I wouldn’t mind 300g for a tag with selectable colors, but 300 gold for a tag that is just one color…that’s just…gah.
Pre mega server I did have to fight with the system to play with my friends. Many people on TC, Blackgate, and JQ had to fight with the system to play with their friends. Didn’t you see the complaint threads on the forums (there were many) about people not being able to play on their home server for days on end because it was full?
It was very frustrating to be on TC back then. And if those three busiest servers all had that problem, that means it was also a widespread problem. It affected a lot of people.
Did see em, but that was a different issue completely… but yeah, I guess the solution is to bugger it up for all instead of doing practical simple things like locking server from new accounts when population = x accounts, or block guesting to high pop servers when numbers = x, or hey, here is a thought, give home server accounts like yours preference on your home server… but hey, what do I know.
I really am glad you and many others enjoy the MS and its fixed many issues you had pre megaserver. I wasn’t on those servers and was not affected by it, but making an issue affect everyone instead of fixing it isn’t right. There are serious problems with megaserver, and as stated before, I’m not against it, but the issues many have raised need to be addressed.
So what’s the solution? You say what Anet did was wrong. I’d like to see some suggestions that would make this less of an issue. I mean we’ve already seen taking the cities off the mega server (which I agree with). We’ve already seen fix the algorythm, which obviously it has to be better than it is. We’ve seen if I get kicked hold my spot for a few. I agree with that.
But beyond that, what could they do. Suppose instead of the mega server system, Anet did server mergers. Now we have lots of people on each server. Everyone ends up with the same problems we had on TC and Blackgate and JQ instead of just the people on those servers. And you still end up with huge crowds for zergs, and you still end up on overflows instead of your servers so you can’t play with your friends and you’re surrounded by strangers.
Everyone says this is unfair and bad, but I haven’t seen a better solution that would solve my problems.
Some people have suggested an underflow server but that would have taken everyone off their servers where they were happy with less people and put them with more people.
There’s no solution I can see that would leave most people happy.
And giving people an option so they have to run all the servers and all the mega servers wouldn’t be cost effective and it might have the affect of slowing everything down (though I can’t be sure about the last point).
the costs of each trait encourages players to buy only those traits that are good / meta / high berserker build dps omfg stuff
Or ignore them all together…
Luckily most of my characters have all but the last tier unlocked, because I simply refuse to pay with gold for traits. And I know there will be traits I’ll never get unless they change location (think anything WvW)
Well you always had to pay 3 gold for traits, so at least buy the three you most want. lol
There’s so much stuff that’s changed since then it’s not even funny. THe entire trait system has changed. Five old points equal 1 new point.
We have an account wardrobe now, which makes customizing your look much easier. Dyes are not account bound. Skins are unlocked on your entire account.
We have an account wallet, so we don’t keep cash in the chest anymore. We have a new path to TA and new Fractals, including mistlock instabilties for fractals 31 and higher.
We have a new WvW map called Edge of the Mists, which is never full.
We have a mega server, so you should see people pretty much wherever you go. There’s no more physical servers except for WvW.
There’s a looking for group tool to find dungeons (press Y to find it).
I’m sure I missed a bunch of stuff.
Does anyone else find it ironic that to unlock the Trait that halves falling damage, you have to do Obsidian Sanctum , the JP where it seems easier to fall than any other (especially where it goes pitch black) ?
I never noticed that. That’s really funny…and pretty bad. lol
earnings report is out, GW2 is trending down in terms of US and EU, but contributing to royalties. Wildstar is out performing it, but not by much for a new release.
Personally i figured this would be the case, My perception is that the game essentially needs some big expansion like content (i mean new zones, modes, professions, weapons) to revitalize the NA/EU market, there is only so long most people can play the same stuff.
As for the the number 7 stat, its good that people are still engaged enough to log in once a month, but that doesnt tell us much with a buy to play mmo. It would seem a different type of datapoint might be more relevant.
To be clear, GW2 is still doing adequately well in earnings, its still the number 3 earner for ncsoft. Its just that it is getting closer to the lower earners, blade and soul and aion.
This.
Whenever a new patch is deployed it’s also likely that people go online to check it out only to go offline for the rest of the month 5 min after.
Or people just doing their dailies. Not that it’s a bad thing – it’s what B2P appeal is anyway. Is it profitable enough to keep the game running and updated as frequently for more years to come? Remains to be seen.
OT: is this the same Vayne that posted a good bye thread about him moving to reddit?
Yep I’m the same Vayne. A few people, including some people who don’t agree with anything I say, asked me to come back, so I did. But the break was really really nice. It was a good month off. lol
earnings report is out, GW2 is trending down in terms of US and EU, but contributing to royalties. Wildstar is out performing it, but not by much for a new release.
Personally i figured this would be the case, My perception is that the game essentially needs some big expansion like content (i mean new zones, modes, professions, weapons) to revitalize the NA/EU market, there is only so long most people can play the same stuff.
As for the the number 7 stat, its good that people are still engaged enough to log in once a month, but that doesnt tell us much with a buy to play mmo. It would seem a different type of datapoint might be more relevant.
To be clear, GW2 is still doing adequately well in earnings, its still the number 3 earner for ncsoft. Its just that it is getting closer to the lower earners, blade and soul and aion.
Logically as a buy to play game, it was always going to have less income as less people buy boxes. That’s completely expected in line with most games. It’s planned for in business plans. Very few people would make a buy to play game and expect the same income month after month.
There is going to be an expansion. I keep saying it. But it will be on Anet’s time table that’s all.
Well that’s what I’ve been saying all along. Years ago, this genre was filled with server pride. That’s what people did. Each server had its own identity. That’s been falling more and more by the wayside as time goes on and more of the FPS generation who’s more used to hot join is joining MMO space. Now the social aspect for many is in their guild.
