Guild Wars 2

I have seen more people tonight than I have ever seen playing.

Shotgun.4810:

I have seen more people tonight than I have ever seen playing.

And I saw a flying tractor pass my house with a naked lass driving.

Kakeru.2873:

Shotgun.4810:

I have seen more people tonight than I have ever seen playing.

And I saw a flying tractor pass my house with a naked lass driving.

Meanwhile in GW2..

Flamenco.3894:

20 areas so far, not a single soul seen

You are on the wrong forums…the Vanguard forums are elsewhere

Seriously…stop outright lying. You have to try hard to find 20 areas without seeing anyone.

Geotherma.2395:

Meanwhile in GW2..

LIES!

The player base is declining!!

I heard it on the internet so it must be true!!!

LOCO.1785:

Geotherma.2395:

Meanwhile in GW2..

LIES!

The player base is declining!!

I heard it on the internet so it must be true!!!

LOL!

^This

I have been playing for months now…and I just noticed it was an MMO!!! I actually saw another person and I thought I ventured into the Twilight Zone!!

LOCO.1785:

Geotherma.2395:

Meanwhile in GW2..

LIES!

The player base is declining!!

I heard it on the internet so it must be true!!!

Duh, how else would we know everything? I’m just glad Oprah invented it when she did, where would we be now without it.

No problems finding a group to do anything at any time of the night or day. I’ve done CM at 2am in the morning and CoE at 11am.

Just linking an event’s WP and saying which event it is will usually result in between 3 and 10 people showing up in a matter of minutes in most zones.

So yea, the game is doing just fine.

Geotherma.2395:

LOCO.1785:

Geotherma.2395:

Meanwhile in GW2..

LIES!

The player base is declining!!

I heard it on the internet so it must be true!!!

Duh, how else would we know everything? I’m just glad Oprah invented it when she did, where would we be now without it.

Al Gore invented the internet. Who is this Oprah you speak of?

Gestankfaust.4216:

Geotherma.2395:

LOCO.1785:

Geotherma.2395:

Meanwhile in GW2..

LIES!

The player base is declining!!

I heard it on the internet so it must be true!!!

Duh, how else would we know everything? I’m just glad Oprah invented it when she did, where would we be now without it.

Al Gore invented the internet. Who is this Oprah you speak of?

Oh my bad, just some guy on TV I think.

i think the player base has pretty well stabilized at this point, there’s always going to be people who expected the game to play out a very specific way, or expect features and content that simply weren’t in the game at launch and those people will leave

over the course of the next few months there’s people who’ll hate the game for one reason or another but stick with it for a while hoping for some kind of miracle update that will have all the features they want in it somehow, and when it doesn’t come within those first few months, they’ll leave

then finally you have the remaining people who genuinely like the game, and from there the player base slowly and gradually increases until the game loses popularity, again

TL:DR gw2 got a huge number of players at launch, a big chunk of those players left causing the player base to rapidly decline and is now slowly climbing back up at a somewhat consistent curve before finally slowly dropping again much later on

Calae.1738:

lothefallen.7081:

I honestly feel that any decline in the player base can be directly attributed to the structureless feel of grouping, how everything seems to deteriorate into a shallow, mindless, and skill-less zergfest. Also how classes are structured…no direct healer to change up the role paradigm…all we have are classes that are largely homogenized with only flavor distinctions rather than tangible, effectual, and precise roles. Encounters are extremely poor, dungeons aren’t designed with any of the skill system depth in mind, and we have glaring problems with the combat depth. This game honestly feels like they took a great idea with Dynamic Events, but really dropped the ball everywhere else. The way i see it, if they dont address class balance, add more depth and specialization to combat roles and by association, encounters, add more skills, more stuff that people actually get excited about…if they spruce up the guild features..stop messing up existing structures and destroying the population with dumb design flaws (you’re going to gate content for GUILDS behind a population / activity threshold in a casual game that doesn’t even require trinity mechanics much less even playing meaningfully with other players? Really?)…People don’t want this kind of contrived trash. People want more combat depth, more reason to actually play the game with each other and together. I think it’s pretty obvious by now that this game isn’t gonna go anywhere unless they add a ton more depth to the gameplay, traits, and skill systems. In my opinion, this game should have been designed with a direct healer class, it would have been so much better and easier to design awesome content for. Plus, ESO seems to be heading that route…it will have WvW-like pvp on a mega server, Dynamic events, and also a trinity design structure which altogether will crush this game’s population if they pull it off.

I diagree that roles are needed. Healers are an obsolete system. They cover the mistakes of other players. Support can be provided in many ways that provide depth to gameplay.

-Creating a barrier that allies can hide behind for line of sight.
-Creating a bubble that allies can run into to shield themselves.
-Creating a cloaking field that allies can run into for stealth.

