Guild Wars 2

Saw a poll recently, on another site, indicating that contrary to what a lot of people are saying, most players are not actually at the level cap, yet – and that doesn’t even take into account all the people playing alts. So, the lower level areas should still be well populated.

Yet, unless I’m playing during the peakest of peak times, most of the zones seem to be empty. It’s not even a matter of difficulty, so much as just being kind of depressing, trying to solo scripted events, that are meant to be handled by at least a few people, if not a lot more.. but there’s no one around. Whole zones just feel like wastelands of NPCs hopelessly fending for themselves.

Now, I’m not trying to hate on the game here. I’m seriously looking for a discussion on what the issue is – and maybe even what can be done about it.

Supposedly, the game is still doing pretty well, so where is everyone? Did they make the world too big for the servers to handle? I know people are spread out, but I kinda thought optimal server population would mean there’d still be players everywhere.

I hate the idea that the world should be smaller, or that there should be less options for places to level up, but is the technology unable to handle such a big gameworld, without most of it being deserted?

I’ve personally never witnessed this problem. Every zone I’ve been in has had plenty of people around and reasonably lively map chat. Could just be my server though – JQ.

To add a bit to this – there are less people than at launch; however, there are people around. I am now running most events with 2-5 random people around rather than 5-20. I actually prefer this.

I’m on a full server and a lot of the higher level zones seem relatively empty too. Maybe because the world is so large or maybe people are all in pvp?

The week before the MK events started I was leveling up an alt in Snowden Drifts and Lornar’s pass and barely saw another soul. Quite the difference from my main in the first couple of weeks where you couldnt’ go anywhere without 5-10+ people doing a DE.

The is certainly a very obvious lack of players in the lower lvl zones. I can’t even remember the last time I had to worry about an overflow server besides Lion’s Arch. 2 months??

Jemmi.6058:

I’ve personally never witnessed this problem. Every zone I’ve been in has had plenty of people around and reasonably lively map chat. Could just be my server though – JQ.

I doubt its your server, since most of them seem similarly populated, but maybe your choice of leveling grounds? Where (and when?) do you usually play?

I play usually after work. I am in the Pacific time zone so probably between 6pm and 10pm pacific on weekdays, and various times throughout weekends.

I level humans primarily, so most of my leveling has been in Queensdale, Kessex, Gendarren – but I’ve been to most zones. I travel to leveling areas of the other races and complete them. I’ve leveled in Lonars Pass, that place with Ebonhawk, Bloodtide Coast, Harathi Hinterlands etc.

I play on Aurora Glade and have the same issue. Though I play late at night mostly.
But it really feels lonely at times.
Any advice on finding a more lively EU server?

Sure I understand that. Though, I am unsure if that is really peak time or not? A lot of people east of me will be asleep by that time – maybe 6pm is peak time, but I am sure by 10pm (where it is 1am eastern time) that it’s not peak.

Which zones are you leveling in mostly? I can travel there and see how it is on my server when I am off work.

Jemmi.6058:

I play usually after work. I am in the Pacific time zone so probably between 6pm and 10pm pacific on weekdays, and various times throughout weekends.

I level humans primarily, so most of my leveling has been in Queensdale, Kessex, Gendarren – but I’ve been to most zones. I travel to leveling areas of the other races and complete them. I’ve leveled in Lonars Pass, that place with Ebonhawk, Bloodtide Coast, Harathi Hinterlands etc.

So.. you play during peak times, predominantly in the most populated area (human). If the game were deserted even then, that would be a whole other level of concerning.
. .
I’m not saying I want to see every zone packed full of players, even at 4am on a Tuesday, but lots of people do play games at all different times. Peak times are when the most people play, but that doesn’t mean most people only play during those times. It’s just when there’s the most overlap in play times, for a number of reasons.
. .
A thriving game can’t depend entirely on peak time, for its popularity. I’d bet its actually a relatively small minority that only play during those times.

SBI- its rare to see a zone that’s completely dead; but volume is dying off a bit. Seen more than usual during the Halloween Event. Peak times its busy in 40-80 zones.

I believe- no quotes, but some are just burning out at the 80 mark. The grind for legendary… is just that…legendary. And the mechanics/code abuses with Wv3 are driving many to take a break and do something else. Two weeks ago I never even thought about reading the forums… but it’s almost more fun here than in game.

Hope Anet figures it out faster than Bioware did with swtor… or there could be a repeat.

Hmm I play on maguuma seems decent population to me. Not overcrowded or under crowded. That said. Not everyone is talking or seeming willing to come help with harder DEs

I think the problem is that there’s no reason to be in the mid-level maps. You have people starting out the first areas, then rush through to Orr. Once you’re 80, there’s really no reason to go back to, for example, Lornar’s Pass. So at any given time, the majority of the population is in Orr/Frostgorge Sound/Lion’s Arch. And as long as people know that’s where they can find other players, it won’t change.