I hear what you’re saying. Regardless of how many people love MS and the positives it brings, the problem still exists of how it manages groups/parties/guilds/communities etc. It needs to be addressed. I’ll use my nieces I mentioned earlier as an example. Take these 5 young people. Pre mega server they would log in, join up, show each other their new dresses, shoes, hair style whatever and then off to do something. No problems, no complaints, just off patting rabbits or whatever. They aren’t in a guild. They are family/friends. They are (even without knowing it) a small rp community.
GW2 to them is a place where they can wear pretty pink and purple cloths, have picnics and anything their imaginations will allow. I’ve watched them buy houses, open stores, fight wars, track down thieves and so on. They play their way.
Now, post megaserver, its a nightmare. ‘Why can’t we see each other?’ ‘We can’t start the picnic yet cos xyz has the basket’ ‘I can’t swim yet, xyz was carrying the towels’… and the list goes on. Bugger my problem of not getting to do a guild mission with guildies, the problem of xyz not seeing abcs new shoes is now my problem… after 20min of logging, joining, trying to all get on same map, the solution… ‘go play minecraft*shudder* or something, she can see your new shoes next time.’ Enter tears and train wreck here.
And this is a tiny part of the world of gw2. The same problem exists for large scale communities. I cannot understand why it is so darn impossible to get 5 people in a party that want to go do something together on the same map, be it gathering, rping, standing in LA staring at a wall together, playing how they want to play, playing how they enjoy playing and most importantly, playing how they used to play pre mega server.
It’s easy to learn how to make a party and join on each other. Really. For that example you gave, it could have happeend in the old system too. They could have ended up on an overflow in Queensdale during the SB or in LA. The problems always existed, even pre mega server.
People need to learn how to party and join. This is not hard. Of all the complaints I’ve seen about the mega server and many of them are quite solid, this example feels like you’re reaching to me.
Not at all… we put them on low pop server for a reason… overflows never existed for them, nor did 50 tag alongs following them around trolling them in 50 different languages and ruining their fun
As for GH server I was on, I never ever had overflow, only time I had overflow was Scarlet LA overflowed, which was expected, everyone on server in one zone
Even though this is all true (I have no reason to doubt you), making programming decisions for that segment of the population is pretty bad, and you know, young people really can be taught how to do stuff like that. Kids are smarter than you think.
But if I were a designer, that’s NOT the segment of the population I’d be taking into account when making decisions.
Sorry, I rush typed and wasn’t clear (was in mid of taking cat to vet). The ‘Not at all’ had nothing to do with teaching/learning how to do things (Yeah, kids now days are scary crazy with tech/apps etc… ), its was for the ‘The problems always existed, even pre mega server.’
We never had parties splitting into multiple overflows where five people were spread across 3-4 overflows, either everyone was on main, or like Scarlet LA fight, all were in overflow. Not saying it didn’t happen to others, but if it did it was very rare and I’ve never heard anyone complain about parties being split up pre megaserver. Now days, you can spend an entire evening of game time trying to get on same map as friends/guildies/party members, and still end up missing a few people. IMO these problems never existed pre megaserver. Pre megaserver, I never had to fight with a system to play with my friends.
Pre mega server I did have to fight with the system to play with my friends. Many people on TC, Blackgate, and JQ had to fight with the system to play with their friends. Didn’t you see the complaint threads on the forums (there were many) about people not being able to play on their home server for days on end because it was full?
It was very frustrating to be on TC back then. And if those three busiest servers all had that problem, that means it was also a widespread problem. It affected a lot of people.
The only thing worse than doom and gloomers is the eternal optimists this community has. So easily entertained and needing justification and vindication to enjoy this game. GW2 is fairly popular yet many of my friends quit, my guild has seen a loss of lots of players and sees an influx of more. The ebb and flow of the game changes with time.
If the game was full of people, they wouldn’t have put in megaservers now would they? People were complaining about empty servers and lack of people for events. Even with them some zones are void of people. I think the game is at an okay spot and will always have a spot where it’s not the top but never the bottom. GW2 has it’s perks and a long way to go.
I like the fast paced game play and how the game does it’s quests… hope more future mmos do the samething. Although I’m currently taking a break until class reworks are done, can’t be bothered with doing dailies now. I hope this motivates the GW2 team to really bring their a game to reach the top. Also hope they give up on the whole e-sports thing, let’s face it GW 2 will never, EVER, EVER be an e-sport but it can be a top MMO for sure.
Your post is correct except for one bit. The bit about why mega servers were put in. The thing is, a lot of people guested to the three busiest servers, causing those servers to overflow and other servers to be empty.
There were often multiple overflows on TC but no one on the servers causing the multiple overflows. TC people complained all the time (Blackgate people too) about not being able to get on their own server because of guesting.
This distributes people in a fairer manner.
These people guested to busy servers because their servers were dead…..
The most logical reason why Megaservers were implemented is because of such dead zones / servers.. Even when I was in JQ leveling my alt, I rarely saw someone else in other low-mid lvl zones outside of champ trains.. could rarely do any events besides hop around from heart to heart.
Megaservers were pretty much a global server merge and it helped alleviate the problem with such amount of dead zones in this game
People guested for other reasons too. They guested to do Tequatl. There was one server, a smaller one, that refused to guest and low and behold, they had a reason to do Tequatl. People always like to play on the busier server.
You’re making the assumption servers were dead because no one was playing, rather than servers were dead because people were guesting. The thing is, it’s not provable either way.
It’s a logical assumption… Why would people want to guest? because their home server was not busy.. aka DEAD lol.
And now, Teq is even more of a headache to organize.. you gotta hope to be rolled into a good OF map or look for a taxi, etc..
Your right however, it’s not provable unless anet comes out and specifically states “hey, we did megaservers because a lot of servers were not as highly populated as we’d like”… but they won’t say that lol.
