Guild Wars 2

This long drought for content is killing activity within my guild. Not sure about others. Expansion is still months away, surely we can’t be expected to just go off what we have now for content until expac release?

GW2 has always been starved of content compared to other MMOs cause of the lack of grind, but Living Story was an ingenious strategy to keep people interested. This current lack of any updates is seriously boring us out though.

pretty sure ANET have noted the drop off due to players becoming bored .. hence the Portal grind for BETA access. It’s a pretty good way of keeping players logged in the wee bit longer and also provides a decent way of trying to ensure beta access is taken up by active players not names on a list that may not of played for months/years.

As for your notion that it lacks grind in GW2.. we must be playing different versions but I too enjoy the Living Story idea (moreso season 2 to be fair)

You can get max level BiS gear in under 1 month from making an account. I’d say that’s no grind.

Other games my guild and I have played required years to even get close to max level.

Don’t mix up farming with grinding.

Reverence.6915:

Don’t mix up farming with grinding.

Younger gamers don’t know the difference. To them if something takes more than a day to complete, or heaven forbid requires repeating content at all, it’s a grind. They somehow want completely novel content that is readily available at any time, even if they play the game 8hrs/day for 3 years.

Draknar.5748:

Reverence.6915:

Don’t mix up farming with grinding.

Younger gamers don’t know the difference. To them if something takes more than a day to complete, or heaven forbid requires repeating content at all, it’s a grind. They somehow want completely novel content that is readily available at any time, even if they play the game 8hrs/day for 3 years.

Those poor whippersnappers. In my day, in GW1, we would have already had Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall in the same time frame as GW2 has put out what they have put out. I have enjoyed what they have released immensely. When I look at the quality, the quantity, really everything, I don’t think there is even an argument.

One could make the argument that they could have kept the LS teams together and released fun, standalone episodes. I am not a fan of temporary content, but, any content is more fun than no content.

Reverence.6915:

This long drought for content is killing activity within my guild. Not sure about others. Expansion is still months away, surely we can’t be expected to just go off what we have now for content until expac release?

GW2 has always been starved of content compared to other MMOs cause of the lack of grind, but Living Story was an ingenious strategy to keep people interested. This current lack of any updates is seriously boring us out though.

To be fair, you CAN blame the “we want expansionz” crowd for part of that. They wanted a “meal” instead of frequent “snack” for content.

Unfortunately, short of filler content, or them re-releasing LS events (like AoLA), we arent going to get much because the LS has been stated to continue AFTER HoT and be limited to those that bought it.

Anet could always hire more people to do content updates + AddOn at the same time.

At the very least they could rerelease old events like crown pavillon, liadri, SAB w1/2 etc or do a WvW season.

Bloodstealer.5978:

pretty sure ANET have noted the drop off due to players becoming bored .. hence the Portal grind for BETA access. It’s a pretty good way of keeping players logged in the wee bit longer and also provides a decent way of trying to ensure beta access is taken up by active players not names on a list that may not of played for months/years.

As for your notion that it lacks grind in GW2.. we must be playing different versions but I too enjoy the Living Story idea (moreso season 2 to be fair)

And they’ll probably notice more as people burn out trying for the “chance” at a portal. Better way would be to have that the drop any where in game, that way people could play what they want progress in what ever they wanted to do, over just doing the same map/events for the new week hoping they will be lucky enough, I have a feeling there will be a lot of kittened off people in a few days who wish they had spent the week doing something they wanted to do, I wonder how many players will burn out this week. I know I’m done with it. Id rather spend my time in game doing something I’ll enjoy than SW or DT. Not a fan of those maps at all.

Experience a decrease in active users on my main guild as well. Well they’ll probably come back come for HoT, whenever that is. Mind you I do think Anet could be doing a bit more to give us some content to playing around with in the meantime.

Bloodstealer.5978:

pretty sure ANET have noted the drop off due to players becoming bored .. hence the Portal grind for BETA access. It’s a pretty good way of keeping players logged in the wee bit longer and also provides a decent way of trying to ensure beta access is taken up by active players not names on a list that may not of played for months/years.

Bingo.

My guild died from lack of activity a long time ago. The LS where you play 30-60 min every 2 weeks wasn’t enough content for us. Right now the devs are probably all focused on HoT so there’s even less content. I’m not surprised to see more guilds die.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Bloodstealer.5978:

pretty sure ANET have noted the drop off due to players becoming bored .. hence the Portal grind for BETA access. It’s a pretty good way of keeping players logged in the wee bit longer and also provides a decent way of trying to ensure beta access is taken up by active players not names on a list that may not of played for months/years.

Bingo.

only bingo if it works. Given the poor drop rate I think most people will not bother, I’ve noticed already the drop in people in SW.

No monthly fee, just play other games if you’re bored. That is one of the many things I love about GW2, I can come and go as I please, no financial pressure. Oh, and speaking of other games, Witcher 3, oh baby, gonna be busy playing that for months

well, if you need to get stuff from DT/SW, this week is the week to do it. People are doing SW from 0% → VW and i saw a T5 DT last night (have seen that maybe 1 other time).

