Guild Wars 2

killcannon.2576:

I complain more about the general lack of activity in the middle, leveling zones. I suppose increasing event rewards world wide would help, but I expect it would just cause people to do repeatable events over and over instead of spreading out.

The reality is people dont’ even do them any more. They just use craft to level up or switching to alt at end of dungeon to level up faster.

Most people leveling just skip the mid level zone. Even if you try to play normally, you’ll out level the zone, and mid level zone is the one people usually skip.

Personally, I love the Harathi Hinterlands quest chains…it is one of the best though out areas and story lines in the game in my opinion. But, even so, I wouldn’t play it over and over again. Theres no reason to, because the things I need towards a legendary, which is the only point I have left to this game aren’t in that zone. And unless I had something wrong with my brain that made me forget what I just did immediately, then Im hardly likely to go back to see how the event ends up.

Dynamic Events imply more dynamism than they actually possess. What they actually are is a series of events with two potential outcomes which spawn ad infinitum until the end of time.

Nice, but hardly engaging enough to occupy people for ever. The ultimate game would have enemies in every area that had artificial intelligence, were free roaming and employed tactics. Enemies that led you into ambushes, were relentless and capable of tracking you for days, or enemies that knew when Hoelbrak (for example) was not well populated and then attacked it. etc etc….perhaps this will occur in my lifetime but perhaps not. So for now, everything is scripted and ultimately quite boring after a while.

I have often wondered why exactly this topic comes up again and again- from my personal experience I really can’t say since I run into people even when I’m hiding in a cave.

The only thing I came up with is that the activity focus of a server, regardless of population might have something to do with it.

Some servers are very focussed on WvW and s PvP and I such I expect them to have fewer people running around in the world.
Other’s might be PvE focussed but concentrate on farming/ dungeons or mega bosses and not so much open world.
People who think similarly tends to concentrate in groups either as servers or just in guilds.

Mirta suggested up thread that it would be helpful to players if they had this info when they selected servers and I think that is an awesome idea.

I think that Anet is aware of the fact that on some servers a large part of the world is being ignored- I see the dailies, living story and guild missions as evidence of this and those have helped a lot to get people out of FotM.
It is absolutely in their interest to get people out into the world because it improves everybody’s experience and I really do think that they will add more things/incentive or whatever for people to do it.
It will be over time however

Someone else mentioned NA vs EU servers too- I have wondered about this myself and it seems to me at least from these forums that in terms of general game play and people just doing stuff for kicks- that EU servers are much more laidback than NA servers.
It would be very interesting to me to have a birdseye view of both so to speak to compare.

laokoko.7403:

killcannon.2576:

I complain more about the general lack of activity in the middle, leveling zones. I suppose increasing event rewards world wide would help, but I expect it would just cause people to do repeatable events over and over instead of spreading out.

The reality is people dont’ even do them any more. They just use craft to level up or switching to alt at end of dungeon to level up faster.

Most people leveling just skip the mid level zone. Even if you try to play normally, you’ll out level the zone, and mid level zone is the one people usually skip.

This may be true for people leveling alts (not all of them, since most of my guild does play through the game on alts), but there’s also been a pretty big influx of new players and returning players who didn’t get very far.

Which is why people should guest to busier servers, or servers with more traffic. With the bulk of the population having leveled, but enough new people for a couple of servers but probably not all of them, being together with others who are leveling would be a better experience for them.

I think it’s pretty obvious that it would be better for new players who never leveled a character to play through those zones rather than skip them.

Morrigan.2809:

- I see the dailies, living story and guild missions as evidence of this and those have helped a lot to get people out of FotM.
It is absolutely in their interest to get people out into the world .

Yes, and the next thing they are doing will get people to go to Southsun Cove! For about ten minutes! To complete whatever it is that they are doing! Probably hammering in some fence posts or something! Awesome!

Sorry about all the !!!! But I’m just so freaking excited! Southsun! Cove! Hammering! Fences!

To Vayne:

lol, I’m not missing your point. Your point is you think it’s not a problem, and my point is I believe it is a problem.

Here is my statement based on my opinion: (wall of text inbound)
World population has taken a hit with the introduction of chests to easily farmable world events. People like to farm these events because it’s an easy way to get rares which can give ectos or to just use them for the Mystic Forge or to make money from them. Because these events are such an easy way to farm for mats, it pulls people out of the open world and into small clusters who waypoint from boss to boss and do little of consequence between. As more and more of the player population hits level cap and is searching for ways to make money or create legendaries, more and more people either choose to do these events or go to farm pent/shelt. While there will always be places where players will accumulate naturally, these places were created artificially. These groups can number from between fifteen to the upper limit of server capacity.

