Guild Wars 2

I have played for at least an hour every day since launch. I have two 80s all geared out and either do guild dungeon runs or help lowbies. I play for fun. That in mind, these are things I have heard from friends and guild-mates, that actually like the game, that keep them from putting it higher priority on their gaming/free-time list…

-titles are few and far between and are barely noticeable. There is no real recognition behind them (GW would announce when players achieved a top tier).

-Exotic armor and weapons are unimportant and go unnoticed in the zerg and particle-splosions, so they don’t offer the same recognition exotic stuff in GW did.

-All but a few dungeon paths can be done with a pug in under an hour, so communication and team-work isn’t encouraged.

-All content is 5-man so larger more coordinated guild activities are hindered. Even squads in WvW don’t let you see how many are in it, where they are, who they are.

- WvW has no real stat tracking/progression/personal ranking, but its expensive to upgrade keeps, expensive to repair, expensive to buy siege equipment. Why play a mode that slowly bleeds your bank until you can no longer be effective, and have nothing to show for it?

Yes, they all understand that character progression is based on vanity. But the only time that matters is when idling in a town. Who wants to sit in game not playing in order to show off how they have progressed ?

Anyways, in my experience, almost everyone that has played still likes it, and means to put more time in to playing. But when there is a toss-up between GW2 and the other games in the fall line-up, or real-life activities…GW2 loses the “why should I do this, what progress will I make” contest.

Hopefully there are some changes coming, so when those folks get around to checking on Tyria there is more of a sense of character growth and they find more reasons to stick around a while.

diabluz.2860:

People don’t like that there’s no raiding in this game and they also don’t like that the instances are pretty lame and pointless. Most people that play MMO’s like raiding and or instances. They like the loot grind and this game just doesn’t have much to keep people coming back day after day.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m rather soul weary of the whole loot grinding syndrome. One of the major draws of GW2 is the fact that they didn’t want to do a raid progression. While I do agree that I was rather baffled when ArenaNet originally started talking about how they have an “end game” in GW2 (since I got the distinct impression that this was a game about the leveling journey and not the end result), I personally like that this game is devoted more to a casual player who either doesn’t have the time to play a “traditional” MMO or who wants to divide their time between GW2 and a 2nd MMO. (This is the advantage of the Buy to Play payment model.)

The only thing that really baffles me is that people always sound surprised that GW2 doesn’t have raiding or much of an end game scene. I always thought that ArenaNet was rather up front about those things. Now I do realize that people who only paid mild attention to GW2 might have missed those important details, but I still find it remarkable that some people came into GW2 expecting a pseudo-WoW formula with Dynamic Events instead of traditional questing.

It’s a combination of problems.

Some leave obviously bad WvW servers because either they don’t have enough coverage on all time zones or the main head of the guild leadership is incompetent.

Also, the fact that there’s no rewards associated with returning to old zones, and in general bad rewards throughout the entire game keeps people from playing old content. I have several new characters I refuse to play because the leveling process is so unforgiving, requiring you to 100% multiple starter areas just to hit level 20 (especially since DE frequency is so low due to the low populations). I’ve already 100%‘ed the whole game world on my Warrior. Like GW1, the thought of having to wander around for three weeks on a new character is just too irritating, as it’s something I want to have done in a couple of days. Couple this with the fact that the only endgame items to shoot for are exotics from dungeons (which is good, kind of, although locking them only to dungeons is annoying) and legendaries, which are so incredibly expensive they aren’t viable as an endgame goal for most players.

The whole game is just overly concerned about the trading post, which affects real, actual rewards as you play, which in turn affects every zone across the entire world, as they have nothing unique to offer at all. The way they designed the game and combat system (limited skill selections, lackluster traits, an overall stale system) also means for a profession that isn’t your favorite, you’re probably going to be bored trying to level them up to a point where they feel worth the time.

The whole game just needs a lot of work, in a lot of areas. Too many problems are affecting too many people. Most of the sources of these problems are the mere existence of the trading post (and ANet’s love affair with it over the individual player), the existence of the mystic forge at all, and Isiah Cartwright’s initial laziness in watering down old GW1 gameplay into the simple-minded mockery we have today. It’s going to be a few months before we see these things ironed out a little, especially since ANet is more concerned with releasing events that are designed to funnel people to the in-game store than they are about fixing the game as a whole.

