Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I’ve started playing at release, and I’m now thinking of returning after a few months vacation.

How are the servers populated (and which are the more populated ones)?
Is the community active – or did the game die off (it happens so much with new releases in the last 2 years…)?
Any other advice for a returning player?

games active some servers more poped than others and as a returning player make a new character play through story get the new ascendeds slowly and just enjoy yourself the game is actually really good

first goal id have to set would be to get full exotics then after that get 30 laurels (30 dailies or 1 monthly + 20 dailies) and get an ascended amulet

Welcome back! Well which servers are populated you can see on server select alone, me myself im in a medium pop yet i got zero complaints about the ammount of people i find.

Also GW2 seems to have the best launch in recent memory and a great ammount of players have sticked around
Advice? Do your dailies and monthies :P those will allow you to have accended gear without much of a hassle while giving you lots of time to do your own thing and have fun! (you can do the dailies and monthies and have fun too ofc)

rizbliz.8579:

first goal id have to set would be to get full exotics then after that get 30 laurels (30 dailies or 1 monthly + 20 dailies) and get an ascended amulet

Gathslan.1870:

Advice? Do your dailies and monthies :P those will allow you to have accended gear without much of a hassle while giving you lots of time to do your own thing and have fun! (you can do the dailies and monthies and have fun too ofc)

It makes me infinitely sad that advice to player returning to this game includes “do things so you can get gear”.

My advice, find a good guild and a good group of friends to play with.

well i play on aurora glade and its very well populated ^^ but just have fun with friends that’s the best way to play

and try to get into a guild that fits you and do some guild missons with them

Game is prospering for sure. Devs are addressing issues and player concerns even though there is still plenty of issues to work on but what MMO doesn’t have that.

Game is very popular and it’s improved a lot since launch. There are more things to do and its more polished.

The game is alive and well. You are right to question server population as it’s the key to a good open world experience. As you may know the various server designations (‘high’, ‘very high’) do not really describe server populations in terms of players actually playing. I play on Tarnished Coast and am very happy with it. However, I have taken to guesting on Jade Quarry when I need something from a temple vendor. JQ seems to be happening in terms of temple events. TC is also the unofficial RP server. I don’t RP, but if it bothers you to witness it then TC wouldn’t be the server for you.

I actually just came back from a break myself (left shortly after the Lost Shores Karka event) and I’m enjoying myself quite a bit.

The game isn’t too terribly different than it was a few months ago, with the exception of Fractals, Ascended gear, and Laurels (new reward currency for dailies/monthlies), so it shouldn’t be that hard to get back into the swing of things.

There wasn’t a ton of new content or anything, but just having those few months off definitely revitalized me and made me want to keep playing again.

I can definitely see this become a habit over the next few years.

Also, for your population question, I’ve been running into overflows quite a lot lately. I think it’s because of guesting, since you can jump on more/less popular servers for things that you need to do. Also, a lot of the dailies take place in specific areas of the map, so you’ll see a lot more people running around than usual in some of the more traditionally sparse areas when those dailies pop up. Which is nice.

It also looks like they added a couple little nice to have tweaks for things, even the personal story (if you’re Sylvari, they’ve added a scene where Trahearne and your character will actually acknowledge each other like they’ve met before, since they have).

Crystal Desert is very populated and busy.

There isn’t much advice except play the game and have fun! Play some different professions, see what you like best. Do crafting, it’s good xp and it’s actually fun in this game. Cooking is by far the most detailed and intriguing crafting.

Just go out in the world and have fun playing is the best advice I can give. Find a good guild with people who play around the same time you do.

Harvest, craft, do dynamic events, do hearts, explore caves, swim around looking for hidden grottos, do jumping puzzles, explore the Trading Post, sell some stuff, make your own armor or weapons that are actually usable and not useless like some other games, do guild missions, do some WvW if PvP is your thing.

Just jump in and play.

Welcome back. Guesting has been implemented and now you can go check out the various servers yourself. Different servers have different WvWvW and PvE emphasis so find a server that does what you enjoy. Also, since guilds earn influence on their home server, finding a guild that you fit into may influence your choice.

WoW, when I made this post, I half expected no one to reply. It is nice to see that the community is so helpful here. I will definitively come back in the next couple of days and try out most of the advice given here

I second (or third?) the advice that your objective should be to find a group, whether that be a guild or a friends list.

Here’s my perspective as someone who’s played general PvE somewhere between casual and hardcore since launch with no break:

The changes in the last few months as people noted is more gear grinds in PvE, but jumping into those is still much more optional than necessary. For instance my guild doesn’t have any requirements for gear in any run. As part of said gear grind, people are chasing dragons all over the map (and even into other servers with guesting) because of the guaranteed rare item drop from the chest.
All of the options you played before leaving are still there, but many of the instanced stuff (e.g. dungeons other than CoF, AC, Fractals) aren’t played as often by random groups.