Guild Wars 2

Hello All,

I’d like to start off by saying I’m fairly new to the game, having purchased it less than a week ago. I was in and out of GW1 for a number of years and really like the whole atmosphere and world that AN has created for their franchise.

So naturally when GW2 came out, and after reading that it is regarded as possibly the best MMO of 2012 as well as supporting a huge player base, I of course had to check it out.

Well here I am and… I don’t know what it is, but the place seems kinda empty :/

…

Now let me explain why I think that is by delving a bit into my MMO history.

I started out playing the recently shut down City of Heroes many years ago. That game was released roughly around the time when WoW was, so it had pretty stiff competition from the start. Comic books and superheroes were always a niche market too so the game never could draw as many players as a game like WoW could. Looking back now, CoH could be described as a mid-sized MMO in its heyday.

Nevertheless, in those early days, the place was jumping with activity 24/7. I used to play that game day in day out, and I could always find plenty of people to PUG or just talk with even at 2-4am in the morning, and that was before they added all the clubs/arenas/pvp zones.

…

Over the years, I understand the MMO market has gotten quite oversaturated, so a similar number of gamers interested in the genre would have been spread thin over various titles. A lot of subscription MMOs also either went F2P or out of business as a result of the above, the bad economy, or people getting tired of the genre in general.

Indeed, today not a single successful subscription-based MMO still exists besides WoW and maybe EVE. And most F2P games tend to hold a small group of diehards while most players leave as quickly as they join. So you could say the MMO genre has lost much of its former luster.

…

Still, when a game like GW2 came along, I had higher expectations. Knowing the wonderful lore, the incredibly immersive world, and the meticulously attention the AN team pays to polish and balance the game, I thought there would be a lot of people here, if for no other reason than based on GW1’s good reputation.

Having played for about a week, the game itself certainly doesn’t disappoint. So much to do, a massive world, great graphics, high production value in storytelling and voice acting, a new take on the traditional MMO quest formula, and huge objective-based world vs world pvp.

The only thing missing seems to be the actual players…

…

So far all of my toons are on the Crystal Desert server, which seemed like one of the most populated. I specifically refreshed the server list multiple times upon initial character creation just to see which ones would pop up at the top the most, and CD was one of these. I wanted to make sure when I came in that I could interact with as many players as possible, since I had been out of the MMO loop for a while and missed the social interaction.

I get into the game, create a sylvari, an asura, and 2 charrs… my main being lvl 21 by now, and every low level map I’ve been in thus far, I run into maybe a handful of players spread sparsely all over the place in maybe the course of 1-2 hours of play time, whereas in GW1 nearly every semi-large town was always full of people.

I also went into WvW. Albeit it was 4 in the morning, I remember back in GW1 GvG games would be going on all the time for spectatorship, and the pvp islands were always packed, but here there was barely a soul. I would run vast distances without meeting a single enemy player (and yes I know they show up as generic names), which is nothing like what I saw in the beta videos of GW2 on youtube.

…That is REALLY low pop, not just for a game that just recently came out, and sports nearly all (supposedly) full servers, and which is touted as one of, if not THE best MMO ever made… that is low even for a typical MMO entering mid life.

…

Continued…

What is the reason for this??

Is it because the maps are just so big that the players are spread thin?

Is it because the MMO genre is now but a shadow of its former self, so much so that even the hottest MMOs on the market are like ghost towns?

Is the economy just so bad that barely anyone has the interest to play MMOs like the way people used to (ie. living in the games)?

Is everyone ignoring the quests and just trying to jam pack into Lion’s Arch? (I did notice as I was passing through that area that it was the only place requiring a queue)(And seriously, I understand why games form central hubs, but instance-based GW1 kinda forced this. Here it would be pretty sad if people are still holing up in one place with such a vast open world to explore…)

I recently read an article too about the disproportionate distribution of races in GW2 and how the vast majority of players are choosing humans over all the others. Indeed, when I saw the graph, the human numbers roughly doubled that of each of the races I chose, while Norn are slightly more popular but still much less so than humans are. Could that be why?

