Guild Wars 2

since you (Anet) decided to add “ascended” gear?

and also how is your (the players that read this) guild experience going? because the guild i was apart of went from about 70 members to about 6 active users.

just curious.

My guild is growing, prob because I am not on a ‘full’ server and I’m betting we get a lot of the new players.

Going good, still takes about 13 seconds to get a pug to run with our 4 man group in fractals. Normal dungeons take maybe 5 minutes to find a pug, but that is to be expected since fractals are newer.

How is failing at being a doom and gloom bear going? Why not just play the game if you like it? Or do you only play what other people like?

More people playing during the holidays it is to be expected. Even though they are mostly antisocial, they are still there.

My partner and I are on a non-full server (high population at the most). There are people around all the time. New people during the holiday of course, but it was like this even before the holidays.

I noticed that if someone asks for help and linking way points at the same time, droves of people show up to help out. If there’s a big meta even going on, people will show up after the fight, but will show up.

I have a hard time finding things to solo, someone always come along to help We may have just lucked out on this wonderful little server :P

Its just your guild then

My guild has been around since bwe and we still have at least 40 members on at once playing and even during the weeee hours of the morning when the sun just gets up we have at least 30 members on..

Also we dungeons all day, they don’t like fractals which is okay, I pug that any ways.

Mines closer to ten. Tho i never see them like i did in the beginning I think they have other games they are supporting. Mine used to have about 40 people.

it used to not be like this at all. I think people aren’t even leveling alts because of the ascended gear, the focus on Fotm and the lack of reward from time spent.

If anything, it’s been better for me – made new friends in the fractals and even though they aren’t in my guilds or even on my server, they are on my friends list for future runs and activities. I never have trouble finding a group or doing anything that I want to do! Also, I love my new Ascended gear. As a super casual* player, I’ve been able to get to get to Fractal level 17, get a total of four Acsended rings – two Ascended rings infused and in use (with the good infusions, not the cheap vendor ones), nearly complete my Ascended back piece, make over 100g (spent a good amount on the infusions and unbreakable bell), and start getting my character (engineer) equipped with exotics.

I really, truly do not understand how people (who I assume play more than I do) are having so much trouble with things…

*EDIT: I define super casual as playing a couple hours every other or third night.

Mag Li.2581:

I noticed that if someone asks for help and linking way points at the same time, droves of people show up to help out. If there’s a big meta even going on, people will show up after the fight, but will show up.

I’ve noticed this a lot as well. Wish more people would get in this habit. Makes things a lot more social and fun IMO.

My guild is very active with anywhere from 60-100 ppl on at any given time. You can look at the guild history tab to see how many people are logging on each day, we get ~250 people a day logging in.

360 members in the guild

Karizee.8076:

My guild is very active with anywhere from 60-100 ppl on at any given time. You can look at the guild history tab to see how many people are logging on each day, we get ~250 people a day logging in.

360 members in the guild

You mean you get 25 people logging in a day, when holiday events are around.

Khallis.5708:

since you (Anet) decided to add “ascended” gear?

and also how is your (the players that read this) guild experience going? because the guild i was apart of went from about 70 members to about 6 active users.

just curious.

Interesting because my guild of 150 members usually has around 30-60 on given the time of day.

Just because your guild fell apart doesn’t represent anything really.

No real way to tell now during the holiday seasons. Many MMOs, even the half dead ones will experience a surge in numbers during these times.

Plus GW2 was recently on sale so many new players bought the game for $20 to see what the game was about.

I did notice that guilds with vet players are becoming more inactive while those newbie guilds in Queensdale are booming. That could explain why different people are experiencing different things. What happens after the holiday season though is anyone’s guess.

Sure, there’s probably a bump in play for the holidays, but I’ve never had any trouble before that either…

My guild has only gotten bigger, kinda sucks because the plan was only to go for a 50 man guild but we had to rase our cap to let more in because friends and family have started playing

Our guild is growing fast with many people playing each day. Lots of new comers as well from the holidays. It’s been great!

Sanctum of Rall queued in all 3 BLs and a 2 hour wait for EB.

We’re doing good OP, thanks for asking!

OPs experience is anecdotal and little else.

Rynarx.6124:

No real way to tell now during the holiday seasons. Many MMOs, even the half dead ones will experience a surge in numbers during these times.

Plus GW2 was recently on sale so many new players bought the game for $20 to see what the game was about.

I did notice that guilds with vet players are becoming more inactive while those newbie guilds in Queensdale are booming. That could explain why different people are experiencing different things. What happens after the holiday season though is anyone’s guess.

I’m guessing there’ll be less activity soon after, and then another huge influx of people when the Jan patch hits, especially those who took a break. But, there might not be less activity because of all the new players coming in during Christmas.

