Guild Wars 2

Something hit me while I was in WvW today, and that it, it feels like the amount of people in my server has greatly decreased. I’m on SoS btw. I used to remember running in wvw borderland and even at our weakest time, we still have a couple who are on. Nowadays, when I am on even during oceanic peak hours, there is very very little people even on. The zerg sizes lead by the commanders are much much smaller and the only time we ever get a queue on anywhere is right on reset.

I’ve observed similar things in PvE as well.

I know this could be various options other than people leaving. For example, they could have simply switched servers or just place less frequent, or play on different times as me or they’re doing the living story temporary contents, farming in the invasions and no longer playing other PvE or WvW content. But I seriously think that this game is actually losing players at this stage so I welcome anyone who gives me feedback on their server about whether or not they notice such an occurrence.

To keep it simple, I would just like a simple response of such:

Server: (your server)
WvW = Yes/no/same (Yes to I have noticed less people, No to I have seen more people and same as in no change)
PvE = Yes/no/same (Yes to I have noticed less people, No to I have seen more people and same as in no change)
Comment: (your thought on what you think the cause is, try keep it simple e.g. I think it’s just people farming invasion why everywhere else feels empty)

A lot of people are busy farming the new invasions and saving up for the new ascended items.

Things will be back to normal eventually.

you determine growth by what you see in pve and wvw ._.

the Game is growing, quiet steadily actually, in fact is anets recent infograph, I think 3.5 million copies were sold and 450k players active at a given time, compared to last decembers 3mil and 300k or soemthing like that, so yes, its growing, suprisingly too for an Mmo in the Summer, a time where Mmos are light on numbers

SpehssMehreen.5897:

you determine growth by what you see in pve and wvw ._.

the Game is growing, quiet steadily actually, in fact is anets recent infograph, I think 3.5 million copies were sold and 450k players active at a given time, compared to last decembers 3mil and 300k or soemthing like that, so yes, its growing, suprisingly too for an Mmo in the Summer, a time where Mmos are light on numbers

Fine print says it’s during the initial 9 months not? (obviously the sweet spot for their sales) I’m talking about what has happened in the last 3-4 months where a lot of things have gone downhill for some people. Also, 9 months in is just at where sky pirates starting rolling out.

SpehssMerhreen – I’m not determining growth, I’m just asking whether other people can feel the change or not. There is no concrete way for us players to determine whether this game is really growing or not, it will vary with server and without hard numbers, all we can do is estimate.

The latest PR bullcrap they released didn’t actually hold any relevant info on how well the game is doing. They can stay it is steadily growing sure and it can very well be the truth, but that doesn’t mean anything without numbers backing them up. If they had a huge drop off at some point and it started rising again after that, than you can claim the game is growing without lying. The concurrent number was that a one off or an average? When was it? Total sales does that include or exclude people that got refunds and if it included how many got refunds.

The info is meant to show the game in a positive light nothing more. Mortal Online frequently does this and they have around 2k users and are losing money hand over fist.

To me it seems population is on the decline, but that is just my viewpoint.

is this game growing, yes.

This game is growing farmers…wtf!!??I mean the farmers are growing this game.

Conner.4702:

The latest PR bullcrap they released didn’t actually hold any relevant info on how well the game is doing. They can stay it is steadily growing sure and it can very well be the truth, but that doesn’t mean anything without numbers backing them up. If they had a huge drop off at some point and it started rising again after that, than you can claim the game is growing without lying. The concurrent number was that a one off or an average? When was it? Total sales does that include or exclude people that got refunds and if it included how many got refunds.

The info is meant to show the game in a positive light nothing more. Mortal Online frequently does this and they have around 2k users and are losing money hand over fist.

To me it seems population is on the decline, but that is just my viewpoint.

then there comes the question, what makes you think the population is in decline, when the Developers themselves have given us the information we need, information that happens to confirm what many evidence already points to.

@Lafiel, youve already answered your own question, the fact is that the game is growing, now whether gamers can “feel” or Notice this is, as you say, depends from person to person, server to server, someone in the bottom tiers might log into wvw and determine the game is dead, while at the same time someone logs into an invasion event overflow and determines the game is bursting in the seems, etc etc

Companies never post their game failing.They are trying desperately to get new players now through their PR bs……Which indicates why the player base are declining.

xephire.8324:

Companies never post their game failing.They are trying desperately to get new players now through their PR bs……Which indicates why the player base are declining.