Is the population cap on each server purposely set low so as to decrease lag, and that inadvertently creates the illusion of high population as a result, when I may in fact be playing on a low pop server?

Are the server populations somehow misrepresented and I’m actually on a low pop server?

Did the majority of players already get bored of this game and move on? Are people’s attention span for MMOs that short these days?

…

I really want to know, because GW2 being a giant empty space only a few months after launch doesn’t seem normal at all…

Everyone is at Lion’s Arch doing Fractals.

Really unnecessary to have such a massive, massive wall of text.

I play on Crystal Desert too and there’s loads of people everywhere, always people for events in every zone, lots of people in WvW. Maybe you’re just logging on at too bizarre times ?

I am on Seafarers Rest and I see loads of people around, loads more low levels as well since christmas…

It is true that Humans are the dominant race in the game and some of the other low level race specific areas a much less populated than the human and norn areas. I think the biggest reason for this is because there are too many areas for each race and people who create the least represented races migrate to the populated areas (human/norn). Almost all of my characters are human, not because of low population but because I simply prefer them over the other races.

The game world is huge, each race has their own maps and the personal stories rarely send the player to the other maps until the 40-50 range IIRC.

Many players like to get to max level and find out that it’s not like other MMOs, there are no raids and loot doesn’t rain from the sky drenching them in the best gear in a week, this is a big turn off for a lot people who expected GW2 to be WoW2.

The devoted GW1 fans also are not happy with the game because it’s not GW1 with better graphics.

These are just my opinions, and unlike many people here I do not count my opinion as fact.

Mystic Beaver.4795:

Really unnecessary to have such a massive, massive wall of text.

I play on Crystal Desert too and there’s loads of people everywhere, always people for events in every zone, lots of people in WvW. Maybe you’re just logging on at too bizarre times ?

Maybe, but as I’ve alluded to in my OP, back a few years ago, there would have been no such thing as “too bizarre times”. There were always plenty of people on at all hours of the day. Certainly, a supposedly massively popular game like GW2 would have had no excuse to be close to empty on any map at any time.

Given, GW2 does try to provide a unique starting experience for each separate race, and perhaps that creates some room for bias. But even so, as far as I can tell, AN has done an equally good job for each storyline, and I’m sure their QA assures that as well, so it still seems strange for this to happen.

Don’t know about you but everywhere I go on my server is packed full of people, I’m on Gandara btw and I’m almost never alone

I don’t know how active Crystal Desert is in WvWvW but sometime servers who are very focused on PvP have a low pop out in the world even though the server is stated as High pop.
I’m on Gunnar’s Hold and there are lots of people everywhere, I’ve also seen many new players the last month or so.
Maybe you just need to look into how players on different servers spend their time playing, not just the server numbers.
The players are there but you might not know it always.

Because there are only a few thousand active players left, most people got bored and quit.

Maybe most people on your server crafted snowflake jewelry?

Rustypipes.6238:

Many players like to get to max level and find out that it’s not like other MMOs, there are no raids and loot doesn’t rain from the sky drenching them in the best gear in a week, this is a big turn off for a lot people who expected GW2 to be WoW2.

The devoted GW1 fans also are not happy with the game because it’s not GW1 with better graphics.

These are actually really good points. I don’t want to delve too deeply into this as it is a topic for another thread, but I too feel like AN watered down the GW experience in order to try and cater more to the general MMO audience that is more used to the WoW type structure. But in doing so, they didn’t go all the way, and like you said, it doesn’t quite fulfill either side’s desires.

Levels certainly didn’t matter much in GW1 and the game felt much less rigid in terms of acquiring skills. Here there are 80 levels which almost feels like a chore despite the great story (I’m still worried I will get burnt out on it after 1 playthrough). At the same time yes, the loot seems to be lackluster. This is not helped by the fact that GW characters in general always felt pathetically weak compared to what is in other MMOs (ie. in CoH 1 person could take on 8 regular mobs easily, in GW1 it took 8 (1 player and 7 npc helpers) to take out 1 mob in a timely manner).

