Guild Wars 2

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

I don’t think it’s a matter of trusting Anet. It’s more of a matter of proving your case with statistics. Personal experience doesn’t count by the way as others have stated contradicting experiences.

There are no metrics backing up Anets claim, either. They say there are, there may very well be, but they’re certainly not making them public.

Anyway, increased hours played over the past two months isn’t especially noteworthy; by December, hours played as tracked by Xfire had dropped something like 90% from the release. I know fanboys curse Xfire, but its proven reliable across multiple MMOs I’ve played.

So you think Anet is lying? I think if any company says that there’s more concurrancy or there are more people playing, there probably are. How many more, no one knows, but I don’t really see companies lying about it.

As for December hours of gametime dropping from release, I think if you checked ANY game you’d find the same thing after six months. I have yet to see a game released that people haven’t cooled off on. It just doesn’t exist.

When Skyrim came out, I played that game to death for a month. Then I played it like a couple of times a week. Then I played it once a week. Then I played it once a month. It’s still a great game and I still log onto it from time to time, so what does that mean? That I’m not a Skyrim player anymore, because I log less hours?

I know people who took time off from work to play Guild Wars for like two weeks straight when it comes out. It’s like raiding guilds in WoW who long on two times a week to raid. You always put in more hours when leveling.

There are certainly more people on my server than there were back in November, that’s all I’m saying.

You know, I would LOVE to see someone post proof saying the population is/isn’t declining…

But this day and age, anyone can say anything on the net and declare they are true…
WHO NEEDS FACTS, right?

Soulstar.7812:

You know, I would LOVE to see someone post proof saying the population is/isn’t declining…

But this day and age, anyone can say anything on the net and declare they are true…
WHO NEEDS FACTS, right?

The point is, there aren’t any facts here because no matter what you see on your server, with guesting it’s all moot anyway. And how many people are in fractals or dugeons or WvW or SPvP. No one really knows, so it’s all perception.

But annecdotally at least, a lot of people guest to my server, so I see more people than ever before. That doesn’t mean the game has more people playing.

It doesn’t mean it has less people either, though some servers might seem that way.

Vayne.8563:

Soulstar.7812:

You know, I would LOVE to see someone post proof saying the population is/isn’t declining…

But this day and age, anyone can say anything on the net and declare they are true…
WHO NEEDS FACTS, right?

The point is, there aren’t any facts here because no matter what you see on your server, with guesting it’s all moot anyway. And how many people are in fractals or dugeons or WvW or SPvP. No one really knows, so it’s all perception.

But annecdotally at least, a lot of people guest to my server, so I see more people than ever before. That doesn’t mean the game has more people playing.

It doesn’t mean it has less people either, though some servers might seem that way.

But watch this…

What proof do you have that everyone is guesting?
None right?

Move along…

I think there one of these at least once a week. Look at it this way there still enofe ppl to post this quest every week a new person and new groups of ppl so that alone saying something about the pop. as in there is at least some one to post this and talk about it.

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

I don’t think it’s a matter of trusting Anet. It’s more of a matter of proving your case with statistics. Personal experience doesn’t count by the way as others have stated contradicting experiences.

There are no metrics backing up Anets claim, either. They say there are, there may very well be, but they’re certainly not making them public.

Anyway, increased hours played over the past two months isn’t especially noteworthy; by December, hours played as tracked by Xfire had dropped something like 90% from the release. I know fanboys curse Xfire, but its proven reliable across multiple MMOs I’ve played.

XFire shows it’s been pretty consistent over the past month.
http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2?

I remember that it was troubling when I saw fewer Light Cycles on the grid. I had just gotten over seeing less Pac People chasing ghosts around in the hallways after powering up from tasteless food pellets, and hardly anyone interested in trying to rescue the Princess Peach Clones once everyone figured the same Princess couldn’t possibly be dating all of us plumbers.
Does anyone really need a lot of players around? (personally, waiting on patch to play again. see changes. then logout for a long while, becoming once a week’ish, if that. I’m not interested in Mystic Toilet gameplay, dragon bus schedules, and done it all during the fun it was. /sleep~finalrest)

Soulstar.7812:

Vayne.8563:

Soulstar.7812:

You know, I would LOVE to see someone post proof saying the population is/isn’t declining…

But this day and age, anyone can say anything on the net and declare they are true…
WHO NEEDS FACTS, right?

