Guild Wars 2

I am on High pop server, but the game still feels kinda empty in certain zones. There’s almost everyday someone in Southsun, but as for Orr or some 15-25 lvl zones, they feel kinda dead. Sure, you might see person or two doing an event once in a while, but most of the time you’re just going solo.

My guess is that bunch of people left the game, I know since I had a small guild with 80 people, and nowadays I’m the only person that logs on almost on daily basis.

Where did all the people go? What drove them away, did they quit or is it just me?

some low level areas are empty most of the time, I guess some moved on, some have high level chars and dont want to look back, I see most folks running around in Queensdale, a few in Metrica and the other starting areas, but I rarely see more than 5 or 7 folks in the middle level areas.

I think they should look at the accounts of people that havent logged in months and put them all on a server, and either merge low pop servers or adjust the pops of some to make them even.

Many didn’t adjust to the freeform style of the game, tho!

cheers!

Dailies also direct traffic. When you have a “Ascalonian killer” or w/e achievement for example, there tend do be more people in Ascalon (even the 1-15 zones).

I’m not sure what you expect. People gravitate to the most profitable area of the game. Right now, with the magic find buff available there for free, that’s South Sun. People moved on from Orr because it’s no longer profitable.

Go to any meta event that rewards a chest and you’ll find people.

The problem with ALL games is that people congregate where the loot is. If you don’t do the same, you’ll see a lot less people.

Rewards are concentrated, causes people to be concentrated, causes zones to be dead.

Devs problem, whether they will remedy the situation or not remains to be seen.

If you havin social problems I feel bad for you son I got 99 guildies online

killcannon.2576:

Rewards are concentrated, causes people to be concentrated, causes zones to be dead.

Devs problem, whether they will remedy the situation or not remains to be seen.

This and the fact certain aspects have seen very little fixes, additions and loot repairs..

Dante.1508:

killcannon.2576:

Rewards are concentrated, causes people to be concentrated, causes zones to be dead.

Devs problem, whether they will remedy the situation or not remains to be seen.

This and the fact certain aspects have seen very little fixes, additions and loot repairs..

I have not run into many bugs or glitches that would turn me off to an entire zone overall. Not to say they are not still out there though.

Ran into a couple in Southsun a few days back with events not completing or mobs spawning on top of buildings, but that doesn’t keep people away. People are there for the rewards.

Anyway, if the devs decide to fix it, all well and good. If not, be prepared to run meta event bosses in order to see people for the life of the game.

Problem with the current meta event system and rewards is that zerg moves from one zone to another to get rare items. It sounds bit drastic, but maybe we should be limited to only one “bonus chest” with rare item per 24h. It doesn’t matter how many meta events you do, you’ll get just one guaranteed rare item for any meta event, instead of one guaranteed rare item from each meta event.

Mentalhead.5721:

Problem with the current meta event system and rewards is that zerg moves from one zone to another to get rare items. It sounds bit drastic, but maybe we should be limited to only one “bonus chest” with rare item per 24h. It doesn’t matter how many meta events you do, you’ll get just one guaranteed rare item for any meta event, instead of one guaranteed rare item from each meta event.

There’s been a debate going on in the forums about it for a while now. You can check some of the previous pages in the forums for some of the meatier discussions on the subject. Just check out any topic where people wonder why no one is in the zones, or wonder why no one is playing.

It breaks down to some people wanting to change the metagame to increase zone population overall, to people who think it’s natural for zones to be dead.

I play two to three hours a day. There are areas I haven’t been back to since I was doing world completion months ago. Mostly 20-70 areas. I do some boss chains, do dailies, and then whatever else tickles my fancy. I’m guessing I’m not unique. It’s a problem you always have in games like this, after people have gone through the content they tend to congregate in areas where they have the highest chances of rewards.

And it’s not just areas I hate. Although I do have a few areas that I loathed as I leveled up like Fireheart Rise or Dredgehaunt Cliffs. On the other hand, I love Kessex Hills, but rarely go. I don’t think it’s a sign that the game is maturing, not necessarily that everyone is leaving. I think it would be great for living story like events to move into some of these areas to give them life, but I don’t see it as a huge problem, and I’m not sure that will be a permanent solution. When I was doing world completion all those months ago, some areas were packed and some were empty.