People keep posting about this gap between the end of LS2 and the next big thing, as if ANet doesn’t worry about the same thing. You think they want people to be twiddling their thumbs and get bored?

Either they have stuff planned and it’s not ready to talk about or they just have everyone tasked on unexpected-but-urgent issues for HoT and the overhaul of the trait/skill system.

We all want new stuff to do, but that requires diverting people from working on the Big New stuff. If it comes down to a choice, I’d prefer they continue to focus on the big picture: HoT and specializations.

Oh you don’t like to play Barbie dress up?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

People keep posting about this gap between the end of LS2 and the next big thing, as if ANet doesn’t worry about the same thing. You think they want people to be twiddling their thumbs and get bored?

Either they have stuff planned and it’s not ready to talk about or they just have everyone tasked on unexpected-but-urgent issues for HoT and the overhaul of the trait/skill system.

We all want new stuff to do, but that requires diverting people from working on the Big New stuff. If it comes down to a choice, I’d prefer they continue to focus on the big picture: HoT and specializations.

That’s interesting point. It isn’t only HoT they’re working on, there is also the major overhaul of the system. Once the new spec system is released they might have people available to do non-HoT things.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Bloodstealer.5978:

pretty sure ANET have noted the drop off due to players becoming bored .. hence the Portal grind for BETA access. It’s a pretty good way of keeping players logged in the wee bit longer and also provides a decent way of trying to ensure beta access is taken up by active players not names on a list that may not of played for months/years.

As for your notion that it lacks grind in GW2.. we must be playing different versions but I too enjoy the Living Story idea (moreso season 2 to be fair)

And they’ll probably notice more as people burn out trying for the “chance” at a portal. Better way would be to have that the drop any where in game, that way people could play what they want progress in what ever they wanted to do, over just doing the same map/events for the new week hoping they will be lucky enough, I have a feeling there will be a lot of kittened off people in a few days who wish they had spent the week doing something they wanted to do, I wonder how many players will burn out this week. I know I’m done with it. Id rather spend my time in game doing something I’ll enjoy than SW or DT. Not a fan of those maps at all.

Yeah, I would have at least liked to have seen ANet include an option in PvP and WvW for them.

Def seen a drop in activity.

I think they are compensating by having sales on the game brining in new members by the trove. I have turned to catering to new members to keep my activity up. Im sure they notice the drop off, they are just going all in for HoT.

Nothing you can really do but ride it out.

Yeah, I’ve got about 4 active members right now out of 25, still a small growing guild. Kinda hard to grow a guild when its mostly inactive as most are waiting for HoT.

The guild I joined the game with no longer plays because they jump around games, it’s just their nature, so my guild was lame to begin with. The guild I joined recently is active and seems to be getting bigger. Content like the Living World, or raids in any game every month doesn’t keep a game alive. Either a game is good and the player base is decent, or one or the other sucks and people leave because of it. So, either GW2 is a bad game at it’s core or your guild sucked. Or, maybe they’re all playing together someplace but told everyone not to let you know about it.

My friend’s entire guild were bored during LWS2, but some stayed until the end. Now all my guildies that came to this game with me a few years back, have all but moved on to other games, barely 3 out of 25+ of us remain in GW2 :/
I find myself afking more now than usual, or simply not bothering to log on much. That being said, the population is still high, but so many are just bored in PvE, unless they have something to make as a goal (fracs/Legendary/leveling ect).

To be fair though, what can Anet do? Busy with HoT, though it feels like they clearly messed up by not giving us content to keep us from being bored, after LWS2 ended. Especially with the amount of time it’s taken.

Well, I don’t know the numbers, of course, but some guilds are busier now than they were before the HoT announcement. My guild, for instance, is busier than ever because we all have things we want to do before all the new content arrives.

We have alts we want to finish up, skill challenges we want to go and get done now, crafting we want to max out, legendary items and gold we want to save up, etc. So, at least some of us are glad of the “break” so we can prepare our accounts and alts for the shiny new content.

kash.9213:

Either a game is good and the player base is decent, or one or the other sucks and people leave because of it. So, either GW2 is a bad game at it’s core or your guild sucked. Or, maybe they’re all playing together someplace but told everyone not to let you know about it.

Agreed with your first premise. I’m the guild leader for my guild. I try to organise events every single night, but with fewer and fewer people turning up every night, it’s hard to continue justifying playing on GW2 rather than moving towards other games.

Reverence.6915:

kash.9213:

Either a game is good and the player base is decent, or one or the other sucks and people leave because of it. So, either GW2 is a bad game at it’s core or your guild sucked. Or, maybe they’re all playing together someplace but told everyone not to let you know about it.

Agreed with your first premise. I’m the guild leader for my guild. I try to organise events every single night, but with fewer and fewer people turning up every night, it’s hard to continue justifying playing on GW2 rather than moving towards other games.

This happens to guilds (and player bases) as any game ages, regardless of how much new content there is. Real life interferes with people’s gaming or they go looking for new distractions or they “grow out” of one type of gaming.