So according to your logic, no game is ever growing because publishers of all games never post their game is failing, and they all have PR bs. Which means all games say they’re growing which means to you all games are failing.

I understand completely now. Carry on.

My feeling (with no numbers of course, purely anecdotal evidence) is that while ArenaNet seems to be pretty decent at selling boxes and getting new players, there are more players leaving out the back of the bus.

So to me, it feels like the net population is shrinking despite new players coming in.

I’ll say it again – the only way to measure this is if they reported players instead of sales. But they seem to refuse that.

My server certainly feels busier and more heavily populated (more overflows in Lion’s Arch, etc.) than a few months ago.

But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if WvWvW was less populated, since they’re throwing new stuff to do at us every two weeks, it’s surely getting peoples’ attention which means WvWvW is losing it.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Conner.4702:

The latest PR bullcrap they released didn’t actually hold any relevant info on how well the game is doing. They can stay it is steadily growing sure and it can very well be the truth, but that doesn’t mean anything without numbers backing them up. If they had a huge drop off at some point and it started rising again after that, than you can claim the game is growing without lying. The concurrent number was that a one off or an average? When was it? Total sales does that include or exclude people that got refunds and if it included how many got refunds.

The info is meant to show the game in a positive light nothing more. Mortal Online frequently does this and they have around 2k users and are losing money hand over fist.

To me it seems population is on the decline, but that is just my viewpoint.

then there comes the question, what makes you think the population is in decline, when the Developers themselves have given us the information we need, information that happens to confirm what many evidence already points to.

@Lafiel, youve already answered your own question, the fact is that the game is growing, now whether gamers can “feel” or Notice this is, as you say, depends from person to person, server to server, someone in the bottom tiers might log into wvw and determine the game is dead, while at the same time someone logs into an invasion event overflow and determines the game is bursting in the seems, etc etc

Well I feel like there is less people. For example, I regularly play on my server and 2 other servers. Back in the days, I would notice a lot more people doing the PvE content (the main ones) like fire elemental or jormag etc. Now this could very well be the doing of the current invasion but even before that time, i’ve noticed drop off in player numbers. I just want to see if other people feel it too.

Also, as conner has explained perfectly well, the numbers given by anet can be twisted, no company is going to give you the cold hard facts (that their game is losing players). Like I said, there could have been a significant drop off in the last 3 months that no one knows about and the numbers stated them are incredibly vague.

And to add to that, if I scroll on my friend list or guild list given that you don’t have incoming and outgoing players often (and I actually think this is the best way to a grasp of what the player base situation is like on a small scale), what used to be a pretty bright lit list has shortened to almost only the real dedicated and loyal players. I’ve noticed a lot of guildies come and go after a couple of months in this game and most of the guys who stay are really the core few. From a percentage wise, only 10 % of my friendlist still come online although I don’t have many virtual friends I guess.

Banquetto – that is promising to hear, what server are you on by the way?

Lafiel.9372:

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Conner.4702:

The latest PR bullcrap they released didn’t actually hold any relevant info on how well the game is doing. They can stay it is steadily growing sure and it can very well be the truth, but that doesn’t mean anything without numbers backing them up. If they had a huge drop off at some point and it started rising again after that, than you can claim the game is growing without lying. The concurrent number was that a one off or an average? When was it? Total sales does that include or exclude people that got refunds and if it included how many got refunds.

The info is meant to show the game in a positive light nothing more. Mortal Online frequently does this and they have around 2k users and are losing money hand over fist.

To me it seems population is on the decline, but that is just my viewpoint.

then there comes the question, what makes you think the population is in decline, when the Developers themselves have given us the information we need, information that happens to confirm what many evidence already points to.

@Lafiel, youve already answered your own question, the fact is that the game is growing, now whether gamers can “feel” or Notice this is, as you say, depends from person to person, server to server, someone in the bottom tiers might log into wvw and determine the game is dead, while at the same time someone logs into an invasion event overflow and determines the game is bursting in the seems, etc etc

Well I feel like there is less people. For example, I regularly play on server other servers. Back in the days, I would notice a lot more people doing the PvE content (the main ones) like fire elemental or jormag etc. Now this could very well be the doing of the current invasion but even before that time, i’ve noticed drop off in player numbers. I just want to see if other people feel it too.

