Guild Wars 2

What’s up all. I’m back from a long hiatus, it’s been 6 or 7 months. This past week I started playing again.

I gotta say, I’m really shocked at what I see. All the zones are empty, as in I’m lucky to run into 2 other players in a zone and I’ve been running through level 30-60 zones (trying to get a second level 80).

What happened to the open world? It’s barren. I know I didn’t like how hearts and dynamic events were all the same couple events skinned differently, but I didn’t expect that the majority of the playerbase would stop doing the bulk of the games content.

What’s the playerbase doing now?

Almost everybody is in Southsun Cove participating in the last chapter of the Living Story.

Yep, Southsun Cove is the place to be.

Use guesting to find a more populated server. Play on it for a while until you want to transfer their.

Sounds like a combination of things are going on, the content in the zones isn’t compelling enough to keep players spread throughout the world, so they’re doing the more rewarding or newest content.

Also it sounds like server populations have decreased, since 6-7 months ago.

Shockwave.1230:

Sounds like a combination of things are going on, the content in the zones isn’t compelling enough to keep players spread throughout the world, so they’re doing the more rewarding or newest content.

Also it sounds like server populations have decreased, since 6-7 months ago.

So your surprised that most players are doing the newest more rewarding content, that is only going to be available for a very short time? I fail to see how this could be a surprise to anyone? The same happens in almost every game I have ever played. Limited time content or “special events” always draw the most players, it’s only natural.

Also, due to the way culling works, most times, you are not going to see other players unless you are standing almost right on top of them.

Southsun Cove (multiple overflows)
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-14-2013/

Meta events (new API was just released)
http://v2.gw2stuff.com/

Dungeons and Fractals (millions of groups forming within 2 minutes)
http://gw2lfg.com/

More people than ever are playing.
What server are you on, OP? I’ll show you where everyone is

Karizee.8076:

Southsun Cove (multiple overflows)
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-14-2013/

Meta events (new API was just released)
http://v2.gw2stuff.com/

Dungeons and Fractals (millions of groups forming within 2 minutes)
http://gw2lfg.com/

More people than ever are playing.
What server are you on, OP? I’ll show you where everyone is

I play on arguably the most populated US server, and there is not an overflow for southsun. “millions of groups forming within 2 minutes”…. that is worse than people saying the game is dead.

@op
I’ve been wondering the same thing. I think it’s a mixture of a huge population drop and people only farming meta events. Meta events are somehow always packed, nearly every zone but queensdale seems to have taken a pretty big hit over the past few months.

Fernling.1729:

I play on arguably the most populated US server, and there is not an overflow for southsun.

I´ve been sent to overflow on Southsun plenty of times during the event. So either you are not on the most populated server or you are not playing on your server´s prime time.

Europe player here, I was in overflow at 1:00 a.m. on most days during the last week
Tons of players
Player numbers are quite fine – http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7432/Consistent-Steady-Growth-Puts-Us-in-a-Good-Place.html/page/1

Consistent-Steady-Growth-Puts-Us-in-a-Good-Place

Shockwave.1230:

What’s up all. I’m back from a long hiatus, it’s been 6 or 7 months. This past week I started playing again.

I gotta say, I’m really shocked at what I see. All the zones are empty, as in I’m lucky to run into 2 other players in a zone and I’ve been running through level 30-60 zones (trying to get a second level 80).

What happened to the open world? It’s barren. I know I didn’t like how hearts and dynamic events were all the same couple events skinned differently, but I didn’t expect that the majority of the playerbase would stop doing the bulk of the games content.

What’s the playerbase doing now?

Camping open world events that give carrot and some optimists still do pvp.

Shockwave.1230:

What’s up all. I’m back from a long hiatus, it’s been 6 or 7 months. This past week I started playing again.

I gotta say, I’m really shocked at what I see. All the zones are empty, as in I’m lucky to run into 2 other players in a zone and I’ve been running through level 30-60 zones (trying to get a second level 80).

What happened to the open world? It’s barren. I know I didn’t like how hearts and dynamic events were all the same couple events skinned differently, but I didn’t expect that the majority of the playerbase would stop doing the bulk of the games content.

What’s the playerbase doing now?