First of all, there’s NO need to jump down the guys throat for asking a question born of his own personal anecdotal experience, his guild up and bloody disappeared on him and he’s perfectly entitled to ask those questions imho.

Makes me sick to see such aggression and simultaneously curious as to what’s motivating said aggression, aside from FEAR.

Hellkaiser.6025:

First of all, there’s NO need to jump down the guys throat for asking a question born of his own personal anecdotal experience, his guild up and bloody disappeared on him and he’s perfectly entitled to ask those questions imho.

Makes me sick to see such aggression and simultaneously curious as to what’s motivating said aggression, aside from FEAR.

Actually, most posts on this forum are all about how the game is dying and how Ascended gear is scaring off people. Which is Warg crap. Comments that aren’t filled with doom and gloom aren’t necessarily made due to fear.

about 40% of the population is left since Aug 25. The ascend gear cost them aprox 30% at the time.
But the game continues to bleed people out at a fast rate.
Pve – Orr and all other zones are dead.
Dungeons dead uless it is fractals.
Pvp/Tpvp on life support at the moment
WvW a huge mess and outside of EB no one on those maps unless a T1.
The game is in trouble and Anet continue to make bad decisions.

Poor OP, wanted a rage thread, only got replies about how much fun people are having, and how well populated things are.

Poor OP indeed.

The people that are left in the game are those who still like doing what they are currently doing, but it’s true that the world does feel a little empty nowadays. It wasn’t as thriving as it used to be.

Narkosys.5173:

about 40% of the population is left since Aug 25. The ascend gear cost them aprox 30% at the time.
But the game continues to bleed people out at a fast rate.
Pve – Orr and all other zones are dead.
Dungeons dead uless it is fractals.
Pvp/Tpvp on life support at the moment
WvW a huge mess and outside of EB no one on those maps unless a T1.
The game is in trouble and Anet continue to make bad decisions.

Made up percentages. Gotta love ’em!

My experience:
Orr: Always people running around, forming farming groups and doing events
Dungeons: No problem getting parties for most, except maybe the story modes
sPvP: Did you even play it?
WvW: Can’t comment on that myself as I rarely play it, but friends of mine are in an active alliance and can hardly stop talking about the fights they have.

It does seem our experiences differ greatly.

Ryltair.2857:

Hellkaiser.6025:

First of all, there’s NO need to jump down the guys throat for asking a question born of his own personal anecdotal experience, his guild up and bloody disappeared on him and he’s perfectly entitled to ask those questions imho.

Makes me sick to see such aggression and simultaneously curious as to what’s motivating said aggression, aside from FEAR.

Actually, most posts on this forum are all about how the game is dying and how Ascended gear is scaring off people. Which is Warg crap. Comments that aren’t filled with doom and gloom aren’t necessarily made due to fear.

And you base this on an assumption that he’s not just asking out of a legitimate desire to know and just being a smart alec?

By all means, you may be right but it’s still a bit of an assumption to respond to him with such aggression.

Peetee.9406:

Sanctum of Rall queued in all 3 BLs and a 2 hour wait for EB.

We’re doing good OP, thanks for asking!

Yeah… no. I left SoR weeks ago because it’s so inactive. (Like most worlds)

My guild is growing rapidly and we are having more fun than we’ve ever had since the game launched.

The guild I’m part of is a casual one and it has solid numbers Perhaps the guilds who have lost players lost interest in the particular aspect of the game or just dislike it. Too bad becuase there is other things to do other than running FotM.

Narkosys.5173:

about 40% of the population is left since Aug 25. The ascend gear cost them aprox 30% at the time.
But the game continues to bleed people out at a fast rate.
Pve – Orr and all other zones are dead.
Dungeons dead uless it is fractals.
Pvp/Tpvp on life support at the moment
WvW a huge mess and outside of EB no one on those maps unless a T1.
The game is in trouble and Anet continue to make bad decisions.

Just because you keep repeating it doesn’t make it true.

My server is doing great OP, we have built up a very nice community since some people have been playing there since the betas.

There has also been a huge influx of new people that started even before the holidays so I see new players around all the time and it is nice to see them talking in map chat because everything is shiny and exciting and they are having a blast.
Leveling alts are great because of this, I’m leveling 4 atm.

Can’t say about guilds since I have a family guild- I do know that some of the more WvWvW guilds have switched servers but that had a positive effect since the server is now very PvE open world focused

Nayru.4537:

Peetee.9406:

Sanctum of Rall queued in all 3 BLs and a 2 hour wait for EB.

We’re doing good OP, thanks for asking!

Yeah… no. I left SoR weeks ago because it’s so inactive. (Like most worlds)

Are you kidding? SoR is super active. I never have trouble finding groups for whatever, and I always see people out in the world.

Asglarek.8976:

rickets.1386:

Going good, still takes about 13 seconds to get a pug to run with our 4 man group in fractals. Normal dungeons take maybe 5 minutes to find a pug, but that is to be expected since fractals are newer.