Also, as conner has explained perfectly well, the numbers given by anet can be twisted, no company is going to give you the cold hard facts (that their game is losing players). Like I said, there could have been a significant drop off in the last 3 months that no one knows about and the numbers stated them are incredibly vague.

The problem is the population keeps moving around. It’s not a static population but an active one. Every time Anet changes something, the people who are doing it change.

When people were farming the flame champions in the cursed shore, you couldn’t get a hit on them unless you were in a group, and playing a staff guardian. Otherwise you wouldn’t get credit for a lot of the kills.

This was less than a month ago. But not everyone one there. There were also champion trains in Queensdale and Frostgorge. Then the pavillion opened and it was the place to be, so people went there. And some people kept themselves entertained with the gauntlet.

Now people are doing the zone wide events. I’ve yet to be on a server those aren’t packed on. There are multiple events, multiple overflows for each of the events.

So yeah, there are less people in WvW and less people in the word.

But when they changed WvW a couple of months ago and introduced WxP, it was new so WvW was packed.

Sure it seems like less people are in WvW…because less people are in WvW. That doesn’t say anything about all the overflows I keep getting into.

Zeldain.5710:

My feeling (with no numbers of course, purely anecdotal evidence) is that while ArenaNet seems to be pretty decent at selling boxes and getting new players, there are more players leaving out the back of the bus.

So to me, it feels like the net population is shrinking despite new players coming in.

I’ll say it again – the only way to measure this is if they reported players instead of sales. But they seem to refuse that.

I agree, I remember the days when most mmos were proud to show the amount of players online at any given time on a server.

Lafiel.9372:

Zeldain.5710:

My feeling (with no numbers of course, purely anecdotal evidence) is that while ArenaNet seems to be pretty decent at selling boxes and getting new players, there are more players leaving out the back of the bus.

So to me, it feels like the net population is shrinking despite new players coming in.

I’ll say it again – the only way to measure this is if they reported players instead of sales. But they seem to refuse that.

I agree, I remember the days when most mmos were proud to show the amount of players online at any given time on a server.

Nope, I don’t remember that at all. I’m pretty sure it hasn’t happened. Because most MMOs didn’t have huge numbers of players. I know Eve does report that, but again, most companies don’t. Even WoW doesn’t usually tell you how many players are on at the same time and they have 8 million subscribers.

Vayne.8563:

Lafiel.9372:

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Conner.4702:

The latest PR bullcrap they released didn’t actually hold any relevant info on how well the game is doing. They can stay it is steadily growing sure and it can very well be the truth, but that doesn’t mean anything without numbers backing them up. If they had a huge drop off at some point and it started rising again after that, than you can claim the game is growing without lying. The concurrent number was that a one off or an average? When was it? Total sales does that include or exclude people that got refunds and if it included how many got refunds.

The info is meant to show the game in a positive light nothing more. Mortal Online frequently does this and they have around 2k users and are losing money hand over fist.

To me it seems population is on the decline, but that is just my viewpoint.

then there comes the question, what makes you think the population is in decline, when the Developers themselves have given us the information we need, information that happens to confirm what many evidence already points to.

@Lafiel, youve already answered your own question, the fact is that the game is growing, now whether gamers can “feel” or Notice this is, as you say, depends from person to person, server to server, someone in the bottom tiers might log into wvw and determine the game is dead, while at the same time someone logs into an invasion event overflow and determines the game is bursting in the seems, etc etc

Well I feel like there is less people. For example, I regularly play on server other servers. Back in the days, I would notice a lot more people doing the PvE content (the main ones) like fire elemental or jormag etc. Now this could very well be the doing of the current invasion but even before that time, i’ve noticed drop off in player numbers. I just want to see if other people feel it too.

Also, as conner has explained perfectly well, the numbers given by anet can be twisted, no company is going to give you the cold hard facts (that their game is losing players). Like I said, there could have been a significant drop off in the last 3 months that no one knows about and the numbers stated them are incredibly vague.

The problem is the population keeps moving around. It’s not a static population but an active one. Every time Anet changes something, the people who are doing it change.

When people were farming the flame champions in the cursed shore, you couldn’t get a hit on them unless you were in a group, and playing a staff guardian. Otherwise you wouldn’t get credit for a lot of the kills.

This was less than a month ago. But not everyone one there. There were also champion trains in Queensdale and Frostgorge. Then the pavillion opened and it was the place to be, so people went there. And some people kept themselves entertained with the gauntlet.