So yes, I can see why players would want to flock to the most populated areas and basically powerlevel through the game, which is a shame considering story is such a strong point for this franchise.

I think it would help a lot if they simply increased the number of mobs and made them a lot easier to kill. It would make players feel more powerful and less likely to want to skip content for the sake of leveling at a reasonable pace.

Morrigan.2809:

I don’t know how active Crystal Desert is in WvWvW but sometime servers who are very focused on PvP have a low pop out in the world even though the server is stated as High pop.
I’m on Gunnar’s Hold and there are lots of people everywhere, I’ve also seen many new players the last month or so.
Maybe you just need to look into how players on different servers spend their time playing, not just the server numbers.
The players are there but you might not know it always.

Hmm, that’s an interesting thought. Crystal Desert does also happen to be one of the WvW map/team names, so maybe some psychology plays into that (ie. being fans of a specific team). Though like I said, there didn’t seem to be too many players in WvW playing when I tried it. Thanks for the tip though.

Tarnished coast

either people are all in LA which shows the management’s true direction on this…or you’ll find some alts in beginning zones. In mid zones it’s anyone’s guess.

I never see anyone in the mid zones 40-65 never. People are just not there. Now this could mean two things. 1 they get bored before 80 and stop or 2 they discover dungeons are the only real way to get drops in this title now and stop using the open world altogether.

I personally am not logging back in until they fix loot. (at least not for personal play, if my husband wants me to play with him then i will for about an hour on my thief help him level his alts.)

There’s really no point in wasting my time trying to get loot of any kind in this game between that and my class the engineer being broken, I have no desire like many to waste my time.

I think a lot of people are suddenly looking for anything else to do. Based on recent events I don’t think any upcoming patch is going to fix anybodies attitude, not the players, and not Anet.

PowerCat.5738:

Maybe most people on your server crafted snowflake jewelry?

Hahahaha made me laugh

this might be true though

I think it’s because (and i’m being sincere here) GW2 is a “game on the side” kinda MMO.

It’s something a lot of people are doing to fill the time between playing other games, so it may not get as much attention as expected for a new release. The most people i’ve seen recently in PvE was 6~10 people at the wayfarer foothills Frozen Maw event.

God, i remember the days when you could barely see the Svanir Shaman…I miss those days

Underworld has a good amount of people in it
As far as starting zones go most populated is the human one, then metrica province, then charr starting zone, norn starting zone and in the last place is sylvari. I barely run across anyone that’s there leveling and not searching for a dungeon.
Mid level zones that have the worst population problem – I run across about 13 to 15 people in 30 minutes on average.
The thing is the zones are fairly large and there’s no need to quest with other people so mostly you’ll only see people on events and talking on the map chat. And it’s perfectly fine with me

Mystic Beaver.4795:

Really unnecessary to have such a massive, massive wall of text.

I play on Crystal Desert too and there’s loads of people everywhere, always people for events in every zone, lots of people in WvW. Maybe you’re just logging on at too bizarre times ?

I play on Crystal Desert too and there are not loads of people everywhere, rarely people for events in any zone, non-full WvW except for Friday nights.

Lion’s Arch is the only zone with lots of people in it, and that’s because of FotM, crafting, AFK, forging. For new players looking to play with others, all of the Lion’s arch people can be excluded.

Short answer:
Cursed Shore & Lion’s Arch

I am actually thinking that the “Low” servers probably have more people active on them. The ones that were full from the start are bloated with inactive accounts now. Whereas the ones with non-full populations are where new accounts are pouring into.

I’d love it if they made 3 new servers for active players to merge into, taking their guild upgrades with them. 4 servers worth of active players into 1 new server would be super busy and enjoyable again.

Dude, two full posts to ask if the player base is low? That’s cray cray.

Anywho, only altaholics myself will be found in lower levels. A couple of people doing dailies or farming for mats.