But I’m sticking with my assumption, because its logically sound…
You can spin it however you want to, doesn’t change the fact that a lot of servers were extremely inactive
It’s a chicken and egg thing. First of all. logically, it’s 100% irrelevant if you saw people in the world or not. Even the busiest MMO has people complaining about dead zones. It means nothing. MMOs funnel people into specific areas and those areas, generally were busy. The problem is, a lot of people found other areas not busy. Those people started guesting to TC and Blackgate and even JQ to find people in the open world.
Each person that guested, was taking people out of the less busy worlds to play with. There were less people around to do even stuff like the Shatterer. But even though Server 1 had less people, server 2 had several overflows. We once tried to get on a Marionette server, a group of five, and five of us ended up on all different overflows. How many overflows? No one knows. But those overflows came from somewhere. It wasn’t just TC people.
So if you then take those overflows and put everyone back on their server, how many people would have been there? Enough to do the Marionette, I’d wager.
Can I prove it. Nope. But considering WoW, which is the most successful MMO to date, has the same complaint about empty zones, I’m not really sure what this entire conversation was about.
From my standpoint. the game is one of the most successful MMORPGs on the market. Several different sources all saying the same thing aren’t all likely to have gotten it wrong.
Again, you can believe anything you want.
The only thing worse than doom and gloomers is the eternal optimists this community has. So easily entertained and needing justification and vindication to enjoy this game. GW2 is fairly popular yet many of my friends quit, my guild has seen a loss of lots of players and sees an influx of more. The ebb and flow of the game changes with time.
If the game was full of people, they wouldn’t have put in megaservers now would they? People were complaining about empty servers and lack of people for events. Even with them some zones are void of people. I think the game is at an okay spot and will always have a spot where it’s not the top but never the bottom. GW2 has it’s perks and a long way to go.
I like the fast paced game play and how the game does it’s quests… hope more future mmos do the samething. Although I’m currently taking a break until class reworks are done, can’t be bothered with doing dailies now. I hope this motivates the GW2 team to really bring their a game to reach the top. Also hope they give up on the whole e-sports thing, let’s face it GW 2 will never, EVER, EVER be an e-sport but it can be a top MMO for sure.
Your post is correct except for one bit. The bit about why mega servers were put in. The thing is, a lot of people guested to the three busiest servers, causing those servers to overflow and other servers to be empty.
There were often multiple overflows on TC but no one on the servers causing the multiple overflows. TC people complained all the time (Blackgate people too) about not being able to get on their own server because of guesting.
This distributes people in a fairer manner.
These people guested to busy servers because their servers were dead…..
The most logical reason why Megaservers were implemented is because of such dead zones / servers.. Even when I was in JQ leveling my alt, I rarely saw someone else in other low-mid lvl zones outside of champ trains.. could rarely do any events besides hop around from heart to heart.
Megaservers were pretty much a global server merge and it helped alleviate the problem with such amount of dead zones in this game
People guested for other reasons too. They guested to do Tequatl. There was one server, a smaller one, that refused to guest and low and behold, they had a reason to do Tequatl. People always like to play on the busier server.
You’re making the assumption servers were dead because no one was playing, rather than servers were dead because people were guesting. The thing is, it’s not provable either way.
You’ll get enough Orc if you salvage 80th level greens and blues and consume the luck. Just keep doing it. The orc adds up.
Farm whatever mats you can, buy the rest at the end when you have nothing else left.
Ok OP, so to summarize, looking at Raptr, Steam, Xfire & Overwolf, the top 3-4 PC games have a large population, whereas the rest are small, including GW2.
GW2 is financially well, as per NCSoft’s earning report, with it’s small population.
No sarcasm.It’s not small, if it’s like in the top ten, it’s just not huge. All size is relative. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?
Relative to the top 3-4 it’s small, so it’s small.
What is it relative to #20. lol
Anyway the top game is completely free to play.
You must have a tiny set of vocabulary. Hey, look, I even slipped in the word for you.
And yes, the top game has a massive number of registered players, huge twitch viewership, huge hours logged compared to the others and huge concurrency. Up to you to piece the information together.The way I read it, and of course you can read it any way you want, there are six games higher than Guild Wars 2, but only one of them is an MMORPG, which is WoW. If you really want to compare numbers, the most popular free to play Moba is going to have more users than even the most popular MMO. But Guild Wars 2 has a purchase price and some of the games above it don’t. So it having more people playing means what exactly? Compare apples to apples maybe?
The thing is, Guild Wars 2, for a 2 year old MMO in a crowded field, with so many free MMOs out there should be happy to be on that list at all let alone near the top of it.
In your desire to prove that this game isn’t doing well, you’re proving just the opposite. Thanks.
Oh look, shifting goal posts now.
And your petty stunt to imply I’m trying to prove the game isn’t doing well? Wow, bravo. Good stretch of imagination.
People can read your post history and figure that out. I’m out of here. Feel free to get the last word.
The only thing worse than doom and gloomers is the eternal optimists this community has. So easily entertained and needing justification and vindication to enjoy this game. GW2 is fairly popular yet many of my friends quit, my guild has seen a loss of lots of players and sees an influx of more. The ebb and flow of the game changes with time.
If the game was full of people, they wouldn’t have put in megaservers now would they? People were complaining about empty servers and lack of people for events. Even with them some zones are void of people. I think the game is at an okay spot and will always have a spot where it’s not the top but never the bottom. GW2 has it’s perks and a long way to go.
I like the fast paced game play and how the game does it’s quests… hope more future mmos do the samething. Although I’m currently taking a break until class reworks are done, can’t be bothered with doing dailies now. I hope this motivates the GW2 team to really bring their a game to reach the top. Also hope they give up on the whole e-sports thing, let’s face it GW 2 will never, EVER, EVER be an e-sport but it can be a top MMO for sure.
Your post is correct except for one bit. The bit about why mega servers were put in. The thing is, a lot of people guested to the three busiest servers, causing those servers to overflow and other servers to be empty.
There were often multiple overflows on TC but no one on the servers causing the multiple overflows. TC people complained all the time (Blackgate people too) about not being able to get on their own server because of guesting.
