Guild Wars 2

I’ve been window shopping for a F2P model, I was reading about a few competitors to GW2, and the player basic is totally abysmal about those games. It seems the player base to GW2 either likes the game more or is more forgiving.

I saw someone mention the zones are deserted, which says to me there is a low server pop issue. The other thing that worries me is when one reaches max level there’s not much to do that is actually fun. Maybe I’m just reading peoples posts too cynically.

Yes posts here are not the best measure by any means. Most people around here are either totally biased for or against GW2 as a whole. People often make a lot of stuff up or engage in hyperbole and state it as fact to try to support their side of the issue.

The forum is not the most accurate source of information on the quality of the game. The best way to gather information is to play the game yourself. Personally, I’ve found the less time I spend on the forums engaging in the constant arguments the more I enjoy the game.

there are no low pop PvE servers they all share the same world WvW however is a dif beast entierly

Responding to forum posts…

This game isn’t F2P. That may seem pedantic, but it means a substantially different model under the hood. It’s Buy to Play, so there is some investment, and although the cash shop is superbly lucrative for the company by all indications and estimates, it is possible to play the game without ever spending a penny on the Gem Store.

There are people that don’t enjoy GW2. Some of them post on the forums in an attempt to persuade others that they are right and anyone who likes it is wrong. The reverse is also true.

There are some problems with GW2 because, well, perfection isn’t going to happen in this world. Also not everything will appeal to everyone. If you want PvP gankage in the open world, this is not the game for you. If you like stealing nodes and kills, this game is not for you. If you want to trash talk without getting suspended or banned, this game is not for you. ArcheAge might be, but not GW2 (and I’m not saying those are bad things. Some people really like them. I don’t, but hey — there are games out there for those people, and those games are not for me).

But if you want a gorgeous world full of detail with nooks and crannies to explore, an excellent sense of humor, a game willing to try out new paradigms (and occasionally fail badly at them), and a mostly cooperative community, then this just might be the game for you.

There are some people who post on this forum who have admitted they haven’t played in a year and a half, or more, don’t like the game, yet still post to say why they don’t like the game on threads discussing the current state of the game. Another person I saw posted to say he hasn’t played in months and only posts to argue with people who like the game.

Just be aware that negative posters might not be current players by months, or years, but for some reason can’t let go.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

There are some people who post on this forum who have admitted they haven’t played in a year and a half, or more, don’t like the game, yet still post to say why they don’t like the game on threads discussing the current state of the game. Another person I saw posted to say he hasn’t played in months and only posts to argue with people who like the game.

Just be aware that negative posters might not be current players by months, or years, but for some reason can’t let go.

And there have been several people that posted often saying they no longer play, hate the game, constantly bash everything about the game, and say they will never play again that I added to my friends list out of curiosity. Many of them are logged in a lot for people that quit.

It just goes to show that some people just like the attention they get from being negative.

In my opinion – the game is a kitten ed good value. It has a lot to recommend it. At this point anyone (including me) who plays the game currently and has played since day 1 (again, including me) can’t really disagree with that (otherwise why would they still be playing?.

On the other hand I would say that counter to what you’ve read above much of the criticism of ANet and GW2 is justified at least to some extent and sometimes what you see is a very tempered version of the criticism they’ve earned. ANet has a bad habit of making bad choices about direction and important aspects of the game. Some examples – temporary content in season 1 of the living story, the April 2014 trait system and the follow-up “New Character Experience”) which they then have to go back and either in part or whole undo, repair what they broke, refine or revamp what they did, or just tweak until its twerked (is that even a word?). Its great to experiment but sometimes not so great to be experimented on.

They also have perhaps one of the most abysmal communication policies of any business I’ve ever dealt with. Recent case in point – the beta key that was supposed to drop from mobs in Silverwastes and Dry Top ended . . . maybe . . . according to GW2 twitter (or was it some other social media?) but nothing official has been posted on the forums say like on the “News and Announcements” page where something like that should be . . . so who knows. Treating your customers like mushrooms (being kept in the dark and fed kitten) is never a good idea.

Bottom Line: You’ll get your money’s worth but you may occasionally want to scream at your screen.

Forum posts are generally not representative of the entire player base. Generally, they are a minute percentage of the total. I believe that one of the EU Forum reps made a statement that active forum users are about 1% of the total population.

Also, that small percentage is unlikely to be a true cross-section of the entire player-base. There is also the issue of selection bias, specifically both under-coverage bias (certain demographics are either not represented or are under-represented on the forums) and voluntary response bias (those who have strong feelings about topics are over-represented).

In other words, the forums do not necessarily represent what you’ll experience in the game.

There are two places in the GW2 community you should not listen to. The forum, because its full of cynical people who have never seen the light of day, and the GW2 Twitch Community, because its full of fools who hate the game, yet insist on playing it.