The point is, there aren’t any facts here because no matter what you see on your server, with guesting it’s all moot anyway. And how many people are in fractals or dugeons or WvW or SPvP. No one really knows, so it’s all perception.

But annecdotally at least, a lot of people guest to my server, so I see more people than ever before. That doesn’t mean the game has more people playing.

It doesn’t mean it has less people either, though some servers might seem that way.

But watch this…

What proof do you have that everyone is guesting?
None right?

Move along…

I didn’t say I have proof. But I do have annecdotal evidence. If nothing else, it’s been posted here in several threads that Tarnished Coast is where everyone is guesting too, and of course, I’ve met people guesting to TC. Now, that doesn’t mean everyone is, but you know, a lot of people look at these forums.

So if only a percentage of them see it and guest over, then some people are indeed guesting. I don’t have stats on guesting but I KNOW it happens.

Add to that I see more players around than I used to, makes me feel guesting is at least partly responsible.

There are guesses and there are educated guesses. I at least try to have something back up what I say, even if it’s not “provable”.

Theres always people in yaks bend. Especially the norn starting area. Just yell Maw and everyone will come…

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

Anyway, increased hours played over the past two months isn’t especially noteworthy; by December, hours played as tracked by Xfire had dropped something like 90% from the release. I know fanboys curse Xfire, but its proven reliable across multiple MMOs I’ve played.

XFire shows it’s been pretty consistent over the past month.
http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2?

google trends also shows the same trend as xfire – a steady loss since release with a gentle plateau in the past month or 2. Certainly not an increase as they claim.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=gw2&date=10%2F2012%206m&cmpt=q

mjharrison.3209:

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

Anyway, increased hours played over the past two months isn’t especially noteworthy; by December, hours played as tracked by Xfire had dropped something like 90% from the release. I know fanboys curse Xfire, but its proven reliable across multiple MMOs I’ve played.

XFire shows it’s been pretty consistent over the past month.
http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2?

google trends also shows the same trend as xfire – a steady loss since release with a gentle plateau in the past month or 2. Certainly not an increase as they claim.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=gw2&date=10%2F2012%206m&cmpt=q

Web searches for GW2 does not reflect a growing/declining player population.

Likewise, here’s a graph for TF2 which is a game that’s definitely still growing with no end in sight:

http://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=tf2&cmpt=q

Notice that the line jumps all over the place. I don’t expect that to be different with GW2. If an extrapolated line was drawn for both graphs, they’d both be increasing. For GW2 though, the sample is too small to make any predictions for the long run.

I was saddened by the lack of people as well. I got GW2 because of one of my favourite game critic’s review of it but his review was from the launch days of the game and in the footage it looked really lively with lots of people and looked like it would be a lot of fun. Then when I got the game I saw a total of maybe 5 people in one day while on my first character, and I was playing on a server with a “very high” population according to world selection.

80 levels later I still see only 5-10 people at once while completing zones and it feels like a single player game. When I do a popular event like one of the dragons though, about 30+ show up which is much nicer. Orr however, is void of players when it shouldn’t be. Orr is basically built for large amounts of players, since it has tons of group events and more challenging content.

I am of course talking about PvE when I mention the world being empty, PvP and WvsW have decent amounts of players but I like PvE the most. I hope when the first expansion is released that it will bring more people into the new zones so it doesn’t feel like a single player game, because right now it’s just depressing.

No one has proof at this point.

But in terms of population metrics, I’d believe a company more than some stranger over the internet any day..

Vayne.8563:

So you think Anet is lying?

Creatively twisting the truth; it’s what the marketing department at any game developer gets paid to do, and whenever developers are making official statements, they’re clearing it with marketing first.

I’m not claiming they’re outright lying, but it sounds like the statement was vague, covered only a specific and relatively short timespan, and wasn’t bound by any legal obligation to tell the truth.

And they wouldn’t be the first developers to bury their heads in the sand.

To be honest, I haven’t even played GW2 during the timespan this statement apparently covers, so I can’t even offer anecdotal evidence whether its true or not.

Vayne.8563:

But I do have annecdotal evidence. If nothing else, it’s been posted here in several threads that Tarnished Coast is where everyone is guesting too, and of course, I’ve met people guesting to TC.

My experience in previous MMOs is that that would make TC a future destination server if they ever resort to server mergers.

Even dying MMOs usually have one or two vibrant servers which seem totally contradictory to the overall population trends.