This in turn concentrates more and more of the population in these areas, leaving leveling areas where new players are first experiencing the game lightly populated (not starting zones, these are generally full due to events or players looking for easy daily completions). As there are less people in these areas, it creates a “less fun”, less immersive experience for some new players. Especially ones who may have chosen a server which is not as highly populated as others, either because they did not understand the way Anet labels server activity or for some other unknown to me reason. As time has progressed, more and more unique posters have posted on the forums asking why the world seems dead. They are greeted with derision by other posters who choose to ignore the problem or they are offered ideas to alleviate the symptoms instead of discussing what may be the cause of the perceived lack of population in the first place, at worst they are labeled trolls and written off.

It is my opinion that in order to alleviate these situations of perceived lack of population that rewards should not be put into easily farmable events and that vets and champs have loot tables that directly reflect their challenge. That each zone should have a chest event that is tied to a meta chain that spans the zone entirely, not just a small area, and that rewards should be tied to a percentage of meta completion much the way events are now. Also a look must be taken at the downscaling of level 80’s, not the upscaling of events. Either a greater removal of attributes or special debuffs applied as the way 80’s are now downscaled is not effective and trivializes most events. An 80 in Queensdale should be just as vulnerable as a level 15.

The perceived loss of population of servers and zones can also be addressed with cheaper realm transfer prices, perhaps free in some cases, and a buff system akin to wvw now. This population loss will not be seen across all servers, especially due to some servers being unofficially known for this or that. Or possibly a server merge, although none of these actually serve to distribute the population. While a population will never be truly equal across all zones, avoiding population concentrations if possible are the ideal, not the exception.

I have included my opinion and various fixes. In previous posts on this thread I have stated my opinion on why the checklists are not a good fix to this problem, please see for more info.

pricer.5091:

Nice, but hardly engaging enough to occupy people for ever. The ultimate game would have enemies in every area that had artificial intelligence, were free roaming and employed tactics. Enemies that led you into ambushes, were relentless and capable of tracking you for days, or enemies that knew when Hoelbrak (for example) was not well populated and then attacked it. etc etc….perhaps this will occur in my lifetime but perhaps not. So for now, everything is scripted and ultimately quite boring after a while.

I’d love to see this kind of game, but in an MMO environment it’s not supportable. A small number of players are able to devote a large chunk of their lives to the game, but most want to log in and mess around for a while, then log out. They simply aren’t as invested in the game as hardcore players. And to support the programmers and such that would be needed in this case, the cost per player would be enormous… maybe in a generation the technology will exist to make this easier, but I’m not sure the demand will ever be worth the investment…

As a single player game with some online support… there are games moving in this direction, but an MMO needs to allow people to drop in and out of the world constantly… and if it changes TOO much then the players get frustrated and leave.

Some of the problems simply don’t have a solution, you’re fighting human nature and whether it’s 10,000 years ago or 1,000 years in the future, people are going to be pretty much the same because that’s how our brains are wired. A certain percentage of the players will always look for the fastest, easiest way to get what they want, whether it’s a max level toon or the cool sword or 100 gold. If Dungeon A and Dungeon B give the exact same rewards, say 10 gold for completing it, but Dungeon A can be completed a minute faster, people will crunch the numbers and figure they can squeeze an extra 10 gold out of Dungeon A over X hours and it will be more popular. If someone figures out how to run Dungeon B one minute faster than Dungeon A, they will abandon A to run B instead.

You can shift the emphasis around a bit by making one area more attractive than another, then switching to a different area. But how do you make intersting and varied content while perfectly balancing every aspect so that no one thing is just a little easier, faster or gives better loot than any other area?

1. Farm like crazy
2. Get a legendary (the more obnoxious, the better! Candidates all land legendaries except twilight/sunrise, for obvious reasons.)
3 kitten around in LA
4. ???
5. Profit

:D

pricer.5091:

Morrigan.2809:

- I see the dailies, living story and guild missions as evidence of this and those have helped a lot to get people out of FotM.
It is absolutely in their interest to get people out into the world .

Yes, and the next thing they are doing will get people to go to Southsun Cove! For about ten minutes! To complete whatever it is that they are doing! Probably hammering in some fence posts or something! Awesome!

Sorry about all the !!!! But I’m just so freaking excited! Southsun! Cove! Hammering! Fences!

Regardless of how not exciting you found the content- did you notice an increased population in those zone?
I did.
I used Living Story as an example of Anets efforts to get people spread out more in the zones- I don’t expect it to be the end of their efforts, simply the beginning.

Btw I am with killcannon in wanting to see more developed meta event chains and more involved events in general -though I do think that will come- it just needs time.
Edit: @ killcannon I just saw your long post- excellent post and I agree 100%

laokoko.7403:

killcannon.2576:

I complain more about the general lack of activity in the middle, leveling zones. I suppose increasing event rewards world wide would help, but I expect it would just cause people to do repeatable events over and over instead of spreading out.

The reality is people dont’ even do them any more. They just use craft to level up or switching to alt at end of dungeon to level up faster.

Most people leveling just skip the mid level zone. Even if you try to play normally, you’ll out level the zone, and mid level zone is the one people usually skip.