LS has failed to get players back into the zones and they refuse to actually add permanent DE’s and permanent metas to the open world in all of the zones monthly. So what naturally occurs in this case is all of the players will go to where the focus of the new content will be to further make the world even more empty then before. It backfired.

tigirius.9014:

LS has failed to get players back into the zones and they refuse to actually add permanent DE’s and permanent metas to the open world in all of the zones monthly. So what naturally occurs in this case is all of the players will go to where the focus of the new content will be to further make the world even more empty then before. It backfired.

Didn’t you get the memo?

Everything you say is wrong: they do add a Metaevent-chain (a world boss) to Southsun Cove which is permanent. They do add permanent events there too.

The Secret of Southsun has a lot of fun, unique content that concludes with the storyline, but also leaves behind permanent experiences for players as a direct result of the outcome of the storyline for players to enjoy for years to come.

Of course, the playable content is very different as well. Southsun includes content like the Crab Toss mini-game, a new open-world beast that is unleashed for large mega battles on the island between lots of players, and of course, the unforgettable Lord Faren on the beach in his finest beach attire.

http://www.warcry.com/news/view/124177-Guild-Wars-2-Developer-Interview-on-the-Secrets-of-Southsun-More-More-More

caiomacos.1694:

Fernling.1729:

I play on arguably the most populated US server, and there is not an overflow for southsun.

I´ve been sent to overflow on Southsun plenty of times during the event. So either you are not on the most populated server or you are not playing on your server´s prime time.

I’ve logged in and played a couple different times today and haven’t been sent to overflow. There is a large group of people farming the castigator(i think thats what they are called), but not many people in other places there. There was about 2-3 other people messing around with the jumping puzzles with me. This is on Tarnished coast.

I do think the the population is healthy, not flourishing with people, but decent. I just think that Anet needs to do something to spread the people throughout the world, as they seem to be all just zerging the meta events. I would like to see these events be more random or something.

Karizee.8076:

Southsun Cove (multiple overflows)
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-14-2013/

Meta events (new API was just released)
http://v2.gw2stuff.com/

Dungeons and Fractals (millions of groups forming within 2 minutes)
http://gw2lfg.com/

More people than ever are playing.
What server are you on, OP? I’ll show you where everyone is

I’m on Stormbluff Isle

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Shockwave.1230:

Sounds like a combination of things are going on, the content in the zones isn’t compelling enough to keep players spread throughout the world, so they’re doing the more rewarding or newest content.

Also it sounds like server populations have decreased, since 6-7 months ago.

So your surprised that most players are doing the newest more rewarding content, that is only going to be available for a very short time? I fail to see how this could be a surprise to anyone? The same happens in almost every game I have ever played. Limited time content or “special events” always draw the most players, it’s only natural.

Also, due to the way culling works, most times, you are not going to see other players unless you are standing almost right on top of them.

I haven’t done any of living story stuff. It’s temporary, so I’m not really interested in spending my time on it. I play casually.

tigirius.9014:

Shockwave.1230:

What’s up all. I’m back from a long hiatus, it’s been 6 or 7 months. This past week I started playing again.

I gotta say, I’m really shocked at what I see. All the zones are empty, as in I’m lucky to run into 2 other players in a zone and I’ve been running through level 30-60 zones (trying to get a second level 80).

What happened to the open world? It’s barren. I know I didn’t like how hearts and dynamic events were all the same couple events skinned differently, but I didn’t expect that the majority of the playerbase would stop doing the bulk of the games content.

What’s the playerbase doing now?

LS has failed to get players back into the zones and they refuse to actually add permanent DE’s and permanent metas to the open world in all of the zones monthly. So what naturally occurs in this case is all of the players will go to where the focus of the new content will be to further make the world even more empty then before. It backfired.

Regular DEs won’t get people back into the open world. Meta events, as some people claim, will get people to stay around the meta area with the timer until it pops. It’s not a solution.

GW2 isn’t a game that has a new raid every few months that you can do over and over again for gear…. or a new zone for daily quests every four months that you have to farm in order to get tokens to unlock access for the new raid.

It’s a game that progressively every month introduces new content, some temporary, other permanently, a living story, along with improvements to the core of the game.