Now people are doing the zone wide events. I’ve yet to be on a server those aren’t packed on. There are multiple events, multiple overflows for each of the events.

So yeah, there are less people in WvW and less people in the word.

But when they changed WvW a couple of months ago and introduced WxP, it was new so WvW was packed.

Sure it seems like less people are in WvW…because less people are in WvW. That doesn’t say anything about all the overflows I keep getting into.

if thats the case then theres no point at the thread because everything on our part is pure speculation and any evidence shedding light can be “twisted”.
At some point you have to either give the company thats providing you your product the benifit of the doubt, this doesnt just go for anet but for every company that produces all of the things we use, without it, the sake of argument is none existent.

but take note though, Arena net is a subsidary of Ncsoft, a company thats traded, at least partially, Publically, meaning it producers information, such as financial ones for their stockholders, meaning transparency and with it integrity is utmost importance, supposedly Manipulation or Bullkittenting something like the info graph would only live to haunt them, Its most definetly against their philosophy but perception will always prevail over reality.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Vayne.8563:

Lafiel.9372:

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Conner.4702:

The latest PR bullcrap they released didn’t actually hold any relevant info on how well the game is doing. They can stay it is steadily growing sure and it can very well be the truth, but that doesn’t mean anything without numbers backing them up. If they had a huge drop off at some point and it started rising again after that, than you can claim the game is growing without lying. The concurrent number was that a one off or an average? When was it? Total sales does that include or exclude people that got refunds and if it included how many got refunds.

The info is meant to show the game in a positive light nothing more. Mortal Online frequently does this and they have around 2k users and are losing money hand over fist.

To me it seems population is on the decline, but that is just my viewpoint.

then there comes the question, what makes you think the population is in decline, when the Developers themselves have given us the information we need, information that happens to confirm what many evidence already points to.

@Lafiel, youve already answered your own question, the fact is that the game is growing, now whether gamers can “feel” or Notice this is, as you say, depends from person to person, server to server, someone in the bottom tiers might log into wvw and determine the game is dead, while at the same time someone logs into an invasion event overflow and determines the game is bursting in the seems, etc etc

Well I feel like there is less people. For example, I regularly play on server other servers. Back in the days, I would notice a lot more people doing the PvE content (the main ones) like fire elemental or jormag etc. Now this could very well be the doing of the current invasion but even before that time, i’ve noticed drop off in player numbers. I just want to see if other people feel it too.

Also, as conner has explained perfectly well, the numbers given by anet can be twisted, no company is going to give you the cold hard facts (that their game is losing players). Like I said, there could have been a significant drop off in the last 3 months that no one knows about and the numbers stated them are incredibly vague.

The problem is the population keeps moving around. It’s not a static population but an active one. Every time Anet changes something, the people who are doing it change.

When people were farming the flame champions in the cursed shore, you couldn’t get a hit on them unless you were in a group, and playing a staff guardian. Otherwise you wouldn’t get credit for a lot of the kills.

This was less than a month ago. But not everyone one there. There were also champion trains in Queensdale and Frostgorge. Then the pavillion opened and it was the place to be, so people went there. And some people kept themselves entertained with the gauntlet.

Now people are doing the zone wide events. I’ve yet to be on a server those aren’t packed on. There are multiple events, multiple overflows for each of the events.

So yeah, there are less people in WvW and less people in the word.

But when they changed WvW a couple of months ago and introduced WxP, it was new so WvW was packed.

Sure it seems like less people are in WvW…because less people are in WvW. That doesn’t say anything about all the overflows I keep getting into.

if thats the case then theres no point at the thread because everything on our part is pure speculation and any evidence shedding light can be “twisted”.
At some point you have to either give the company thats providing you your product the benifit of the doubt, this doesnt just go for anet but for every company that produces all of the things we use, without it, the sake of argument is none existent.

but take note though, Arena net is a subsidary of Ncsoft, a company thats traded, at least partially, Publically, meaning it producers information, such as financial ones for their stockholders, meaning transparency and with it integrity is utmost importance, supposedly Manipulation or Bullkittenting something like the info graph would only live to haunt them, Its most definetly against their philosophy but perception will always prevail over reality.

We’ve seen the financial report. That much we have seen. Beyond that, we don’t know how many people are actually playing the game.

But we also know people tend to gravitate to new stuff and people tend to gravitate to profitable stuff. So if something is both new and profitable, it’s logical that other areas of the game will be less populated, because the new stuff is more populated.