How is failing at being a doom and gloom bear going? Why not just play the game if you like it? Or do you only play what other people like?

Dude you might want to check your fanboism nobody was casting any doom or gloom scenarios but it is obvious you never leave Lions Arch what a sad little person you must be.

And it’s obvious you haven’t been playing the game very much, because I’ve seen a lot of people running around in the starting areas while I was playing on my new mesmer character. A hell of a lot more people than I was seeing over a month ago when the game was supposedly “perfect” and Ascended-less.

Fiennes.9568:

OPs experience is anecdotal and little else.

So is everybody else´s.

Quite frankly the starter areas should be overrun maybe even on par with the launch, due to the Holiday sales and the free time available to the general populace.

Is that what every body is seeing?

Or are you guys just proud that the numbers aren´t declining, during a time when they should actually steeply rise?

Honestly, my interest is purely academic at this point, as I don´t see why to play a game that needs much more bugfixing(FPS issues; broken hearts), design polishing(ORR . ) and punishes me for actually playing it(DR).
But it´s still interesting to read about it.

Until ANet releases numbers we won’t ever know.

But the fact they are keeping that nice and discreet is not a good sign.

I would love to see what FotM did to the number of active players.

HawkMeister.4758:

So is everybody else´s.

Quite frankly the starter areas should be overrun maybe even on par with the launch, due to the Holiday sales and the free time available to the general populace.

Is that what every body is seeing?

Or are you guys just proud that the numbers aren´t declining, during a time when they should actually steeply rise?

Not really.

Every MMO’s population in this generation starts to decline rather rapidly about a month out of release and eventually settle down at a much lower number than the original sales figures by about the 3-5 month mark. Holiday sales would not buck that trend much if at all.

Honestly, my interest is purely academic at this point

No it’s not, you’re just like all of the other people in here who are posting doom and gloom because the game did something to kitten you off, and you can’t fathom why other people could possibly still enjoy something that you no longer enjoy.

If you no longer have any interest in playing the game, fine, then go do something else and leave these forums for those of us who are still having fun.

Busting at the seams on my server.

Hitting overflow at 8am PST. How many other MMOs have this kind of traffic?

My Guild is growing quite well. We have a strict Rep only rule and we capped ourselves at 100. This allows us to kinda make note of people who we haven’t seen play in a while. Those who havent played get kicked and we find a new user who wishes to join. it has allowed us to be pretty active. Plus the guild leaders need to take it upon themselves to make things interesting. I am always trying to organise things with guildies. Not just doing dungeons, but fun things like parties or Dynamic Event runs.

I have noticed a distinct up-tick in newbie characters on SoS, whether this is merely regular players taking advantage of the break to mess about with alts, or actual new players, is not easily determined. I know a lot of people are asking questions in chat so my feeling (right or wrong) is that there are a good number of new people.

I would also echo what, critickitten has said and further remind people we are in a different era of gaming now. Most of us are dabbling in several games OR moving on quickly as new things are released. The mere fact that GW2 is still drawing many people back on a daily basis, in high numbers or not, is pretty cool. If ANet expected to keep more than a modest concurrency, they didn’t understand the market.

Karizee.8076:

Busting at the seams on my server.

Hitting overflow at 8am PST. How many other MMOs have this kind of traffic?

Pretty much most of them are at this time of the year with the holidays.
Currently in 2 other MMOs besides GW2 (one of them supposedly to be dying) and they all are bustling with people and server queues.

Nayru.4537:

Peetee.9406:

Sanctum of Rall queued in all 3 BLs and a 2 hour wait for EB.

We’re doing good OP, thanks for asking!

Yeah… no. I left SoR weeks ago because it’s so inactive. (Like most worlds)

how is a t2 server inactive? or maybe you mean pve?

Recently leveled up a guardian and now starting an elementalist.

Every area we went through had people, 20+ coming out of no where to deal with meta events then vanishing. Some were obvious 80’s with exotics, some where obviously not.

Have yet to encounter a zone empty or not populated enough to deal with meta events and group events.

critickitten.1498:

HawkMeister.4758:

So is everybody else´s.

Quite frankly the starter areas should be overrun maybe even on par with the launch, due to the Holiday sales and the free time available to the general populace.

Is that what every body is seeing?

Or are you guys just proud that the numbers aren´t declining, during a time when they should actually steeply rise?

Not really.

Every MMO’s population in this generation starts to decline rather rapidly about a month out of release and eventually settle down at a much lower number than the original sales figures by about the 3-5 month mark. Holiday sales would not buck that trend much if at all.

Honestly, my interest is purely academic at this point

No it’s not, you’re just like all of the other people in here who are posting doom and gloom because the game did something to kitten you off, and you can’t fathom why other people could possibly still enjoy something that you no longer enjoy.