One thing I think that would help would be getting rid of traveling fees, especially if you got rid of them while traveling between zones. I mean, I’m not poor in game, but I am kinda cheap, which means I don’t hop around very often.

killcannon.2576:

Dante.1508:

killcannon.2576:

Rewards are concentrated, causes people to be concentrated, causes zones to be dead.

Devs problem, whether they will remedy the situation or not remains to be seen.

This and the fact certain aspects have seen very little fixes, additions and loot repairs..

I have not run into many bugs or glitches that would turn me off to an entire zone overall. Not to say they are not still out there though.

Ran into a couple in Southsun a few days back with events not completing or mobs spawning on top of buildings, but that doesn’t keep people away. People are there for the rewards.

Anyway, if the devs decide to fix it, all well and good. If not, be prepared to run meta event bosses in order to see people for the life of the game.

The fixes i meant was class balance and skills additions, the content additions are mostly cash shop and temporary only and well loot repairs kinda covers the whole shibang..

Mentalhead.5721:

I am on High pop server, but the game still feels kinda empty in certain zones. There’s almost everyday someone in Southsun, but as for Orr or some 15-25 lvl zones, they feel kinda dead. Sure, you might see person or two doing an event once in a while, but most of the time you’re just going solo.

My guess is that bunch of people left the game, I know since I had a small guild with 80 people, and nowadays I’m the only person that logs on almost on daily basis.

Where did all the people go? What drove them away, did they quit or is it just me?

WoW’s new patch also came out on tuesday. Rift is going F2P too. People are waiting for the 28th for the 2nd part of Southsun Living Story.

killcannon.2576:

Rewards are concentrated, causes people to be concentrated, causes zones to be dead.

Devs problem, whether they will remedy the situation or not remains to be seen.

I don’t see it as a devs problem though I know you do. I think it’s smart. So a few people complain about empty zones and most people take advantage of the comraderie of a busy zone and what’s being offered.

Other games do it by making it so that the only area anyone cares about are the zones at the end, and most of the other zones are empty. It’s the same thing.

Since no game has ever found a way to solve this, you can say it’s a dev problem from dawn till dusk. What it really is is a human nature problem.

People are going to gather if you put enough of them in the same area.

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Rewards are concentrated, causes people to be concentrated, causes zones to be dead.

Devs problem, whether they will remedy the situation or not remains to be seen.

I don’t see it as a devs problem though I know you do. I think it’s smart. So a few people complain about empty zones and most people take advantage of the comraderie of a busy zone and what’s being offered.

Other games do it by making it so that the only area anyone cares about are the zones at the end, and most of the other zones are empty. It’s the same thing.

Since no game has ever found a way to solve this, you can say it’s a dev problem from dawn till dusk. What it really is is a human nature problem.

People are going to gather if you put enough of them in the same area.

Human nature isn’t a problem, it’s a variable. There have been many good ideas put forth, so until I see them implemented to fail or succeed in the environment, it’s a dev problem.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Rewards are concentrated, causes people to be concentrated, causes zones to be dead.

Devs problem, whether they will remedy the situation or not remains to be seen.

I don’t see it as a devs problem though I know you do. I think it’s smart. So a few people complain about empty zones and most people take advantage of the comraderie of a busy zone and what’s being offered.

Other games do it by making it so that the only area anyone cares about are the zones at the end, and most of the other zones are empty. It’s the same thing.

Since no game has ever found a way to solve this, you can say it’s a dev problem from dawn till dusk. What it really is is a human nature problem.

People are going to gather if you put enough of them in the same area.

Human nature isn’t a problem, it’s a variable. There have been many good ideas put forth, so until I see them implemented to fail or succeed in the environment, it’s a dev problem.

In your opinion.

But everyone has ideas and not all of them are viable or would solve the problem.

The problem being that the world is large, there are too many zones, and I don’t think ANY server will have the population for people to be pretty much everywhere. Even if that happens at peak times, you doom everyone who plays off peak to have a terrible experience. Right now, those people CAN go to South Sun and play with people.

I say it’s not a developer problem because no developer in ANY game has found an answer. I know you think you have, and I’ve said before I don’t think it will work.

There aren’t enough people to population the entire game on every server. Not having hot spots will hurt the game more than it will help it, in my opinion.