The majority will be in LA LFG, WvW, sPvP, or Orr/cursed shore

Clark Skinner.4902:

I am actually thinking that the “Low” servers probably have more people active on them. The ones that were full from the start are bloated with inactive accounts now. Whereas the ones with non-full populations are where new accounts are pouring into.

I’d love it if they made 3 new servers for active players to merge into, taking their guild upgrades with them. 4 servers worth of active players into 1 new server would be super busy and enjoyable again.

False. The server “full” is the amount of people playing at the time, not the amount of accounts that call that server home.

Ethics.4519:

Clark Skinner.4902:

I am actually thinking that the “Low” servers probably have more people active on them. The ones that were full from the start are bloated with inactive accounts now. Whereas the ones with non-full populations are where new accounts are pouring into.

I’d love it if they made 3 new servers for active players to merge into, taking their guild upgrades with them. 4 servers worth of active players into 1 new server would be super busy and enjoyable again.

False. The server “full” is the amount of people playing at the time, not the amount of accounts that call that server home.

No your actually wrong. A dev actually stated that Full servers were those counted by accounts on the server rather than people actually playing.

Also if you don’t believe me, here is a post with a GW2 dev actually stating that full means number of registered accounts.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Server-Populations/first

GhastlyArmor
“False. The server “full” is the amount of people playing at the time, not the amount of accounts that call that server home.”

GhastlyArmor
“Wait, so the server load is based on how many characters are currently assigned to it? Not how many people are actually logged on and playing? That’s weird.”

Well it seems nobody knows the answer to this one, ArenaNet are not saying anything that makes it clear.

I don’t really see what the big secret with them is all about.

Personally I would gamble on it being the second quote.

MMORPGs by nature are very top heavy. In GW2, leveling is a pretty quick process. If you get into the story and you keep working at it, and when you’re too low level, you do a few hearts, before you know it, you’re leveled out of that zone.

This is an issue that developer after developer is completely oblivious to, or they think their game is going to be the exception: There’s no infinite stream of new players. Everything before the level cap is going to get spread thin, because the level cap is the only place that people stop leveling. And then there’s the issue that there’s no replay value to the leveling part of these games.

If I cleared a map while I was leveling, I have no reason to go back there at level 80.

This is just the life of MMORPGs

Nov 15th Patch/Event really lowered the populations, limited loot in open world and only one place to get anything worth having in Fractals of the Mists.

All that really did a number to the populations of Guildwars 2..

Kakeru.2873:

Ethics.4519:

Clark Skinner.4902:

I am actually thinking that the “Low” servers probably have more people active on them. The ones that were full from the start are bloated with inactive accounts now. Whereas the ones with non-full populations are where new accounts are pouring into.

I’d love it if they made 3 new servers for active players to merge into, taking their guild upgrades with them. 4 servers worth of active players into 1 new server would be super busy and enjoyable again.

False. The server “full” is the amount of people playing at the time, not the amount of accounts that call that server home.

No your actually wrong. A dev actually stated that Full servers were those counted by accounts on the server rather than people actually playing.

Then explain to me why at peak playing times you will see 5/6 servers full, normal times you’ll see 2/3, and at off hours nothing will be full.

Also your reading comprehension is a bit off. The link you sent only verified that it doesn’t matter what server they started on. Go back and read all of the posts, including OP. You’ll see what I mean.

The Orr ‘end game’ zone is just empty, u guys ruined it by adding fractals of the mist, people now is just spaming lfg at lions arch no one cares to do events anymore, any plans on making these zones populated again?

Ethics.4519:

Kakeru.2873:

Ethics.4519:

Clark Skinner.4902:

I am actually thinking that the “Low” servers probably have more people active on them. The ones that were full from the start are bloated with inactive accounts now. Whereas the ones with non-full populations are where new accounts are pouring into.

I’d love it if they made 3 new servers for active players to merge into, taking their guild upgrades with them. 4 servers worth of active players into 1 new server would be super busy and enjoyable again.

False. The server “full” is the amount of people playing at the time, not the amount of accounts that call that server home.

