Guild Wars 2

So I took a break and when I came back cities are ghost towns and WvW queues are instant. When I quit there were tons of people at the crafting areas and by the banks and the WvW queues took hours. While its nice getting instant queues Im just wondering why I dont see anyone in cities anymore when there used to be people everywhere.

Moved on to better things. Gets old waiting for Anet to uphold their promises…

Cause the game really doesn’t have any lasting value to it… Everything everyone was lauding in the past has now become its worse enemy: repetitive combat, repetitive gameplay, major design flaws in regards to vertical progression, etc.

Hekken.4153:

Moved on to better things. Gets old waiting for Anet to uphold their promises…

So true.

Did people not learn from mistakes made with SW:ToR and Diablo 3? I mean Trion pumps out quality stuff for Rift so fast why cant people just take after them?

Dabrixmgp.4758:

Did people not learn from mistakes made with SW:ToR and Diablo 3? I mean Trion pumps out quality stuff for Rift so fast why cant people just take after them?

It’s not about quality. It’s more about design. ArenaNet is trying to make their game appeal to everyone, so in essence the game is the jack of trades but the master of none, making for a really lackluster game that gets boring quickly.

Great visuals, great technology, kitteny design. It all comes back to design. They should have made a Guild Wars MMO, not a SW:TOR/WoW/Rift/Guild Wars mash up.

dimgl.4786:

Dabrixmgp.4758:

Did people not learn from mistakes made with SW:ToR and Diablo 3? I mean Trion pumps out quality stuff for Rift so fast why cant people just take after them?

It’s not about quality. It’s more about design. ArenaNet is trying to make their game appeal to everyone, so in essence the game is the jack of trades but the master of none, making for a really lackluster game that gets boring quickly.

Great visuals, great technology, kitteny design. It all comes back to design. They should have made a Guild Wars MMO, not a SW:TOR/WoW/Rift/Guild Wars mash up.

I wish they would make an mmo that would appeal to everyone, at least a little bit…. Sigh… every new mmo for the last couple of years have been pretty much identical, just different skins. Theme park mmo, unless they manage to completely nail the loot addiction aspect, have a very short shelf life.
I wish they once again would start adding a bit more sandbox to mmo.

Now Im not naive, I know the mmorpg of old will not make a return, with their vast freedom for the players, but just a little touch of it at least? Freedom and sandbox mode can really extend the life of an mmo even if they just add a little bit of it, anything is better then these completely locked and sealed linear worlds.

Serina.8652:

I wish they would make an mmo that would appeal to everyone, at least a little bit…. Sigh… every new mmo for the last couple of years have been pretty much identical, just different skins. Theme park mmo, unless they manage to completely nail the loot addiction aspect, have a very short shelf life.
I wish they once again would start adding a bit more sandbox to mmo.

Now Im not naive, I know the mmorpg of old will not make a return, with their vast freedom for the players, but just a little touch of it at least? Freedom and sandbox mode can really extend the life of an mmo even if they just add a little bit of it, anything is better then these completely locked and sealed linear worlds.

GW2 (IMO) could be a good sandbox MMO if Anet would move away from the grind mechanic, learn a basic reward/risk/time ratio that players feel is good (not the people in the boardroom – the players).
Solid rewards will keep players returning to old content to soak up the riches and drops; crap rewards keep players looking for new areas in which to find solid rewards.
– How many times did us old GW players run Tombs, or kill the same named over and over to get that single drop we wanted? – Add that unique skinned theme in WITH the tokens in dungeons and it would be a start.

Of course, that’s not 100% the case always, but it would help IMO.

Till then, I, like many others have more or less stopped playing very much. Nothing to do or nothing to strive for as I’m not interested in gearing up via RNG – now, if those items were for looks and not an upgrade, I would feel differently… but, eh.

Waiting to try Elder Scrolls Online and EQ Next. Figure, if I have to grind, I’ll do it in a game with grind set in from the start rather than slam head first into it at the end wondering what I just ran into.