It doesn’t answer the question at all, so yeah you’re right. There really is no point to discuss this because no one can answer it.

I guess no one can really tell and only Anet actually knows and I’m sure they won’t spill the beans. I wouldn’t be surprised that it’s declining though, all new MMOs decline after that initial surge.

Also, it’s hard to gauge the playerbase on WvW and general PvE, because due to the LS events getting more and more profitable over everything else, everyone flocked to them and abandoned the rest of the game.

There’s certainly more people playing but people in general are playing a lot less.

My guild of 20 active players has become a guild of 35 inactive players, logging on once a week to do guild missions and twice a month do living story and that’s about it.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

I think 3.5 million copies were sold and 450k players active at a given time, compared to last decembers 3mil

So we know that the game has sold more or less 3 million copies between pre-release and four months after launch, and then more or less 500 thousand copies in the following 8 months. The fall to 16,66% in sales isn’t exactly an impressive number.

But what we do know is that recently, based on an ArenaNet’s comment last month, there have been more people playing concurrently. It’s likely that the farmers, grinders and exploiters are playing more in order to farm all the new grind-based content in the game. Considering how this approach has been successful, I expect ArenaNet to add a lot more of it in the future.

Vayne.8563:

I know Eve does report that, but again, most companies don’t. Even WoW doesn’t usually tell you how many players are on at the same time and they have 8 million subscribers.

Players = subscribers in EVE’s case.
Players = subscribers in WoW’s case.
Sales does not = players in GW2’s case.

We don’t care how many people are playing at the same time… we care how many players are actively playing.

What I would like is for ArenaNet to define what an “active player” is (similar to how Blizzard has defined an active player/subscriber as someone who has paid to play the game during the course of a given month.)

ArenaNet could do the same thing – even “logging in once in a calendar month” would be enough of a definition.

Then we could accurately measure if the game is growing or not. Sales is simply an indication of sales, not players.

Zeldain.5710:

Vayne.8563:

I know Eve does report that, but again, most companies don’t. Even WoW doesn’t usually tell you how many players are on at the same time and they have 8 million subscribers.

Players = subscribers in EVE’s case.
Players = subscribers in WoW’s case.
Sales does not = players in GW2’s case.

We don’t care how many people are playing at the same time… we care how many players are actively playing.

What I would like is for ArenaNet to define what an “active player” is (similar to how Blizzard has defined an active player/subscriber as someone who has paid to play the game during the course of a given month.)

ArenaNet could do the same thing – even “logging in once in a calendar month” would be enough of a definition.

Then we could accurately measure if the game is growing or not. Sales is simply an indication of sales, not players.

Players DO NOT equal subscribers, I’m sorry to say. I subscribed to Rift for six months. I played for 3. Even though I stopped playing I was counted.

WoW had deals where if you subbed to WoW for a year you got D3 for free. Those subs counted whether people paid or not.

Actually I know quite a few people who have paid a sub and don’t play a game. In fact, I know people who continue to pay for subs for games they don’t play.

Don’t ask me why.

As I have said before, I think looking at your guild and friend roster is actually a good way to judge whether this game is losing players on a small scale.

To Vayne – not sure how old you are, but I’ve played my share of mmos, games older than runescape I believe. I started out in 2D mmos back in late 90s to early 2000s games like dransik classic now known as ashen empires (i’m surprised it’s still here, really brings back memories as a kid lol). Korean games like ragnarok online etc, all of them showed players online back then. This is just a couple examples, i’m sure there are more out there. But this point is not important, we all know why companies now choose not to show players online.

Vayne.8563:

Actually I know quite a few people who have paid a sub and don’t play a game. In fact, I know people who continue to pay for subs for games they don’t play.

Vayne, you are not too complex to understand. The reason why so many, including myself, don’t care your comments seriously isn’t because, as you claim, others see you as someone who thinks ArenaNet can do no mistake. No, it’s something subtler than that.

I went to Guild Wars 2 looking for a fun game. Others came here looking for a way to “work” in order to show off in front of fellow players. Others wanted a place where to socialize with other people, some wanted a place where they could be the annoyance that gank fellow players from the shadows without the chance for a fair fight, and so on.

All those groups are different, but there is one even more different than all of those: the players who came to Guild Wars 2 looking for a life. Those who embrace escapism to an infinite degree.