Shockwave.1230:

Karizee.8076:

Southsun Cove (multiple overflows)
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-14-2013/

Meta events (new API was just released)
http://v2.gw2stuff.com/

Dungeons and Fractals (millions of groups forming within 2 minutes)
http://gw2lfg.com/

More people than ever are playing.
What server are you on, OP? I’ll show you where everyone is

I’m on Stormbluff Isle

lol no wonder

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Europe player here, I was in overflow at 1:00 a.m. on most days during the last week
Tons of players
Player numbers are quite fine – http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/7432/Consistent-Steady-Growth-Puts-Us-in-a-Good-Place.html/page/1

Consistent-Steady-Growth-Puts-Us-in-a-Good-Place

Since you brought it up…let’s discuss those bullet points shall we?

-Over three million copies of Guild Wars 2 have already been sold

-WvW populations are going up. In fact, the numbers are nearly equal to those the game featured in October.

-PvP populations have risen by 3% each weekend over the past several weekends.

3 million was the number sold back in February, 2 million were sold about a month after launch. What does this tell us? That sales are slowing, and new players coming into the game has decreased. There is no way for the general player base to track concurrent users, or reliably track true server populations in the game since the servers are set up to show accounts made and not players playing. Anet has the metrics, but they ain’t telling.

WvW numbers are in fact lower than they were in October. Typical PR spin, pick a month and say that they are near that months numbers without actually giving out any new or concrete information. So from this statement, WvW populations could be down, sideways, or pink and purple from the highest population. No true metrics to base this statement against.

A 3% increase in pvp populations over several weekends. More PR spin. Without knowing the actual numbers of people reliably playing spvp or tpvp, this number could be as low as 3 people or as high as infinity minus one. We generally know that of the three modes of play for GW2, pvp has the lowest population. This information is about as misleading and useless as stating that Southsun has seen a population increase of 3000%.

Until metrics are released, there is no 100% reliable way to track population, concurrent users, population density per game mode, server density by player population, player time in game or much of anything else. We can say they are making money on the gemstore and that some trends in mmo’s show sales plateauing a certain amount of time after release across most games.

Play the game if you like it, enjoy what you enjoy.

TheOnlyOneNL.3821:

Almost everybody is in Southsun Cove participating in the last chapter of the Living Story.

If that’s ‘almost everybody’, then it’s also hardly anybody.

I logged on over the weekend to do the content, and had difficulty with getting events done because I only saw one or two other players. Group events were impossible. Map chat was dead and unresponsive.

And I’m on a supposedly high population server (SoR).

This doesn’t prove anything, but it sure suggests something…

How many of those 3 million are multiple accounts for one person? How many of them are bought to replace lost/stolen/hacked/banned accounts? I don’t think there are as many as it sounds. To me, it seems like the player base is shrinking. Or, at least the global number of player hours is shrinking. It is Summer time starting in NA so, it’s possible people just aren’t playing as much

Chuo.4238:

TheOnlyOneNL.3821:

Almost everybody is in Southsun Cove participating in the last chapter of the Living Story.

If that’s ‘almost everybody’, then it’s also hardly anybody.

I logged on over the weekend to do the content, and had difficulty with getting events done because I only saw one or two other players. Group events were impossible. Map chat was dead and unresponsive.

And I’m on a supposedly high population server (SoR).

This doesn’t prove anything, but it sure suggests something…

So how come I keep ending up on overflow servers and they always seem to be full because others in my party end up on different overflows?

Vayne.8563:

Chuo.4238:

TheOnlyOneNL.3821:

Almost everybody is in Southsun Cove participating in the last chapter of the Living Story.

If that’s ‘almost everybody’, then it’s also hardly anybody.

I logged on over the weekend to do the content, and had difficulty with getting events done because I only saw one or two other players. Group events were impossible. Map chat was dead and unresponsive.

And I’m on a supposedly high population server (SoR).

This doesn’t prove anything, but it sure suggests something…

So how come I keep ending up on overflow servers and they always seem to be full because others in my party end up on different overflows?

I don’t know. I wasn’t there with you. I do know what I saw, however, unless you’re suggesting I made it up?

Vayne.8563:

Yep, Southsun Cove is the place to be.

