Guild Wars 2

I just got the game 3 weeks (a month max) ago and I was expecting that the game should be flooded by players by now since its released last year but to my surprised I rarely come across a huge amount of players and WvW is just sometimes dead – also I was expecting lags here and there due to the massive amount of players in the area but none of that .

Seeing that GW2 has good reviews and its topping the charts, I dont see any reason why this game isnt flooded by players

For the veteran/experienced players out there, any reason as to why the game feels like its in closed beta (in terms of population)

I took about a month or so off from playing. Last time was during and right after the Christmas event. Before that and during that time the game was bustling. Lions Arch was always full and I often saw many people in many of the games areas. This is on Stormbluff Isle which is/was one of the more populated servers from my understanding.

I logged in a couple of days ago and Lions Arch was a ghost town. I think I saw 5 people while I was there. The once chattery chat was silent. No one looking for fractals or dungeons or just talking. Nothing. Played around a bit on an alt and only saw a couple people the entire time. This is in stark contrast from only a month and a half ago. Where did everyone go?

I know guesting is now live. Has everyone guested to a different server and I missed the memo? Have the new daily achievements finally motivated people to get out into the world? I would really hope that this game hasn’t lost that many players in so short a time.

Please know this isn’t a doom and gloom, the sky is falling kind of thread. I genuinely just want to know what happened.

I see people out in the world all the time. I’m rarely in LA to see it’s population (or lack of, if that’s the case).

Also gw2lfg.com.

They all went to Tarnished Coast for some reason.

I was just there a few hours ago hanging out in Divinity’s Reach, place was packed, full of regular people, RPers, and new people.

I did a few dailies out in queensdale, and well, let’s say there were moments when it felt like launch.

Orr is pretty populated in my server these days since the nerfs/buffs patch it had. Although, I still see alot of people in LA as well, so maybe its your server.

Stormbluff Isle “died out” as far as I know. A lot of guilds left it and it dropped from being a Tier 1 server to whatever Tier it is now (below 3 I think?).

Tarnished Coast is where people are guesting at now for World events and Orr.

People on Tarnished Coast don’t hang out in Lions Arch either. You can find them in Divinity’s Reach by the Bank.

Most servers PvE zones are pretty dead(NA) unless you go to Tarnished Coast.

What’s so big about Tarnished Coast? I know I saw a lot of talk on /vg/ about the server and “ERP” but I didn’t think it was THAT big a thing.

DuskTwilight.4862:

What’s so big about Tarnished Coast? I know I saw a lot of talk on /vg/ about the server and “ERP” but I didn’t think it was THAT big a thing.

TC has been my home server for quite awhile now and I have never seen the sexual stuff there.

Borlis Pass has so many people in it. In fact, LA is crowded with players. Other areas around the world are packed with players but it’s the starting areas that are jammed with players. So in short, Borlis Pass server is alive and kicking!

Wonder why everyone abandoned Stormbluff then considering it was tier 1. I’m beginning to think the whole guesting thing wasn’t the best idea for the game afterall, especially considering WvW, but that’s for another topic.

My server (Desolation) is very busy. Or at least it always seems that way to me.

Some areas seem empty at first glance, but as soon as an event starts, even a small one, someone will call it out in map chat and people appear from all over to join in. As for LA I honestly can’t remember the last time I went there and wasn’t in an overflow at first. Often there seem to be multiple overflows (although I realise that isn’t directly related to my server since they’re shared.)

It all depends on the server you are playing in. However, a lot of players are now at level 80 and, therefore, are mostly in level 80 areas, dungeons, or meta events.

Play on Tarnished coast, there are people everywhere. I’m serious. It’s the place to be.

Quiet server? Plenty of people on Desolation at ‘normal’ times of the day for the area (EU).

Sometimes I think Overflow does too good of a job in LA. I don’t see very many people there, but I know there are many more that I can’t see. WvW is actually very popular on some servers, resulting in all maps being queued.

Of course many players reside in Dungeons and sPvP as well.

I don’t see this problem on Sanctum of Rall…. and I’m working on map completion in alternate race’s starting zones. I run into groups of people all the time. Not swarming like they do for events in Orr, but there are people playing on all the maps.