This distributes people in a fairer manner.
It happens automatically. I don’t think many people use it. The forum inserts it.
Actually I’ve just started typing kitten to save the poor censorship bot from working too hard.
I do that too, kitten!
Ok OP, so to summarize, looking at Raptr, Steam, Xfire & Overwolf, the top 3-4 PC games have a large population, whereas the rest are small, including GW2.
GW2 is financially well, as per NCSoft’s earning report, with it’s small population.
No sarcasm.It’s not small, if it’s like in the top ten, it’s just not huge. All size is relative. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?
Relative to the top 3-4 it’s small, so it’s small.
What is it relative to #20. lol
Anyway the top game is completely free to play.
You must have a tiny set of vocabulary. Hey, look, I even slipped in the word for you.
And yes, the top game has a massive number of registered players, huge twitch viewership, huge hours logged compared to the others and huge concurrency. Up to you to piece the information together.
The way I read it, and of course you can read it any way you want, there are six games higher than Guild Wars 2, but only one of them is an MMORPG, which is WoW. If you really want to compare numbers, the most popular free to play Moba is going to have more users than even the most popular MMO. But Guild Wars 2 has a purchase price and some of the games above it don’t. So it having more people playing means what exactly? Compare apples to apples maybe?
The thing is, Guild Wars 2, for a 2 year old MMO in a crowded field, with so many free MMOs out there should be happy to be on that list at all let alone near the top of it.
In your desire to prove that this game isn’t doing well, you’re proving just the opposite. Thanks.
Well that’s what I’ve been saying all along. Years ago, this genre was filled with server pride. That’s what people did. Each server had its own identity. That’s been falling more and more by the wayside as time goes on and more of the FPS generation who’s more used to hot join is joining MMO space. Now the social aspect for many is in their guild.
I hear what you’re saying. Regardless of how many people love MS and the positives it brings, the problem still exists of how it manages groups/parties/guilds/communities etc. It needs to be addressed. I’ll use my nieces I mentioned earlier as an example. Take these 5 young people. Pre mega server they would log in, join up, show each other their new dresses, shoes, hair style whatever and then off to do something. No problems, no complaints, just off patting rabbits or whatever. They aren’t in a guild. They are family/friends. They are (even without knowing it) a small rp community.
GW2 to them is a place where they can wear pretty pink and purple cloths, have picnics and anything their imaginations will allow. I’ve watched them buy houses, open stores, fight wars, track down thieves and so on. They play their way.
Now, post megaserver, its a nightmare. ‘Why can’t we see each other?’ ‘We can’t start the picnic yet cos xyz has the basket’ ‘I can’t swim yet, xyz was carrying the towels’… and the list goes on. Bugger my problem of not getting to do a guild mission with guildies, the problem of xyz not seeing abcs new shoes is now my problem… after 20min of logging, joining, trying to all get on same map, the solution… ‘go play minecraft*shudder* or something, she can see your new shoes next time.’ Enter tears and train wreck here.
And this is a tiny part of the world of gw2. The same problem exists for large scale communities. I cannot understand why it is so darn impossible to get 5 people in a party that want to go do something together on the same map, be it gathering, rping, standing in LA staring at a wall together, playing how they want to play, playing how they enjoy playing and most importantly, playing how they used to play pre mega server.
It’s easy to learn how to make a party and join on each other. Really. For that example you gave, it could have happeend in the old system too. They could have ended up on an overflow in Queensdale during the SB or in LA. The problems always existed, even pre mega server.
People need to learn how to party and join. This is not hard. Of all the complaints I’ve seen about the mega server and many of them are quite solid, this example feels like you’re reaching to me.
Not at all… we put them on low pop server for a reason… overflows never existed for them, nor did 50 tag alongs following them around trolling them in 50 different languages and ruining their fun
As for GH server I was on, I never ever had overflow, only time I had overflow was Scarlet LA overflowed, which was expected, everyone on server in one zone
Even though this is all true (I have no reason to doubt you), making programming decisions for that segment of the population is pretty bad, and you know, young people really can be taught how to do stuff like that. Kids are smarter than you think.
But if I were a designer, that’s NOT the segment of the population I’d be taking into account when making decisions.
Ok OP, so to summarize, looking at Raptr, Steam, Xfire & Overwolf, the top 3-4 PC games have a large population, whereas the rest are small, including GW2.
GW2 is financially well, as per NCSoft’s earning report, with it’s small population.
No sarcasm.It’s not small, if it’s like in the top ten, it’s just not huge. All size is relative. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?
Relative to the top 3-4 it’s small, so it’s small.
What is it relative to #20. lol
Anyway the top game is completely free to play.
Well that’s what I’ve been saying all along. Years ago, this genre was filled with server pride. That’s what people did. Each server had its own identity. That’s been falling more and more by the wayside as time goes on and more of the FPS generation who’s more used to hot join is joining MMO space. Now the social aspect for many is in their guild.
I hear what you’re saying. Regardless of how many people love MS and the positives it brings, the problem still exists of how it manages groups/parties/guilds/communities etc. It needs to be addressed. I’ll use my nieces I mentioned earlier as an example. Take these 5 young people. Pre mega server they would log in, join up, show each other their new dresses, shoes, hair style whatever and then off to do something. No problems, no complaints, just off patting rabbits or whatever. They aren’t in a guild. They are family/friends. They are (even without knowing it) a small rp community.
GW2 to them is a place where they can wear pretty pink and purple cloths, have picnics and anything their imaginations will allow. I’ve watched them buy houses, open stores, fight wars, track down thieves and so on. They play their way.
Now, post megaserver, its a nightmare. ‘Why can’t we see each other?’ ‘We can’t start the picnic yet cos xyz has the basket’ ‘I can’t swim yet, xyz was carrying the towels’… and the list goes on. Bugger my problem of not getting to do a guild mission with guildies, the problem of xyz not seeing abcs new shoes is now my problem… after 20min of logging, joining, trying to all get on same map, the solution… ‘go play minecraft*shudder* or something, she can see your new shoes next time.’ Enter tears and train wreck here.