Southsun Cove is the place to be!
Farming ‘gators is the life for me!
Passion Flowers blooming far and wide!
Keep Tequatl just gimme some gear that’s eyed!

Kitten Orr might be okay for you!
But good drops are far between and few!
Killing dragons surely does get old!
Frostgorge I love you but SC MF is gold!

Lost shores!
Crab scores!
My fate!
One crate!
Please give me a ‘port!
It’s my last resort!
Hey, Southsun, I am there!

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

Yep, Southsun Cove is the place to be.

Southsun Cove is the place to be!
Farming ‘gators is the life for me!
Passion Flowers blooming far and wide!
Keep Tequatl just gimme some gear that’s eyed!

Kitten Orr might be okay for you!
But good drops are far between and few!
Killing dragons surely does get old!
Frostgorge I love you but SC MF is gold!

Lost shores!
Crab scores!
My fate!
One crate!
Please give me a ‘port!
It’s my last resort!
Hey, Southsun, I am there!

Well done!

So basically from what people posting are observing it sounds like WvW and PvP are getting some growth but not yet back up to what it was at launch, and PvE is pretty much only people running Dungeons and living story?

And the world zones are barren, because people are only doing the challenging or rewarding content, so hearts and DEs have pretty much fallen off the face of the game from the perspective of the majority of the player base? Which is kinda sad, because that’s where ANet would have spent a huge portion of their time.

That’s what it sounds like is going on to me.

Shockwave.1230:

So basically from what people posting are observing it sounds like WvW and PvP are getting some growth but not yet back up to what it was at launch, and PvE is pretty much only people running Dungeons and living story?

And the world zones are barren, because people are only doing the challenging or rewarding content, so hearts and DEs have pretty much fallen off the face of the game from the perspective of the majority of the player base? Which is kinda sad, because that’s where ANet would have spent a huge portion of their time.

That’s what it sounds like is going on to me.

Most games are never up to what they were at launch. For one thing, at launch everyone is split among the earliest zones. Even if the same number of people were playing the game, arguably it would seem like less as time went on and people spread out.

I’ve played WoW in some of the middle level areas on some of the servers and they’re like dead zones. WoW still has 8.3 million subscriptions (and it had a hell of a lot more when I played). But everyone was crowded into two or three zones at the end, and maybe some of the lower zones as well. The middle zones were empty.

Even on WoW forums, some people claimed that meant the game wasn’t doing well. It’s just not good logic.

Shockwave.1230:

So basically from what people posting are observing it sounds like WvW and PvP are getting some growth but not yet back up to what it was at launch, and PvE is pretty much only people running Dungeons and living story?

And the world zones are barren, because people are only doing the challenging or rewarding content, so hearts and DEs have pretty much fallen off the face of the game from the perspective of the majority of the player base? Which is kinda sad, because that’s where ANet would have spent a huge portion of their time.

That’s what it sounds like is going on to me.

SPvP nearly died completely. Now its just barely alive, wouldn’t call it growth.
No overflow in southsun on TC today.

Chuo.4238:

TheOnlyOneNL.3821:

Almost everybody is in Southsun Cove participating in the last chapter of the Living Story.

If that’s ‘almost everybody’, then it’s also hardly anybody.

I logged on over the weekend to do the content, and had difficulty with getting events done because I only saw one or two other players. Group events were impossible. Map chat was dead and unresponsive.

And I’m on a supposedly high population server (SoR).

This doesn’t prove anything, but it sure suggests something…

You were on Southsun at SoR and could only find a player or two? Nah… You were probably sent to overflow and didnt notice.

Fernling.1729:

Shockwave.1230:

So basically from what people posting are observing it sounds like WvW and PvP are getting some growth but not yet back up to what it was at launch, and PvE is pretty much only people running Dungeons and living story?

And the world zones are barren, because people are only doing the challenging or rewarding content, so hearts and DEs have pretty much fallen off the face of the game from the perspective of the majority of the player base? Which is kinda sad, because that’s where ANet would have spent a huge portion of their time.

That’s what it sounds like is going on to me.

SPvP nearly died completely. Now its just barely alive, wouldn’t call it growth.
No overflow in southsun on TC today.

I wish there was no overflow in southsun on TC today, getting my whole group there has been a pain.