It all depends on what time you log on, if it’s in the dead of the night you wont find many people if it’s at 7 pm there will be a lot. TC is the place to be I agree.

DuskTwilight.4862:

Wonder why everyone abandoned Stormbluff then considering it was tier 1. I’m beginning to think the whole guesting thing wasn’t the best idea for the game afterall, especially considering WvW, but that’s for another topic.

Guesting doesn’t have any effect on WvW.

You will want to go to Tarnished coast if you want PvE and go to Anvil for PvP if you are NA. Most other servers are pretty barren in PvE and overall PvP is dead. Not sure what WvW is like on any server though.

Anvil Rock here…appears fine to me

I do wish that people had the option to switch servers once a week for their first month, though.

Maybe you are just in the wrong timezone or something.

I’m playing on SFR (Seafarer’s Rest EU) from sweden, its a medium population server, but its loaded with people everywhere. I recently leveled a warrior to 80 and I always bumped into people. Orr is alive (well except for the risen) at 80, people everywhere. LA always puts me in the overflow (SFR LA is full).

My suggestion to you would be switching servers.

I’m always in the LA overflows; so I can only assume FA’s pop is still decent.

Yeah no issues here either. Tons of people in 80 zones, queues for WvW during primetime and always overflow in LA. This is on Seafarer’s Rest a medium server.

Vorch.2985:

Anvil Rock here…appears fine to me

I do wish that people had the option to switch servers once a week for their first month, though.

Theres guesting though which seems useful while the transfer is a bit pricey in my opinion so yes I partially agree with you there

There should be a one time free transfer use

Stormbluff Island. It’s quiet, but not declined as far as I can tell? Aside from the guilds who were doing WvW having moved on. Someone who knows more than I can get into that, I still see people around and get into conversations from time to time. Just there’s a higher concentration towards “peak times” than during the rest of the day as there sometimes was.

Another issue for not seeing people could also actually be culling – at least for places like LA. You just don’t see people until you’re nearly sitting on top of them sometimes, because they don’t render.

Of course time of day matters, and server matters, and area matters. There are always plenty of people in, say, Queensdale, but not so much in Bloodtide Coast.

The mid level areas will always be sparse. That’s with every mmo like ever.

Gates of Madness tends to have a lot on. I always seem to see more low levels under 30 on than 80s.

Poledo.3256:

Play on Tarnished coast, there are people everywhere. I’m serious. It’s the place to be.

Just don’t bother going into WvW on Tarnished Coast right now.

I switched to Tarnished Coast right before they put in a fee for world transfers because i had mixed feelings about Sea Of Sorrows. I liked being #1 in WvW, but i don’t really like WvW anymore. I find it boring and tedious, with very little to engage new players or players that just jump in alone. It’s a very flawed game mode and i think that it just doesn’t work. I much prefer the tightness of Alliance Battles in GW1. Every build and team composition seemed to matter, whereas, in GW2, classes and roles are extremely homogenized almost to the point of nullified purpose outside of flavor. Add in all the gold sinks, the lack of structure, and the long travel time, it’s just not fun for me, i dont understand how anyone short of a zerg guild member would enjoy it.

Anyways, sorry for the rant, but i saw people talking about TC as a utopia while i was in SoS, so in a fit of panic, i abandoned SoS to go to TC in an attempt to salvage my, up till then, solo MMO experience into a true MMO experience.

Long story short, TC really is all that and a bag of chips…i mean, there’s always people…everywhere. Easily the best population for PvE in this game. And let’s face it, this is no GW1, the pvp in GW2 sucks and WvW is horribly premature. TC is where it’s at.

Creeper.9360:

The mid level areas will always be sparse. That’s with every mmo like ever.

This… Other than mid level areas, Aurora Glade is doing pretty fine.

It’s hard to get into some of the more popular events on extremely busy servers. I’m on Eredon Terrence. I haven’t been to the mid level areas recently, that’s true, but, the beginner zones and high level zones are always packed.

Every week someone else posts this. Easiest answer: Look at gw2lfg.com. That’s just the people looking for dungeon groups. Add in the people playing wvw, spvp, and general PvE.