NetherDiver.6079:

But in terms of population metrics, I’d believe a company more than some stranger over the internet any day..

There’s little sense believing some random stranger on the internet, but there’s not much more use in believing the company; they have an active interest in making the game at least appear to be attractive, including overstating player activity when possible (or totally ignoring the issue of player activity when they might possibly be held accountable).

dude everyone is lvl 80. keep up the good work and you will be playing with us in no time.

The game doesn’t have players because it has no depth and there are some fundamental design flaws that push people away without them even understanding why.

Heijincks.9267:

mjharrison.3209:

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

Anyway, increased hours played over the past two months isn’t especially noteworthy; by December, hours played as tracked by Xfire had dropped something like 90% from the release. I know fanboys curse Xfire, but its proven reliable across multiple MMOs I’ve played.

XFire shows it’s been pretty consistent over the past month.
http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2?

google trends also shows the same trend as xfire – a steady loss since release with a gentle plateau in the past month or 2. Certainly not an increase as they claim.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=gw2&date=10%2F2012%206m&cmpt=q

Web searches for GW2 does not reflect a growing/declining player population.

Likewise, here’s a graph for TF2 which is a game that’s definitely still growing with no end in sight:

http://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=tf2&cmpt=q

Notice that the line jumps all over the place. I don’t expect that to be different with GW2. If an extrapolated line was drawn for both graphs, they’d both be increasing. For GW2 though, the sample is too small to make any predictions for the long run.

Xfire is actually a great way to predict trends… it has been historically spot-on for this kind of thing. GW2 engagement has declined over 1000% since launch on their reports, which means that “of the people that use Xfire” there has been a 1000% decrease in activity. That’s not insignificant, I would say.

Don’t try and defend against Xfire; there is none. Instead try and support your theory about how there IS an increase in players and a crowded world.

Zeldain.5710:

The game doesn’t have players because it has no depth and there are some fundamental design flaws that push people away without them even understanding why.

I must not be a player. The seventy plus people in my guild…they must not be players. The people who respond for dungeon runs on gw2lfg.com they aren’t players either, I guess. The guys who show up to kill the dragon or for the maw, or that are in a zerg running around Orr or WvW, they must not be players either.

There are plenty of people playing this game….they’re called players. As for depth, some people see depth and some don’t. But you know, anyone can state opinion as fact.

Hitting overflow servers at 3 am on Sanctum of Rall. People are playing the kitten out of this game!

Underworld always busy.. LA is always overflowing when i log and open world has lots going on including starter maps.

Several things make this game feel empty imo…
1 – Graphics culling all over the place (LA and WvW being the most prevalent)
2 – Guesting – pro’s and cons, as with any Xserver type function
3 – With WvW, sPvP, Pve Maps, Dungeons and FotM all competing for players… it makes certain places feel really busy (like FotM area) but makes other areas feel less busy.

No doubt players are coming and going as with any game but this game is now moving out of the honeymoon phase and some players have tried it and thought less of it, others have exhausted the content and are taking a break until the next update any MMO has that normalising period after launch. Perhaps in another 12 months this “playerbase dropping” theory would hold more meaning but ike any MMO GW2 will go through a variety of playerbase cycles, thing is are you enjoying it and is it enough for you – if so then enjoy, if not then… well only you can decide.

Personally I dont have any issues with the player pops or the game in general, but thats merely my opinon but that’s all that’s important to me to keep me coming back.

Calae.1738:

We all want this game to succeed. No one wants any MMO to fail. We get emotional when we get the feeling that the developers don’t care.

That’s the feeling I’ve gotten from them since Nov is that somewhere in there they lost the drive i suppose you could call it to make the game a balanced fun experience. It’s all been about extreme restrictions as if someone was an AD&D rules lawyer sitting there with the book going “ah ah ah! (wagging finger) can’t have that now can we” and allowing common sense solutions to be thrown aside.

What gets me are the number of players that are just clueless about what’s actually going on in the game in places that could easily be improved, nothing is beyond the devs abilities to fix what has been done to this game, nothing.

Zeldain.5710:

Heijincks.9267:

mjharrison.3209:

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

Anyway, increased hours played over the past two months isn’t especially noteworthy; by December, hours played as tracked by Xfire had dropped something like 90% from the release. I know fanboys curse Xfire, but its proven reliable across multiple MMOs I’ve played.