Tell me, have you seen any MMORPG that doesn’t have this problem?

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Rewards are concentrated, causes people to be concentrated, causes zones to be dead.

Devs problem, whether they will remedy the situation or not remains to be seen.

I don’t see it as a devs problem though I know you do. I think it’s smart. So a few people complain about empty zones and most people take advantage of the comraderie of a busy zone and what’s being offered.

Other games do it by making it so that the only area anyone cares about are the zones at the end, and most of the other zones are empty. It’s the same thing.

Since no game has ever found a way to solve this, you can say it’s a dev problem from dawn till dusk. What it really is is a human nature problem.

People are going to gather if you put enough of them in the same area.

Human nature isn’t a problem, it’s a variable. There have been many good ideas put forth, so until I see them implemented to fail or succeed in the environment, it’s a dev problem.

In your opinion.

But everyone has ideas and not all of them are viable or would solve the problem.

The problem being that the world is large, there are too many zones, and I don’t think ANY server will have the population for people to be pretty much everywhere. Even if that happens at peak times, you doom everyone who plays off peak to have a terrible experience. Right now, those people CAN go to South Sun and play with people.

I say it’s not a developer problem because no developer in ANY game has found an answer. I know you think you have, and I’ve said before I don’t think it will work.

There aren’t enough people to population the entire game on every server. Not having hot spots will hurt the game more than it will help it, in my opinion.

Tell me, have you seen any MMORPG that doesn’t have this problem?

Do we have to do this again? If you don’t try the ideas, there’s no way to tell if they are viable. We know that there is currently a problem, ignoring it won’t make it go away.

I’ve stated before this is the first MMO that I have seen that focuses on Journey rather than Endgame. My whole viewpoint is in my previous posts on why I believe GW2 has the tools available to them as core features of the game to address these challenges. They have even stated previously it’s one of their goals to not have people bunch up in certain areas, to have the entire game rewarding, to not have people settle into a grind, blah blah blah.

The human condition as a variable and not a problem is not my opinion, it’s a fact. The same way gravity isn’t a problem for spaceflight, it’s a variable. Game devs know where people will go, to the rewards, and it’s up to them to design with that in mind. I suppose they could instead sell a device that provides an electric shock every time a player decides to do something rewarding to them, but that’s still a reward factor (not getting shocked is the reward), dunno how that would sell. Might be big in China. They can only work with what they can change or control, and as a game dev, human nature is a little out of their ballpark.

I’ve stated it before. Anet needs to decide the focus of their game. Journey or Endgame. I bought it for the Journey, other games do endgame content better, but they are not supporting the Journey. If they continue on this route, the game will evolve fully into exactly what every single other mmo is. Level up as quickly and efficiently as possible, ignore all leveling zones, farm mats for end game content in specific areas set aside for those pursuits, once endgame gear is acquired, log out and don’t come back till new stuff that is relevant to me is released.

“But, Kill, every other single mmo can do it, why not gw2?” Because players have a reason to in other mmos, it’s called endgame content. There is none here, all the good stuff is in the leveling zones. All the lore and story is in the leveling zones. All the challenge is in the leveling zones. All the beauty is in the leveling zones. You want to experience what GW2 has to offer? You need to do the Journey. But the Journey is unpopulated.

“Come and experience all of what GW2 currently has to offer to a new player!! Underpopulated leveling zones and an end game that revolves around hitting a dragon’s kneecap for 30 seconds while watching a movie on another screen. Join the zerg in WvW and not be able to tell wtf is going on under all the spell effects, but don’t worry I’m sure you killed that guy/gal, Experience our Living Story that may or may not be here by the time you log in” These are all exaggerations, but it’s headed there.
Put that on a box and try to sell it.

I personally think they went to Denmark to celebrate the eurovision win. As has been said, find any game in existence that does not have empty zones. If you find it play it.

Mentalhead.5721:

I am on High pop server, but the game still feels kinda empty in certain zones. There’s almost everyday someone in Southsun, but as for Orr or some 15-25 lvl zones, they feel kinda dead. Sure, you might see person or two doing an event once in a while, but most of the time you’re just going solo.

My guess is that bunch of people left the game, I know since I had a small guild with 80 people, and nowadays I’m the only person that logs on almost on daily basis.