26 zones, 5 cities, 9 dungeons. 3 wvwvw maps. I have no idea how sPvp works but there’s a ton of people just in the starting area. Multiply that by the 51 servers (27 EU, 24 NA.)

That’s a lot of peoples. Just because you don’t see many people doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.

The game has lost a large number of players since launch but numbers appear to have stabilised in recent weeks. I wouldn’t expect a large influx of new players anytime soon, whether player numbers go back to declining or grow will be determined by whether Anet starts giving players what they’re asking for. They sure haven’t so far.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that an (unofficial) RP server might see a fair number more PvErs and a stronger social atmosphere. As an RPer (sorta kinda) I feel that PvEing and progressing my character for the sake of progressing will just lead to burn out, isolationism, elitism, etc. RPing introduces another element with no tangible progress: socializing. That aspect kind of breathes life into an MMO more so than simply grouping up for dungeons or mobbing together to kill a swamp ghost ever will.

The player base is doing the same thing that has happened in every mmo. Players burn through the content and the developer makes bad decisions that drives off more players, they don’t fix bugs and also don’t fix glaringly obvious class balance issues so a large amount of the players leave the game.

This game has a healthy population and tons of content but I’m definitely not a fan of B2P games or F2P mmos with a cash shop after playing this.

It’s not so much that the playerbase is shrinking, but more due to where players are allocated.

I see players all the time, I must spend most of my time in overflows and queues :S

I even see a lot of people in the mid leveling zones :S

Is the player base declining? That’s a fairly easy to answer question: yes.

Their sales dropped off tremendously after the first month. They went from selling two million copies in two weeks….to just recently breaking three million back in January. And it’s known that the player base was already in decline as early as November, given the reactions to changes being made at that time and the subsequent damage control rush from the devs following the event.

Now it’s technically not all doom and gloom. According to Colin, their numbers “went up” after the holidays….though to be fair, that could mean anything since he didn’t specify how much that “increase” was. However, if we’re to take the home page’s most recent announcement as evidence of a problem, I’m guessing that their sales are doing badly enough that they’re starting to get really worried.

So, yes, the game’s in decline. I don’t think it’ll be enough of a decline that the game keels over and dies, necessarily, but it’s certainly not on pace to compete with WoW either.

I’m just waiting to see the Feb 26th patch. The January patch was laughable, and the big WvW patch we were told about has both been pushed back and downscaled (not a good combination). Basically, this patch needs to set the groundwork for serious revamps of the skill and gameplay system, and bringing Engineers, Necromancers, and Rangers up to par. I’m gonna go ahead and write off the living story thing if the the fetch quest prologue was anything to go by, and they’ve already said we aren’t getting serious WvW updates. For their sake, this update needs to be substantial.

The Spiral King.2483:

I’m just waiting to see the Feb 26th patch. The January patch was laughable, and the big WvW patch we were told about has both been pushed back and downscaled (not a good combination). Basically, this patch needs to set the groundwork for serious revamps of the skill and gameplay system, and bringing Engineers, Necromancers, and Rangers up to par. I’m gonna go ahead and write off the living story thing if the the fetch quest prologue was anything to go by, and they’ve already said we aren’t getting serious WvW updates. For their sake, this update needs to be substantial.

Bringing Engis, Necros, and Rangers up to par? I’ll believe it when I see it.

I’m on Anvil Rock, we seem to be pretty active both in pve and pvp. When in LA, I often end up in overflow, which means people are definitely playing.

Also I think not as many people go to LA. I often use WvW home base as a place to access my bank and vendors, then logoff/on to get back to where I was, saves coin and time… I don’t think I’m the only one who does that.

Farzo.8410:

I see players all the time, I must spend most of my time in overflows and queues :S

I even see a lot of people in the mid leveling zones :S

They need to remove some servers. WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too many. The game is not popular enough for the amount of servers we have.

I started playing at launch, and I find the population (PvE wise, I don’t PvP) to be very good still. Not quite as full-to-the-gills in the newbie areas, but still plenty of people. To my eyes, it seems like the initial launch-frenzy has simply died down, leaving a nice healthy population. I was playing in the Kessex Hills this afternoon and always had someone around to do skill points with, help fight veterans, etc.