You talk a lot about your life. We know you are 51 years old, retired despite being relativelly young, and that you spend your days taking care of someone who’s crippled (in some meaning of that work), probably your wife or your yourself. You mentioned in that /age topic that you spend more than 12 hours per day playing this game.

In other words, Guild Wars 2 is your life. You or the person you are stuck with cannot run through a grass plain like the one in Queensdale. You cannot do something productive with your (real) life. GW2 is pretty much everything you have.

That’s why it’s hard to take your opinion seriously. All the “I know a lot of people who like this”, “I have talked with a lot of editors who agree with me”, “everyone in my guild loves that aspect of the game” comments are empty – they are just baseless comments lacking any evidence, from someone who plays this game because he has no other option, not because he simply wants to.

nope, pretty sure everyone is busy farming the invasion…have you seen the size of the zerg in each overflows?…

hplee.2839:

nope, pretty sure everyone is busy farming the invasion…have you seen the size of the zerg in each overflows?…

Keep in mind, overflow is players from every single server though.

Server: Seafarer Rest
WvW: Yes, considerably. Probably received lots of transfers after we got 1# on the leaderboards
PvE: Yes, considerably. Lion’s Arch has an overflow for at least 5h a day, which is something I haven’t seen in a while.

Server: TC

WvW: I would say we’re not rapidly getting bigger, but the number of people on the server maybe slightly increasing. There’s quite a few regulars, sure, but I do see new and old people all the time.
PVE: I don’t really think so. Everyone seems largely the same, however this could also be because majority of people don’t talk, and not everyone is always at the same place. Also, invasions.

This would be one of those impossible to answer questions. To date, Anet has not released the kind of data the would truly answer the question. We’re left to our various capacities of speculation.

One thing I’ve noticed is a growing, open trash-talking of Anet in map chat. It’s significant in that I’ve played other MMO’s for years and have not witnessed the level of ill will towards a developer that I have here, in-game. And, I’m on one of the more mature, even-handed servers. This can’t bode well for the game long-term in terms of people actively playing the game.

Maybe your server is doing what my server is doing… leaving their own borderlands. I can only say what I’m experiencing, I’m on Gandara, and there is almost always a queue for Eternal Battlegrounds and at prime time some people on opposing maps. However it’s funny that on Gandara Borderlands we are very often outnumbered and for example yesterday for a while we didn’t control a SINGLE point on our own BL, while we had keeps on others, and Stonemist Castle in EB (and half the map I think)….

Lafiel.9372:

As I have said before, I think looking at your guild and friend roster is actually a good way to judge whether this game is losing players on a small scale.

To Vayne – not sure how old you are, but I’ve played my share of mmos, games older than runescape I believe. I started out in 2D mmos back in late 90s to early 2000s games like dransik classic now known as ashen empires (i’m surprised it’s still here, really brings back memories as a kid lol). Korean games like ragnarok online etc, all of them showed players online back then. This is just a couple examples, i’m sure there are more out there. But this point is not important, we all know why companies now choose not to show players online.

Companies today in most MMOs have more players than they ever did back then, so I’m not sure why you think they don’t say it now.

It’s a lose/lose situation for a company…because inevitably, everything gets compared to WoW. No one has close to WoW’s numbers…so not one says numbers. That’s my take on it.

At PAX they said players logging in and such have been on the rise steadily

Server CD

WvW: A little less people in general for the pass 2-3 weeks. However this is due to the matchup and the invasion. Most wont go fighting an uphill war when you get to farm champions =P

PvE: I see a lot more farme… I mean players in general. This however is not conclusive as less are doing fotm, dungeons, wvw, etc. But I do see a few new players who decided to stay after the free trail.

Kyrel.8942:

At PAX they said players logging in and such have been on the rise steadily

But what does that mean? On the rise by 3 players? 6 players? It’s not really telling us anything.

Erasculio.2914:

Vayne.8563:

Actually I know quite a few people who have paid a sub and don’t play a game. In fact, I know people who continue to pay for subs for games they don’t play.

Vayne, you are not too complex to understand. The reason why so many, including myself, don’t care your comments seriously isn’t because, as you claim, others see you as someone who thinks ArenaNet can do no mistake. No, it’s something subtler than that.

I went to Guild Wars 2 looking for a fun game. Others came here looking for a way to “work” in order to show off in front of fellow players. Others wanted a place where to socialize with other people, some wanted a place where they could be the annoyance that gank fellow players from the shadows without the chance for a fair fight, and so on.