If you want an accurate representation of the game, play it yourself.

Its quite simple really. Unlike most f2p games – and DLC heavy b2p games – there is nothing really scummy and greedy about GW2 and its gameplay mechanics. Sure there is a cashshop but its not p2w. Pay to be fabulous and pay for convieniance is what its about. But even then the cashshop is playing nice because you can buy gems for gold. With a fixed level cap, you can come back after a year and get into the game in hours.

All in all, this leads to a remarkably… relaxed… community. Worst cases are the class balance complaints, but if you look at their individual forums its always their class thats bad and everyone else is OP. So its not so bad.

GW2 has always felt like a unique game in this regards. During christmas I took a break for Archeage and that was just uuuuuuuuugh… People say that the WvW community is poisonous due to lack of attention but they are still a pack of cute cuddly kittens in comparison.

I’ve tried many, many, many MMOs over the last few years. I pretty much quit them all after a month or two max, depending on the game, and in some cases a few days or weeks.

Guild Wars 2 has held my attention for almost three years now.

I’m not saying it’s the best thing since sliced bread, but take the negative commentary with a grain of salt. Yet I will say it’s definitely worth a try.

Anyone who tells you there’s nothing wrong with this game is lying to themselves. But compared to every other MMO I’ve tried, this one has more right by percentage, for my play style anyway, than any of the others.

Negative forum posters are broken up into, in my mind, three groups.

1. People who legitimately want the game to be better.
2. People who feel disenfranchised by the game and have given up on it, but still come here to vent because they wanted a different game.
3. People who post what they post just to get a reaction. People, rightly, call them trolls.

There are probably less trolls over all than there are the other two categories, but that’s just my opinion.

Of course, if you’re happy playing the game, there’s very little reason to come here.

If you can find it on sale get it. It´s still the best BUY2play model out there.

The core gamers loyal to this game that have stuck to it for 3 long years now, are a certain breed and should be best left alone IMHO.
We “returned vets” are another that came back lured in by the Expansion hype and find the game virtually unchanged.
So we dare to voice this minor grievance, thus somehow personally insulting the former group.
So basically the typical forum drama, best keep out of it and try not reading too much into it.

See for yourself and if you don´t like it, it´s not a big deal either.
Most likely you have a much bigger pile of cash burried in your Steam chest of games that you don´t play much too.

darbok.3752:

I’ve been window shopping for a F2P model, I was reading about a few competitors to GW2, and the player basic is totally abysmal about those games. It seems the player base to GW2 either likes the game more or is more forgiving.

I saw someone mention the zones are deserted, which says to me there is a low server pop issue. The other thing that worries me is when one reaches max level there’s not much to do that is actually fun. Maybe I’m just reading peoples posts too cynically.

The starterzones have plenty of players, both old and new. I still see plenty of new unguilded players running around. Older player have a reason to go back too to do dailes.

Also, the game works with a megaserver system. That means that it closes overflows once they get low on population, and shunts those players to other overflows. This basically guarantees that there’s always a decent population on a map.

I think you might be refering to WvW, where some servers have more PvE players, which affects the WvW (open world pvp in a separate series of maps) population there. PvE wise there’s plenty people everywhere.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

There are some people who post on this forum who have admitted they haven’t played in a year and a half, or more, don’t like the game, yet still post to say why they don’t like the game on threads discussing the current state of the game. Another person I saw posted to say he hasn’t played in months and only posts to argue with people who like the game.

Just be aware that negative posters might not be current players by months, or years, but for some reason can’t let go.

And there have been several people that posted often saying they no longer play, hate the game, constantly bash everything about the game, and say they will never play again that I added to my friends list out of curiosity. Many of them are logged in a lot for people that quit.

It just goes to show that some people just like the attention they get from being negative.

That is hilarious. XD

OP, don’t take the qq of a few disappointed haters who can’t let go. (Could you imagine those people in relationships? Yeesh! I’d call the cops.) GW2 has the best community I’ve encountered in an MMO. There might not be “a lot to do,” in a formal sense, but there’s a ton of goals short and long you can dig into, once you get past the notion that “raids and trinity play are required.”

Only 1% of the GW2 players are posting on the forums was said by our german CM
a while ago. So whatever you read here is the oppinion of a very small minority,
and mostly people go to the forums if they have to complain about something.

The other 99% are maybe just happy to play the game

Truly, this game is a lot of fun and I think the devs truly give a kitten about what its players want. The community (in-game, not the forums) are friendly, helpful and will go out of their way to help new players. If you catch me online, hit me up and I’ll help you get started with some bags, gold, and gear.

Myrden.2456:

The community (in-game, not the forums) are friendly, helpful and will go out of their way to help new players.

At least in the open world ..