Combat depth is badly needed in Guild Wars 2 for ALL professions, not just some. In addition, the content needs to be actually challenging and rewarding for it to mean something.

1. Lasts for seconds and heals paltry health, when it ends, party member gets hit for 2 times the damage that it healed in one hit.
2. A bubble that lasts less than 10 seconds, heals less than 200 a tick and is on a 120 second recharge? K.
3. Stealth that ends when you attack? Good for some situations…combat depth? Not really.

I agree though, the game needs a lot more depth to the classes, but this skill design is currently limiting it. If they didnt have to homogenize all the class roles and make everything UP like healing power, hyper balanced for PvP utilities…etc. well then the game may have had some depth. I see very little active depth to your examples. A healer would create the ability for the designers to design more around distinct teamplay scenarios and less around a homogeneous idea that all classes can fulfill all roles. They can’t and some are way better than others at most everything. The skill system depth in GW2 is nothing compared to GW1.

Nah, to be honest, I see way more people playing in the open world now than ever before, for whatever reasons. Last year, there were times many areas seemed dead except for the bots. Now, there are minimal bots and many, many people farming and doing events… it seems the population is actually increasing, from what I’ve observed.

Star Ace.5207:

Nah, to be honest, I see way more people playing in the open world now than ever before, for whatever reasons. Last year, there were times many areas seemed dead except for the bots. Now, there are minimal bots and many, many people farming and doing events… it seems the population is actually increasing, from what I’ve observed.

shhhh….don’t ever say that out loud looks around you wanna rouse those people?

Geotherma.2395:

LOCO.1785:

Geotherma.2395:

Meanwhile in GW2..

LIES!

The player base is declining!!

I heard it on the internet so it must be true!!!

Duh, how else would we know everything? I’m just glad Oprah invented it when she did, where would we be now without it.

Gestankfaust.4216 is right- Al Gore invented the internet

Oprah invented bad-mouthing-the-people-from-the-country-that-made-her-filthy-rich-and-making-girls’ schools-in-other-countries-to-make-herself-look-good-instead-of-making-positive-changes-in-the-country-that-gave-her-tons-of-money-which-is-a-disgusting-cop-out-that-is-characteristic-of-stupid-celebrities.

Mahaedros.7085:

Geotherma.2395:

LOCO.1785:

Geotherma.2395:

Meanwhile in GW2..

LIES!

The player base is declining!!

I heard it on the internet so it must be true!!!

Duh, how else would we know everything? I’m just glad Oprah invented it when she did, where would we be now without it.

Gestankfaust.4216 is right- Al Gore invented the internet

Oprah invented bad-mouthing-the-people-from-the-country-that-made-her-filthy-rich-and-making-girls’ schools-in-other-countries-to-make-herself-look-good-instead-of-making-positive-changes-in-the-country-that-gave-her-tons-of-money-which-is-a-disgusting-cop-out-that-is-characteristic-of-stupid-celebrities.

You better be careful…she has a following

Gestankfaust.4216:

You better be careful…she has a following

Gestankfaust.4216 is right- she has a following, and she made gabillions of dollars off that following and then said that the children of the country she made gabillions off of were not worthy to be helped by her because they wanted ipods… her accusations of material lust seemed to be lost when applied to herself wanting to make herself look good.

Anyways stupid celebrities will say stupid things and stuff money into their ears so they don’t have to listen to the truth.

Meanwhile, GW2 is a fun game for the most part =)

I hate GW2

:P

MrDmajor.7084:

“The game’s population is seriously declining”
“Nuh uh, it’s not I have 5 level 80s and I play them”

Somewhere between those 2 quotes lies the real truth.

I can only play one at a time. Everyone who plays the game who has multiple 80s can only play one at a time. There are plenty of people playing the game that have multiple 80s. Hell it’s six months in. It doesn’t take 2 months to max a character.

Now, I play alts in every game I’ve ever played, so this is nothing new for me. It wouldn’t be new in any MMO. But the fact is, I STILL see lots of people on Tarnished Coast, all the time, off hours and on hours.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense to me.

Players have basically migrated to a few top/high population servers. If you are on one of these servers, you will lots of people, all the time. I’m an Australian playing on Tarnished Coast; on my weekends during the US daytime, maps are packed FULL of players. Even on my weekday evenings, a time when most US players are sleeping, there’s still bound to be about 10 – 20 players in any given map.

If you are one of the other Med-Low pop servers, you’ll probably have the exact opposite experience.

Zaxares.5419:

Players have basically migrated to a few top/high population servers. If you are on one of these servers, you will lots of people, all the time. I’m an Australian playing on Tarnished Coast; on my weekends during the US daytime, maps are packed FULL of players. Even on my weekday evenings, a time when most US players are sleeping, there’s still bound to be about 10 – 20 players in any given map.

If you are one of the other Med-Low pop servers, you’ll probably have the exact opposite experience.