That’s why I tried covering that in my OP.. Is everyone at the level cap, really? With all the casuals and altoholics, I find it hard to believe. So soon after release, the mid level areas should still be pretty active, and even the low level areas should be seeing more new characters, even if they’re mostly alts.

I’ve noted the thinning of players in zones as well and it’s for zones of various levels up through level 54-ish which is my highest level toon. I can’t say as I’m surprised.

maybe they are all crafting to lv80 in starter zones, then running down to Orr.

I made a charr alt, and the first thing I did after doing the tutorial quest was go into the Black Citadel and port to Lion’s Arch to get him started on crafting. As much as I like the overall look and feel of the Black Citadel it plummets my framerate. I saw one other person there.

only place i notice a lack of players are areas that already are kind of desolated and far from where players are expected to be, which ironically adds to the enjoyment :P

If you let the casuals decide how to build your MMOs when it’s the hardcore players who keeps the game populated, this is basically what happens. & if you ask those guys about how often they play Gw2… you would be suprise how much time they log nowadays in GW2 per day compare to when the game was launched.

Honest truth; most adults don’t have time to log 3-4 hours everyday… it’s really mostly the teens and young people/kids who don’t have job or lots of work who are the ones consistently logging on for a long period of time each day.

Hah… like people said when this game came out, this is a game for matures^…… all my buds in uni ain’t got time to play & I won’t have time either once I go back full time study next term. So I’m going to enjoy this while it last!

It’s a very basic flaw, at it applies to all MMORPGs, as well as RPGs in general: if you have level progression, you have players abandoning lower-level content. It doesn’t just apply to someone reaching the level cap, the process is gradual and constant.

ANet never solved this issue. They only made feeble steps towards making adventuring in low-level areas tolerable, but players are still strongly discouraged to do so. Which is a shame because I much prefer many of the “low-level” areas to Orr.

The only real solution is to do away with levels completely – at least as they pertain to endgame on all maps – and offer unique rewards for being in unique locations.

@ Draco. What they need to do is combine GW2’s content quality with the Secret world’s lvling system design. That would be what this game (or the future game I’m hoping for) needs – to solve the content progression issues.

Make a badge vendor to buy or make awesome shiny things.

Create world invasions that reward said badges.

Invasions happen “x” amount of times in “y” amount of zones. Can be any zone.

Every zone can now be used again for new content. Invasions that could happen:

- invasion of svanir in the shiverpeaks
- centaur tribes unite and launch a desparate assault
- flame legion tries to expand
- zhaitan marches his armies from orr across Tyria

If you fail a zone it could continue into another, world domination could ensue. These invasions could start in footholds and slowly expand over the zone, any place they conquer becomes occupied increasing reinforcements they receive. Escalation of war can happen too, the NPC’s should have just as much of a chance to win as the players.

Note, if an invasion is quelled it should by all means NOT reoccur in that zone for a while so players feel like their effort made a difference.

Vaulken.6983:

Make a badge vendor to buy or make awesome shiny things.

Create world invasions that reward said badges.

Invasions happen “x” amount of times in “y” amount of zones. Can be any zone.

Every zone can now be used again for new content. Invasions that could happen:

- invasion of svanir in the shiverpeaks
- centaur tribes unite and launch a desparate assault
- flame legion tries to expand
- zhaitan marches his armies from orr across Tyria

If you fail a zone it could continue into another, world domination could arise.

In other words, similar to Rift. :P They already stol…erm…adopted… the open grouping idea from Rift. I enjoy RIft a lot and don’t mind paying the 15$ a month for it. Frankly, I find in general the games with monthly fees offer the player base a LOT more for their buck than the F2P models who’s sole purpose is to make it so the players nickel and dime themselves to death by bleeding RL cash into the game company to have things like storage space, etc.

I believe open grouping was at the very least started in Warhammer online. Rift invasions were alright but they got stale very quickly and felt very detached from the world. Invasions have been in a lot of other MMO’s though, including SWG. Ahhh how I miss the Nightsister invasions.

I rarely see anyone any more in the Nord home City and Hoelbrek.

Yet I got the started edition of WoW last week and the starter town was rammed with other players, 8 years after the game came out.

..where are you guys all hiding? I can’t be the only level 10 player out there?

mrsrachelm.7618:

Vaulken.6983:

Make a badge vendor to buy or make awesome shiny things.

Create world invasions that reward said badges.

Invasions happen “x” amount of times in “y” amount of zones. Can be any zone.

Every zone can now be used again for new content. Invasions that could happen:

- invasion of svanir in the shiverpeaks
- centaur tribes unite and launch a desparate assault
- flame legion tries to expand
- zhaitan marches his armies from orr across Tyria

If you fail a zone it could continue into another, world domination could arise.

In other words, similar to Rift. :P They already stol…erm…adopted… the open grouping idea from Rift. I enjoy RIft a lot and don’t mind paying the 15$ a month for it. Frankly, I find in general the games with monthly fees offer the player base a LOT more for their buck than the F2P models who’s sole purpose is to make it so the players nickel and dime themselves to death by bleeding RL cash into the game company to have things like storage space, etc.