And this is a tiny part of the world of gw2. The same problem exists for large scale communities. I cannot understand why it is so darn impossible to get 5 people in a party that want to go do something together on the same map, be it gathering, rping, standing in LA staring at a wall together, playing how they want to play, playing how they enjoy playing and most importantly, playing how they used to play pre mega server.
It’s easy to learn how to make a party and join on each other. Really. For that example you gave, it could have happeend in the old system too. They could have ended up on an overflow in Queensdale during the SB or in LA. The problems always existed, even pre mega server.
People need to learn how to party and join. This is not hard. Of all the complaints I’ve seen about the mega server and many of them are quite solid, this example feels like you’re reaching to me.
Oh man, haven’t done fractals for months and only have 3 relics I’ve been holding onto. After seeing the thread I checked the lfg in game but it’s dead. I’ll try again in the evening, if there are no groups then either I’ll try starting my own. I forgot everything though and was never that into it. I think I’m level 14.
LFG isn’t dead. The groups fill VERY fast. You can’t just check. Make a group of your own. You’ll see how fast it fills.
Ok OP, so to summarize, looking at Raptr, Steam, Xfire & Overwolf, the top 3-4 PC games have a large population, whereas the rest are small, including GW2.
GW2 is financially well, as per NCSoft’s earning report, with it’s small population.
No sarcasm.
It’s not small, if it’s like in the top ten, it’s just not huge. All size is relative. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?
so that basically means that most people have continued to run the game at least once per month while using an overwold app.
I guess that means i was probably counted even though i havent played more than 3-4 hours in the last 3 to 4 months. (gotta log in to unlock the LS.I guess it shows people havent really completely quit /total disinterest in GW2.
However, there is a lot that doesnt really tell us. Good to know though
But it does tell us something. It’s the same for every single game on that list. And every game does stuff to entice people to log in whether it’s specials, dailies, events, or logging in for the living story.
It happens automatically. I don’t think many people use it. The forum inserts it.
Yeah, I’d probably pay real money if it meant I didn’t have to go into fractals. You hear that ANet? I would pay real world money to avoid an aspect of your game.
Join a large PvE guild (lots of them advertise in cities, and you can have up to 5 guilds), ask someone to 4-man lvl 1 fractal, pay them. Repeat 4 more times next days.
I thought the Pristine fractal relic (which you need five) only drops in 10+ level runs. Am I wrong?
That was in the old days. They drop at every level now at the end of the run.
Hey Raif, thanks for that clarification. That helps.
The majority of gamers who play mmo’s DO NOT play to see plenty of people, they play to be with their communities.
Guess I’m the minority then! Megaservers have really enhanced the way I play as a solo. Can’t count how many times I have walked into a hornets nest and there is always someone there to help out now.
Then again, I enjoy playing amongst the players more then being part of a community. A.K.A lone wolf with friends!
I don’t believe you’re as much a minority as you think you are. Most of my guild is like you.
Perhaps we have different understandings of what community is in game…. to me, ‘lone wolf with friends’ and ‘Most of my guild is like you’, are your respective communities
Just to add, 75% of the time I’m ‘lone wolf’ too, but I’m still part of my guild community
Well that’s what I’ve been saying all along. Years ago, this genre was filled with server pride. That’s what people did. Each server had its own identity. That’s been falling more and more by the wayside as time goes on and more of the FPS generation who’s more used to hot join is joining MMO space. Now the social aspect for many is in their guild.
The majority of gamers who play mmo’s DO NOT play to see plenty of people, they play to be with their communities.
Guess I’m the minority then! Megaservers have really enhanced the way I play as a solo. Can’t count how many times I have walked into a hornets nest and there is always someone there to help out now.
Then again, I enjoy playing amongst the players more then being part of a community. A.K.A lone wolf with friends!
I don’t believe you’re as much a minority as you think you are. Most of my guild is like you.
overwolf doesnt really give much of their information.
how do they determine “unique sessions”
how many does each game have?how does it compare to how the game performed 8 months ago.
But we do know that Guild Wars 2 has been 7 for at least five months, since you can go back four months and it didnt’ move from the month before.
the question is really what does 7 really mean in this case. I generally prefer statistics that provide most of their data and math for analysis. I am not really saying gw2 is doing worse or better than this data shows, just saying these statistics dont seem that meaningful to me without actual explanation of the data
However it’s measured it’s showing steady. If it’s player log in or hours player. It’s not moving up or down. Interestingly enough it’s been relatively steady on Raptr as well. That means something.
The numbers don’t….the trend does.
relatively steady for this quarter, useful info i suppose
More than a quarter if you go back in the Raptr blog.
overwolf doesnt really give much of their information.
how do they determine “unique sessions”
how many does each game have?how does it compare to how the game performed 8 months ago.
But we do know that Guild Wars 2 has been 7 for at least five months, since you can go back four months and it didnt’ move from the month before.
the question is really what does 7 really mean in this case. I generally prefer statistics that provide most of their data and math for analysis. I am not really saying gw2 is doing worse or better than this data shows, just saying these statistics dont seem that meaningful to me without actual explanation of the data
However it’s measured it’s showing steady. If it’s player log in or hours player. It’s not moving up or down. Interestingly enough it’s been relatively steady on Raptr as well. That means something.
The numbers don’t….the trend does.
overwolf doesnt really give much of their information.
how do they determine “unique sessions”
how many does each game have?how does it compare to how the game performed 8 months ago.
But we do know that Guild Wars 2 has been 7 for at least five months, since you can go back four months and it didnt’ move from the month before.
NCSoft still haven’t announced their 4 million sales milestone for the west (Kong Zhong’s PR does not count), that’s why they’re pushing for sales again.
