Guild Wars 2

Hello,
I’m new to Guild Wars and really new to MMOs. This is actually my first one as I’ve never played before.

I always thought there would be numerous other players running around and taking part in the random events that pop up as you run around. However, I’ve noticed that since I’ve started I have yet to run into actual real players. I’m out of my characters tutorial area as I can explore the world. But I just find it odd that the world feels so empty.

I’m just curious if any new players are also finding the same problem? I watched a couple YouTube videos and they seem to be really populated with other players? It just takes away from the whole vibe where a world full of NPCs and no real players.

Thanks for the input.

There’s a big feature patch coming on Tuesday that should solve this problem.
Specifically, this part of the patch should: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-megaserver-system/

The starting zones are relatively empty now because fewer players at a time start completely from scratch and/or create lots of alts. And those who do often level them via crafting or the birthday scrolls, so they leave the low-level zones pretty quickly. But again, that problem should be solved come Tuesday.

It’s a big world. If you’re new to the game, you’re probably in a starter area. If you had finished most of the content, is that where you see yourself hanging out?

This is a problem with most MMOs. You have to get to end game areas (or at least places were people congregate) to find most people. No MMO I’ve played has people in all zones.

That said, there are busier servers and less busy ones but after the 15th things should pick up. In the mean time, try guesting to Tarnished Coast if you’re on a US server, and you’ll probably find more people in the open world.

Yeah, I think it’s mostly just because you’re in starter zones. With that said, Queensdale is usually jumping with players on our server doing a champ train, and a lot of people ‘standing around’ do so in the NE part of Gendarran Fields, where the remnants of Lion’s Arch populace can be found. With the April 15th update as well, you should start finding people to play with. Happy hunting =)

GW2 has been out nearly 2 yrs now, so 99% of the players have 80th lvl characters doing endgame stuff. So obviously its going to be empty well you lvl up.

However, MEGASERVERS will help bring more players together this Tuesday, 15.4.14, a new feature.

If you feel lonely now however, take a trip into World vs World to see crazy amounts of players. Its actually the fastest way to level you character as well. If that’s a bit too much for you, try Edge of the Mists map, this is technically WvW too but a lot easier. EoTM’s is like half WvW, half PvE and has permanent karma trains going on usually which will level you upto 80th lvl quicker than wondering around in PvE. You can still explore the PvE world at your leisure whenever you wish.

Nage.1520:

It’s a big world. If you’re new to the game, you’re probably in a starter area. If you had finished most of the content, is that where you see yourself hanging out?

This is a problem with most MMOs. You have to get to end game areas (or at least places were people congregate) to find most people. No MMO I’ve played has people in all zones.

That said, there are busier servers and less busy ones but after the 15th things should pick up. In the mean time, try guesting to Tarnished Coast if you’re on a US server, and you’ll probably find more people in the open world.

FFXIV actually figured a way to fix that problem.

In the current patch, you have to go from map to map doing random Fates(events) that pop up for the rare reward chance that it will drop an book specific to that map. The drop rate is that equal to trying to get the Jetpack from way back during the Molten Facility era of the game. You need to collect 12 of these books to get a powerful weapon. Its not the top tier either, but its required for going for the top tier stuff.

My brother has been farming non-stop for these books since the patch release, which I believe was either really late march or early april, not sure, but he currently has 10 of them, last night he got lucky and jumped from like 4 or 5 to 10.

Ascended crafting works similar in this sense, because they expected players to go back to lower level stuff to get the mats required for it. Instead people use the TP and just stick to the endgame. If they had something similar to this, IE going from event to event in a map to earn items required to craft top tier stuff, with a really rare drop rate, you would see more people going for it. That’s currently what’s happening in FFXIV after all.

Player’s don’t have a big enough incentive to all the lower level events(not just champion farming), and thus maps can and will look like this. The feature patch is an attempt to fix this by putting people in a map with more people, but those people could be champ farmers and thus the zergs would just get bigger but you would still probably not see as many people.

You can have everyone in the game in one map, but if there’s no incentive to do an event, people are going to ignore it.

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Nage.1520:

It’s a big world. If you’re new to the game, you’re probably in a starter area. If you had finished most of the content, is that where you see yourself hanging out?

This is a problem with most MMOs. You have to get to end game areas (or at least places were people congregate) to find most people. No MMO I’ve played has people in all zones.

That said, there are busier servers and less busy ones but after the 15th things should pick up. In the mean time, try guesting to Tarnished Coast if you’re on a US server, and you’ll probably find more people in the open world.

FFXIV actually figured a way to fix that problem.

In the current patch, you have to go from map to map doing random Fates(events) that pop up for the rare reward chance that it will drop an book specific to that map. The drop rate is that equal to trying to get the Jetpack from way back during the Molten Facility era of the game. You need to collect 12 of these books to get a powerful weapon. Its not the top tier either, but its required for going for the top tier stuff.

My brother has been farming non-stop for these books since the patch release, which I believe was either really late march or early april, not sure, but he currently has 10 of them, last night he got lucky and jumped from like 4 or 5 to 10.

Ascended crafting works similar in this sense, because they expected players to go back to lower level stuff to get the mats required for it. Instead people use the TP and just stick to the endgame. If they had something similar to this, IE going from event to event in a map to earn items required to craft top tier stuff, with a really rare drop rate, you would see more people going for it. That’s currently what’s happening in FFXIV after all.

Player’s don’t have a big enough incentive to all the lower level events(not just champion farming), and thus maps can and will look like this. The feature patch is an attempt to fix this by putting people in a map with more people, but those people could be champ farmers and thus the zergs would just get bigger but you would still probably not see as many people.

You can have everyone in the game in one map, but if there’s no incentive to do an event, people are going to ignore it.

There are 25 zones in this game. There are dungeons, WvW, fractals, and SPvP. There are meta events that draw people in crowds and at times living story.

No matter how much incentive you give, if you don’t focus the people, you still won’t have enough people in the open world to make it feel populated. It’s more than just a traffic control problem.

That’s what made the living story successful. People are herded together and they see other people.

Make the world rewarding all over and it wouldn’t solve this problem (unless the world were a lot smaller).

Nage.1520:

It’s a big world. If you’re new to the game, you’re probably in a starter area. If you had finished most of the content, is that where you see yourself hanging out?

This is a problem with most MMOs. You have to get to end game areas (or at least places were people congregate) to find most people. No MMO I’ve played has people in all zones.

That said, there are busier servers and less busy ones but after the 15th things should pick up. In the mean time, try guesting to Tarnished Coast if you’re on a US server, and you’ll probably find more people in the open world.

Wait, wait, wait LOL…

I thought GW2 was advertised as having THE ENTIRE WORLD as the end game?

Dont worry there are tons of players, Just not all where you are at the moment. Once the megaserver patch goes live in less than a week, even where you are, there will be players.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Nage.1520:

It’s a big world. If you’re new to the game, you’re probably in a starter area. If you had finished most of the content, is that where you see yourself hanging out?

This is a problem with most MMOs. You have to get to end game areas (or at least places were people congregate) to find most people. No MMO I’ve played has people in all zones.

That said, there are busier servers and less busy ones but after the 15th things should pick up. In the mean time, try guesting to Tarnished Coast if you’re on a US server, and you’ll probably find more people in the open world.

Wait, wait, wait LOL…

I thought GW2 was advertised as having THE ENTIRE WORLD as the end game?

Well, you can farm champions on any map, which is what a lot of end gamers are doing. However the trains usually stick to frostgorge sound at the moment. Which is entirely there choice. if they wanted to they could be farming lorar’s pass or something.