XFire shows it’s been pretty consistent over the past month.
http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2?

google trends also shows the same trend as xfire – a steady loss since release with a gentle plateau in the past month or 2. Certainly not an increase as they claim.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=gw2&date=10%2F2012%206m&cmpt=q

Web searches for GW2 does not reflect a growing/declining player population.

Likewise, here’s a graph for TF2 which is a game that’s definitely still growing with no end in sight:

http://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=tf2&cmpt=q

Notice that the line jumps all over the place. I don’t expect that to be different with GW2. If an extrapolated line was drawn for both graphs, they’d both be increasing. For GW2 though, the sample is too small to make any predictions for the long run.

Xfire is actually a great way to predict trends… it has been historically spot-on for this kind of thing. GW2 engagement has declined over 1000% since launch on their reports, which means that “of the people that use Xfire” there has been a 1000% decrease in activity. That’s not insignificant, I would say.

Don’t try and defend against Xfire; there is none. Instead try and support your theory about how there IS an increase in players and a crowded world.

Want to know why Xfire numbers at launch are irrelevant now? The MMO playerbase is saturated, gone are the days where MMOs gradually increase in numbers like they did prior to WoW. When a new MMO launches, their biggest numbers will be at the time of launch, and then it will steadily lose players and then plateau at some point or keep losing numbers, but they will never go up from launch day, that is how the industry is now.

mjharrison.3209:

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

Anyway, increased hours played over the past two months isn’t especially noteworthy; by December, hours played as tracked by Xfire had dropped something like 90% from the release. I know fanboys curse Xfire, but its proven reliable across multiple MMOs I’ve played.

XFire shows it’s been pretty consistent over the past month.
http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2?

google trends also shows the same trend as xfire – a steady loss since release with a gentle plateau in the past month or 2. Certainly not an increase as they claim.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=gw2&date=10%2F2012%206m&cmpt=q

Yeah, if anyone is surprised the game isn’t as heavily played today as when it was released… umm… well you shouldn’t. When I see a post like this now, we are past the “new shiny phase” and into general game health from here on out. The game has been steady.

As a player at any point things could vary session to session, you just don’t have enough data to make heads or tails. “Guesting” can be playing a part in perception to. If many others are now questing to the most popular servers, the smaller one’s will now seem more barren than before, skewing thoughts.

I am also a believer in these analytics, Xfire/Google. Scientific pooling is pretty darn accurate, Nielsen does it with less, News Stations do it with less. Those that don’t seem to like them are people that don’t like what the stats are saying or feel left out because they don’t use the service. It’s just how stats work, nothing more, nothing less. The results are what they are. Good or bad and to me being steady in Feb, not bad. The game is on-sale now, so I see they would like to see a bump here.

The only in game person this should matter to is the person that is not having fun anymore because of less players around. If you are one of those, have you checked out other servers “guesting”, somewhere there has to be enough warm bodies around.

Heijincks.9267:

-snip-

jobah.7241:

-snip-

People like to reply to posts they didn’t actually read, so I’ll do you the same courtesy and not read a word of what you said.

Come back after you’ve actually read what I said and are ready to have a mature, adult discussion about it.

Yes, ANet has said that the player count is increasing. However, that claim comes with zero metrics behind it. Ever notice how the last time we got an actual measurement of concurrency numbers was back when the game was still in beta? If ANet posted their concurrency numbers now, there’d be no way for any person on this forum to argue that the game hasn’t lost any players. None.

Colin saying “the population is increasing” isn’t data. Data is numbers, numerical evidence, hard FACTS. Not claims that come from a guy who has already been caught in double talk in this very forum before. This is the same guy who claimed that the Flame and Frost updates would be “adding new ways you can earn precursors as rewards via new reward systems taking advantage of our open persistent world”, then promptly backpedaled and claimed that the laurels would have nothing to do with precursors, and that in fact there was no promise of precursor updates made except the scavenger hunt (which they aren’t even working on).

An increase by 1% and an increase by 0.1%, both are increases. But one is more significant than the other. I don’t deny that his claim may be true, I only doubt how valid that data actually is. I suspect, since we’re already seeing yet another sale on GW2, that the increase isn’t nearly as much as they want people to think it was.

Now it’s true, every game experiences less sales and less players as time goes on. Especially MMOs, where a good half of the playerbase leaves for other games within a month or two of release, having exhausted all of the content. And with GW2 having no true “endgame”, the content is exhausted much faster, and there’s no repeat content or replayability to keep them around.