I think GW2 has reached near saturation in terms of interest.That was true a long time ago. It’s true with well over 90% of all games. As a retailer who sold games for a very long time, I can tell you that over 90% of all game sales occur for a title during it’s first three months, for most games. Only sales and making the title cheaper and cheaper make more sales but they still only extremeliy rarely significantly add to the overall game’s population. There are exceptions to this but they’re very few and far between.
For example Eve Online is increasing subscribers. They now have the most they’ve ever had, which is about half a million. But they’re a niche game, and half a million people, as a game high, isn’t all that impressive. And they’re still a huge exception to a very broad rule.
Yes, that’s right. GW2 is essentially normal.
And if GW2’s ranking is anything to go by, GW2 is pretty much in the niche area as well.
I’ve been saying for a very long time that this is a niche game, not mainstream. I’m trying very hard to convince people to leave it in it’s niche, because that’s it’s only real strength. Trying to make this game main stream at the expense of that niche is foolish.
It’s a big enough niche because no one else out there is doing what this game does.
It’s all permanent. What might not be doable, however, in the future, is getting enough people together to get to higher tiers of the sandstorms. That remains to be seen.
There’s still been lots of changes. Ascended gear was added, for people who like some grind in their game. There’s been major changes to certain professions since launch…a bit at a time, but if you’ve been gone for a long time it’ll seem like a lot. Even more changes coming in a patch in 3 weeks time.
Seriously you’re going to have to see for yourself, because no one can really tell what you’ll like and what you want.
As for the Living Story, they’re solo instances that scale up if you do them with a group, which is how my guild does them. There’s a story mode which you play through and it unlocks achievements you can get by replaying them.
There’s a new map called Dry Top and some of the fights are a lot harder than what you may have been used to in the open world.
NCSoft still haven’t announced their 4 million sales milestone for the west (Kong Zhong’s PR does not count), that’s why they’re pushing for sales again.
I think GW2 has reached near saturation in terms of interest.
That was true a long time ago. It’s true with well over 90% of all games. As a retailer who sold games for a very long time, I can tell you that over 90% of all game sales occur for a title during it’s first three months, for most games. Only sales and making the title cheaper and cheaper make more sales but they still only extremeliy rarely significantly add to the overall game’s population. There are exceptions to this but they’re very few and far between.
For example Eve Online is increasing subscribers. They now have the most they’ve ever had, which is about half a million. But they’re a niche game, and half a million people, as a game high, isn’t all that impressive. And they’re still a huge exception to a very broad rule.
Well if anyone wants to do beginners fractal runs hit me up in game and maybe we can get some of you through five fractals.
Without AR it’ll take 5 days because they can’t do all 5 tiers in one day.
Still do-able and relatively painless, especially if they’re capable of hitting you up and listening to you. Gosh I had some bad lowbie runs earlier today…
Well, I can still do it. Five days of fractals even if you do them one a week what’s the difference. The content isn’t going anywhere.
And with a nice, easy going team, some people who used to hate them might not hate them anymore.
For those of you who express your expertise in the field of hyperbole by proclaiming Guild Wars 2 as a dead game, with people leaving in droves..
Congrats to a continued good showing against some tough contenders!
The only thing one can reliably extrapolate from that is that Guildwars 2 needs tanks.
That’s pretty funny, actually. But Guild Wars 2 has tanks. I know, I’ve defended some of them from Zhaitan’s forces.
Except that not everyone plays MMOs for a server community. Many people play MMOs for the guild community? Why? Because you have more control over your experience in a guild.
If you join an RP guild you’ll mostly be around RPers. If you join a casual guild it’s unlikely anyone will ask you to zerk or get out. If you join a speed clear guild you’ll find people who want to be efficient.
My guild is my community and there’s enough people on most of the time where I don’t need a server community. I believe that in the old days when less people were playing, server community was very important but with the influx of more and more players, it’s become less so. Once the console generation started coming in, and the people who came late to WoW the emphasis shifted.
So yes, my guild is my community. I’m pretty sure that’s more common these days than people depending on a server community.
Many people do play games for server based communities, if the game has server communities, but not all games do. Back in Guild Wars days, the only separation you had was guilds, but you also weren’t lumped with the masses outside of towns. I’ve met and played with more people in GW2 than i ever did in GW, this especially true since WvW is the game mode that brings that closer. I’d really like to say it’s improved my experience, yet really now, i feel more isolated, even if there are more people on the map. Especially true if you say something in map chat and get garbage back.
If a game implements a server based system and people build on that system, then suddenly it’s no longer a thing, then all the work, all the comradery you once had, seeing and communicating with familiar players, regularly, is gone. It would be something else entirely if they released the game as is now.
This is a polarizing topic and for good reason.
It is a polarizing topic. There’s no question about it. There are also no easy answers.
If Anet can get the algorythm working better, that might solve some, but not all of the problems, particularly for Europe.
But for me at least, the difference in the game is night and day with the megaserver. So again it becomes a question of how many people by percentage hate it, how many love it, how many are inconvenienced and how much of an inconvenience is it. I can’t answer any of those questions, but I’d say those are the questions we need answers to.
I’m saying the people who want to see more people are the majority. The people who want to scale up events. And the people who were on “dead” servers. And the people who work nights. And the people who are over seas. It’s not just people overseas. You need to read all the posts, not the ones you want.
Plenty of people play MMOs just to see other people. The percentage of people who play MMOs to not see people isn’t really all that high, I think. Oh there are some.
And if you’re not doing the top big quests, you don’t have that crowding anyway. You can go do anything and find people now. Before to see people you had to go to the places where people were.
This game, the entire dynamic event system, was really designed with people in mind. It wasn’t designed to have one person running around a zone solo. The entire game falls apart that way. You get the boring leveling complaints. Having people around, for a lot of people, make it interesting. Even some people who solo alot, like to see people.
I believe the people who want to be off on their own somewhere are probably a minority. The Oceanics was a comment on freedom. Two different ideas going on here.