Almost every MMO forums is the same, mostly negative with white knights and trolls. So really its just sorting out the whining from the grandstanding to compare.

This game is a jack of all trades, master of none type game. It has little to no restrictions on types of gameplay regardless of if its sPvP, WvW, Dungeons, but also has little purpose or consequences outside of repetition. Make note there is no real “endgame” outside of a few 80 zones, pretty much anything you can do pre-level cap, you will be doing post level cap, endgame is really cosmetics.

While personally I’ve been having fun with this game, I don’t see how people can play it regularly since release or even for 1+ years. So to me it was worth the cost and is better than most F2Ps, but isn’t anything special tbh, and really doesn’t have much staying power.

Post 80 there is a fair amount of things to do. However, IMO, the most repeatable long term content is WvW. I haven’t seen anything like it in any other game, although people say it’s similar to the Dark Age of Camelot content.

This means you need to chose your starting server with a little care. I’m currently on a T1 server (see http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups or http://mos.millenium.org/eu/matchups). I can’t really judge other tiers, and people enjoy different things.

In my experience, the higher the tier the more big fights you see, the lower the tier the more small scale roaming you see. When I was in T6 my experience was mostly getting ganked by thief groups.

I would recommend trying a tier 1 or tier 2 sever. Other people can chime in in favor of lower tiers.

I read somewhere in some blizzard statistics that about 1-5% of the player population actually posts on the forum, no reason why GW would be any different.
So the best advice I can give you is to play the game and read the wiki.

It’s worth the money, just don’t expect it to blow your mind as a MMO.

Since you bought the account (you can’t post without one) you might as well go in game and look around.

It’s far from as bad as the forums make it sound. Most people come here to post “constructive” criticism or feedback on changes/things they would like changed or improved.

The problem is very few players who enjoy playing the game come here to post “great job keep it up”, “Love the game” etc. There are a few of those threads floating around out there, it’s just people are more likely to complain when they don’t like something vs praise something on a public form when they do like it.

The game is worth a try, especially if you get it on one the sales. Dont let the forums dissuade you.

We’re only 1% of the population, and most of us are here because we personally have an issue with the game.

The rest of us are browsing because we cant be in game.

If you already bought the game play it and draw your own conclusions, if you don’t, wait for the next 75% off, they you might not get frustrated, it was just 10 bucks.

If you wanna a comparison hop on FFXIV forums (both games have about same number of active players), in my opinion the only successful release after gw2, you’ll see the forums dont have as near many complaints as you see in gw2’s, so forums are a good reflection of how the game goes.

Game is actually quite populated. Forums can be deceiving to go by. I haven’t said this about other games in the past but this one does really start once you hit the max level. The reason I say that is that you can play all the content at max level with the system’s ability to downscale the player to the zone. I admit I am a somewhat avid gamer and since I am not a fan of sleeping spend about 40+ (on top of 50 for work) hours a week in game and still end running out of time and having more things to do. Now mind you I play all the game modes and some made up ones including, WvW, PvP, PvE, Crafting, Fraggle Rock (Fractals), Dungeons and the Trading Post (yes I consider that a game of its own). Now won’t deny really looking forward to the expansion but there is still a lot to do if you are in a mind to do it. Though there are downsides to the megeserver tech in some regards it was a great move to allow the game to keep zones filled with people and quite often multiples of the same zone. Have seen world boss’s where a five man have been split across 5 different instances of the same map (due to people showing up late mind you) when the boss timer triggered.

Considering its a one time buy with optional transactions after that its worth the try in my book. In any case, good gaming to you, and if we see you in game, Good Hunting!

Khalisto.5780:

you’ll see the forums dont have as near many complaints as you see in gw2’s, so forums are a good reflection of how the game goes.

Forums are a reflection on how vocal a minority of players are about things they dislike.

If you look at it as a whole many of the complaint posts here are actually duplicates or suggestions to “improve” that have been suggested many times be for. The forums are not post on by the majority of players, as such they are not a good reflection of the majority of players feelings about the game.

Kind of off-topic, but really having a active but somewhat negative forum, is much better than having a almost dead but mostly positive forum. Having the latter means the game is either for the most part dead, except for die hard fans, or its way overly moderated which means there are probably issues the devs want to completely ignore. The former means people care enough about the game to “constructively” criticize it while still having a healthy base.

The state of Gw2 forums isn’t bad really, its active enough and while negative, isn’t toxic. Moderation could be a bit more lax, but they at least let threads playout before locking..

I would personally say that if you enjoy rewards GW2 is not the game for you. The psychology of why people game is a complete mystery to Arenanet honestly and while you shouldn’t follow the forums posts I would suggest looking at websites like MMORPG only for the data they collected on the server sizes per server. It has a great list showing very few playing this game right now.

Server size is at an all time low, is it any wonder why they announced an expansion?