All those groups are different, but there is one even more different than all of those: the players who came to Guild Wars 2 looking for a life. Those who embrace escapism to an infinite degree.

You talk a lot about your life. We know you are 51 years old, retired despite being relativelly young, and that you spend your days taking care of someone who’s crippled (in some meaning of that work), probably your wife or your yourself. You mentioned in that /age topic that you spend more than 12 hours per day playing this game.

In other words, Guild Wars 2 is your life. You or the person you are stuck with cannot run through a grass plain like the one in Queensdale. You cannot do something productive with your (real) life. GW2 is pretty much everything you have.

That’s why it’s hard to take your opinion seriously. All the “I know a lot of people who like this”, “I have talked with a lot of editors who agree with me”, “everyone in my guild loves that aspect of the game” comments are empty – they are just baseless comments lacking any evidence, from someone who plays this game because he has no other option, not because he simply wants to.

Well said,but he’ll prolly report you for it anyway.That is how it is gg…….

Vayne.8563:

Actually I know quite a few people who have paid a sub and don’t play a game. In fact, I know people who continue to pay for subs for games they don’t play.

Don’t ask me why.

I’m sorry, but the percentage of people who are PAYING monthly for a game and NOT playing it is minute, at best. And if you DO believe what you’re saying, then surely you have to agree that box sales in no way reflects active players…

Don’t move the goalposts – there’s nothing wrong with asking ArenaNet to define “active” players just as Blizzard has done.

Then, and only then, could we get a bead on the original topic of “is this game growing” because anecdotal evidence we have shows the opposite.

By the way, this isn’t directed at “you” specifically but rather the collective “you” including ArenaNet

Colin: Players numbers and player login time, total hours played per week have consistently gone up since we did the biweekly cycle. This is even during the summer when MMO player population drops.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Colin: Players numbers and player login time, total hours played per week have consistently gone up since we did the biweekly cycle. This is even during the summer when MMO player population drops.

Well who believes him now a days…………………

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Colin: Players numbers and player login time, total hours played per week have consistently gone up since we did the biweekly cycle. This is even during the summer when MMO player population drops.

What does that even mean? I just would like a number: How many total unique players logged in at all in August.

Simple.

My server is still very busy. Anecdotally, my 60-man guild is very active. We do get some turnover (not too much) but have stayed between 50-60 for months. Most of the players who’ve left didn’t leave the game, either, they just chose to main another guild.

I’ve received four new apps this week. On TC, I also run into a lot of new players. A fair amount of folks are chattering about WildStar, FF, TESO etc, but a fair amount of players always always always do this after a year in a game. The new blood coming in doesn’t seem to be outnumbered by those that I have seen, though. (Obviously someone with metrics would know more definitively, but I am a no-lifer and have seen the server change and evolve and grow.)

Note that the servers have had increased population caps several times over, and that there has been a lot of shuffling of the playerbase onto superservers: when you see a server at ‘high’ or ‘full’, it’s massively bigger than it was at launch.

There’s really no way to tell.

Anet really doesn’t say anything except exaggerate about themselves constantly.

While I appreciate the input so far, the goal of this thread was never to try PROVE that the population was declining. I was merely asking for opinions whether other people have felt similar observations as I have.

Vayne – to answer that last part of your comment, that was exactly my point, there is no win situation to show player online thus reason why mmos gradually grew to get rid of it.

Thank you for those who did response to what I was requesting for

Finally, for the ones trying to post up hard numbers, I appreciate your input but like a few have mentioned above, you will carefully observe that the way they express these things are extremely vague.

The only thing it tells us is that the values were higher than previously, how high was the previous value then? For example,

If at the beginning we had 2000 players and just before biweekly updates we had 1000 players and after the bi-weekly updates we had 1100 players, that still makes his sentence legit. Any sentence which say they had an increase from a certain period is really not very useful. Another example, a company average sales in January was 5000, february was 2000, march 2100, april 2200. I can say here that, sales have been increasing steadily since march but completely ignored that we actually lost over half the sales amount since January.

However, if you analyze this sentence a bit more, you will realise that there was a extremely high chance that the server population was on a decline before the bi-weekly updates. This is because if it were otherwise, the dev would have said, player numbers blah blah blah have been increasing since launch, especially after the introduction of bi-weekly updates.

