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in twitch.Why are there few people watching Guild Wars 2?


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@nosleepdemon.1368 said:

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:Probably because most GW2 players are actually playing the game?

I've never understood why you would want to watch someone stream when you could just play. Championship type matches - sure, few people will ever reach that level of play so those kinds of games are exciting to watch and unique, just like sports (except not a sport).

BUT! Just watching someone regularly playing a game? That'd be like a soccer buff watching a bad hand-held recording of some Brazilian kids kicking a ball around without any shoes on. With some mook's ugly mug in the corner and periodic reminders to donate for the privelege so said mook can continue wasting everybody's time. It's not exciting and actually it's a wee bit creepy.

Thats kind of a gross misrepresentation of streamers.

Sure there are those that might solicit for donations and the like, but I don't believe they are the ones that will last terribly long or grow very large. In fact I can't actively think of any that have. Many streamers are well aware of the luck of their circumstances and many express their gratitude to their fanbase.

Don't take a few bad eggs as a representation of the larger group. Its just doesn't paint an accurate picture, especially in the case of when many do
charity
streams and ask for such donations so that they can go to said charities.

Yes charity streams, so that they can gain even more viewership. I find the vast majority of streamers to be insuferable, especially those with a PIP of their faces visible at all times. You know, just in case anyone wants to actually look at those gloriously unshaven totems of narcissism.

Right...okay...

So you really don't like streamers, huh?

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@Tukaram.8256 said:

@preacher.9370 said:unless you're stuck on something and want a video to see how to do it, why watch other people play when you can just play the game yourself?

Exactly. About the only thing I watch is how to get to a vista that is kicking my butt. Other than that... why is this even a thing?

... and you wouldn't go to a stream for that

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@Tukaram.8256 said:

@"preacher.9370" said:unless you're stuck on something and want a video to see how to do it, why watch other people play when you can just play the game yourself?

Exactly. About the only thing I watch is how to get to a vista that is kicking my butt. Other than that... why is this even a thing?

You're looking at this the wrong way. The fact that people arrive en masse to watch streamers play games isn't up for debate. The inability to understand why people do this is a you problem, and not an answer to what the OP is asking.

To try and answer the question... it has to deal with presentation. It is a strange way of looking at it, but really a videogame is a series of inconveniences that you're meant to deal with. Every enemy is problem that demands a solution, as is every puzzle, every dialogue chain, every platforming section, etc. and so on. When Anet made GW2, they sought to eliminate a lot of those inconveniences that plagued other games. Thing is, all of these little trivial problems are what made people watch.

Take waypoints, for example. From the player's perspective, they're really fast and convenient, and in spite of the costs it is never worth it to just run it. However, from an onlookers perspective, the world map is a confusing system of nodes that you teleport around. Effectively, all environments are one-time experiences that are traversed once for map completion, and then forgotten about. In other games, the map is a set piece you continually interact with. As convenient as it is to just warp wherever you need to go, it is incredibly boring for anyone to watch.

Another example is the loot system. Unlike other games, we don't have super rare, flash, legendary drops that are tied to specific areas. At least, not a lot of them. Now, our generalized loot and skin system is very convenient for playing dress-up and for gearing yourself up cheaply. However, for the onlooker, this just makes everything dull and meaningless. There isn't "that one drop" that you need to get from "that one enemy." There is no status recognition beyond legendary weapons, and all a legendary weapon really means is you grinded and/or bought your way to owning a legendary weapon. A lot of what makes the enemies interesting is the targeted drops, and these interesting enemies make the environment interesting, too. You have to traverse the environment to get to those specific enemies. Even if you get a precursor, all an onlooker will see is the icon in your inventory screen.

This isn't an exhaustive list, nor is it just a few big issues. It is death by 1000 cuts, wherein everything added to make gameplay easier just makes it boring to watch.

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I was watching twitch yesterday, and wandered over to the gw2 section. The livestreams consisted of woodenpotatoes doing long live the lich achievements while talking about the game, and a bunch of other people doing achievements and whatnot with 0 to 10 views.

Compare it to something like League of Legends, which was streaming esports at the same time. There was some hype easy to follow gameplay, decent commentary and 100k views.

I think what seperates gw2 from lol is that you see a dude get a pentakill in lol, it all seems possible. When you see a dude 1v50 in gw2 wvw, it's in the realm of fantasy - there's nothing a gw2 casual player can learn from watching high tier play.

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1) GW2 just isnt that fun or exciting to watch being streamed.

2) GW2 really doesn't have much going on. WoW has 8.2 and classic. FF has its well-received expansion. GW2 has a 3 month old content update.

3) WoW has several big name "personality" streamers that bring in 20,000 viewers per stream.

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Guild wars 2 is BETTER game than world of worcraft! who cares about twitch.. most people who watch twitch are 12 year old kids. world of worcraft have cartoonish graphics thats why 12 year old kids like to watch world of worcraft. same as fortnite..Guild wars 2 is better game e nuf said ... who cares about twitch!

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Easy way to make the Twitch views of the game explode:Use one of the streaming shows (like Guild Chat) only instead of talking about content released the previous Tuesday, talk about content about to arrive in the next one.Boom. Guild Wars 2 twitch streams will explode in popularity and viewership. Possibility of this happening is close to zero though given the "no talk until it's out" policy.

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@"Knuckle Joe.7408" said:twitch attracts a very specific type of people, which is not compatible with the overall atmosphere of GW2

Are you referring to toxic meme culture or something similar?

Have you seen the sPvP community? I also actually see many more "toxic" casuals on GW2 than I see anywhere else, sort of a "I'm a better person than you" attitude that...is really no better than the "elitist" types that so many have issues with.

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@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@"Knuckle Joe.7408" said:twitch attracts a very specific type of people, which is not compatible with the overall atmosphere of GW2

Are you referring to toxic meme culture or something similar?