No, this isn’t a rant; I really did enjoy GW2, just not to pleased with what they have added and less pleased with what they haven’t.

Going to play other games because this ones end game is AWFUL!!!!!!!!!!!(not really there)
SUPER REPETITIVE GAME PLAY!
-4 wep skills and 5 long cd spells super fun hour after hour?
-No progression who needs it?
-GRINDS hell ya!!!!
-no end, who needs it.
-so many bad design decisions….ya

Dabrixmgp.4758:

Did people not learn from mistakes made with SW:ToR and Diablo 3? I mean Trion pumps out quality stuff for Rift so fast why cant people just take after them?

Pumping out content fast is not the final solution. I have to give it to Trion that they are doing a good job but where are the Rift subs numbers at? Insignificant. Rift tried to beat WoW and it failed. Same as every other game that will try to beat WoW on its own turf. It wont work. Even if the game will be better, many people will still stick to WoW becouse of habit and herd mentality. WoW is an anomaly which launched with almost perfect set of circumstances. Nothing prepared will beat it head on even if subjectively it will be better. It will take another anomaly and that is something you cant plan or predict. IMO GW2 should try to secure a niche on the market and capitalize on it rather than try to wrestle with WoW by trying to “steal” the WoW crowd. The WoW crowd mostly wont even care. ANet IMO should stop trying to cater to WoW-whiners who demand raids, gear progression and such. Becouse if they try to do it, people will just come to conclusion that WoW does it better. Again, keep true to your own manifesto and maybe you will find enough people willing to stick with you. I am a GW2 active player and I plan to stay as such (in case someone will try to brand me a hater).

wookie slayer.4259:

Going to play other games because this ones end game is AWFUL!!!!!!!!!!!(not really there)
SUPER REPETITIVE GAME PLAY!
-4 wep skills and 5 long cd spells super fun hour after hour?

Becouse other MMO are so much better? You may have 30 buttons on your action bars but your raiding rotation will only use few. Hell, Arcane Mages from Cataclysm anyone?

-No progression who needs it?

Well, depends what kind of progression. Gear? Speaking for myself, I dont need it.

-GRINDS hell ya!!!!

If non mandatory, grind is 100% fine.

-no end, who needs it.

There is an end in GW2. Just very distant one. Unlike gear progression based MMO-s which do not have an end until developers decides to stop supporting it with new patches.

-so many bad design decisions….ya

There are some, true. So are in every other game. How many are good and how many are bad is subject to opinion and discussion.

There are many many MMOs out there. People play multiple MMOs at the SAME time. They will spend more time in good MMO and lesser time or not at all in lousy ones.

The initial GW2 hype has died down somewhat after player did their own “benchmarking” of GW2 against their other favourite MMOs. Those that have come into GW2 from a higher standard MMO, have probably gone back to their former MMO.

“Keep true to your own manifesto and maybe you will find enough people willing to stick with you.”

Agree!!!!

I only log here to do a few rounds of S/TPvP.

Then I go back to either Rift to mess around on my House/Dimension or LoTRO: Riders of Rohan to do my dailies and/or Skraid.

If Rift does it right, it can carve a niche for itself just off of it’s new Housing System alone. People are already comparing the Dimension System to the Housing Systems of SWG and EQ2. Basically take those, and add a dose of Minecraft – and you get the Dimension System.

Don’t listen to these kids, It’s probably just the server you’re on. Transfers are free so find a new one.

I’m on Crystal Desert, and also leveling a new character. There’s loads of people for every event (always easily 5-10, and if there’s nobody around 100% guarantee they will come if you simply ask in map chat). Lots of people in cities still, too.

Honestly on Crystal Desert (and I’m sure a lot of other servers) It’s exactly as it was on release, albeit the population is more spread instead of everyone being in low level zones, and WvW queues don’t take 5 hours.