I’m sure some servers have declined in population more than others though, I happen to be on Tarnished Coast.

I honestly feel that any decline in the player base can be directly attributed to the structureless feel of grouping, how everything seems to deteriorate into a shallow, mindless, and skill-less zergfest. Also how classes are structured…no direct healer to change up the role paradigm…all we have are classes that are largely homogenized with only flavor distinctions rather than tangible, effectual, and precise roles. Encounters are extremely poor, dungeons aren’t designed with any of the skill system depth in mind, and we have glaring problems with the combat depth. This game honestly feels like they took a great idea with Dynamic Events, but really dropped the ball everywhere else. The way i see it, if they dont address class balance, add more depth and specialization to combat roles and by association, encounters, add more skills, more stuff that people actually get excited about…if they spruce up the guild features..stop messing up existing structures and destroying the population with dumb design flaws (you’re going to gate content for GUILDS behind a population / activity threshold in a casual game that doesn’t even require trinity mechanics much less even playing meaningfully with other players? Really?)…People don’t want this kind of contrived trash. People want more combat depth, more reason to actually play the game with each other and together. I think it’s pretty obvious by now that this game isn’t gonna go anywhere unless they add a ton more depth to the gameplay, traits, and skill systems. In my opinion, this game should have been designed with a direct healer class, it would have been so much better and easier to design awesome content for. Plus, ESO seems to be heading that route…it will have WvW-like pvp on a mega server, Dynamic events, and also a trinity design structure which altogether will crush this game’s population if they pull it off.

The playerbase is NOT declining.

Anet have said the playerbase is growing at a steady pace and this has been the case since launch and I believe them, on the evidence if you go anywhere that is known to attract players there are hordes of them…

Borlis Pass is very busy. Believe it or not but everyday there’s always something to do. Also, there are alot of players in starting areas, different locations, racial cities, WvW, SPvP, dungeons and LA.

In short, Borlis Pass is still kicking!

Borlis Pass is very busy. Believe it or not but everyday there’s always something to do. Also, there are alot of players in starting areas, different locations, racial cities, WvW, SPvP, dungeons and LA.

In short, Borlis Pass is still kicking!

lothefallen.7081:

I honestly feel that any decline in the player base can be directly attributed to the structureless feel of grouping, how everything seems to deteriorate into a shallow, mindless, and skill-less zergfest. Also how classes are structured…no direct healer to change up the role paradigm…all we have are classes that are largely homogenized with only flavor distinctions rather than tangible, effectual, and precise roles. Encounters are extremely poor, dungeons aren’t designed with any of the skill system depth in mind, and we have glaring problems with the combat depth. This game honestly feels like they took a great idea with Dynamic Events, but really dropped the ball everywhere else. The way i see it, if they dont address class balance, add more depth and specialization to combat roles and by association, encounters, add more skills, more stuff that people actually get excited about…if they spruce up the guild features..stop messing up existing structures and destroying the population with dumb design flaws (you’re going to gate content for GUILDS behind a population / activity threshold in a casual game that doesn’t even require trinity mechanics much less even playing meaningfully with other players? Really?)…People don’t want this kind of contrived trash. People want more combat depth, more reason to actually play the game with each other and together. I think it’s pretty obvious by now that this game isn’t gonna go anywhere unless they add a ton more depth to the gameplay, traits, and skill systems. In my opinion, this game should have been designed with a direct healer class, it would have been so much better and easier to design awesome content for. Plus, ESO seems to be heading that route…it will have WvW-like pvp on a mega server, Dynamic events, and also a trinity design structure which altogether will crush this game’s population if they pull it off.

I diagree that roles are needed. Healers are an obsolete system. They cover the mistakes of other players. Support can be provided in many ways that provide depth to gameplay.

-Creating a barrier that allies can hide behind for line of sight.
-Creating a bubble that allies can run into to shield themselves.
-Creating a cloaking field that allies can run into for stealth.

Combat depth is badly needed in Guild Wars 2 for ALL professions, not just some. In addition, the content needs to be actually challenging and rewarding for it to mean something.