It could also be the long drought between content updates for this particular game, but I don’t think any of us have anywhere near enough data to say one way or the other.

tl;dr it could just be natural attrition rather than anything specific to the state of the game in April 2015.

And another entitled player on the forums. Listen, you don’t have to play the game, wait until the expack like everyone else. Don’t complain that Anet isn’t entertaining you while they already have their hands full with specializations, bugs fixes, UI updates, Elite specializations and a whole slew of other things to worry about more than your whining.

I’m playing Guild Wars 1 :p

Welcome to the generic expansion model. Content updates become scarce as the developers gear up for the expansion pack.

We’re getting what we claimed we wanted.

chemiclord.3978:

Welcome to the generic expansion model. Content updates become scarce as the developers gear up for the expansion pack.

We’re getting what we claimed we wanted.

I definitely want an expansion. I personally think it’s a shame that there’s no content whatsoever. There are plenty of players who want to play SAB, with or without new content added to it. A lot of people liked the gauntlet and many other past events. It shouldn’t divert much resources at all to just recycle them. Lots of players happy, no resources wasted.

And yet when the game was in its early days, Anet said they are creating a portfolio of events and festivals to be reoccurring. What ever happened with that? Things like SAB and Dragon festival just need to have an on button switched. They need to open their so called portfolio and re add something while we wait!

SAB plis anet SAB

chemiclord.3978:

Welcome to the generic expansion model. Content updates become scarce as the developers gear up for the expansion pack.

We’re getting what we claimed we wanted.

No people wanted an expansion. That doesn’t mean we didn’t want other content. The problem people were complaining about was t hat we were getting TINY content updates once a month and NOTHING else. What we asked for was this same amount of content in ADDITION to expansions every 2 years… you know like every other MMO does…

No one ever asked for one or the other, we wanted BOTH because that is the industry standard.

omg anet, just put the godam SAB in

SAB is the answer. SAB should be the answer.
SAB is love, SAB is life.

SAB !

chemiclord.3978:

Welcome to the generic expansion model. Content updates become scarce as the developers gear up for the expansion pack.

We’re getting what we claimed we wanted.

Yeah cause the LS with its 30 minutes of content every 2 weeks (sometimes more) was definitely better.

People tried the LS system. They didn’t feel there was enough content and that’s why they asked for an expansion.

Hoping for a return of the Crown pavilion events after the beta key drop ends next week. Time will tell :-) Wasnt it about a year ago last?

My guild’s opinion is that re-releasing SAB (even with no updates), a slightly modified DragonBash (to resupply the foods), and even just a small anniversary celebration for the 10 years would have kept a lot of interest. We still play, but most of the guild a lot less than we normally would.

emikochan.8504:

I’m playing Guild Wars 1 :p

Yep! 49/50 here.

Sarisa.4731:

My guild’s opinion is that re-releasing SAB (even with no updates), a slightly modified DragonBash (to resupply the foods), and even just a small anniversary celebration for the 10 years would have kept a lot of interest. We still play, but most of the guild a lot less than we normally would.

emikochan.8504:

I’m playing Guild Wars 1 :p

Yep! 49/50 here.

I have to agree with the SAB/Dragon Bash thing. Any of their recycled content would keep interest and keep people playing (which means they’ll also buy gems since they’re…you know, playing). SAB is better in that regard, as it would give Anet a chance to make some extra dough for those buying new Infinite Coins (if any) at no cost. Flip the proverbial switch, and done.

I just wish they’d give us some substantial information as to why it’s in the state it’s in right now (SAB).

yeah. i am super bored at the moment.

i hate this argument to “go play other games” while we wait for HoT. i like THIS game. if i wanted to play other games, i’d already be playing them. i want SAB; when it first came out i was still a relatively new player and i was very inexperienced and unskilled. SAB was really difficult for me so i didn’t enjoy it. but i’ve improved a lot since then and i want to give it another go! crown pavilion was my absolute favorite thing to do in-game last year & the year before. i wish it would come back. dragon bash was another event i was too inexperienced for so i never really got to enjoy it, i’d like to experience it again.

i think not having some “filler” stuff planned for the interim while we wait for HoT may have been a bit of an oversight, but i know that anet isn’t as large of a team as other game companies, and that they might not have the same budgets. but it’s hard, logging in every day and not finding something exciting to do.

What do you expect when they make content that is so horrendously unreplayable. The living story season 2 was good, But where is season 1? Still not there. And personal story is still broken (and not replayable), and dungeons and fractals tend to bug out at least once a day. And then there’s all the bugged events, and the fact that low level maps don’t really offer any sort of challenge to lv80s shoehorning them into the high level maps playing the exact same content over and over again…

And don’t even get me started on how awful the new daily system is. Instead of coming up with some dailies that would keep people engaged with challenges, they chose to just give free loot to anyone who logs in and spends ten minutes running events with a huge zerg on some newbie map. “Grab a vista, its great fun!”

And WvW is still more or less “oh i’m already dead” unless you’re a roamer. There’s been no real attempt to balance the inane zerging (and lag).

Hope they address some of these issues in HoT …