What you are describing here is the death of the game. Any new player thrown into this situation will see the exact same thing they do in every wow clone mmo. People in the beginning, no one in the middle, then on to the farming at the end. Most new players from other mmos won’t stay, and most new players who are new to the genre in particular will become discouraged quickly. As older players leave, as they always do, to try other things and are not replaced by new players a general slow death of the population occurs by simple attrition. More and more people see less and less people playing and then suddenly the game goes f2p, then joins the slow burn to be forgotten by the next new thing.

Morrigan.2809:

pricer.5091:

Morrigan.2809:

- I see the dailies, living story and guild missions as evidence of this and those have helped a lot to get people out of FotM.
It is absolutely in their interest to get people out into the world .

Yes, and the next thing they are doing will get people to go to Southsun Cove! For about ten minutes! To complete whatever it is that they are doing! Probably hammering in some fence posts or something! Awesome!

Sorry about all the !!!! But I’m just so freaking excited! Southsun! Cove! Hammering! Fences!

Regardless of how not exciting you found the content- did you notice an increased population in those zone?
I did.
I used Living Story as an example of Anets efforts to get people spread out more in the zones- I don’t expect it to be the end of their efforts, simply the beginning.

Btw I am with killcannon in wanting to see more developed meta event chains and more involved events in general -though I do think that will come- it just needs time.
Edit: @ killcannon I just saw your long post- excellent post and I agree 100%

Thank you, Morrigan

killcannon.2576:

To Vayne:

lol, I’m not missing your point. Your point is you think it’s not a problem, and my point is I believe it is a problem.

Here is my statement based on my opinion: (wall of text inbound)
World population has taken a hit with the introduction of chests to easily farmable world events. People like to farm these events because it’s an easy way to get rares which can give ectos or to just use them for the Mystic Forge or to make money from them. Because these events are such an easy way to farm for mats, it pulls people out of the open world and into small clusters who waypoint from boss to boss and do little of consequence between. As more and more of the player population hits level cap and is searching for ways to make money or create legendaries, more and more people either choose to do these events or go to farm pent/shelt. While there will always be places where players will accumulate naturally, these places were created artificially. These groups can number from between fifteen to the upper limit of server capacity.

This in turn concentrates more and more of the population in these areas, leaving leveling areas where new players are first experiencing the game lightly populated (not starting zones, these are generally full due to events or players looking for easy daily completions). As there are less people in these areas, it creates a “less fun”, less immersive experience for some new players. Especially ones who may have chosen a server which is not as highly populated as others, either because they did not understand the way Anet labels server activity or for some other unknown to me reason. As time has progressed, more and more unique posters have posted on the forums asking why the world seems dead. They are greeted with derision by other posters who choose to ignore the problem or they are offered ideas to alleviate the symptoms instead of discussing what may be the cause of the perceived lack of population in the first place, at worst they are labeled trolls and written off.

It is my opinion that in order to alleviate these situations of perceived lack of population that rewards should not be put into easily farmable events and that vets and champs have loot tables that directly reflect their challenge. That each zone should have a chest event that is tied to a meta chain that spans the zone entirely, not just a small area, and that rewards should be tied to a percentage of meta completion much the way events are now. Also a look must be taken at the downscaling of level 80’s, not the upscaling of events. Either a greater removal of attributes or special debuffs applied as the way 80’s are now downscaled is not effective and trivializes most events. An 80 in Queensdale should be just as vulnerable as a level 15.

The perceived loss of population of servers and zones can also be addressed with cheaper realm transfer prices, perhaps free in some cases, and a buff system akin to wvw now. This population loss will not be seen across all servers, especially due to some servers being unofficially known for this or that. Or possibly a server merge, although none of these actually serve to distribute the population. While a population will never be truly equal across all zones, avoiding population concentrations if possible are the ideal, not the exception.

I have included my opinion and various fixes. In previous posts on this thread I have stated my opinion on why the checklists are not a good fix to this problem, please see for more info.

The problem is there just isn’t a solution. Think about it. In most games everyone ends up in the end game areas and stays there. This has it’s own set of problems, including rendering the rest of the game world obsolete. In some ways its better, but people leveling new characters will virtually always end up in a ghost town with no one to help them.

Guild Wars 2 has changed the game by making the entire world viable. I say this again, there aren’t enough people on each server for everyone to be able to go wherever they want. They need to be guided to hot spots, because there are not enough people. This isn’t just true of Guild Wars 2. It’s true of all MMOs.

Either you have a tiny world (which sucks for other reasons), you have a big world where you direct traffic, or you have a world with a few viable zones. Those really are the only options.

Because there will never be enough people playing any MMO with a world of any size that can go anywhere they want and still find people.

It’s simply not realistic.

“What are people doing in this game?”……………..

What I’m doing.

Log in, do daily as quickly as possible.
Log out.
Check forum for game updates.
Go and play something else. (Another MMO).
Wait for something to happen that might make me want to stay logged in.

I think if they added underflow servers, people would find others most if not all the time.

