Guild Wars 2

No.. I don’t think it’s too late. We’ve noticed a resurgence due to new copies sold during Christmas. For the first time in a long time, I’ve been sent to overflows in a few places.

No.. I don’t think it’s too late. We’ve noticed a resurgence due to new copies sold during Christmas. For the first time in a long time, I’ve been sent to overflows in a few places.Even before, though… it wasn’t that bad. You probably should consider joining a guild that has 3-4 active members on during your normal play time. While there are some things that require many more players, most of the game can be handled solo or with a small party.

No.. I don’t think it’s too late. We’ve noticed a resurgence due to new copies sold during Christmas. For the first time in a long time, I’ve been sent to overflows in a few places.Even before, though… it wasn’t that bad. You probably should consider joining a guild that has 3-4 active members on during your normal play time. While there are some things that require many more players, most of the game can be handled solo or with a small party.I also find that the few people that are around, when they are around, tend to be helpful. They’re in the same boat, after all.

Some events that people were farming in Cursed Shore have been nerfed, along with drop rates, is what I have been hearing. I haven’t even been playing for a month yet. The game does seem like it’s missing something though, but that’s probably just me after playing World of Warcraft for so long.

In this game you’re never too late. It’s not like in other games where new raids would come out and you have to do those first, but no one else is doing them. That’s being left behind. In Guild Wars 2 you level then start doing dungeons or pvp to get your armor and weapons. Isn’t much to it really…

Certainly not too late. There is a lot of game out there to explore, and I frequently run into other people while leveling alts. The game is pretty low grind, so you don’t tend to find people dwelling in the same zone for weeks on end grinding out drops from a specific set of creatures like some MMOs I’ve played, but chatting in /map, I find people to do events with more often than not, and in general, I never have a hard time finding groups to do whatever dungeon strikes my fancy.

No area is unplayable, that’s a load of bollocks. There are some very particular open-world bosses that are nearly (but not totally) impossible to solo or duo. But not only are these bosses few and far between, rarely spawned, and frequently out of the way of your normal duties, there’s almost always enough people in the zone to round up and kill the mob with a little persuasion.

Furthermore, the great thing about low level zones in GW2 is the sidekick system. Sidekicking lets guildmates, friends, and even random friendly players can join you without going silly-bored, regardless of the level. The loot tables need a few tweaks for the game to really bring level 80’s out to the mid-level areas. But those players who are leveling can play in nearly any (underleveled) area they want without exp rate repercussions.

Because of the sidekicking system pretty much all areas have a certain minimum of players. You’ll likely run solo for the majority of a map, but a small group getting together, even if just for a single event, is hardly uncommon. And I’ve yet to find a zone that is completely bereft of interested players.

You have nothing to worry about.

We live in a big world and this is a big game! While there are times where it seems like I’m adventuring alone – might be the time of day/day of the week – it surely is not “too late” for anything!

As an example, I got this game in November and have only reached 15% map completion and Lvl40 so I’m sure there are plenty of others (Christmas gifts?) that are just starting out or have not finished everything yet.

I have not yet seen any area that is unplayable due to lack of population, but that’s going to depend on what server you choose and your typical play times. If you’re worried about an active player base, pick a server with a high population. The trade-off is queues for WvW.

All in all, I think being ‘left behind’ shouldn’t be a worry at all. Welcome to the game!

The only areas that may become really hard to play without population are the highest level Orr zones. And you don’t need to do those. There are other highest-level zones that don’t have the same density of mobs which makes Orr so difficult right now. The rewards just aren’t worth it in most of Orr for level 80 characters to run around there much.

Everything else in this game is geared toward being perpetually playable. As mentioned, when higher-level players go into lower-level zones, they are scaled down so that the content still presents some level of challenge. Further, the drops scale up so that there is also some level of reward. You don’t have to be grouped to help other players out (or be helped). Everyone gets their own private chance and version on any dropped loot. Dynamic Events scale to the number of folks participating, even if there’s just one. You also get notified about nearby events, and usually another player or 2 will run over and join in.

As somebody else mentioned, Christmas boosted the number of new players. There are always alt-oholics around making new characters. Definitely find an active guild.

Welcome!

I’ve been playing since launch but simultaneously levelling 4 (now 5) characters and doing it extremely slowly because I’ve been doing things like going around speaking to all the named NPCs in the cities so I’ve spent almost all my time in the low level zones and I don’t think it’s unplayable.

There are far, far fewer people in starter areas than at launch, but that’s to be expected. On my server (Desolation) you never go far without seeing other people, even at quiet times, and groups tend to appear for DE’s, especially if someone calls it out in map chat.

It’s probably a shock to people who were levelling fairly quickly at launch, focusing on end-game activities for a while and then went back to starter areas to level an alt because they’d be thinking of the zones the way they were at launch, but the zones are hardly dead.

It has also been quieter than usual the last few weeks because a lot of people have been focusing on the Wintersday event stuff, but that will be over in a few days and people will go back to their normal activities.

Find a server that’s busy … like Tarnished Coast .. whenever I’m out there’s always a ton of people in each zone. It’s very rare that I’ll go into an area beyond the newbie areas (and even then there always seems to be folks there, too), and be alone.

I would like to add that using map chat /m to ask for help is not unheard of.

Pro Tip: Shift Clicking a way point on your mini map will link it to chat and people can click on the link in chat and teleport to that way point if they have it discovered.

Also you can join DE events that are broadcast in /m as well, since there is no limit to how many of these you can do.

Like Jayne said, Tarnished Coast is a very active server and I rarely go more than a few minutes without seeing people and chat is always active.