Where did all the people go? What drove them away, did they quit or is it just me?

Wooboost.8527:

If you havin social problems I feel bad for you son I got 99 guildies online

lol this was the best

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Rewards are concentrated, causes people to be concentrated, causes zones to be dead.

Devs problem, whether they will remedy the situation or not remains to be seen.

I don’t see it as a devs problem though I know you do. I think it’s smart. So a few people complain about empty zones and most people take advantage of the comraderie of a busy zone and what’s being offered.

Other games do it by making it so that the only area anyone cares about are the zones at the end, and most of the other zones are empty. It’s the same thing.

snip111

People are going to gather if you put enough of them in the same area.

Human nature isn’t a problem, it’s a variable. There have been many good ideas put forth, so until I see them implemented to fail or succeed in the environment, it’s a dev problem.

In your opinion.

But everyone has ideas and not all of them are viable or would solve the problem.

The problem being that the world is large, there are too many zones, and I don’t think ANY server will have the population for people to be pretty much everywhere. Even if that happens at peak times, you doom everyone who plays off peak to have a terrible experience. Right now, those people CAN go to South Sun and play with people.

I say it’s not a developer problem because no developer in ANY game has found an answer. I know you think you have, and I’ve said before I don’t think it will work.

There aren’t enough people to population the entire game on every server. Not having hot spots will hurt the game more than it will help it, in my opinion.

Tell me, have you seen any MMORPG that doesn’t have this problem?

Do we have to do this again? If you don’t try the ideas, there’s no way to tell if they are viable. We know that there is currently a problem, ignoring it won’t make it go away.

snip

The human condition as a variable and not a problem is not my opinion, it’s a fact. The same way gravity isn’t a problem for spaceflight, it’s a variable. Game devs know where people will go, to the rewards, and it’s up to them to design with that in mind. I suppose they could instead sell a device that provides an electric shock every time a player decides to do something rewarding to them, but that’s still a reward factor (not getting shocked is the reward), dunno how that would sell. Might be big in China. They can only work with what they can change or control, and as a game dev, human nature is a little out of their ballpark.

I’ve stated it before. Anet needs to decide the focus of their game. Journey or Endgame. I bought it for the Journey, other games do endgame content better, but they are not supporting the Journey. If they continue on this route, the game will evolve fully into exactly what every single other mmo is. Level up as quickly and efficiently as possible, ignore all leveling zones, farm mats for end game content in specific areas set aside for those pursuits, once endgame gear is acquired, log out and don’t come back till new stuff that is relevant to me is released.

“But Kill, every other single mmo can do it, why not gw2?” Because players have a reason to in other mmos, it’s called endgame content. There is none here, all the good stuff is in the leveling zones. All the lore and story is in the leveling zones. All the challenge is in the leveling zones. All the beauty is in the leveling zones. You want to experience what GW2 has to offer? You need to do the Journey. But the Journey is unpopulated.

“Come and experience all of what GW2 currently has to offer to a new player!! Underpopulated leveling zones and an end game that revolves around hitting a dragon’s kneecap for 30 seconds while akitten. Join the zerg in WvW and not be able to tell wtf is going on under all the spell effects, but don’t worry I’m sure you killed that guy/gal, Experience our Living Story that may or may not be here by the time you log in”
Put that on a box and try to sell it.

You’re a glass is half empty kind of guy, aren’t you?

First of all, even new players can come to Southsun Cove and last month’s story was in beginners zones. Anet has made it so that even low level people can come and do content, and there’s nothing stopping them from doing so.

On the topic of what can and can’t be done to get people out into all the zones, the only way you can know that will or wont’ work is if you have the metrics of how many people are playing at what hour of days.

You never did answer the question about people who play at off hours. How does any of your solutions help them?

@killcannon. There is a reason I don’t bother arguing with certain people. They don’t bring anything to the table except be negative about any criticism. We are not going to get most people away from chest events or temp content that offers vastly superior money gain, but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored no.

I’d say add a long term achievements per region that promotes doing things in areas other than those situated around the chest events. The more you do in such an area the bigger the gain towards the end goal of the achievement. Link some rewards to them and we are set. A reason for some to venture out into the open world. A similar long term achievement could revolve around minor races, like skritt and dredge.