Vayne:

You seem to be willfully ignoring the fact there are artificially created clumps of people not doing anything but world event farming. I’m not sure why you’re doing it, maybe you’re one of them, but whatever. Putting those clumps of however many people back into the world would be a great first step. Or not.

Merging low pop servers, and having to guest where people are actually playing are a couple of signs of a dying game. Which is oddly all I hear you saying.

This business about WoW always makes me laugh. The reason WoW was and still is successful beyond the dreams of any other MMO is that it basically nailed the formula, it realises that people need to be given “stuff” to keep interested. In fact the reason you will find people endlessly grinding for things is that the things are deemed worth it. Nothing in this game is worth it and that includes a legendary. How many legendaries have you seen…hundreds. How many Time-Lost Protodrakes did you see in WoW? There were loads of things you could do to keep you busy in that game. Some admittedly more interesting than others. But ALL of them gave you “personal gain”.

Even the WoW clones messed this up, which is why the likes of SW ToR starting haemorraging players quite soon after launch. You could accumulate millions of credits and have absolutely nothing interesting to do with them. All the gear looked the same….what was the point? And basically, thats where this game is now. Excepting that its always been free to play, there are a lot of similarities. Plus, the dungeons and story in that game were far superior.

So to think that this game can’t and won’t fail in the same manner is naive at best.

There are still people playing SWToR and likely will be for years….but it still failed. WoW on the other hand is enduring well past its shelf life. This is why everyone is so DESPERATE for something more modern that has that same addictiveness. And sadly, this ain’t it.

pricer.5091:

This business about WoW always makes me laugh. The reason WoW was and still is successful beyond the dreams of any other MMO is that it basically nailed the formula, it realises that people need to be given “stuff” to keep interested. In fact the reason you will find people endlessly grinding for things is that the things are deemed worth it. Nothing in this game is worth it and that includes a legendary. How many legendaries have you seen…hundreds. How many Time-Lost Protodrakes did you see in WoW? There were loads of things you could do to keep you busy in that game. Some admittedly more interesting than others. But ALL of them gave you “personal gain”.

Even the WoW clones messed this up, which is why the likes of SW ToR starting haemorraging players quite soon after launch. You could accumulate millions of credits and have absolutely nothing interesting to do with them. All the gear looked the same….what was the point? And basically, thats where this game is now. Excepting that its always been free to play, there are a lot of similarities. Plus, the dungeons and story in that game were far superior.

So to think that this game can’t and won’t fail in the same manner is naive at best.

There are still people playing SWToR and likely will be for years….but it still failed. WoW on the other hand is enduring well past its shelf life. This is why everyone is so DESPERATE for something more modern that has that same addictiveness. And sadly, this ain’t it.

This game doesn’t have to have 8 million players to be successful, WoW otoh needs a certain number, I believe it was around the 6 million mark, to break even. This game was never meant to be WoW like, it was meant to give people who didn’t like the WoW model something to play. It was actually startling to me how different it was when I first came here. Where it goes though, I don’t know. I will stick around till the end regardless.

It would be very hard to define what the publisher deems succesful, but just on box sales the game is VERY succesful. Are they even bothered about it having enduring qualities? They aren’t saying after all…and why would they?

I played WoW for three years (up until they released Cataclysm) and so spent about £360 or thereabouts on it in total (including expansions. I have played this game for what…9 months? Since launch anyway and have spent £50 box price plus conservatively estimating about £250. So, this game is more expensive (to me) overall (assuming I keep playing it). But yet I do not have everything in the game nor am I ever likely to as so much of it is hidden behing RNG.

For me personally , and I accept that everyone is different, I don’t like the fact that there is no reliable way to get a precursor, or a molten skin for example. I would rather grind a dungeon 350 times in the hope of something rare dropping than open little boxes. Stratholme for example…ran that hundreds of times and never did get Rivendare’s Steed….but it was worth running it because the loot was decent regardless.

Ultimately and ironically I gave up WoW because I thought it became TOO easy and also because of the elitism in guilds that was very prevalent. Also, although I like raiding….the requirements of most raiding guilds were like a job, and I have one of those in real life.

SWToR I gave up because the gear sucked and ultimately you were just on a very boring treadmill.

Many people are running fractals which would explain the LA population.

And what’s the point of arguing something that can’t be proved anyways? Oh wait, it’s the internet.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne:

You seem to be willfully ignoring the fact there are artificially created clumps of people not doing anything but world event farming. I’m not sure why you’re doing it, maybe you’re one of them, but whatever. Putting those clumps of however many people back into the world would be a great first step. Or not.

Merging low pop servers, and having to guest where people are actually playing are a couple of signs of a dying game. Which is oddly all I hear you saying.

I’m not ignoring it. There are also people doing events in those zones, which you seem to be ignoring. Not everyone wants to sit around and wait for half an hour for an event to spawn so they move around and do other stuff and wait for the map annoucement. Why do you keep ignoring that?

ArchonWing.9480:

Many people are running fractals which would explain the LA population.