Furthermore, it is expected that if you introduced these kind of temporary contents, people are bound to log on to check it out but my concern is the long term damage this has on the community. Do people really want something to do that they have to do within the 2 weeks every 2 weeks and knowing that is it temporary content. This is a good short term tactic to attract the few who are still lurking about on the edge of leaving but eventually, they’ll figure out this game isn’t going to give them more and the state of the game hasn’t changed since FoTM november. That is actually my biggest concern, a point i’ve been trying to put for for awhile.

The only way where we can be properly informed of the figures is by giving us hard numbers of the average online players per month and to only include players who have logged in at least x amount of time into the statistics.

As always, i’m always glad to hear that people have been seeing positive observations. However, it seems what I have noticed is that these servers are also one of the higher tier servers. Admittedly, those servers will be more packed and the appearance of numbers becomes harder to define. Perhaps with the drop in numbers in the lower tiers, people have transferred towards higher tiers so ultimately, server populations are generally healthy but the total population could still be declining. I’ll love to see more of other people’s thought and input on this and how they feel their server is doing.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

A lot of people are busy farming the new invasions and saving up for the new ascended items.

Things will be back to normal eventually.

I’ve heard that one before. and sadly since we don’t have concrete numbers outside of the full/not full pings on the server list there’s really no way to tell factually however some of us suspect it’s a SWTOR situation with the 1.3 million active subscribers thing.

Vayne.8563:

Kyrel.8942:

At PAX they said players logging in and such have been on the rise steadily

But what does that mean? On the rise by 3 players? 6 players? It’s not really telling us anything.

Just the fact it’s rising is good enough for me. Up at any pace is better than staying put or dropping.

It seems to me Anet is in a lose/lose situation here.

If they don’t say anything it’s because the game is failing and they don’t want us to know.

If they do say something, even providing numbers, then it’s obvious they’ve wrangled it to look good to cover the fact that the game is failing.

What can they do? If they bring out more, or different, data people will just say the same – it’s obviously not accurate and we’re only being shown it in a desperate attempt to trick us into believing that the game is doing well. Even if an independent company released the data they’d have to get it from Anet and people would claim the same thing.

What would convince people that the game isn’t failing?

Frankly these days if you;re a small indie developer, anything you make is pure genius and anything you say is pure truth.

If you’re a large dev, anything you make is gonna get torn to shreds by either the playerbase or the media and anything you say somehow becomes a lie.

Danikat.8537:

It seems to me Anet is in a lose/lose situation here.

If they don’t say anything it’s because the game is failing and they don’t want us to know.

If they do say something, even providing numbers, then it’s obvious they’ve wrangled it to look good to cover the fact that the game is failing.

[…]

What would convince people that the game isn’t failing?

Nothing. These folks are obsessed with GW2 failing because it didn’t meet their personal expectations. People have been using the exact same lines, argument, contradictory statements, accusations, and such since before launch.

Others then get all panicked and demand hard numbers. I suggest switching to busy servers for the latter ones, and stop angsting about whether the game will die. It won’t for a long time (GW1 is still going). It won’t tomorrow, it won’t next month, and it won’t a year from now.

Well, let’s break it down like this.

Say the 500,000 number is accurate, even as merely an average.

There are 51 worlds… now granted, some worlds are more populated than others, but that will average out to 9,804 players per world at any given time.

From there, we have 28 explorable zones, 6 cities, 17 different WvW groups with 4 maps each, and a sPvP area. Assuming an even distribution among all those areas (which again, despite being a logical fallacy is simply to prove a point), it averages out to roughly 96 players per map.

Now when you consider the reality (where most players gravitate to certain worlds and most hover about in cities), it’s easy to see that even when you have 500,000 concurrent players how some places can look really, really lonely.

Here’s the good news: They obviously had to increase Server capacity for Peak Hours
Here’s the problem: That population you see in the server list is ONLY based on Peak Hours. (Or worse, it might be based on total Daily log ins)

There’s basically a lot more people logging in Daily (b/c they’re forced to with all the timegating) but overall they’re playing a LOT LESS and not keeping any variety of zones or borderlands actually populated. (b/c everything in those zones either provides insufficient gains to keep up with the Champ Farmers, or has literally been BROKEN by Anet’s rushed patching schedule and awful PvE Balancing).

IE: We’re looking at servers with 5000 intended logged in player slots… and only about 500 of those people actually doing anything together during off-peak hours. (while a bunch of them are either Bots… just sitting in LA flipping the TP instead… or BOTH)