Guild Wars 2

This is not a thread to discuss whether lower populations are or are not a good thing
There’s a lot of threads elsewhere talking about the negatives of having fewer other players around or lowering populations in servers. This is a thread I wanted to make about the brighter side of this.

With fewer people around, I’ve come across more settlements taken over by enemies (e.g Mirkrise in Brisban Wilds and Shadowheart in Kessex Hills). In the three betas I hardly saw this at all as there were often enough people to succeed in the dynamic events.

Now I’m seeing the fuller stories of the dynamic events, and what happens when they fail.

What is also enjoyable about this (alongside all the sadder aspects talked about elsewhere) is that most of these conquered settlements I’ve come across I can also solo.
Although these events work in a perpetual cycle, I actually feel some achievement when I restore a small village back to it’s green state.

I agree. In the pre-launch weekend en the days after that, zones were overcrowded and DEs were boring. Now there is an option to fail an event, leading to interesting new events I havent seen before.

Now, I don’t mind having a crowd at the Plinx event chain. There is room for everyone there. However, one Sunday morning at 6 a.m. I was playing the event with just one other player and I was amazed. There was a sound of hammering while Plinx fixed the suit. I had never heard it over the crowd.
Undoubtedly there are many other events that have things to offer one never saw in a big crowd, even if the event does not fail. If it fais, as the OP posted, then there is a whole other story to see.

I go into Gendarran Fields a lot to start my dailies. I often come across the first settlement close to the wp near LA on fire with all the npcs down. So getting that sorted is good for an event or two.

Heading west, across the bridge at Lionsbridge wp, that traveling merchant is always down near the swamp with the risen, again this is good for another event. Heading northwest there is usually Nebo Terrace and/or Ascalon Settlement to sort out, the vet skelk wandering about, centuar catapults to take down …

I can usually complete my dailies now within 1/3rd of the map …

This is not to say the map is empty, I always see some other players around, and often help them out with the skill point near Lionsbridge wp .There are not nearly as many as when I first explored this map back in Sept …

I’ve been levelling a new character in the human zones, and I agree, lower populations do work out well in terms of being able to see the full scope of event chains. In the past, despite taking three characters through those zones, I’d never seen the Battle for Bettletun be anything but 100% “complete”, never seen the centaurs push past the bridge in the Battle of Fort Salma, etc. They end up being really interesting and fun events, and it’s a shame that the overpopulation of areas at launch meant that most people missed seeing them.

It may be a pain now to find groups for Story mode dungeons, or for group events, but the open-world experience has never been better.

You people deserve lower pops and failure if thats how you think! Have a good day!