And what’s the point of arguing something that can’t be proved anyways? Oh wait, it’s the internet.

most stopped months ago…
There is a new influx recently but i find really hard to get 38 groups today that is considered average nowaday.

Sleek.9201:

So I took a break from GW2 because of school but now I want to play again… Boy, things have changed. First of all, where is everyone? The lack of population is slightly disappointing…. I checked out WvW, and it doesn’t have the hoards of people I remembered. I went to heart of the mists and again…. no one. I see some large groups of people just standing around in the cities but I can’t really see anyone doing much… So really… what is everyone doing now?

Yeah I would agree that things have changed, I also had a break (6 months) and came back to find a lack of players in comparison to when I left.

The lack of population I would say is due to a few reasons such as,
-the hype is over and players are losing interest: which is normal for a starting MMO or any game… well not really, if the game was a huge success you would have increasing numbers over time.

-Endgame content for a range of different gamers : This would be the main one because the game is unfortunately designed for casuals and anyone who wanted a goal to work for such Progressive PVE content, will feel lost and find little purpose to continue playing. I say unfortunately because for myself and many of the other players I know, this game could have been much better if it supported both groups.

-Else, people had other things to do, a lot of people.

As for what I’m doing? I log in for a couple hours a day, complete some quests with friends and log off. I’m in no rush to reach endgame or level cap because I know there’s nothing there for me.

I recently just came back after leaving this game for a while and it seems like no one is around. where is everyone? =(

let me direct you to this thread
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-are-people-doing-in-this-game

see post above

And OMG its morrigan! You still play?

In my experience, there is still plenty to do and plenty of people to do it with.

While there has surely been some natural attrition since launch (and players coming and going regularly), I believe the reason some areas feel less populated is less insidious and more obvious – people are simply spread out alot more than they were early on.

Whereas Orr and WvW held the greatest interest for the early months of end game, that interest is now spread between Orr/Temples, WvW, renewed interest in sPvP, dungeons, fractals, chasing dragon events/other epic loot chest droppers, farming Southsun, doing dailies, leveling alts, farming lower level zones, guild missions, the living story, etc.

Likewise, there are some mechanics to combat this – the biggest of which is guesting. If a particular activity (such as farming events in Orr) seems unattended, guest to more PVE oriented servers to find zerg groups. Alternatively, find an active guild that focuses on those activities you enjoy most. It isnt hard to do this on most servers (Im on Henge of Denravi, one of the least populated servers, and people have no issue with doing exactly that here).

So, yes, it may seem like there are fewer people in certain areas, but that isnt a sign of the end times. It is a result of different factors (not necessarily negative factors either) – and there are still many ways to enjoy the game.

Many (many many) people still find the game extremely enjoyable and have no problem finding like minded people to play alongside. Go in with a positive attitude and know what you want from the game, and things become much easier to enjoy.

laokoko.7403:

killcannon.2576:

I complain more about the general lack of activity in the middle, leveling zones.

Most people leveling just skip the mid level zone. Even if you try to play normally, you’ll out level the zone, and mid level zone is the one people usually skip.

Spent a crowded day in Lonar’s Pass recently.

Yep, level 35-45 zone. Find cave, hide, get people showing all up in my business.

I go to Harathi Highlands. Same thing. In fact there I get crowds of them like flash mobs running through and calling out events.

That zone just south of Lion’s Arch. There’s one event there with two drunk passed out norn, half the times I’ve been near it its been mobbed by players.

What level, specially, is ‘mid’ limited to?

Because I’ve yet to find the empty spot.

Gustoril.4195:

see post above

And OMG its morrigan! You still play?

hehehehe yes

Sleek.9201:

So I took a break from GW2 because of school but now I want to play again… Boy, things have changed. First of all, where is everyone? The lack of population is slightly disappointing…. I checked out WvW, and it doesn’t have the hoards of people I remembered. I went to heart of the mists and again…. no one. I see some large groups of people just standing around in the cities but I can’t really see anyone doing much… So really… what is everyone doing now?

Mostly hanging out in Lions Arch trash talking
or
Checking Dragon Timers as they teleport from one world event to the next, all the while trying to finish their dailies so they can log off…

A small amount are TP flipping and the “secretly not farming their lives away” bunch are fawning over Legendaries..

The rest are doing WvW such as it is..

killcannon.2576:

Putting those clumps of however many people back into the world would be a great first step.

You’ve said this countless times.

How would you go about doing this? If it was as easy as you’re implying, it would be done already. Problem is, as much as you blame the mechanics of the game, it’s a player problem.

Players will always tunnel vision the easiest rewards for their time.

So then, instead of stating a nebulous idea, let’s discuss possible solutions.

Mackdose.6504:

killcannon.2576:

Putting those clumps of however many people back into the world would be a great first step.

You’ve said this countless times.

How would you go about doing this? If it was as easy as you’re implying, it would be done already. Problem is, as much as you blame the mechanics of the game, it’s a player problem.

Players will always tunnel vision the easiest rewards for their time.

