of course developers have no reason to exaggerate their numbers..

What I meant High Med Low is this: what constitutes High this week?

@Rochambeau

I don’t understand what you mean by high this week, but I see your tin foil hat is firmly affixed to your noggin.

BioFringe.7945:

@Clay & killcannon, et al…

I’ve been monitoring the World Selection screen over the past 24 hours and it seems that you all are correct about server population (home vs logged in). Unless of course no-one has logged off any of the servers in the past day but that’s highly unlikely.

That is all…just wanted to admit my mistaken beliefs.

Thank you. It was definitely different when server transfers were free.

As has been noted there is really no way to know for sure how many are actually playing. Anet does have this data but so far they are not sharing. It would be very interesting to know overall numbers and the per server data would be very interesting as well.

Im sorry, but this game was HIGHLY disappointing to me.
I had the first guild wars, and that got me hooked in. The cinematics were so much cleaner and more in depth. From what I saw they just have cutscenes where they talk in this game. Having to unlock all the areas in the game is annoying as well. In the first one you had a nice path set for your class and you followed a smooth storyline. I feel like this game is more chaotic when it comes to missions, it was very confusing for me. The graphics are awesome, but the game just doesn’t seem to stand out like the first one did. I hate the skill sets, you can’t just choose the skills you want and buy them as you go.. and the attribute system was confusing to me as well.
Overall, I just couldn’t get into this game, no matter how many times I’ve tried.. I honestly can’t see how any of you can… I miss the first one :’(
I could at least get past the beginning of the game in the first one… Crappy I spent so much money on the pre-order :\

Oh well, I have SWTOR to play.

The will swell again a little with the demise of Warhammer Online and the constant flow out the door from WOW. Wow in particular is getting really stupid fighting pandas I dread to think what will be next its become a bit of a joke. The thing that keeps an mmo alive is new content a lot of the other games dont add anything for very long periods of time and you are doing the same old stuff over and over. GW2 may well not be the best mmo in the world but there is always something to do. Others should take note.

Nymphetamine.2103:

Even games like Tera roflstomps GW2 with regards to viewers.

Tera is typically hovering between 50 and 150 viewers, while GW2 has around 300-500 viewers. Ive actually never seen Tera with more viewers than GW2 at a given moment….and i have twitch open 24/7 pretty much (on my 3rd screen).

So no….this isnt true.

Maybe you looked at it when some super popular multi game streamer took a peak at it for an hour or two. Or a day after the release of their latest dungeon patch?

And besides that. I wouldnt link twitch viewers to the popularity of a game. Some games or animation styles just arent that suitable for streams. GW2 is a lot more demanding on your system aswell So less people will be able to stream and play GW2 at the same time with decent FPS. And GW2 looks really crappy on low graphic settings due to its animation style.