But there is absolutely no denying that GW2 has lost players. Quite a significant amount, in fact. Any number of people can verify this for you with their own anecdotes. My own anecdotes are my friends list (which is full of people who have played and then quit forever) and my guilds (one of which is full of friends of mine who no longer play, and another which has regularly culled 30-50 people from its roster every month due to inactivity since I joined it). When you add all of these individual stories up, it adds up to a clear fact: the game HAS lost players. How many? Who knows, you’re free to debate that as much as you want. But it has lost players. There are not three million active players on GW2. This is undeniable fact, and the sooner we get over that hill, the better.

And for the umpteenth time: if I hate GW2 so much, why have I poured over a hundred dollars of my money into the game, and why did I convince over a half dozen of my own friends to join the game? Why am I trying to maintain seven different characters, and why have I logged in nearly every day since the game released, and why do I have over 1k hours logged in the game to date? Seriously, why? Because I like wasting time and money? Obviously not, but this is all the white knights can throw at me, anymore. I don’t believe everything the dev team says, ergo I must be a hater who is only hoping for the game to fail. I’m not a hater, I’m a disappointed fan who wants to see ANet get this game back to basics and stop trying to be WoW. I didn’t buy this game because I really wanted to play a cheaper WoW, I bought this game because of my love for GW1 and I wanted to see where Tyria would take me next. But the dev team is trying to be something it’s not, and they need to knock it off and build their game to be more of the spiritual successor to GW1 it was meant to be. TESO (which I maintain will probably be a worse game) will come along and sweep away a large portion of GW2’s population by offering the same experience with a new dev team, if ANet doesn’t change the way it treats its customers and handles its game.

The only people that really know what the numbers are on any given day are ArenaNet, and they’re not going to tell. They don’t have to, and it would be bad for business. I’m not sure what the speculation here really achieves.

It’s a good game, or it isn’t, or they’ve wrecked it, or they haven’t, or something. We’ll know in 2013 whether this game is going to be as big and energetic as Guild Wars was.

I’d love to see ArenaNet do whatever it takes to make this game the next mega-mmo. I don’t know if they will. I don’t think it’s too late for that, but I do believe that they need to get cracking or they’ll lose the opportunity.

Time will tell.

From what I’ve seen it’s growing and growing. Actually guested to a few of the lowest population servers the other day to see what people were crying about. Guess what I found? I found the areas I went to packed with people even on these “dead” servers. I don’t think I ran a single de with less than 5 people. So yeah the game is doing great and shows no sign of “dieing”.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

The playerbase has massively declined since Lost Shores – stop spreading false hope.

Or you could stop spreading wrong data.
Anet data has shown a major increase in the playerbase and concurrent players.

And you trust anet?

The fact they launched new servers and extended the max population cap of the existing ones is a pretty good indicator there was a pop increase.
Give me a good reason of why should I ignore all that evidence, assume Anet numbers are lies and trust a random poster claiming the opposite with zero evidence to back it up.

Chuo.4238:

The only people that really know what the numbers are on any given day are ArenaNet, and they’re not going to tell. They don’t have to, and it would be bad for business. I’m not sure what the speculation here really achieves.

Intresingly enough, it’s only bad for business if the data is not very optimistic.

Astralporing.1957:

Chuo.4238:

The only people that really know what the numbers are on any given day are ArenaNet, and they’re not going to tell. They don’t have to, and it would be bad for business. I’m not sure what the speculation here really achieves.

Intresingly enough, it’s only bad for business if the data is not very optimistic.

And that is if you are so insecure that a game has to be growing for one to put time into it and not judge the game on things that you may enjoy. What the heck is this, fashion gaming?

I Sir Horrorscope declare thee that I will only participate in said game if everyone is playing it first. That and only that will justify my precious time to share with those in GW’s 2.

What kind of phobia are we talking about here?

The game is not a ghost town, it’s also not a game you are tripping over everyone all the time. Population comes and goes and it’s actually pretty good how it does vary, a little change up isn’t bad. Sometimes a zerg, sometimes a little solo adventuring…

Horrorscope.7632:

mjharrison.3209:

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

Anyway, increased hours played over the past two months isn’t especially noteworthy; by December, hours played as tracked by Xfire had dropped something like 90% from the release. I know fanboys curse Xfire, but its proven reliable across multiple MMOs I’ve played.