So then, instead of stating a nebulous idea, let’s discuss possible solutions.

I’d fix the loot drops all over the world especially the Tier 6 mats and lodestones, and ignore the TP flippers and Legendary farmers complaints, bots are still there so the loot drops being removed made zero difference to them..

Mackdose.6504:

killcannon.2576:

Putting those clumps of however many people back into the world would be a great first step.

You’ve said this countless times.

How would you go about doing this? If it was as easy as you’re implying, it would be done already. Problem is, as much as you blame the mechanics of the game, it’s a player problem.

Players will always tunnel vision the easiest rewards for their time.

So then, instead of stating a nebulous idea, let’s discuss possible solutions.

Increasing the quality of the loot in Orr would be a start. Having vets and champs (which can invisible 1 shot entire groups due to culling and broken scaling) drop porous bones and other kitten is not a great situation to be in.

LordByron.8369:

ArchonWing.9480:

Many people are running fractals which would explain the LA population.

And what’s the point of arguing something that can’t be proved anyways? Oh wait, it’s the internet.

most stopped months ago…
There is a new influx recently but i find really hard to get 38 groups today that is considered average nowaday.

Fotm might have dropped in popularity, but it’s far from “stopped”. I can find over 21 post on the LFG site for Fotm in the “under 4 minutes” mark. It’s still the second most popular after CoF.

Fenrir.3609:

Increasing the quality of the loot in Orr would be a start. Having vets and champs (which can invisible 1 shot entire groups due to culling and broken scaling) drop porous bones and other kitten is not a great situation to be in.

pent/ shelt is still one of the popular lump places. On some servers running temples is very popular as well. IF you buff the loot in Orr and Orr alone, instead of having lumps over 20 different zones you would lump everyone in one zone.

Meanwhile at 8:30 in the morning on Sanctum of Rall….

I would think Anet has 36 million reasons to have a hearty chuckle at anyone thinking the game is dying.

That said, perception does skew one’s view of reality. Low pop servers may look ‘dead’ compared to what we see on high-tier servers like Tarnished Coast.

EDIT: mirta and killcannon bring up some good ideas too, though I’m iffy on putting on exact population counts for each server. And TC is for more than just RP.

killcannon.2576:

New Character Yo.6487:

I agree with Vayne. The population may SEEM lower, because before everyone was hanging out in LA waiting for groups for dungeons since that was what most people did for money and loot. Now since Anet has added boss chest rares, most of the population has moved to those areas. Anet also added WvW progression which helped PvE servers (like GoM, the one i’m in), because our players finally started entering WvW!
The population has spread out more across the game, as opposed to being condensed in LA. Just find a good guild OP. I’m in a good one that has around 35-50 online at peak hours, so we always have something to do .

Do you not see that as the problem though? “Most of the population is at the world event bosses farming” What is the impression new players get? The world is dead. They don’t know about farming, they just want to experience the world. Too bad for them I suppose.

Wayfarer Foothills – Maw
Queensdale – Shadow Behemoth
Metric Provence – Flame Elemental
Caledon Forest – Wurm

Starter zones for every race save Charr with a big world event that is always insanely populate. That means a new player for every race save Charr will see a ton of chatter in their starter zone they can use to get connected.

Fenrir.3609:

Mackdose.6504:

killcannon.2576:

Putting those clumps of however many people back into the world would be a great first step.

You’ve said this countless times.

How would you go about doing this? If it was as easy as you’re implying, it would be done already. Problem is, as much as you blame the mechanics of the game, it’s a player problem.

Players will always tunnel vision the easiest rewards for their time.

So then, instead of stating a nebulous idea, let’s discuss possible solutions.

Increasing the quality of the loot in Orr would be a start. Having vets and champs (which can invisible 1 shot entire groups due to culling and broken scaling) drop porous bones and other kitten is not a great situation to be in.

Yes I smile everytime I get hit for 9.5k by a chicken launching its eggs at me. Oh no…hang on , I mean the opposite of smile. Or every time an event that has less than 10 people throws up 2 Champion Risen. Yes, fun indeed.

No wonder people are porting from world event to world event. Only a matter of time before they start hitting for 96 kabillion damage if theres more than three people there already. And CoF will be next….you heard it here first, get working on an alternative would be my advice.

I run into people almost everywhere, except in the middle of NA workday. There’s lots of reasons why some times places would be empty.

Some zones are emptier than others – bad mats, not convenient to a city, etc.

Lots of people focus on the temporary content, so this past month people were focused on the SAB (instanced jumping puzzles) and the Molten Facility (temp dungeon), so there were lots of people in Rata Sum and Wayfarer Hills / Diessa and fewer people elsewhere.

The megaboss changes mean that people are more spread out and not just focused on end-game zones anymore.

Fractals (and COF P1) keep people in instances instead of the open world.

People spending more time outside, going on vacation, etc, mean they’re not in a virtual world as much.