Sadly Anet is moving away from promoting open world content more and more with the release of things like the event api.

Conner.4702:

@killcannon. There is a reason I don’t bother arguing with certain people. They don’t bring anything to the table except be negative about any criticism. We are not going to get most people away from chest events or temp content that offers vastly superior money gain, but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored no.

I’d say add a long term achievements per region that promotes doing things in areas other than those situated around the chest events. The more you do in such an area the bigger the gain towards the end goal of the achievement. Link some rewards to them and we are set. A reason for some to venture out into the open world. A similar long term achievement could revolve around minor races, like skritt and dredge.

Sadly Anet is moving away from promoting open world content more and more with the release of things like the event api.

Last I saw, all the content on Southsun Cove is open world, and most of the content in the last living story was open world.

Anet isn’t moving away from open world content. It’s just directing traffic to where the best/newest open world content can be found.

They are just chasing events that gives you carrot.

Nice. Dismiss me as a pessimist. I’m a “That’s a glass of water” kinda guy.
All players are affected by it, including off peaks. Putting people back in the world helps everyone. I’m not trying to change your mind, believe whatever you wish.

killcannon.2576:

Nice. Dismiss me as a pessimist. I’m a “That’s a glass of water” kinda guy.
All players are affected by it, including off peaks. Putting people back in the world helps everyone. I’m not trying to change your mind, believe whatever you wikitten

was said in jest. And no, splitting the people online at off hours all over the world will not give enough people in each zone to do anything. Those people will suffer.

The only way people will get people to play with off hours is to have hot spots.

Sorry OP but you’ll hardly ever see me in your 15-25 areas, except if I’m levelling an alt.

I’m going there only if there’s a world boss, otherwise I’m in WvW/fractals/dungeons/Orr like a lot of people who have reached lvl 80. Just try the world bosses, you’ll see a lot of people.
I’m gathering mats for my legendary and it’s not in the low level areas that you’ll make any progress.

Anonymous.6935:

Me and a friend left as the game was becoming boring. The final straw was the big update that nerfed alot of our only character (Elementalist)…haven’t logged in since.

This game lacks anything but repetitive content, and the only people who stay are the ones who are retired/like grinding for skins/have nothing better to do with their lives.

Right, those are the only people play the game. Narrow-minded much?

I guess the working people in my guild and the younger students aren’t playing.

Nerf to eles. Anyone who can’t deal with the nerf to eles doesn’t belong playing MMOs.

Oh I know. If I can’t play a bunker build that makes me invincible, I’m not going to play at all. Shows a lot more about your inability to adapt than anything else because plenty of people still successfully play eles.

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Nice. Dismiss me as a pessimist. I’m a “That’s a glass of water” kinda guy.
All players are affected by it, including off peaks. Putting people back in the world helps everyone. I’m not trying to change your mind, believe whatever you wikitten

was said in jest. And no, splitting the people online at off hours all over the world will not give enough people in each zone to do anything. Those people will suffer.

The only way people will get people to play with off hours is to have hot spots.

Sorry, it’s late (early) here. Apologize for not taking it in jest.

On topic.
Except…no one is splitting them up all over the world. They can play however they want to play, without being made to feel they need to do certain things in order to see the best rewards. It’s a philosophy, and one that Anet shares I believe.

It won’t fix things overnight, it’s not supposed to. But it starts a trend, and that trend will attract more players, and more players will fill up the zones. It’s the only answer I’ve got, and I’ve been discussing it on the boards for a few months now with a fair amount of intelligent and passionate individuals. When I first started, all I had was “Randomize timers, and spawn locations”, with others help and discussion it has changed into what I spew nowadays. I’d rather have your ideas on how to help get people back into the open world than just do this dance, but up to you.

Vayne.8563:

Anonymous.6935:

Me and a friend left as the game was becoming boring. The final straw was the big update that nerfed alot of our only character (Elementalist)…haven’t logged in since.

This game lacks anything but repetitive content, and the only people who stay are the ones who are retired/like grinding for skins/have nothing better to do with their lives.

Right, those are the only people play the game. Narrow-minded much?

I guess the working people in my guild and the younger students aren’t playing.

Nerf to eles. Anyone who can’t deal with the nerf to eles doesn’t belong playing MMOs.