False…again

I have been on multiple servers an seen plenty of players.

Just don’t know or get what ppl mean when they ask about population.

Gestankfaust.4216

False…again

I have been on multiple servers an seen plenty of players.

Just don’t know or get what ppl mean when they ask about population.

There are lots of factors which could influence an individual player’s perception of a world being crowded. Are they playing at the server’s optimal gametime, for instance? If someone is from SE-Asia and they’re playing on a US server, chances are they’ll be online when most American players are asleep, so their impression will be that most of the server is dead. Alternatively, are they a PvE player in a server that primarily has PvP/WvW gamers? If so, again they’ll find barely anybody while out and about because everybody else is doing a different activity on the server. Nonetheless, the higher the server’s base population, the better chance you’ll have of finding other players doing the same activity as you.

As to your second question, it could mean one of two things. The first is the server’s “listed” population, as indicated by the “Full/High/Medium/Low” designation beside the server’s name when you are choosing a World to move to. However, all this indicates is the number of accounts that currently have that server as their Home World; it is not necessarily a true reflection of how many players are active on that server.

Usually when people talk about high pop servers, they are asking for servers with a high ACTIVE population. Of these, Tarnished Coast is the only one I have personal experience of, which has a listed population of “Full” and has one of the most active player bases across both PvE and WvW (don’t do PvP so I have no idea how active people are there).

meanwhile on maguuma im still getting kicked on LA overflow.

Dont gage the player base by how many people are standing around in LA. The only reason LA hsd overflow after overflow is because of FoTM. Which isnt really that popular anymore.

Id say the player base is growing slightly. I will agree Anet needs to work on keeping people around longer and not by means of constant new content.

The only reason LA has overflow is the sheer amount of TRAFFIC that goes through there.

*Players exiting WvW exit to LA
*Players entering/exiting FOTM go through LA
*Asura portals to all major cities in LA
*Dungeon armor vendors are in LA

That’s why LA is in overflow anytime day or night – all the players!

critickitten.1498:

And if you’d read this post before replying to it, you’d know that I said that the statistic is not entirely meaningless as you want it to be, since GW2’s sales have dropped off faster than those of other major triple-A games in recent memory. It took them 4 months to sell as many copies as they sold in the first two weeks of the game’s release. Like it or not, that’s a statistic that has some meaning to it.

Squeezing my words while preserving yours for context due to character limit.

Assuming what you say is correct, now look at the rate in which new sales are occurring after the first two weeks and compare it to other MMORPGs. The rate is what’s important, not the numbers sold comparatively to how much sold initially. Suppose GW2 didn’t sell as well at launch and only sold 500,000 copies. If the sales rate after the initial two weeks weren’t changed, then wow, what a success right?

critickitten.1498:

Well let’s see….working backwards, there’s the sale now, the long sale during December, and the Black Friday sale.

Having three sales over the first six months of your game’s launch isn’t a big deal?

How many sales did Rift, TERA, or even SWTOR have in that same period? Lemme answer that for you: none. They saw no reason to devalue their product when it was still selling just fine at its original market price.

Others have noted out the inconsistency here. Perhaps another 3 examples, otherwise “3 sales in 6 months” remains a minor detail.

critickitten.1498:

Except that MMOs are not Steam.

This is a buy-to-play game. The game’s initial sales are its primary source of money in the initial months of the game’s release. The Gem Store is its long-term source of revenue, certainly, but the game sales are the big deal in this first several months, and if they were doing as well as they’d hoped, they wouldn’t feel pressured to have sales. You can argue that the sale during the holidays was normal, and I’d be okay with that….but now they’re having a sale in February. Do they expect a lot of people to be buying their family members a late Valentine’s Day gift? It’s relatively clear that they’re not doing all that well if they have to throw another sale.

If you can still sell your triple-A at $60, you don’t typically drop its price. Using your “Steam” example, many new releases into Steam don’t typically go on sale if they happen to release shortly before a major Steam sale. Skyrim didn’t go on sale until a sale months later, after the initial saturation levels had been tapped out.

It doesn’t matter if Steam games aren’t MMORPGs as long as they’re B2P with replayability. How long was Skyrim released before they had their first sale? GW2 didn’t go on sale until two months in. Even so, some games have sales right at launch.

critickitten.1498:

Not reading, again.

I’m saying that the sales figures have nothing to do with concurrency or the number of active players. That’s rather obvious in context if you invest the proper amount of time into reading the posts you reply to.

I’m not arguing that the player base is in decline right now. Again, you’re clearly not reading what I write if you think that I’m saying that.

I’m saying that the scale of this increase they’re claiming is questionable since the sales figures don’t seem to reflect a high level of growth, and that the player base is most definitely a lot lower now than it was at the start of the game.

On second thought, the statement about “concurrent players” is irrelevant. We’re talking about a trend over time of months, not “right now”.