No your actually wrong. A dev actually stated that Full servers were those counted by accounts on the server rather than people actually playing.

Then explain to me why at peak playing times you will see 5/6 servers full, normal times you’ll see 2/3, and at off hours nothing will be full.

Also your reading comprehension is a bit off. The link you sent only verified that it doesn’t matter what server they started on. Go back and read all of the posts, including OP. You’ll see what I mean.

What are you not getting? In my post the CC clearly said that a full server is based on account registered on that server not how many people are playing at that given time.

I’m not going to argue with you because, If you can’t read a simple post from a CC that clearly says " a server FULL means that the people who’ve chosen that server as theirs " meaning people who have chosen that server as their home server, NOT the amount of people playing on that server……………..

Kakeru.2873:

Ethics.4519:

Kakeru.2873:

Ethics.4519:

Clark Skinner.4902:

I am actually thinking that the “Low” servers probably have more people active on them. The ones that were full from the start are bloated with inactive accounts now. Whereas the ones with non-full populations are where new accounts are pouring into.

I’d love it if they made 3 new servers for active players to merge into, taking their guild upgrades with them. 4 servers worth of active players into 1 new server would be super busy and enjoyable again.

False. The server “full” is the amount of people playing at the time, not the amount of accounts that call that server home.

No your actually wrong. A dev actually stated that Full servers were those counted by accounts on the server rather than people actually playing.

Then explain to me why at peak playing times you will see 5/6 servers full, normal times you’ll see 2/3, and at off hours nothing will be full.

Also your reading comprehension is a bit off. The link you sent only verified that it doesn’t matter what server they started on. Go back and read all of the posts, including OP. You’ll see what I mean.

What are you not getting? In my post the CC clearly said that a full server is based on account registered on that server not how many people are playing at that given time.

I’m not going to argue with you because, If you can’t read a simple post from a CC that clearly says " a server FULL means that the people who’ve chosen that server as theirs " meaning people who have chosen that server as their home server, NOT the amount of people playing on that server……………..

Also not right. It was not specified whether those people were online or offline. The OP was asking for the difference between if FULL meant where the accounts currently are or where they started. A bit of a silly question, but that’s what the CC was answering. Read through that whole topic, and many others, and you’ll see I’m right. If you don’t want to argue fine, but don’t spread false statements.

I know because I just switched to a very populated server and watched population closely for a week.

CC quote “Independently of where they did create their account”. That’s the issue that Eva is discussing, not the issue that we are. Just watch the volatility of account populations from off-peak to peak hours, and try to explain how that makes sense with your rational.

Ethics.4519:

Kakeru.2873:

Ethics.4519:

Kakeru.2873:

Ethics.4519:

Clark Skinner.4902:

I am actually thinking that the “Low” servers probably have more people active on them. The ones that were full from the start are bloated with inactive accounts now. Whereas the ones with non-full populations are where new accounts are pouring into.

I’d love it if they made 3 new servers for active players to merge into, taking their guild upgrades with them. 4 servers worth of active players into 1 new server would be super busy and enjoyable again.

False. The server “full” is the amount of people playing at the time, not the amount of accounts that call that server home.

No your actually wrong. A dev actually stated that Full servers were those counted by accounts on the server rather than people actually playing.

Then explain to me why at peak playing times you will see 5/6 servers full, normal times you’ll see 2/3, and at off hours nothing will be full.

Also your reading comprehension is a bit off. The link you sent only verified that it doesn’t matter what server they started on. Go back and read all of the posts, including OP. You’ll see what I mean.

What are you not getting? In my post the CC clearly said that a full server is based on account registered on that server not how many people are playing at that given time.

I’m not going to argue with you because, If you can’t read a simple post from a CC that clearly says " a server FULL means that the people who’ve chosen that server as theirs " meaning people who have chosen that server as their home server, NOT the amount of people playing on that server……………..

Also not right. It was not specified whether those people were online or offline. The OP was asking for the difference between if FULL meant where the accounts currently are or where they started. A bit of a silly question, but that’s what the CC was answering. Read through that whole topic, and many others, and you’ll see I’m right. If you don’t want to argue fine, but don’t spread false statements.