But with added purpose and a proper reason than “it’s just happening”. Rifts are random, but invasions should be timed events that can spread over multiple zones. I hope they can get rid of the instancing :/

Southern Lord.7254:

I rarely see anyone any more in the Nord home City and Hoelbrek.

Yet I got the started edition of WoW last week and the starter town was rammed with other players, 8 years after the game came out.

..where are you guys all hiding? I can’t be the only level 10 player out there?

Blizzard did this thing called Cross Realm Zones, where 3 servers share the same zones, on top of the expansion just being released, that is why you’re seeing so many people crammed in one area.

GW2 has been out for a bit longer in comparison to MoP and because this is everyones first go at it we’ve all gotten past the starting area and aren’t stuck making alts. The general populous is in mid to high areas now not to mention some people just do sPvP and/or WvW as it is available level 2+.

All GW2 servers are either FULL or High.

Distaste.4801:

I believe open grouping was at the very least started in Warhammer online. Rift invasions were alright but they got stale very quickly and felt very detached from the world. Invasions have been in a lot of other MMO’s though, including SWG. Ahhh how I miss the Nightsister invasions.

Warhammer started public quests not public grouping., you still had to form a group to benefit from buffs and the like.

I’m leveling my alt now and I have to say it’s a bit depressing experience and I’m from very high populated server (full most of the time). Several weeks ago leveling was lot more enjoyable and fast with 10-20 people running around in every place of every zone.

I think thats because very few people make alts. Most farm Orr, fight in WvW, do some dungeons or they just left to other games. Pretty normal I guess.

Sometimes zones seem really empty, then suddenly you feel like you hit rush hour. Map population is determined by many things, events (especially map bosses), distance from the 0-silver travel hub LA, farmability of a map. On Gandara I rarely had to bypass a group event because of low players, playing at european afterwork hours.

It’s the same thing over and over again. People need to realize that the large majority of players are not power players and don’t care about forums and community websites. A friend of mine has been playing GW2 from the start and has just reached lvl 60. Granted, she’s a casual player who only plays for about one hour a day, but again, the majority of GW2 players are like that.

Personally I’ve been lvl 80 for some time now and I’m still exploring low level zones to get 100% map completion since I spent most of my time leveling up in WvW. The lower level zones may not be quite as populated as they were during launch but that was to be expected wasn’t it. In my opinion there are still enough players to interact with no matter where you go.

Recently I have played in Queensdale, Gendarren Fields, Snowden Drifts, Diessa Plateau, Fire Heart Rise, Iron Marches, Frostgorge Sound, Timberline Falls.
I play mostly on afterwork hours and weekends in EU on Gunnar’s Hold.
I have yet to see an empty map.
Always there are enough players to do events and take down a boss. If you start the event solo within a minute or two more players show up, they might not always talk in map chat but the players are there.

I have one level 80 and 7 alts ranging from level 15 to level 50. It seems to be hit or miss on TC for finding lots of people. I only play Humans and Norns, so those are the starting areas I play in.

I don’t really mind there not being anyone around though as I usually solo anyway.

I do think its unrealistic to expect the kind of crowds that we had when the game rolled out. We all had to start somewhere….people just spread out from there leveling at different rates.

FluffyDoe.7539:

@ Draco. What they need to do is combine GW2’s content quality with the Secret world’s lvling system design. That would be what this game (or the future game I’m hoping for) needs – to solve the content progression issues.

Or have levels not be empty and actually be meaningful. I wasn’t impressed with TSW’s system. While it was great being able to unlock every ability and be able to customize your own class through unlockable abilities and obsoleting alts there was still something missing. All your meaningful stats came from gear and I think this is a flawed approach, since it’s no different from Superman’s cape giving him his power, meaning that the power source comes from outside the person instead of supplementing his own power. I think players getting statpoints as they level where they can freely allocate would be a great idea, like getting 30 stat points per level you could freely put anywhere and nerf armor to the ground to compensate for it. This also allows for far more customization rather than only having a choice of armors with preset stats.

I went to Bloodtide Coast (level 48 or so) this morning to gather some crafting materials and compete the daily DEs. I ran into a group of 3 doing the same thing. Well, we ended up running the DEs on the south island for about 2 hours and I have a lot more crafting materials than I expected. During that time the group added and lost players and varied between 4 to 8 people. It was quite amusing since there was another Asura engineer in the group and when we setup defensive turrets it was a lot of turrets.

on vacated starter cities: of cause they are empty. The only thing you really need to do there is getting the map completion if you are into that. After this, you leave the area. LA offers all services, serves as a free travel hub and it is the central place where everyone looks for groups. There is absolutely no reason to hang out in the race capitals, you even get penalized with horrendous travel costs at high levels – which is a shame seeing how beautiful they are. One way to add some more real person citizens would be free traveling to those cities.