I’m on anvil rock and i see plenty of people everywhere

Any zone that I am in, I see many people…My server is one of the more full servers though.

In any case, this boils down to two reasons:
-The population is dwindling
-People are in the higher level zones(70+, farming Orr, or sitting in LA)

Addressing the second reason, they need to give people more of an incentive to return to the lower level zones. Map completion, sure, but whatever the percentage of reward you recieve for completing a DE in queensdale vs Orr, it needs to be all the same. Once the map completion is done, why ever return?

Reward for completing DEs should be level based, 1-80 with the exception of events in Orr, being maybe 110 or 120% that of other DEs.

Id go back into the world then.

Also, @OP, look at all of the threads about servers being full, unable to play with friends. 2+ months into release and people are still having these problems.

Infact, just this morning I responded to a post from some guy who actually quit the game because the server was full and he could not log in to play with his friend.

The game is dead, far from it. Some zones might be, but the game is very much alive. And to whomever said “250k” players…probably completely wrong. Id still guess at least 1.5mil worldwide.

Id love to see some actual numbers from anet though.

eXs.6210:

Yea it’s pretty sad how few people are playing… I get excited every time I even only just see another player in a PvE area… why it’s the game so dead?

Because it’s free-to-play.

I bet money if WoW was free-to-play (using GW2 f2p model) you’d see maybe an active base of 2 million players TOTAL.

It’s easy to ‘stop playing’ when you don’t feel like you’re wasting your $15/mo because you didn’t login at all “this week”.

I’ve been going around doing the mapping, in lower end zones. I’ve noticed a drop off in players. But generally, their is other players in the zone. I think you have to take into account, what time you are playing. I play in DragonBrand. And generally, can find groups to game with. Or can ask out in local, How do I get this “poi,vista”. And generally can get a few answers back. A lot of people are in Lions arch, looking for groups for the various dungeons.

That being said, you may need to jump around a bit. Find one that has people “active”, at the times you can play. I generally play in the evenings. EST. And those are my experiences for my server.

The main problem is lack of things to do….. The the game is free though, so people will probably be back for the next update 15 November…..

I will take a break until that date myself…. With Halo 4 just being released, I will have other things to do…..

I said there was probably about 250k players at the moment, I took that from looking at stats from Raptr and Xfire then combined them, sure not everyone uses either but many do and both apps show a massive general decline since launch.

Some of you guys should really consider yourself lucky that your on an active server, Emhry Bay is definitely among the lowest population servers – even Orr is somewhat dead at peak times, our server never has overflow active unless some special event is on like Halloween and only then, LA has overflow.

As for transferring, if guild influence actually transferred then it wouldn’t be an issue even if your in a huge guild re-building all upgrades from nothing will still take weeks/months.

On Tarnished Coast .. steady flow of players from the time I log in at 9 am (EST) to the time I log off at about 6 pm (yeah, yeah, I know I’m playing way too much! lol, but I adore this game).

Right now (1:20 Central time on a Tuesday afternoon) half the U.S servers are “Full” the other half are “High” population.

Doesn’t look like the game is dying to me

karma.8763:

TheUnNamedHero.4167:

karma.8763:

Xericor.9103:

Its not a server population problem, its a player problem.
The majority of people simply camp in Orr, farming.

Try posting in the Guild section of this forum, looking for a casual guild, in my experience casuals tend to play events for fun rather than farm.

Wrong orr is dead too.

Wrong. Orr is very much alive. Can’t go ten seconds without running into someone.

Wrong, its dead, Currently in Anvil Rock, i see maybe 20 people between shelter and penitent waypoint……….all other events are completely dead.

And there’s the problem. Your sever is approaching dead last in WvW. There’s a big difference between “massive amounts of people are quitting THE GAME” and “everyone on my server switched cause it sucks”.

Loxias.2375:

SHM.7628:

People complained and complained (about legitimate concerns.) No one was listening. They finally got tired of complaining and left. Now the servers are empty except for a few very devoted fans.

I know that is what happened in my case. Although, I pop into the forums on occasion.