I know because I just switched to a very populated server and watched population closely for a week.

Wow. This is going no where im going to ignore you from now on and I beg you do the same to me. I have no time for people who need things written out to them word by word.

Kakeru.2873:

Wow. This is going no where im going to ignore you from now on and I beg you do the same to me. I have no time for people who need things written out to them word by word.

I won’t ignore wrong statements. If you truly were going to ignore me you would have just not replied. Your’e reading the CC answer wrong and it’s misleading, then you spread your false information thinking you’re right.

I say again because you missed it, explain the server volatility from off-peak hours to peak hours and tell me how that makes sense with your rationale. How can no servers be full on off-peak then 6 to 7 servers be full on peak/event hours. People aren’t magically creating and deleting 100s of accounts every hour.

@GhastlyArmor:

Basically it’s like this:

1) ANet lied to us on so many accounts it’s sickening
2) People were herded like cattle to fractals
3) ANet fancies themselves to be like EA and this game is on a downward spiral and will suffer the same fate as SWTOR if something isn’t done (yes it was an intentional reference to that song ROFLMMFAO)
4) People are pissssssssed-the-phuck off
5) Save up your RL money for the store to buy shiney gems.
6) Reserved for a future tirade....

Regarding server’s listed population –
I really don’t care what a CC has to say about it. I can see, with my own two eyes, on a daily basis, that the US servers drop from Full to High capacity between the hours of 4am and 10am EST.

Come on people, put on your thinking caps. What does this tell us? Are hundreds or thousands of players silently cancelling their accounts in the wee hours of the morning, and hundreds or thousands of new players buying the game everyday to make nearly every server jump back to full…or is the server population reflecting that a huge portion of the country and players have gone to bed? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

There’s no point in even citing previous posts from ANet or anyone else. This is empirical evidence. There could be an argument made that the listed population is a mixture of both accounts bound to a server and concurrent users online. But users online at any given time have a 100% observable, real-time effect on the server lists that can be witnessed by every single person on a US server every single day.

Another way to prove it, check the server list directly after a big update. Most servers will show as High capacity because a large portion of players are still downloading the update. Wait about ten minutes and check the server list again. Most servers will now be full because most people have had time to get the patch and start playing.

Man, it gets frustrating that people keep citing that same ’ol post and disregarding what they can see for themselves. Sometimes I think some users would be sure-fire convinced the sky was green if some authoritative figure told them so.

mavet.3047:

@GhastlyArmor:

Basically it’s like this:

1) ANet lied to us on so many accounts it’s sickening
2) People were herded like cattle to fractals
3) ANet fancies themselves to be like EA and this game is on a downward spiral and will suffer the same fate as SWTOR if something isn’t done (yes it was an intentional reference to that song ROFLMMFAO)
4) People are pissssssssed-the-phuck off
5) Save up your RL money for the store to buy shiney gems.
6) Reserved for a future tirade….

Well…

it seems they have succeded making Someone here REALLY mad

mavet.3047:

@GhastlyArmor:

Basically it’s like this:

1) ANet lied to us on so many accounts it’s sickening
2) People were herded like cattle to fractals
3) ANet fancies themselves to be like EA and this game is on a downward spiral and will suffer the same fate as SWTOR if something isn’t done (yes it was an intentional reference to that song ROFLMMFAO)
4) People are pissssssssed-the-phuck off
5) Save up your RL money for the store to buy shiney gems.
6) Reserved for a future tirade….

So what do you think about real life? It seems to have several similarities and definitely more important.

AcidicVision.5498:

Awesome post that would take up too much room quoting…. but seriously, read it

Thank you thank you thank you. CC is community coordinator. First off Eva was answering a different question in a very cryptic way. Secondly, she’s not a dev.