Oh I know. If I can’t play a bunker build that makes me invincible, I’m not going to play at all. Shows a lot more about your inability to adapt than anything else because plenty of people still successfully play eles.

I play a bunker, didn’t affect me at all. But it did affect all the other builds, which I thought was hilarious.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Nice. Dismiss me as a pessimist. I’m a “That’s a glass of water” kinda guy.
All players are affected by it, including off peaks. Putting people back in the world helps everyone. I’m not trying to change your mind, believe whatever you wikitten

was said in jest. And no, splitting the people online at off hours all over the world will not give enough people in each zone to do anything. Those people will suffer.

The only way people will get people to play with off hours is to have hot spots.

Sorry, it’s late (early) here. Apologize for not taking it in jest.

On topic.
Except…no one is splitting them up all over the world. They can play however they want to play, without being made to feel they need to do certain things in order to see the best rewards. It’s a philosophy, and one that Anet shares I believe.

It won’t fix things overnight, it’s not supposed to. But it starts a trend, and that trend will attract more players, and more players will fill up the zones. It’s the only answer I’ve got, and I’ve been discussing it on the boards for a few months now with a fair amount of intelligent and passionate individuals. When I first started, all I had was “Randomize timers, and spawn locations”, with others help and discussion it has changed into what I spew nowadays. I’d rather have your ideas on how to help get people back into the open world than just do this dance, but up to you.

What we really need (and what we don’t have) is actual metrics about how many people are playing at one time. Because without that, we can’t know how successful not herding people is going to be.

If there’s a time of day, for example, where a server only has 100 people on it, and there are 25 zones, it becomes 4 people per zone. That doesn’t take into account WvWers, PvPers, people doing dungeons and people doing fractals, nor people standing around chatting in LA.

If most of those 100 people are in Southsun you have some company. Do you see my problem?

We’re making suggestions but we don’t really have the metrics.

killcannon.2576:

Nice. Dismiss me as a pessimist. I’m a “That’s a glass of water” kinda guy.
All players are affected by it, including off peaks. Putting people back in the world helps everyone. I’m not trying to change your mind, believe whatever you wish.

I see the glass and think, I want more water, some ice cubes and a slice of lemon please. Guess that makes me a thirstyist

Wooboost.8527:

If you havin social problems I feel bad for you son I got 99 guildies online

Pic’s or it didn’t happen :P

Anonymous.6935:

Vayne.8563:

Anonymous.6935:

Me and a friend left as the game was becoming boring. The final straw was the big update that nerfed alot of our only character (Elementalist)…haven’t logged in since.

This game lacks anything but repetitive content, and the only people who stay are the ones who are retired/like grinding for skins/have nothing better to do with their lives.

Right, those are the only people play the game. Narrow-minded much?

I guess the working people in my guild and the younger students aren’t playing.

Nerf to eles. Anyone who can’t deal with the nerf to eles doesn’t belong playing MMOs.

Oh I know. If I can’t play a bunker build that makes me invincible, I’m not going to play at all. Shows a lot more about your inability to adapt than anything else because plenty of people still successfully play eles.

I thought you’d reply. Yes people like you who like to sit on the forum everyday as you’re retired, and play with your wife on this game. Not a bad thing, just a fact. There’s many others like you. The people left in this game log in, perhaps do their daily, and then just grind away at the same COF for money or some other boring crap.

It’s a shame as could have been a good game, but with so many people leaving and the elitists staying and wasting $100’s on real life money on the gem store for temporary content, I don’t see why they’d want to add in a proper expansion anytime soon atleast. Not to worry, onwards and upwards!

But the FACT is, I know working people playing this game, students playing this game, single moms with schedules playing this game…so what you say is in fact demonstrably false. Many people play this game. Your comments about who is left playing it is not only unprovable, but demonstrably untrue.

A large portion of the player base wants to acquire currency, or currencies in the case of GW2.

They will farm areas that produce the best loot and coin, or tokens etc and gravitate to the places where this is most easily done.

In Southsun Cove many player just go back and forth from one particular event location to another because they get a chest every few minutes and can amass plenty of rewards quite quickly. The buff option obviously helps a great deal as well.

I spend most of my time in WvW but every now and then I have to go into the Pve areas of the game to generate some amount of gold in order to do the things I want to do.