Well I’m at work, and my internet has been buggy as hell. That might explain some things.

People are either doing fractals or quit playing. I think that covers about 80-90% of the original population. The rest will be doing some WvW, leveling an occasional alt etc.

Gehenna.3625:

People are either doing fractals or quit playing. I think that covers about 80-90% of the original population. The rest will be doing some WvW, leveling an occasional alt etc.

lol @ random %

on my server LA has always overflow
time to wait for a CoF pug run < 1 min
WvW has always ppl (sometimes too much ppl)
i’m levelling an alt and i find ppl around the world (obviously not like 3 months ago)

Daendur.2357:

Gehenna.3625:

People are either doing fractals or quit playing. I think that covers about 80-90% of the original population. The rest will be doing some WvW, leveling an occasional alt etc.

lol @ random %

on my server LA has always overflow
time to wait for a CoF pug run < 1 min
WvW has always ppl (sometimes too much ppl)
i’m levelling an alt and i find ppl around the world (obviously not like 3 months ago)

As I will freely admit, the numbers are not exact in any way, but it does seem that LA is busy because of Fractals mostly and the rest is secondary. Since WvW is capped for number of players I do not know how much of a percentage it is in reality compared to the total server population. Bottom line is that we have 4 WvW maps, Fractals and a HUGE persistent world that is more and more empty for a lot of players. It does make me wonder why so many MMOs make huge persistent worlds if they’re gonna stick people in dungeons and PvP/WvW maps anyways.

Right now there is no reason for playing in the open world maps. The loot drop tables have been ninja nerfed so people dont get almost anything from killing mobs.
The players have been channeled to fractals and dungeons, the only places with minimum rewards. Even WvWvW is a waste of time because the drops and rewards are ridiculous. sPvP is dead also, I can not imagine how they will manage to make it part of cyber games..:(
Every new player starting to level his/her first character will be very disappointed with the lack of population and will quit game fast. So, no renewal in game population and a lot of veterans leaving the game already.
I hope something is done to revet this state of affairs but I fear the worst.

which server are you playing? You should always say your server, because population shifts towards the servers who win in WvW. Desolation is starting to fill up, don’t know why I see more people online. Yesterday WvW was epic streams of reinforcements to beat back the two german servers. I was waiting for 30 min to get into EB, to DC in the first zerg to zerg battle

Dabrixmgp.4758:

So I took a break and when I came back cities are ghost towns and WvW queues are instant. When I quit there were tons of people at the crafting areas and by the banks and the WvW queues took hours. While its nice getting instant queues Im just wondering why I dont see anyone in cities anymore when there used to be people everywhere.

The game is dying extremely fast there was no compelling endgame when you took a break and there still isn’t.

Anet made the horrible mistake that Blizzard made (multiple times) during Cataclysm, which lost about two million WoW subscribers. They funneled everyone into a single instance that provided the top tier of gear and made all other content obsolete. For GW2 that will do 2 things:

First, it takes everyone out of the rest of the world since there’s no reason to farm other dungeons or events since Fractals is better. Second, it will be the game’s undoing (at least for a large chunk of the population), because people will get bored and burnt out on running the same content over and over again.

It’s sad that a game with so much potential has made so many serious mistakes this early in it’s life. GW2 had every opportunity to live up to its potential, and the devs have failed at practically every turn.

Personally with the lack of a subscription fee I don’t feel obliged to play the game several hours a day, instead when I feel like it I’ll pop on and have a blast for however long I feel like then drop off again to do something else, I imagine this is the same for many people.

Besides, I still get booted to an overflow when I enter Lion’s Arch and at peak times there’s still a WvW queue even though I’m only on a medium population server; I also meet at least a dozen people when playing in the mid level zones on my Guardian.

But of course, I’m probably either a fanboy or one of Arenanet’s propaganda drones.

Pretty much I already gave up of GW2. Currently I am looking for another MMO to play but there isn’t much that fit to my tasty.