If you no longer have any interest in playing the game, fine, then go do something else and leave these forums for those of us who are still having fun.

^^^ Bought the game, has every right to post on the forums, as do those that are having fun, just because the game hasn’t PO’d u off doesn’t give you exclusivity here.

As for OP it was a question reflected by personal experience with his guild and not doom and gloom, That came in the replies by other forumites

Some paranoid people will see doom and gloom in every post asking a legitimate question as well as the those who will see fanboi-ism in any post liking or touting the game as great.

Those who like to run the same old same old time and time again for improved stat items like (love) FOTM / dungeons where as those who don’t will do whatever else there is to do. Guilds that like FOTM, the way PVP or WvWvW are doing at the moment are fine where the guilds that don’t are floundering or their members are moving on to others. That happens in all games some quicker that others.

The wilderness areas actual reality is somewhere in between both extremes. I see a lot more people in the lower end 1-30 areas in SoR these days, less in the mid 35-60 areas, above that it’s give and take.

LA is usually full and overflowing with peeps LFG/LFM FOTM xxx and nothing much else, mebby a Tixx this or that and the interspersed OTHER dungeon run.

Does all of this mean the game is thriving or dying out? Not really, all it shows is that things are dynamic, people move on, people join, some leave for good and some will come back. We will never have exact numbers of the playerbase, so speculation is all we have.

We all have our opinions on the subject of this game, don’t jump down someones throat because of a question, especially one that was well made.

Most of the people that have quit the game have probably quit the forums as well by now. I used to browse the forums daily even after I stopped playing; now that’s down to once every week or two. And I’m exceptionally slow to give up on things. But since the OP was asking for experiences, based on my last login a couple of weeks ago, my small guild of 45-members-10-to-15-logins-a-day is down to 0-1 logins a day, ie. dead.

But if ingame is lively, that’s nice; you have to be happy for the gaming industry doing well in these economic times. Maybe someone will eventually make a modern MMO for the horizontal-progression minority too.

I think it’s a bad idea to judge the game on the numbers of people in starter areas and/or typical end-game activities during a festival. A lot of people have been focusing almost exclusively on Wintersday content since the event started. You might well find Orr somewhat empty and have a harder time than usual getting a PUG for a regular dungeon, but try going into the Snowball Fight, the Jump Puzzle or even Toypocalypse and you’ll see a lot of people.

Wait until after the 3rd if you want an idea of typical game activity, when everyone goes back to what they’re usually doing.

As for guild activity mine is on Desolation – one of the first EU servers to fill up and apparently one of the ones that rarely has spaces open. Back in mid-November we did an activity check on our forum and kicked all the inactive people and tightened our recruitment requirements. Since then we’ve actually managed to increase the total membership. I wasn’t directly involved in the recruiting but we didn’t seem to have any trouble finding new people, even when asking them to represent 100% of the time.

~50 guildies online at peak times compared to ~30 when FotM was added. Doing daily AC and CoE runs + weekly baltha liberating runs.
Playing on Gunnars Hold (rather low population).

There are not many little active guilds out there, could probably count them on one hand.
It is easy for big guilds to find more active members because of that.

Hellkaiser.6025:

First of all, there’s NO need to jump down the guys throat for asking a question born of his own personal anecdotal experience, his guild up and bloody disappeared on him and he’s perfectly entitled to ask those questions imho.

Makes me sick to see such aggression and simultaneously curious as to what’s motivating said aggression, aside from FEAR.

He didn’t just ask a question he made snide remarks in a rude way…. when you rudely say something then cover it up with a kitten question at the end… well people tend to respond in the same manner.

Glad to see everyone here is enjoying the new gear grind, and that it has helped bolster GW2’s population.

Looks like, in the end, an open world gear plateau game like pre-Nov 15th GW2 is not nearly as popular as an instance grinder like the current GW2.

Looks like Arenanet chose wisely in pursuing the footsteps of WoW.

Tolmos.8395:

Glad to see everyone here is enjoying the new gear grind, and that it has helped bolster GW2’s population.

Looks like, in the end, an open world gear plateau game like pre-Nov 15th GW2 is not nearly as popular as an instance grinder like the current GW2.

Looks like Arenanet chose wisely in pursuing the footsteps of WoW.

It’s all the long-term unemployed wanting to do something that feels like work.

Waffler.1257:

Tolmos.8395:

Glad to see everyone here is enjoying the new gear grind, and that it has helped bolster GW2’s population.

Looks like, in the end, an open world gear plateau game like pre-Nov 15th GW2 is not nearly as popular as an instance grinder like the current GW2.

Looks like Arenanet chose wisely in pursuing the footsteps of WoW.

It’s all the long-term unemployed wanting to do something that feels like work.

^^ this is true lol im one of them