I’ve seen this sort of thinking a few times in this thread…. So, I’m going to clear it up, mmo’s have nothing to do with seeing ‘plenty of people’. Mmo’s have nothing to do with how many random players you can squeeze into a zone.
The majority of gamers who play mmo’s DO NOT play to see plenty of people, they play to be with their communities. Thats what makes and breaks mmo’s, communities, communities which AN has decided to destroy.
If you’re playing an mmorpg just to see 100 other avatars running around a map, then you may as well be playing an offline single player game with 100 ai bots running around.
While you both have valid points, it still comes down to removing a feature of the game, one that was pretty valuable to a game mode they designed. One they released with, one that kept some of the toxic chat to a minimum, one that didn’t frustrate or confuse people. While i’m certain it was much harder to manage on the back end, it was still a pretty big part of various communities to have that separation.
I think if nothing else, they need to create a hub that is server based, either a new place in the Mists that doesn’t affect WvW or an existing city. Not that it would fully satisfy things for me, it would at least give us a way to gather our server together.
Okay that’s true. They removed a feature. They also removed lonliness from world maps for people who played off hours, people who played content that wasn’t mainstream.
The game does a great deal of funneling. It funnels people into popular content. Drytop, champ trains, wherever the story is going on. That means the rest of the maps on X number of servers are near to empty.
Where’s the community there, for those people playing in those maps?
Nonexistent, that’s where it was.
There’s no good or easy answer to this.
And I see random people I know on servers I’m on quite frequently btw.
Also, all one has to do is measure the SPvP game browser and WvW populations to get an accurate pulse on the game. Hint: It’s very, very low.
Or it’s a PvE-centric game and that’s where most of the people are. I’ve been saying this game is centered on PvE for a long long time. Various polls from the forums have shown that most people play PvE, not PvP or WvW, or even the two combined.
now use twitch views and make a toplist with this and check where gw2 is
but hey this dont looks so good so this is not so accurate how this overwolf thing here?
seriously – this thread
edit: oh here the top 20 list for may on twitch
http://blog.twitch.tv/2014/06/top-twitch-games-for-may-2014/
and i bet you will not find gw2 even in top 100 list
Watching <> playing. Most people watch PvP, rather than PvE. And since most of us acknowledge PvP is in a bad place right now, it’s hard to fathom how watching something will be as big a deal as playing it.
You see overwolf measures PLAYERS.
Well if anyone wants to do beginners fractal runs hit me up in game and maybe we can get some of you through five fractals.
Ah I see now. I only saw the infusions. I didn’t see the mist stone. My bad. Carry on.
I’m saying the people who want to see more people are the majority. The people who want to scale up events. And the people who were on “dead” servers. And the people who work nights. And the people who are over seas. It’s not just people overseas. You need to read all the posts, not the ones you want.
Plenty of people play MMOs just to see other people. The percentage of people who play MMOs to not see people isn’t really all that high, I think. Oh there are some.
And if you’re not doing the top big quests, you don’t have that crowding anyway. You can go do anything and find people now. Before to see people you had to go to the places where people were.
This game, the entire dynamic event system, was really designed with people in mind. It wasn’t designed to have one person running around a zone solo. The entire game falls apart that way. You get the boring leveling complaints. Having people around, for a lot of people, make it interesting. Even some people who solo alot, like to see people.
I believe the people who want to be off on their own somewhere are probably a minority. The Oceanics was a comment on freedom. Two different ideas going on here.
I’ve seen this sort of thinking a few times in this thread…. So, I’m going to clear it up, mmo’s have nothing to do with seeing ‘plenty of people’. Mmo’s have nothing to do with how many random players you can squeeze into a zone.
The majority of gamers who play mmo’s DO NOT play to see plenty of people, they play to be with their communities. Thats what makes and breaks mmo’s, communities, communities which AN has decided to destroy.
If you’re playing an mmorpg just to see 100 other avatars running around a map, then you may as well be playing an offline single player game with 100 ai bots running around.
Except that not everyone plays MMOs for a server community. Many people play MMOs for the guild community? Why? Because you have more control over your experience in a guild.
If you join an RP guild you’ll mostly be around RPers. If you join a casual guild it’s unlikely anyone will ask you to zerk or get out. If you join a speed clear guild you’ll find people who want to be efficient.
My guild is my community and there’s enough people on most of the time where I don’t need a server community. I believe that in the old days when less people were playing, server community was very important but with the influx of more and more players, it’s become less so. Once the console generation started coming in, and the people who came late to WoW the emphasis shifted.
So yes, my guild is my community. I’m pretty sure that’s more common these days than people depending on a server community.
Why do you need to infuse it if you will never run fractals?
This is my question. Is there an actual visual difference between the infused and uninfused version? If there’s not, there’s no problem here.
snip
Think of it as polling though. People run political polls and poll 1000 people to get an idea of the trends, and usually those polls are accurate.
snip
Random in the sense that other than " happened to hear of and prefer overwolf to some other app…" there is no scientific basis to how the players were selected. The Players selected themselves so cannot really be said to be representative of the whole.
Right the players weren’t selected at all and it’s a much much bigger sampling size than most polls. When you have a sample size of 1000, you’d better pick carefully. The sample size here is the size of those who run overwolf in the background. I’m pretty sure it’s more than 1000 people. Same with the sample size of Raptr.
Again, it won’t give us numbers, but it should give us trends….which is what I’m looking at. It’s the other information people keeping ignoring that this is backing up.
Basically, there’s no evidence at all the game is dead. There’s circumstantial evidence that it’s not.
There isn’t circumstantial evidence that it’s doing well though. It’s a game on a list with no numbers to give it any meaning. The gap between #1 and #7 could be huge. #6 could be played 10x more. I mean if I gave you a list of fastest cars and it read #1 Ferrari #2 Porsche #3 fiat is that circumstantial evidence that a fiat is one of the fastest cars?