XFire shows it’s been pretty consistent over the past month.
http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2?

google trends also shows the same trend as xfire – a steady loss since release with a gentle plateau in the past month or 2. Certainly not an increase as they claim.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en#q=gw2&date=10%2F2012%206m&cmpt=q

Yeah, if anyone is surprised the game isn’t as heavily played today as when it was released… umm… well you shouldn’t. When I see a post like this now, we are past the “new shiny phase” and into general game health from here on out. The game has been steady.

As a player at any point things could vary session to session, you just don’t have enough data to make heads or tails. “Guesting” can be playing a part in perception to. If many others are now questing to the most popular servers, the smaller one’s will now seem more barren than before, skewing thoughts.

I am also a believer in these analytics, Xfire/Google. Scientific pooling is pretty darn accurate, Nielsen does it with less, News Stations do it with less. Those that don’t seem to like them are people that don’t like what the stats are saying or feel left out because they don’t use the service. It’s just how stats work, nothing more, nothing less. The results are what they are. Good or bad and to me being steady in Feb, not bad. The game is on-sale now, so I see they would like to see a bump here.

The only in game person this should matter to is the person that is not having fun anymore because of less players around. If you are one of those, have you checked out other servers “guesting”, somewhere there has to be enough warm bodies around.

Well to be fair, Nielson rating is based on a whole lot of science behind it, and Xfire is based on none. So one cannot compare Nielson rating with Xfire, they are no where near the same.

The server you play on determines your open world PvE experience to a large degree. I’m on Tarnished Coast and every zone is populated from starter areas to Cursed Shore farming areas. Try guesting on TC and check it out.

Guesting is not the ultimate solution as ideally it should be around, well, guesting, playing with friends and the like. Right now, it’s a solution to the dead server problem. It’s natural for the population to peak and decline somewhat in a new MMO. However, their introduction of vertical progression in the 11/15 patch emptied the open world on my original server. It was like in one day there was no one around anymore outside LA. I did two server transfers before landing on TC which I am very happy with.

Raine.1394:

The server you play on determines your open world PvE experience to a large degree. I’m on Tarnished Coast and every zone is populated from starter areas to Cursed Shore farming areas. Try guesting on TC and check it out.

Guesting is not the ultimate solution as ideally it should be around, well, guesting, playing with friends and the like. Right now, it’s a solution to the dead server problem. It’s natural for the population to peak and decline somewhat in a new MMO. However, their introduction of vertical progression in the 11/15 patch emptied the open world on my original server. It was like in one day there was no one around anymore outside LA. I did two server transfers before landing on TC which I am very happy with.

This is not true. The time when this game lost the most players is the month or two following release. People that came to GW2 expecting a WoW competitor started realizing this game was not a gear treadmill and didn’t have raiding so they started leaving in droves. We are now left with the small percentage of the mmo community that doesn’t need raiding or a gear treadmill in their MMO’s.

This game will never compete with the BIG MMO’s out there that have raids and gear treadmills. Are there enough gamers in the MMO community that don’t mind the absence of raids, the gear treadmill and the trinity? I don’t know as only ArenaNet knows how many people they need to be playing this game and spending money in the gem shop to make it a profitable success.

If this game ever wants to achieve massive major success they would have to institute a gear treadmill, raiding and the trinity system. This game is a niche MMO as it stands.

diabluz.2860:

This is not true. The time when this game lost the most players is the month or two following release. People that came to GW2 expecting a WoW competitor started realizing this game was not a gear treadmill and didn’t have raiding so they started leaving in droves. We are now left with the small percentage of the mmo community that doesn’t need raiding or a gear treadmill in their MMO’s.

This game will never compete with the BIG MMO’s out there that have raids and gear treadmills. Are there enough gamers in the MMO community that don’t mind the absence of raids, the gear treadmill and the trinity? I don’t know as only ArenaNet knows how many people they need to be playing this game and spending money in the gem shop to make it a profitable success.

If this game ever wants to achieve massive major success they would have to institute a gear treadmill, raiding and the trinity system. This game is a niche MMO as it stands.

Hah, less than 5% of WoW’s playerbase raids. That is a fact.

There’s a reason this game is so popular, maybe NOT having gear treadmills and raids is part of that reason

Players like to work on something. But this doesn’t necessarily mean they want gear treadmills. It’s just a very easy and cheap system to keep players busy.