This, a million times, this. The game was rushed, it was obvious, the loyal fans & dev’s would accept no negative feedback, few changes were/have been made, and now they get to have the game to themselves. It sucks, because the potential was huge.

The potential was massive. In theory the game is fantastic. There were some dealbreakers in there. Some that come to mind are diminishing rewards, the camera/ FOV, and the lack of decent rewards for doing lower content. (to name a few)

I liked the game, I waited for the game. I prepurchased the game. Yet when I (or others) complained legitimately we were called whiners, or told we were wrong, or not listened to by the devs.

Lot’s of times on the forums I was met with “If you don’t like it leave” Well, I did. Many others did as well. Problem solved I guess, I don’t see anymore complaints on the forums…….other than empty servers.

Renegadeimp.8439:

greg.3792:

If PvP meant something i.e. you got some reward from winning that was worth keeping I would play a lot. But no tangible rewards means no reason to play.

You dont need rewards to participate in something. Theres this little thing called fun.

YA WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY FUN!!!!! which most the time its just a grind, and this is an MMO!!!!!!!! Which means there need to be rewards attached to doing content that is how they work.

Avoid Isle of Janthir. Lion’s Arch seems to be the only area with people these days. Not too sure about WvW though.

wookie slayer.4259:

Renegadeimp.8439:

greg.3792:

If PvP meant something i.e. you got some reward from winning that was worth keeping I would play a lot. But no tangible rewards means no reason to play.

You dont need rewards to participate in something. Theres this little thing called fun.

YA WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY FUN!!!!! which most the time its just a grind, and this is an MMO!!!!!!!! Which means there need to be rewards attached to doing content that is how they work.

LOL, for real dude…………..Maybe I am the odd one out on this but I find rewards fun! It’s all random and meaningless without rewards.

I am on Gates of Madness, I never go long with out seeing someone, hell I did an event by myself once and thought it was odd. I jump around a lot and see people everywhere, and Gates is not a good WvW server to be on. It is a nice server to be on though, even if it was last on WvW, I wouldn’t leave simply because the players here are quite nice.

I really cant understand the whole dead server trolling. I just looked at the list and Its a week day and 2/3 of the servers say FULL and the other 1/3 is HEAVY . It don’t get much more than that, so dont troll us with the dead server thing. If you seriously cant find people then your blind or not looking. (or on at an odd hour)

I don’t understand what the hell people are talking about, either. I always see plenty of people out and about. What are you expecting to see? Tons of people swarming every zone? Why? There are enough people around to do events and dungeons, and to feel immersed. I walked into an inn in a newbie zone and it was crowded with rpers (Tarnished Coast). Instead of yelling about more doom and gloom, do something about it and transfer if you feel lonely.

Tell me, what game has tons of people in every zone? TSW? SWTOR, MoP? You see crowds in WoW? I’m not sure exactly what you’re expecting to find.

Don’t expect MMOs to fill the void inside you and you’ll feel much better.

I got bored of grinding cursed shore. I got bored of WvW zerg vs zerg. Halo 4 came out.

Maybe some of these reasons for others not playing currently?

Villex.8935:

Then again, which game really has lots of people in the starting zones? Before cross realm zones, SWTOR and WoW used to have less than 10 people leveling in each zone on high pop realms.

Actually ToR has tons of people in all zones now since the last server merger awhile back. Was on Tatooine on a Wed day and it had 82 people there. Starter zones will always have tons of people and so far while leveling an alt since that server merger, I have yet to see any dead zone or any population lower than 50-60.

WoW I saw some around goldshire and the starting zone but overall not sure about the other zones because I am not an alt fan on WoW like I am with ToR. But I can see WoW more dead in the zones because the game is so old now and with all the new zones and worlds, it is pretty huge. GW2 is still a very new game and already took a huge dive in people logging in (non bots) and this game was supposed to be GotY and the end all to other mmo’s etc.

SPARTdAN.2091:

I got bored of grinding cursed shore. I got bored of WvW zerg vs zerg. Halo 4 came out.

Maybe some of these reasons for others not playing currently?

People get bored of things all the time. If you keep doing the same thing over and over you will get bored. The difference is the game doesn’t force you to log in and you shouldn’t if you don’t want.