There is also just as much if not more circumstantial evidence supporting that the game isn’t doing well. Xfire, just as good as overwolf, has actual numbers attached to it and GW2 is down 96% or something(not doing the math again) since launch. From 13k players down to 500, 70k+ hours down to 2k . Then of course we have the anecdotal evidence of WvW and SPvP populations decreasing. I mean it’s kind of hard to argue with being on a T1 server and being able to login to WvW and have the outnumbered buff where a year ago you had to wait in queue.
Now I’m not saying GW2 is dead, if it was then the servers wouldn’t be open. I am merely saying that GW2’s population has decreased and is probably still decreasing albeit at a slower rate. Now there will certainly be spikes for new content, it is b2p, but overall the population isn’t what it was say a year ago. A lot of people forget the megaserver stuff and don’t realize the populations they are seeing in PvE are all servers combined. I’d also expect the LS player population to be quite steady because it gets the bulk of development where WvW and SPvP players are dropping off due to ArenaNet’s lack of attention. So to a player that plays LS things probably seem like puppies and rainbows, it’s a drastically different story elsewhere in the game.
The real question is what sized playerbase can the game have and still be able to remain profitable. Gw2 is unique in that it will be hard to put into maintenance mode like sub based or even F2P games. They need gem sales to sustain servers and since there really isn’t a lot of finite items on the gem store fore repeat sales their sales will dry up as shortly after they stop developing. Their only option would be to continue development of gem store stuff and nothing else, so that will probably be the red flag that things are coming to an end, which we havn’t seen. The conclusion of course is that whatever their current population is, it is able to support further development.
No circumstantial evidence that it’s doing well. That would sort of mean that the top twenty games on Raptr or the top ten on Overwolf aren’t doing well. That means there are hundreds of games and only five or six of them are doing well. I don’t believe this at all.
We tend to find that games not doing well have staff layoffs, not staff hirings. That’s certainly my experience in the industry. You don’t say we’re doing badly, let’s hire more people. It’s not logical.
If a game is doing well or not is a relative statement. There are many unknowns. But if there had been a mass layoff at Anet we’d have heard of it as surely as we heard about the ones from Funcom and EA. We hear these things. You can’t keep the secret. That’s especially true for public companies.
So we come to the crux of the matter. What does well even mean. Well, to me, means sustainable. The game, in my opinion is sustainable as is. That means it’s making enough money to continue. It’s well as opposed to being sick.
Anet has just had an influx of money from the China sale even if it sold below expectations (which I don’t know for sure). That influx will boost the game until they come out with an expansion which I’m convinced will happen.
But these stories with voice actors and new instances…this isn’t something you see in games doing badly. It’s at least okay, maybe good. That’s well to me.
So much major has changed, it would be impossible to type it all here. Lion’s Arch was destroyed and is in the process of being rebuilt. We’ve had changes to the trait system (five points in the old system is equal to one in the new) traits have changed and your traits are probably reset. We have account bound dyes and an account wardrobe. Transmutation stones and crystals are now charges and need to be converted. Townclothes have been discountinued, either turned into armor or tonics. You need to go to an NPC to convert them.
Got into the mists lobby when you first log in to unlock some of your skins. Log in on each character if you have more than one and check your mail for dye duplicate refunds. You should get some unided dyes back in the mail.
Living Story Season 2 has started and Drytop a new zone, is being revealed to us through it.
The crit stat has been replaced with ferocity, which puts it in line with the rest of the stats. Not sure if you were here when Edge of the Mists was released, it’s a new WvW zone.
There’s plenty more, too, but that’s some of the major stuff.
Edit: Oh and there’s a pretty big feature pack coming in two weeks (at least if the first feature patch was anything to go by).
And the world should feel fuller because we have megaservers now. Gah so much!
(edited by Vayne.8563)
Does anyone know if there’s an actual difference in appearance between the ascended version and the infused ascended version. If there’s not I don’t see a problem. There’s not even a difference in stats.
I think some of us are just tired of seeing people saying the game is dead, when it’s pretty obviously not the case. It may or may not be popular. That’s relative anyway. But one thing it’s not is dead.
It’s still an ascended back piece without infusing it. The infusion is generally used by fractal players to get better stats. It’s the same with infusing many of the back pieces in the game.
All statistics online social media website are all over the places. The only reliable source if you ask Anet and each game studios about the population active players. That’s the proper way to measure it.
Not 3rd party software, not even Steam that has 30million+ accounts with 6-7mil active peak time.
Why?
1. Not everyone use Steam to launch GW2.
2. Not everyone use Raptr with GW2.
3. Not everyone use Overwolf with GW2.
4. Not everyone use GW2.exe launcher to start the game.
5. There are at least freaking 4 examples way to launch GW2.X. How is this reliable statistic? It’s all over the places.
Me. I use SweetFX Configurator to launch GW2.
Think of it as polling though. People run political polls and poll 1000 people to get an idea of the trends, and usually those polls are accurate.
Except there is a science to polling. The Pollers know how to pick people that are an accurate representation of the specific demographics they are tryuing to determine information from.
Whether the Demographic is … Democrats and Republicans, or… Boxer vs Briefs… etc. When a Poll is made the pollers are not dialing random numbers. Which is what Overwolf’s numbers basically are.
Random in the sense that other than " happened to hear of and prefer overwolf to some other app…" there is no scientific basis to how the players were selected. The Players selected themselves so cannot really be said to be representative of the whole.
Right the players weren’t selected at all and it’s a much much bigger sampling size than most polls. When you have a sample size of 1000, you’d better pick carefully. The sample size here is the size of those who run overwolf in the background. I’m pretty sure it’s more than 1000 people. Same with the sample size of Raptr.
Again, it won’t give us numbers, but it should give us trends….which is what I’m looking at. It’s the other information people keeping ignoring that this is backing up.
Basically, there’s no evidence at all the game is dead. There’s circumstantial evidence that it’s not.