DuskTwilight.4862:

I took about a month or so off from playing. Last time was during and right after the Christmas event. Before that and during that time the game was bustling. Lions Arch was always full and I often saw many people in many of the games areas. This is on Stormbluff Isle which is/was one of the more populated servers from my understanding.

I logged in a couple of days ago and Lions Arch was a ghost town. I think I saw 5 people while I was there. The once chattery chat was silent. No one looking for fractals or dungeons or just talking. Nothing. Played around a bit on an alt and only saw a couple people the entire time. This is in stark contrast from only a month and a half ago. Where did everyone go?

I know guesting is now live. Has everyone guested to a different server and I missed the memo? Have the new daily achievements finally motivated people to get out into the world? I would really hope that this game hasn’t lost that many players in so short a time.

Please know this isn’t a doom and gloom, the sky is falling kind of thread. I genuinely just want to know what happened.

One phrase. GW2LFG.com.

You dont see spam in LA anymore because people dont have to sit there looking for a group. They do it on the website, and while they wait they go elsewhere. anytime I login to my servers LA i am put in overflow… which tells me that LA is very much populated just not people spamming for groups. This is on Sea of Sorrows.

The servers are very populated still, just the players are doing different things and there are specific areas that have tons of players….wayfarer foothills being one…. go there and you will see dozens of people leveling.

not true, the game is bustling!

people naturally get burnt out after long periods of the same game and then come back. gw is awesome, and anet has shown they are listeneing to their playerbase and learning from mistakes. they are also working really hard to keep working on the game and making it better. best of all its free! you can always come back to it and many will. i have friends who left because of the very buggy launch once they got to cursed shore but they are returning and loving it. after finally mastering dungeons and getting the title i love running any and all paths now and especially helping others learn to master them too

Zeldain.5710:

Xfire is actually a great way to predict trends… it has been historically spot-on for this kind of thing. GW2 engagement has declined over 1000% since launch on their reports, which means that “of the people that use Xfire” there has been a 1000% decrease in activity. That’s not insignificant, I would say.

Don’t try and defend against Xfire; there is none. Instead try and support your theory about how there IS an increase in players and a crowded world.

Where in my post did I talk about Xfire?

critickitten.1498:

…

Too bad you didn’t read my post, because surprise, it didn’t have any disagreement with yours. A tl;dr of my response simply states that you made a moot point.

Try guesting to emhry bay server, in most zones you’ll be lucky if you even see some other players.

Sure, you can say not everyone uses raptr or xfire, but alot of more seasoned gamers do – these stats don’t lie. Listen, I’m not trying to pull the game down here ~ I’d personally love it if anet got its act together, pushed out some content of the highest orders and gained 5+ million new members. But what is the likelyhood of that happening?

http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

Try guesting to emhry bay server, in most zones you’ll be lucky if you even see some other players.

Omg this is so painfully true. Aside from the dragons and Lion’s Arch (duh), the server is pretty much dead and has been for quite some time.

Blackgate is always busy. Lions Arch is always on overflow and map chat is constantly full of people talking. Orr events are always well populated. Low level areas – not so much, unless you are leveling an alt or doing key runs. OP might be time to change server

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

Try guesting to emhry bay server, in most zones you’ll be lucky if you even see some other players.

Sure, you can say not everyone uses raptr or xfire, but alot of more seasoned gamers do – these stats don’t lie. Listen, I’m not trying to pull the game down here ~ I’d personally love it if anet got its act together, pushed out some content of the highest orders and gained 5+ million new members. But what is the likelyhood of that happening?

http://www.xfire.com/games/gw2

Out of the 30 gamers I play with and have played with the past 8 years including WoW none have used Xfire. Or does 8 years worth of gaming not make me seasoned? lol Don’t force your opinion on others as fact because that’s what your doing.

If 1000 people use xfire at the launch of a game then all 1000 of those players stop playing that game that means the player base for that game should be dead according to you. Or show a horrible decline, neither of which are true or show any trend really because out of the millions that play GW2 the hand full that use xfire is insignificant in the big picture of things.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

Try guesting to emhry bay server, in most zones you’ll be lucky if you even see some other players.

WoW has millions of subs, but they have servers that are dead as well. Does that mean they are in a massive decline and the game is dieing? No it means everyone went to the popular servers, just like in GW2.