Anyways, as some have said, it is because the game doesn’t force you to log in. In the back of your mind, you know if you take a break you wont fall behind. In a game like WoW you have to make the best of your 15 bucks AND if you are part of a raid you pretty much HAVE to log in or chance are you will lose your spot which freezes all your progress. When I played aion, I had to log in everyday for just so I can run an instance for a chance of loot, so I can gear up for something.

One of the reason guild wars 2 has no sub is that, it doesn’t need to force you to keep playing. If you are bored take a break, go play another game and comeback when you are not bored. A game should not be a chore nor should it define your life.

A lot of people got to lvl 80 and got bored with the game and are on temporary break until the next content upgrade comes along. As you go higher in the game there aren’t a lot of variations. Plus you can get to 80 with this game for as little as 4-5 days. Plus everyone is probably doing PvP if nothing else.

Need more shinys.

I have constantly advocated for the PVE crowd even though I only spvp/wvw. I don’t know the answer to the gradual decline: gear progression, tougher HNMs that require organized play, more meaningful events (upcoming Sea of Sorrows is nice). But I’m optimistic.

pandemos.3497:

There’s no reason to stay on your dead servers if you don’t like it… move up the list to something more lively if that is what you like. Leveling alts all weekend there were plenty of people around, even killed the fire elemental twice (might be because of the new boss/achieve people were after).

You make is sound so easy.

I don’t know if it’s because of the bot population or what, but even the “dead” servers are “high” and it’s not possible to transfer to a “full” server. HoD is dead even in Cursed Shore. We haven’t held a temple since Halloween and group events like the abomination and broodmother sit untouched for hours….yes, hours. I am not exaggerating in the slightest. And yet….HoD is high?

So many people say level 80s are concentrating in areas like Orr, but this is certainly NOT the case on HoD, a “high” server.

LeelooMultipass.9742:

pandemos.3497:

There’s no reason to stay on your dead servers if you don’t like it… move up the list to something more lively if that is what you like. Leveling alts all weekend there were plenty of people around, even killed the fire elemental twice (might be because of the new boss/achieve people were after).

You make is sound so easy.

I don’t know if it’s because of the bot population or what, but even the “dead” servers are “high” and it’s not possible to transfer to a “full” server. HoD is dead even in Cursed Shore. We haven’t held a temple since Halloween and group events like the abomination and broodmother sit untouched for hours….yes, hours. I am not exaggerating in the slightest. And yet….HoD is high?

So many people say level 80s are concentrating in areas like Orr, but this is certainly NOT the case on HoD, a “high” server.

Sorry to hear that. Sadly, when I say move up the list… I mean move up the wvw standing list. Unfortunately being on HoD you’d know that first hand.

That should get you to a more populated server. I just happened to pick a good server this time around, SBI. Lots of great people/guilds on our server that chose it form the start… that also won’t be going anywhere regardless of our standing.

SHM.7628:

wookie slayer.4259:

Renegadeimp.8439:

greg.3792:

If PvP meant something i.e. you got some reward from winning that was worth keeping I would play a lot. But no tangible rewards means no reason to play.

You dont need rewards to participate in something. Theres this little thing called fun.

YA WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY FUN!!!!! which most the time its just a grind, and this is an MMO!!!!!!!! Which means there need to be rewards attached to doing content that is how they work.

LOL, for real dude…………..Maybe I am the odd one out on this but I find rewards fun! It’s all random and meaningless without rewards.

maybe, but it really looks like youv ebeen brought up to EXPECT rewards for doing something. This is a terrible attitude to have and not just in video games.

Renegadeimp.8439:

SHM.7628:

wookie slayer.4259:

Renegadeimp.8439:

greg.3792:

If PvP meant something i.e. you got some reward from winning that was worth keeping I would play a lot. But no tangible rewards means no reason to play.

You dont need rewards to participate in something. Theres this little thing called fun.

YA WHEN IT IS ACTUALLY FUN!!!!! which most the time its just a grind, and this is an MMO!!!!!!!! Which means there need to be rewards attached to doing content that is how they work.

LOL, for real dude…………..Maybe I am the odd one out on this but I find rewards fun! It’s all random and meaningless without rewards.

maybe, but it really looks like youv ebeen brought up to EXPECT rewards for doing something. This is a terrible attitude to have and not just in video games.

