Guild Wars 2

This is something which is, in my opinion, a major problem and something which has prevented me from enjoying the game to the extent which I feel I could. As the title says, server population has become a major issue for me.

I started out this game in August of 2012 playing on the Isle of Janthir server. It was pretty average then, given that almost all servers were experiencing high numbers of players at that point in time. As time went on, however, the number of players started dwindling. Whereas I’d be seeing groups and individuals occasionally stopping to help with events in just about every area, now, in November of 2012, I was starting to see only the occasional individual roaming about. Now, in January 2014, the only place I ever see people is in Lion’s Arch, and it’s a massive surprise to encounter anyone outside of a living world event.

Attribute this to your preferred cause all you want, but the fact remains that many servers, mine included, have a despicably low level of population, whereas servers such as Blackgate experience massive influxes of players and guests daily, enough to make co-ordinating with my friends a hassle due to having to deal with overflows and the like when we guest there, not to mention ruining WvW for the server.

The biggest victim of this, however, is PvE. PvE is nigh-impossible in a ghost-town server. Aside from occasional trains running through the tried-and-true areas killing champions, there’s nobody to do events. Forts are left overrun, NPCs are slain at every outpost they can be slain at and meta-events rarely progress to the final stage.

As such, I’m proposing this – that ANet focus on PvE, at least for a single update, to at attempt to try and get some modicum of balance present for PvE. As it is right now, combat events (which are 90% of events anyways) are nearly impossible to complete without a horde. One or two or even five people often cannot take on events which are relatively small in comparison to the larger events, which require a seething mass of humanity to tackle at the very least.

Adjust the event scaling, increase the usefulness of NPCs, whatever it takes – just please try and ensure that people stuck in these servers aren’t left in the dark.

Anet obviously doesn’t think population is an issue, even though it is. It really, really is a problem.

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

Concern: I hate being on an underpopulated/rubbish server! We were rubbish in the world-versus-world league.

“Population-wise, we’re doing great,” insisted Johanson. “We’re very happy with where we’re at. Six months ago to now, it’s a very steady, very very healthy population.”

I’m laughing my head off right now. It’s like they’re only looking at the top three servers. They couldn’t care less about the rest. I’m glad I left when I did. At first, I was planning to come back after 5 to 10 months, but after reading this quote, I have absolutely no interest in coming back at all. This will be the last time I post on these forums, so I’ll make it count.

Push for a server merge. That is the BEST solution. That is the EASIEST solution. Keep posting about server merges, and maybe, just maybe, they will finally listen. They don’t think it’s a problem, so make it one. Post about it every time you get the chance. Encourage others to post about it on the forums when you see absolutely nobody in the world. It bugs me to no end that a company would blatantly ignore a problem that so many people see right in front of their faces.

Maybe some of you would like to continue playing with a dead world, but as for me, I have no interest in playing an MMORPG like a single-player RPG.