I would even farm the gold for a legendary if it would not involve nearly 100% of my dedication for a long period of time. I know that TP flippers most likely have the best solution but that is not my area of expertise.

I think that many people pick up and put down this game when new content arrives or is completed and the currencies are a bit too difficult to gather for the casual and time constrained players.

Vayne.8563:

What we really need (and what we don’t have) is actual metrics about how many people are playing at one time. Because without that, we can’t know how successful not herding people is going to be.

If there’s a time of day, for example, where a server only has 100 people on it, and there are 25 zones, it becomes 4 people per zone. That doesn’t take into account WvWers, PvPers, people doing dungeons and people doing fractals, nor people standing around chatting in LA.

If most of those 100 people are in Southsun you have some company. Do you see my problem?

We’re making suggestions but we don’t really have the metrics.

I don’t think we really need them.

As has been pointed out plenty of times before, it is this way in every single mmorpg out there. The mid level zones are always sparsely populated especially after the game has been out for a bit. Even the most popular mmorpg in the world has this problem.

While mid-level zones always become more desolate than low and high levels zones pretty quickly, there’s pretty much no doubt that only a relatively small chunk of the people that originally bought the game in September are still playing it a lot.

While GW2 is a great game, there are a few major things working against it:

1.) A saturated MMO market. It’s hard to commit to playing one game extensively when there’s so much going on that you can experiment with cheaply or for free.

2.) The fact that it is a little lacking in terms of content variety, which is in part just because it hasn’t been out that long. The biggest points of concern are:
– not enough diversity of zones, themes, or in-game cultures
– not enough diversity of weapon and armor models
– too few skills/weapons available for any given class
– some systems that aren’t as deep or engaging as they could be (crafting and traits)
– a lack of faction/reputation rewards and interesting organizations/people/places that help make the world feel more flavorful and immersive.
– a lack of guild halls and/or player housing

3.) A lack of direction once you reach the level cap. I don’t mean in terms of a vertical gear grind, I mean more generally a coherent path of progression or even just a sense of what the game wants you to do. It’s great that there’s so much you can do, but too many choices with with very little direction can do more harm than good. I think this is a good niche for the living story to occupy, and it makes a lot of sense in that context. Now we just need some good horizontal progression.

With that in mind, there is much about GW2 I feel is well-designed and I think the game will benefit tremendously from new content that will serve to beef it up. Editing to add agreement with the below poster. I think it’s time for an expansion to shore up mostly #2.

game needs an expansion.
most who have been playing since beta have already moved on and pop in for a day or two (maybe) for living story stuff.

I actually think there are a lot of people in every zone compared to other MMO’s. Take WoW, it has the largest playerbase by a long mile yet you still see everyone in a few zones and the others are empty. I get the argument that this is about the journey too, but that is the devs opinion, and in reality an MMO is made by the players. It’s pretty evident by these forums that a considerable portion of players are “endgame” players rather than levelling types.

I would love that the game had every zone full but even with WoW’s amount of players, with the amount of areas in this game and the size of them, it’s just completely out of the question to even be remotely full wherever you go. I feel people need to just get real a little bit and consider what they’re saying. It’s easy to go to Orr if you want to be around people all the time, but there are still people around in other areas. There aren’t going to be hundreds all at once unless it’s an endgame area but then that will never happen in any MMO regardless of it’s popularity.

Yes it’s empty. Almost everyone stopped playing because there is no end game. Really, if you hit 80, there is no challange anywhere in the game (PVE). The only people left, are casual people or people who like to level up characters (cus the leveling is superior compared to other mmo’s). GW2 has a big audiance, i just hope they know that if they fix the game, ALOT of people will come back. Yes i said ‘fix’, cus the amount of people that left is broken

CoRtex.2157:

Yes it’s empty. Almost everyone stopped playing because there is no end game. Really, if you hit 80, there is no challange anywhere in the game (PVE). The only people left, are casual people or people who like to level up characters (cus the leveling is superior compared to other mmo’s). GW2 has a big audiance, i just hope they know that if they fix the game, ALOT of people will come back. Yes i said ‘fix’, cus the amount of people that left is broken

No, not almost everyone stopped playing. Maybe almost everyone of a certain mindset stopped playing. The problem is, you make the assumption that most people want end game and, arguably, many do not.