Great, you go to work and mail me your paycheck because you don’t need rewards. Most everything you do in real life (or games) is rewards based or you wouldn’t do it. (or not do it for very long)

You might play through an event once for the thrill of accomplishing it and seeing the end results. How many times are you going to want to do it with no reward? I’ve killed thousands of risen. Do ou expect this to be fun of its own accord? Perhaps if an exotic drops every now and again it would be.

Zones are dead. Servers are dead. Game is dead, dead, dead. Only ones left playing are about 30 people on these boards and ArenaNet employees. And the employees are being made to do so against their will to make the game look like it has more people. They hate the game too. And until ArenaNet fixes the issue where Norn female hair clips through their shields when they run, people – just like every friend on my friend’s list and every guildie on my guildies list – will continue to go back to WoW.

Actually … being unable to see every zone on every server at every time of day, I can only tell you my server seems to be doing just fine, just about everywhere. I have a newly minted level 80 with just under 30% map completion trying to see the whole world, and a couple low level alts peppered across the map. So I feel confident in saying TC is healthy in most zones that I see. That is not to say the population hasn’t decreased since launch. I have noticed that at certain times, a Champion can walk about unchallenged in some places, and certain low level events aren’t swamped with people – just well attended – but that’s the only real indicator I have the pop has dropped since opening weekend.

What servers are you guys on? My server (Henge of Denravi) is pretty dead in everywhere. Then again maby its’ because I play at night…

ArenaNet really needs to do something about the lower levelled areas. I just made a human character and literally no one is in Queensdale, the Shaemoor region to be more specific…

AuroraFlare.1682:

ArenaNet really needs to do something about the lower levelled areas. I just made a human character and literally no one is in Queensdale, the Shaemoor region to be more specific…

Same here, and my server is classed as high population (Underworld) I would hate to think what the low population servers are like.

I think most people are in higher level zones or dungeons by now.
This happens in every MMO I have played so far: starting zones (also new content starting zones) get crowded at the beginning, but then people move on and disperse.

Are you sure the maps are actually dead? For one, GW2 maps are bloody huge, and the higher your level, the more you have available, thanks to the downleveling system. Which means players are substantially more spread out than in many other MMOs. For two, those many other MMOs have taught many of us that mapchat is an obnoxious collection of pointless arguments (the famous ‘Barrens Chat’, anyone?) and so, many players deactivate mapchat on principle.
Without the function to check the number of players in a zone, it is difficult to impossible to tell just how many people are actually playing with you.

That said, it doesn’t really matter in the end why you end up all alone when playing, it matters that you do. Joining some active guilds may help you out there (remember you can be in more than one). Also, just transferring to a higher pop server, even if you managed it, is not guaranteed to help… rather, try finding a server is reportedly active at the same times you generally play.

A lot of interesting views being expressed and so many comments lacking context it’s hard to take them seriously. The server you’re on matters. Fergusson’s Crossing has a low active population despite the server status saying it’s high. I assume high is in reference to the number of accounts that reside there. Indeed it has been my home since the start and we had a lot of folks playing for the first several weeks. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing numerous players, it was fun given this game is event based. Now LA has a low population, only a few people in it except at the very highest peak play time of the day. 2 guilds boasting 500+ members (total) are leaving or have left the server in the past week because of stagnation and population decline (their words not mine). Decisions to do that are not based on a whim so those that say it’s population spread don’t have a clue and those that say the game is dead, well same thing. I don’t think it’s dead and it won’t die unless anet gets their act together. There are quite a few very good elements to this game to work with. It has declined too quickly however. Far too many complaints of being bored in a game of this size in 2 months.

Guilds in GW1 were active, they were vibrant and fun to be in. In my experience the guilds in GW2 are crap for the most part. That is not to say that the folks in them are bad, it is to say that something has changed that has reduced the guild mystique in a way that has reduced interaction and hurt the game. I can’t put my finger on it exactly but there is something missing that I thinkittenerally anchored the player base in GW1 that is not happening in GW2.

I will be disappointed if the designers cannot get their brains wrapped around this and fix it. As I said before, this game has a lot of stuff in it that I, as a player, thoroughly enjoy. The graphics, the mechanics, the leveling method, the weapon driven spell sets (for the most part) and story lines.