If where you are has a low pop, try guesting onto a higher tier server and seeing if there are people there. Tarnished Coast has people in almost every zone I’ve been in, even the ones that were out of the way. I’m sure the other T1-T3 servers are about the same.

Karizee.8076:

Meanwhile at 8:30 in the morning on Sanctum of Rall….

Yes doing the Shatterer, amazing that there are so many people doing a world event boss.

Ordika.9513:

killcannon.2576:

New Character Yo.6487:

I agree with Vayne. The population may SEEM lower, because before everyone was hanging out in LA waiting for groups for dungeons since that was what most people did for money and loot. Now since Anet has added boss chest rares, most of the population has moved to those areas. Anet also added WvW progression which helped PvE servers (like GoM, the one i’m in), because our players finally started entering WvW!
The population has spread out more across the game, as opposed to being condensed in LA. Just find a good guild OP. I’m in a good one that has around 35-50 online at peak hours, so we always have something to do .

Do you not see that as the problem though? “Most of the population is at the world event bosses farming” What is the impression new players get? The world is dead. They don’t know about farming, they just want to experience the world. Too bad for them I suppose.

Wayfarer Foothills – Maw
Queensdale – Shadow Behemoth
Metric Provence – Flame Elemental
Caledon Forest – Wurm

Starter zones for every race save Charr with a big world event that is always insanely populate. That means a new player for every race save Charr will see a ton of chatter in their starter zone they can use to get connected.

Starter zones are usually well populated as has been said many times in previous posts. World events, and people looking for easy daily completion.

killcannon.2576:

Karizee.8076:

Meanwhile at 8:30 in the morning on Sanctum of Rall….

Yes doing the Shatterer, amazing that there are so many people doing a world event boss.

I know – especially at that time of morning!

When culling is fixed in the open world we’ll see just how many people are there haha.

Gilosean.3805:

I run into people almost everywhere, except in the middle of NA workday. There’s lots of reasons why some times places would be empty.

Some zones are emptier than others – bad mats, not convenient to a city, etc.

Lots of people focus on the temporary content, so this past month people were focused on the SAB (instanced jumping puzzles) and the Molten Facility (temp dungeon), so there were lots of people in Rata Sum and Wayfarer Hills / Diessa and fewer people elsewhere.

The megaboss changes mean that people are more spread out and not just focused on end-game zones anymore.

Fractals (and COF P1) keep people in instances instead of the open world.

People spending more time outside, going on vacation, etc, mean they’re not in a virtual world as much.

If where you are has a low pop, try guesting onto a higher tier server and seeing if there are people there. Tarnished Coast has people in almost every zone I’ve been in, even the ones that were out of the way. I’m sure the other T1-T3 servers are about the same.

Guesting makes already low pop servers have even less pop, making any perceived loss of population seem greater. The world events do not spread people out, it just form clumps in different zones with people generally just standing and waiting in a very limited area waiting for a boss to spawn.

Mackdose.6504:

killcannon.2576:

Putting those clumps of however many people back into the world would be a great first step.

You’ve said this countless times.

How would you go about doing this? If it was as easy as you’re implying, it would be done already. Problem is, as much as you blame the mechanics of the game, it’s a player problem.

Players will always tunnel vision the easiest rewards for their time.

So then, instead of stating a nebulous idea, let’s discuss possible solutions.

Mirta, I, and other players have put forth various ideas to fix or alleviate the situation that I would say are far from nebulous. There are many posts throughout this thread that talk about these ideas. Blaming players for a game mechanic problem is always the easy route.

Kichwas.7152:

laokoko.7403:

killcannon.2576:

I complain more about the general lack of activity in the middle, leveling zones.

Most people leveling just skip the mid level zone. Even if you try to play normally, you’ll out level the zone, and mid level zone is the one people usually skip.

Spent a crowded day in Lonar’s Pass recently.

Yep, level 35-45 zone. Find cave, hide, get people showing all up in my business.

I go to Harathi Highlands. Same thing. In fact there I get crowds of them like flash mobs running through and calling out events.

That zone just south of Lion’s Arch. There’s one event there with two drunk passed out norn, half the times I’ve been near it its been mobbed by players.

What level, specially, is ‘mid’ limited to?

Because I’ve yet to find the empty spot.

And for every person that says this there is another who says those zones are empty or lightly populated. As mentioned in previous posts, not all servers are created equally or have the same pop.

killcannon.2576:

Mackdose.6504:

killcannon.2576:

Putting those clumps of however many people back into the world would be a great first step.

You’ve said this countless times.

How would you go about doing this? If it was as easy as you’re implying, it would be done already. Problem is, as much as you blame the mechanics of the game, it’s a player problem.

Players will always tunnel vision the easiest rewards for their time.

So then, instead of stating a nebulous idea, let’s discuss possible solutions.

Mirta, I, and other players have put forth various ideas to fix or alleviate the situation that I would say are far from nebulous. There are many posts throughout this thread that talk about these ideas. Blaming players for a game mechanic problem is always the easy route.

It’s the easy route because it’s 100% valid.