Wagnard.4027:

Pretty much I already gave up of GW2. Currently I am looking for another MMO to play but there isn’t much that fit to my tasty.

I feel exactly the same. Right now GW2 is above waterline because the MMO offer is not that good (only older games or worst games).
I wonder what will happen when a decent MMO is released.

Yawn.

I’ve pretty sure accepted that it will never be the game I wanted it to be.

alas i’ll have to agree. I made up my mind that this game was not a dignified successor to gw1. dubious design choices and bordeline stupid balancing, and a focus on pumping out stupid events instead of fixing the metagame, pushed me out of the door.

bantapoo.1093:

alas i’ll have to agree. I made up my mind that this game was not a dignified successor to gw1. dubious design choices and bordeline stupid balancing, and a focus on pumping out stupid events instead of fixing the metagame, pushed me out of the door.

Design choices are ultimately what hurt this game the most. So many elements to the game, so few are done correctly. Dungeons are such a joke. I don’t understand how you can go from the king of instances (Guild Wars) and just take huge leaps backwards.

Only eight US servers are not listed as full. New players like myself are stuck on empty servers. It stinks.

dimgl and the blunder that is story. i loved so much gw1 story: the maps and environments, the mobs and quests all was a background to a fantastic overarching story, your story. in gw2 it is merely treated as an instanced side quest, completely disjointed from each map. how horrendous.
Instead of integrating fully in the pve, taking advantage of dynamic event system, it a simple background side quest that has 0 influence in pve, 0 influence into progressing.
WWW feels exactly the same, instead of integrating it with pve elements, like ressources, mobs etc, it just feels an instance in another world totally independant of pve.
their design choices sum up to butchery. they butchered story, pve, www into steaks and served that in distinct indigest meals.
instead of trying to correct this major design fault, they’re trying to bring interest back in pve with events. no, no that won’t get me back to your game, you failed to understand your mistakes.

Dabrixmgp.4758:

So I took a break and when I came back cities are ghost towns and WvW queues are instant. When I quit there were tons of people at the crafting areas and by the banks and the WvW queues took hours. While its nice getting instant queues Im just wondering why I dont see anyone in cities anymore when there used to be people everywhere.

They reduced the loot to trash drops, broke magic find, made it all about dungeons and nothing else, caused many classes to be unplayable by the growing bugs that never seem to get fixed, and told us everything was fine don’t worry about it.

We’re either waiting to see if they fix the problems or completely disgusted and leaving the game that’s where everyone’s gone at this point.

You’re playing it wrong OP

Ickorus.4518:

Personally with the lack of a subscription fee I don’t feel obliged to play the game several hours a day, instead when I feel like it I’ll pop on and have a blast for however long I feel like then drop off again to do something else, I imagine this is the same for many people.

Besides, I still get booted to an overflow when I enter Lion’s Arch and at peak times there’s still a WvW queue even though I’m only on a medium population server; I also meet at least a dozen people when playing in the mid level zones on my Guardian.

But of course, I’m probably either a fanboy or one of Arenanet’s propaganda drones.

No no keep going you’ve almost sold me on coming back, i feel like my disappointment was totally unjustified and wrong now

Sanctum of Rall

All 4 borderlands are still queued during NA prime. Every zone has wall to wall people everywhere, it will take you at least 30 minutes to get into Lion’s Arch if you’re in the overflow. Any dungeon you can find a group for in under 5 minutes (minus story modes).

People have consolidated into the few larger servers. Unfortunately in an effort to find 24/7 coverage for WvW the Tier 1 servers are full of displaced Europeans and Asians looking for defenders during their off hours, so those generally are not a good place to go unless those are your primary play hours.

Tarnished Coast, Crystal Desert, and Sanctum of Rall are absolutely booming with healthy North American populations and should be the target for any American based player looking to transfer.

Mystic Beaver.4795:

Don’t listen to these kids

How does one not listen to text? close your ears while you read?