Those who play for end game may very well have left. But that isn’t close to almost everyone. If end game was all important, games like Skyrim wouldn’t have been successful.

This is why I made my characters on the roleplay server. No matter how empty zones get on other servers, no matter how empty or full a roleplay server is – it always gets people who feel a need to do some storytelling out of the way here or there.

I never see empty zones no matter where I go.

I choose roleplay servers in every mmo I try for for this reason. Besides they tend to be lore fans like me, and often are nicer folks (not always), if a bit exclusive at times…

You might just be on a bad server. Even a full server can be bad if it has no community….

Mentalhead.5721:

but as for Orr ……………. they feel kinda dead.

Pun intended? ^^

Vayne.8563:

CoRtex.2157:

Yes it’s empty. Almost everyone stopped playing because there is no end game. Really, if you hit 80, there is no challange anywhere in the game (PVE). The only people left, are casual people or people who like to level up characters (cus the leveling is superior compared to other mmo’s). GW2 has a big audiance, i just hope they know that if they fix the game, ALOT of people will come back. Yes i said ‘fix’, cus the amount of people that left is broken

No, not almost everyone stopped playing. Maybe almost everyone of a certain mindset stopped playing. The problem is, you make the assumption that most people want end game and, arguably, many do not.

Those who play for end game may very well have left. But that isn’t close to almost everyone. If end game was all important, games like Skyrim wouldn’t have been successful.

My Guild is flourishing when I logged in after a lot of time off. I don’t think it’s fair to compare this game to Skyrim though, Skyrim has tons of mods to add that endgame feeling and more because of said mods, harder dragons etc. etc. In this game we’re pretty much stuck with what we get given.

Christ if you want to in Skyrim you can take down Randy Savage headed dragons with a lightsaber

lol

Paul.4081:

Vayne.8563:

CoRtex.2157:

Yes it’s empty. Almost everyone stopped playing because there is no end game. Really, if you hit 80, there is no challange anywhere in the game (PVE). The only people left, are casual people or people who like to level up characters (cus the leveling is superior compared to other mmo’s). GW2 has a big audiance, i just hope they know that if they fix the game, ALOT of people will come back. Yes i said ‘fix’, cus the amount of people that left is broken

No, not almost everyone stopped playing. Maybe almost everyone of a certain mindset stopped playing. The problem is, you make the assumption that most people want end game and, arguably, many do not.

Those who play for end game may very well have left. But that isn’t close to almost everyone. If end game was all important, games like Skyrim wouldn’t have been successful.

My Guild is flourishing when I logged in after a lot of time off. I don’t think it’s fair to compare this game to Skyrim though, Skyrim has tons of mods to add that endgame feeling and more because of said mods, harder dragons etc. etc. In this game we’re pretty much stuck with what we get given.

Christ if you want to in Skyrim you can take down Randy Savage headed dragons with a lightsaber

With all due respect, I didn’t compare this game to Skyrim. I compared the type of player who plays Skyrim to the type of player who plays for end game. Skyrim has no end game.

Also, Skyrim sold far more copies on console than it did on the PC and console users have no mods. Even without mods it was still a massively popular game.

That’s a given that consoles outsell PC though. That’s why we PC gamers have to suffer the bloody shoddy ports a lot.

Sorry I can’t edit my post atm. My apologies I just skim read your post and seen Skyrim

I think it’s too early for an expansion, don’t get me wrong, I would like to see new content, and lots of it, but more zones will move players from the old zones to the new zone, this making those old zones more of a ghost town than before.

1. Humans and norns outnumber the other races massively, and so their zones are more likely to have something going on.

2. Mid level zones not bordering a city are avoided because of waypoint costs unless it is to farm daily chest events (golem, centaur, fire shaman and so on) or personal story.

Mentalhead.5721:

I am on High pop server, but the game still feels kinda empty in certain zones. There’s almost everyday someone in Southsun, but as for Orr or some 15-25 lvl zones, they feel kinda dead. Sure, you might see person or two doing an event once in a while, but most of the time you’re just going solo.

My guess is that bunch of people left the game, I know since I had a small guild with 80 people, and nowadays I’m the only person that logs on almost on daily basis.

Where did all the people go? What drove them away, did they quit or is it just me?

Some high population servers may have a high inactive player base.