As for the ideas, I’m not seeing any beyond “improve loot drops in XYZ areas.”

We need less loot and more cosmetic rewards; more bragging rights. We need more mechanics that make playing the game its own reward.

farming events

have fun

with a very small amount of us doing proper content such as dungeons

Mackdose.6504:

killcannon.2576:

Mackdose.6504:

killcannon.2576:

Putting those clumps of however many people back into the world would be a great first step.

You’ve said this countless times.

How would you go about doing this? If it was as easy as you’re implying, it would be done already. Problem is, as much as you blame the mechanics of the game, it’s a player problem.

Players will always tunnel vision the easiest rewards for their time.

So then, instead of stating a nebulous idea, let’s discuss possible solutions.

Mirta, I, and other players have put forth various ideas to fix or alleviate the situation that I would say are far from nebulous. There are many posts throughout this thread that talk about these ideas. Blaming players for a game mechanic problem is always the easy route.

It’s the easy route because it’s 100% valid.

As for the ideas, I’m not seeing any beyond “improve loot drops in XYZ areas.”

We need less loot and more cosmetic rewards; more bragging rights. We need more mechanics that make playing the game its own reward.

How do you make cosmetic rewards? Oh, that’s right….loot drops. Legendaries are one of the greatest loot sinks in the game. Almost any cosmetic item in the game that you don’t outright purchase from the gemstore come from either turning in tokens, putting stuff in the MF, or looting it from a chest (which is a loot drop).

Why is it 100% valid that it’s a player problem? What is your reasoning behind this idea? Other threads in this topic have explained why they think something is the way it is. Could you expand on your idea at all? Or is it just a statement?

Kichwas.7152:

laokoko.7403:

killcannon.2576:

I complain more about the general lack of activity in the middle, leveling zones.

Most people leveling just skip the mid level zone. Even if you try to play normally, you’ll out level the zone, and mid level zone is the one people usually skip.

Spent a crowded day in Lonar’s Pass recently.

Yep, level 35-45 zone. Find cave, hide, get people showing all up in my business.

I go to Harathi Highlands. Same thing. In fact there I get crowds of them like flash mobs running through and calling out events.

That zone just south of Lion’s Arch. There’s one event there with two drunk passed out norn, half the times I’ve been near it its been mobbed by players.

What level, specially, is ‘mid’ limited to?

Because I’ve yet to find the empty spot.

I’m just in Kissex hill. Leveling through dynamic event chain. And there are around 25 people doing it. Harathi Highland have a dynamic event chain good for leveling too. So that’s probably why people are there.

My point is people are only there because of the reward. The few dynamic event good for leveling will have people. And you really have to guest to the more popular server for that to happen.

killcannon.2576:

Ordika.9513:

killcannon.2576:

New Character Yo.6487:

I agree with Vayne. The population may SEEM lower, because before everyone was hanging out in LA waiting for groups for dungeons since that was what most people did for money and loot. Now since Anet has added boss chest rares, most of the population has moved to those areas. Anet also added WvW progression which helped PvE servers (like GoM, the one i’m in), because our players finally started entering WvW!
The population has spread out more across the game, as opposed to being condensed in LA. Just find a good guild OP. I’m in a good one that has around 35-50 online at peak hours, so we always have something to do .

Do you not see that as the problem though? “Most of the population is at the world event bosses farming” What is the impression new players get? The world is dead. They don’t know about farming, they just want to experience the world. Too bad for them I suppose.

Wayfarer Foothills – Maw
Queensdale – Shadow Behemoth
Metric Provence – Flame Elemental
Caledon Forest – Wurm

Starter zones for every race save Charr with a big world event that is always insanely populate. That means a new player for every race save Charr will see a ton of chatter in their starter zone they can use to get connected.

Starter zones are usually well populated as has been said many times in previous posts. World events, and people looking for easy daily completion.

How would a new player get the impression the world is dead (your words from the post i originally quoted) when you and I and everyone else agree that the places they start out in are densely populated.

Sleek.9201:

So I took a break from GW2 because of school but now I want to play again… Boy, things have changed. First of all, where is everyone? The lack of population is slightly disappointing…. I checked out WvW, and it doesn’t have the hoards of people I remembered. I went to heart of the mists and again…. no one. I see some large groups of people just standing around in the cities but I can’t really see anyone doing much… So really… what is everyone doing now?

Lack of people, really? I haven’t noticed.. Since I had guested over on Tarnished Coast with a big red word “Full” . Then 2 hours later went back to my “High” populated server.. I see people everywhere including the higher lvl areas.. Everytime I do the Shadow Behemoth it is packed… Everytime I do Maw it is packed so full you barely even get a freakin hit on the shaman before he is dead.. Even the dragon events are full. Even the small events have people doing them.. How is it you people don’t see that? What the heck are you people on or smoking? Maybe you need to stop smoking what ever it is and take off your blinders cause it’s affecting your senses… The game isn’t dying nor is it lacking in population.