I agree with everything you said and I almost put a link for Occam’s razor in my last post, but forgot before pressing reply, so thank you for that =)

Aside from that, I also speculate that, as you said, it’s a mix of both. I assume that there is a soft limit and a hard limit. Say they have 100K limit for accounts that are on that server, then they have a 40K limit for accounts currently online on that server. If either one is over the limit it is shown as full.

CD seems to have a pretty good pop at least from what I see in WvW. The issue is most likely you are logging in on off hours for your server.

The reason you always saw people in GW1 no matter what time it was because it was a lobby based Co-Op RPG. All the people congregated in the same places then formed groups to go into instances to play.

That is a lot different model than how GW2 is set up. MMOs spread the pop a lot more and this game has huge areas compared to GW1 instances and cities.

What you both seem to forget is that people have the ability to change their home server…………… and have been doing constantly since release due to WvWvW………

Kakeru.2873:

What you both seem to forget is that people have the ability to change their home server…………… and have been doing constantly since release due to WvWvW………

What you seem to forget or ignore, is looking at the total number. You have yet to answer my question as to why, on peak hours, there will be 6 to 7 servers full, and then no servers full during off-peak hours.

Once you answer that question logically with your rationale, then maybe I might start to believe you.

As the other person said, you’re arguing against empirical evidence.

That particular post everyone always quotes is so misleading it should have never been written. Servers fluctuate from high to very high and back because people log on or off, therefore it reflects the amount of people playing at the given time.

Straylight.7408:

That particular post everyone always quotes is so misleading it should have never been written. Servers fluctuate from high to very high and back because people log on or off, therefore it reflects the amount of people playing at the given time.

They did the same thing in SWTOR the servers always said they were maxed couldn’t find a single soul anywhere. But people were told they still have 1.7 million active accounts remember that line?

Don’t believe anything you read and only half of what you hear…..

Straylight.7408:

That particular post everyone always quotes is so misleading it should have never been written. Servers fluctuate from high to very high and back because people log on or off, therefore it reflects the amount of people playing at the given time.

Uh… no.

Being online or not doesn’t matter. Inactive accounts still count towards the world population. Hence loads of worlds are high but dead.

Kakeru.2873:

What you both seem to forget is that people have the ability to change their home server…………… and have been doing constantly since release due to WvWvW………

No one is forgetting that. If people were moving then the Full population servers would just be shifting. What you are not comprehending is there is no population shift.

When 20/24 servers are showing full during peak hours and then in the AM only 6 or so of the 24 servers are showing full (servers with high Aussie and EU pops), that does not indicate transfers.

If server A and B are full and server C is high, then you have two full servers. If some from A transfer to C until it is full then you still have two full servers. Likewise with B. The only way to end up with three high servers is that if by some miraculous coincidence, server C needed exactly the amount of players to register as full that A and B combined needed to drop to high and exactly that amount of players transferred from both. Improbable, not impossible. But we are talking about that happening every night and after ever patch. And that is impossible.

The explanation for servers A , B , and C to all change from full to high, every day, during the same block of time, is that people are signing off.

I have a white board handy. I can draw a diagram. Or even example that uses buckets of water if its still confusing.

To be honest how is this any different then the most popular mmo on the market: WoW?

Its not… leveling up in wow you rarely see anyone anywhere…. its very rare, and when you do see people they are farming nodes or bots… lol.

Then you go to Stormwind bam its full…. just like lions arch in GW2. Go to WvW Bam its full.

The game isn’t setup to maintain someones interest in pve leveling areas… its really that simple. People hang out in LA to do fractals, put dungeon groups together, and chit chat.

It would be much better if there was a global chat channel imo, because alot of areas are socially empty and your there by yourself it seems. At least with a global chat it would seem like there are others playing lol..

currently in TERA & Black Ops 2

At least my server has quite a large population of new accounts since chrismas, lowbie zones are full and many are brand new.

1024am my time (mountain time) on a Thursday morning.

I play in the early morning, these servers I garantee you will not ever change population wise from primetime to early morning. Because I have watched carefully for weeks for the chance to transfer.

And if caps increase it will be accross the board for top servers and obvious, a flux of a server or two will not happen.