I’d like to note that a player drop isn’t really an indication of decline as it’s a common occurrence. If “playerbase decline” is based on such a broad scale, then every successful game ever made would be said to be in “decline”. Let’s retrospect… again.

critickitten.1498:

Is the player base declining? That’s a fairly easy to answer question: yes.

Your statement is made entirely based on sales figures which is the crux of the matter here. Otherwise, if your intention with this statement is based on the “broad scale” I mentioned earlier, then you made a moot point. You seem to be flip flopping.

Perhaps GW2 is definitely declining. Having sales periodically is weak evidence of that however, if at all. If GW2 underwent a price cut and began merging servers, then I think that would be proof of a true decline.

i see it this way

for every 3 members that join my guild
2 goes inaktiv :/

So Yeah its increasing but, The Game makers ? if i can say that word really make it sound nice when they say it is increasing

Sorry for bad english

critickitten.1498:

No one, least of all me, said that their concurrency figures are directly related to their sales figures. This is just you not reading my post properly. What I said was that the sales figures are down, which in turn means that the overall growth of the player base might not be as significant as the devs want us to believe.

How can anyone reading the quote above not infer that you’re correlating sales figures with active population growth?

Colin clearly wasn’t talking about total population growth, he was talking about active population and concurrency. More people logging in more often.

When he’s talking about the game’s population hitting a baseline where it leveled out for several weeks, then started slowly going up, he’s obviously not talking about how many people bought the game.

The actual numbers don’t paint nearly as rosy of a picture: visible decreases in sales and a downtrend on Xfire and other related sites. Then there’s the more anecdotal stuff: individual accounts of the player count, continued silence about the game’s concurrency and active player counts (when previously they were all too willing to brag about them), etc. It all doesn’t add up very positively. No, the game’s not dying, it may even be growing as they claim, but it’s likely not as large of a growth as they’re trying to imply.

Once again, the only one here talking about total player growth (the only thing having to do with sales), as opposed to active and concurrent player growth, is you.

Colin has said that the active player base is growing from the plateau they hit after launch’s surge and decline.

You’re bringing in slowed direct sales, the game itself going on sale, and Xfire statistics as evidence to the contrary when that evidence has little to no weight against what Colin has said. You then put value in negative anecdotal evidence, while either ignoring or dismissing positive anecdotal evidence. Further, you take silence on the matter as a negative, then when Colin comes out and says “We’re seeing an increase in active logins after hitting our core player population,” you’re skeptical and argumentative.

I’m not sure why you’re taking a tone of superiority in this thread when you’ve clearly misinterpreted Anets statements on what “growth” was referring to.

Yes and people still like to argue that the game’s population is growing instead of dying.

I mean just face the fact that the game is not doing well although it is a fun game. Players are quitting and very few new players are rising. There are many testimonies of people taking a break from this game a for a month or two then coming back and seeing next to no one any where.

And from my experiences from guesting, most servers don’t have many players in the mid level areas.

Tasty Kiwi.6837:

Yes and people still like to argue that the game’s population is growing instead of dying.

Because the population in reality is growing instead of dying as all the hard facts and evidence show. Yet some people still like to argue that the game’s population is dying… I wonder why.

I mean just face the fact that the game is not doing well although it is a fun game. Players are quitting and very few new players are rising. There are many testimonies of people taking a break from this game a for a month or two then coming back and seeing next to no one any where.

And going to any zone will allow you to meet a lot of new people, people I may add that just started playing. There are lots of them and it is refreshing to see all that new blood come into the game. In the game you are playing it’s empty maybe, but certainly not in Guild Wars 2.

And from my experiences from guesting, most servers don’t have many players in the mid level areas.

I haven’t used guesting but I have the completely opposite experience on my server.

Tasty Kiwi.6837:

Yes and people still like to argue that the game’s population is growing instead of dying.

I mean just face the fact that the game is not doing well although it is a fun game. Players are quitting and very few new players are rising. There are many testimonies of people taking a break from this game a for a month or two then coming back and seeing next to no one any where.

And from my experiences from guesting, most servers don’t have many players in the mid level areas.

This is probably because it takes about a week to hit 80 ^^; I just wish the 800 people at Maw would try WvW so we could stop being 3rd :P

i play on aurora glade and every zone i have been so far has a lot of ppl but im not near lategame yet im only 32 ^^

I will say that I moved to TC right before the fee transfers started b/c my original home server was lacking in PVE, but did have a good WvW pop and I wanted both. I’m very happy to say that TC definitely has a good amount of people in almost every zone. I will say that my friend’s list is starting to dwindle with active players and my IRL friends have gone from maybe 20 to 3 that still play… I don’t know for sure if the population is declining, but it sure seems like the hardcore gw2 players are still at it, but the casuals are leaving and less new ones are jumping in.