The issue is that this game appears to be losing players over time instead of gaining them. WoW was constantly gaining people for the first 5-6 years.

ArenaNet needs to very quickly remedy the fact that this game has little to do at level cap (aside from grinding for cosmetic upgrades). They also should tweak the combat/classes to support the trinity system. Every class should be able to spec as healer, tank or dps simply by switching which weapon they are using.

critickitten.1498:

Colin saying “the population is increasing” isn’t data.

Even if Anet posted server statistics you would say they are made up.
Because you want to believe in what you believe, regardless of all evidence pointing against your claims.
If I was Colin and saw your post I would file you a lawsuit for defamation and send to you to beg in the streets, but he hasn’t done so, so maybe he’s not as bad as you think.

diabluz.2860:

ArenaNet needs to very quickly remedy the fact that this game has little to do at level cap (aside from grinding for cosmetic upgrades). They also should tweak the combat/classes to support the trinity system. Every class should be able to spec as healer, tank or dps simply by switching which weapon they are using.

That’s basically a guaranteed way to lose the majority of the playerbase.
Luckily you don’t work for Anet.

You know there is actually an easy way to see who’s right – wait.

If the people who claim that hundreds, even thousands of players are leaving this game every week are right then it’s only a matter of time (and a relatively short time at that) before even the highest population servers really will be empty or Anet will start merging them.

If neither of those things happen then it’s safe to assume that they were wrong and player retention is going well.

(Also ALL games experience a massive drop-off a few months after launch, it’s just that you don’t normally notice because other people aren’t running around in your copy. I used to work in a video game store and the number of copies of a game we had traded in was pretty much directly proportional to the number sold, and it’s safe to assume there were more unused copies sitting buried somewhere in peoples homes. But no one freaked out that “no one” was playing Call of Duty 3023301 after 2 months because they weren’t depending on people keeping on paying a subscription to keep it going.)

@ Critickitten

Not really sure why you feel the need to throuw the attitude into the thread, its not like its falling off a cliffedge.

The forums might have posters claiming this and that about numbers but at the end of the day its no differnet to any other MMO forum 6 months after launch. Come back in 12 months and have the conversation then, but maybe less the attitude…. its merely a topic of discussion and debate… and as is normal in these things some agree and some disagree.

GW2 is eseentially a F2P package so any account created has to be considered active, therefore the numbers that they have hinted at might actually be true.
If this was say, SWTOR (prior to F2P launching) we would all be laughing if they said yay we just hit 3mill actives… cos we all know active subs are very different to active F2P accounts, unless you have an official timeframe to measure when a F2P account becomes officially inactive more precisely.

I am not disagreeing with you here, its very possible the numbers ahve dipped, that’s what tends to happen in any new lauch – - its popular due to pre launch hype and GW1 itchy fingers… then once the honeymoon is over the playerbase normalises and peaks and troughs will begin to appear as new content updates bring players back then they go.. they have no commitment to stick around cos they have no 30, 60, 90 day etc subscription.. that’s the baeuty of the model for us, but for ANET its all about how can they get you back again after you log off .

As I metioned earlier, all everyone needs to do is take a long hard look, a deep breath and ask "do I enjoy the game – based on your own answers the game continues onward.
GW1 taught them alot , but your right improvements to their CS wouldnt go amiss though.

On one side you have those claiming GW2 is dying because there’s no one on, and on the other side you have those claiming GW2 is doing swell because there a lot of people on, both sides telling the other that their claims are anecdotal and so don’t have much/any credibility. You also have those that stand by ANet’s claim that the playerbase is steadily increasing, versus those that suggest ANet’s lying and that external sources like Xfire paint a wholly different picture, both telling the other that their sources are biased, fallible, or inconclusive.

We all can see how this isn’t going to go anywhere, right? :P

Bloodstealer.5978:

GW2 is eseentially a F2P package so any account created has to be considered active, therefore the numbers that they have hinted at might actually be true.
If this was say, SWTOR (prior to F2P launching) we would all be laughing if they said yay we just hit 3mill actives… cos we all know active subs are very different to active F2P accounts, unless you have an official timeframe to measure when a F2P account becomes officially inactive more precisely.

That just goes to show how useless their metrics may be. I haven’t logged into the game in over two months; am I being counted as an “active” player?

achensherd.2735:

We all can see how this isn’t going to go anywhere, right? :P

lol does it ever?