Have you
seen
the sPvP community? I also actually see many more "toxic" casuals on GW2 than I see anywhere else, sort of a "I'm a better person than you" attitude that...is really no better than the "elitist" types that so many have issues with.

Ok, I'll bite. Here we go again with the casual/hardcore narrative.I've actually never seen any casual say things like "I'm a better person than you". I've seen some of them telling others to leave the game, if they don't like it, which in itself is incredibly toxic, I don't however think that the vast majority of "casuals" thinks like that. (Atleast i hope so)

Yet I keep seeing spiteful and childish anagrams all over the place. Players creating new posts on Reddit, creating whole stories around the anagram. Even pretending to be new players, just to ridicule other posts and spamming the subreddit.I don't have anything against the GW2 streamers, they are respectful, yet parts of their communities are a whole other thing. This has nothing to do with a "toxic meme culture", they are just deliberately spewing hate.If I compare twitch communities in a bigger picture, you have communities like Forsen's community, who actually spam just to meme. But for some reason a big part of the GW2 twitch community lives in an echo chamber. They really do think that the "casuals" are against them, so they continue to be hateful. I'd probably watch certain GW2 streamers more, if it weren't for some individuals in their communities.

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@Khisanth.2948 said:Maybe you could try starting off at the right question: why does anyone want to watch someone else play a game?

Therer are games I prefer to watch instead to play(f.e. Hearthstone is an extremely boring and grindy game to play but there are several top tier streamers which are enjoyable to watch). GW2 on the other hand is fun to play but extremely boring to watch.

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@Raknar.4735 said:

@"Knuckle Joe.7408" said:twitch attracts a very specific type of people, which is not compatible with the overall atmosphere of GW2

Are you referring to toxic meme culture or something similar?

Have you
seen
the sPvP community? I also actually see many more "toxic" casuals on GW2 than I see anywhere else, sort of a "I'm a better person than you" attitude that...is really no better than the "elitist" types that so many have issues with.

Ok, I'll bite. Here we go again with the casual/hardcore narrative.I've actually never seen any casual say things like "I'm a better person than you". I've seen some of them telling others to leave the game, if they don't like it, which in itself is incredibly toxic, I don't however think that the vast majority of "casuals" thinks like that. (Atleast i hope so)

Yet I keep seeing spiteful and childish anagrams all over the place. Players creating new posts on Reddit, creating whole stories around the anagram. Even pretending to be new players, just to ridicule other posts and spamming the subreddit.I don't have anything against the GW2 streamers, they are respectful, yet parts of their communities are a whole other thing. This has nothing to do with a "toxic meme culture", they are just deliberately spewing hate.If I compare twitch communities in a bigger picture, you have communities like Forsen's community, who actually spam just to meme. But for some reason a big part of the GW2 twitch community lives in an echo chamber. They really do think that the "casuals" are against them, so they continue to be hateful. I'd probably watch certain GW2 streamers more, if it weren't for some individuals in their communities.

Well firstly no they might not have ever said it...but then again people who have that feeling about them tend to not. Note I did say "attitude" and not that they have specifically said that specific phrase.

Also you might be right the "vast majority" of casuals might not think or behave that way, but that doesn't stop the ones that do from doing it and being incredibly vocal. Does that represent all players within that certain "subgroup"? No, it doesn't, and that goes for both sides of the spectrum.

The point I was making was that whatever you see on Twitch isn't isolated to just there with GW2. This is just my own experience based on my own interactions where I am actually consistently cordial with people, but GW2's community is definitely on a level of toxicity that I don't think many people realize and it is sort of due to the whole "casual vs hardcore" narrative that has been constructed over a long period of time. It really isn't one sides fault over the others, its both at this point because it has been perpetuated for far too long with very few people actually telling the both of them that they are wrong. I can see both sides point of view because I've been on both sides and they are both equally ridiculous in the whole scenario. On one side we have the "How dare you tell us what builds to use for certain content!" and on the other we have the "What a trash player monkaS pepehands" and the ones doing that are both idiots for doing so because there is no understanding present, just vitriol.

It was said that "twitch attracts a very specific type of people" but whatever sort of "type" one might see on streams for GW2 or LoL isn't the entirety of Twitch. There are plenty of streamers who have communities that are crazy supportive of the streamer and even more so giving during charity streams. To say that it attracts a "certain type" isn't reflective of the Twitch community as a whole, as memey and potentially toxic as it for sure can be, often times its just for jokes and laughs (often cheap ones), but you also have to ask what the community at large for a game is like if you see, with GW2 as an example, a "certain type" flock to streams for that game. LoL is notoriously pretty toxic in the game and similar can be said for the chats of many streamers for it. My point is that GW2 isn't that terribly different.

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@KryTiKaL.3125 said:

@"Knuckle Joe.7408" said:twitch attracts a very specific type of people, which is not compatible with the overall atmosphere of GW2

Are you referring to toxic meme culture or something similar?

Have you
seen
the sPvP community? I also actually see many more "toxic" casuals on GW2 than I see anywhere else, sort of a "I'm a better person than you" attitude that...is really no better than the "elitist" types that so many have issues with.

Ok, I'll bite. Here we go again with the casual/hardcore narrative.I've actually never seen any casual say things like "I'm a better person than you". I've seen some of them telling others to leave the game, if they don't like it, which in itself is incredibly toxic, I don't however think that the vast majority of "casuals" thinks like that. (Atleast i hope so)

Yet I keep seeing spiteful and childish anagrams all over the place. Players creating new posts on Reddit, creating whole stories around the anagram. Even pretending to be new players, just to ridicule other posts and spamming the subreddit.I don't have anything against the GW2 streamers, they are respectful, yet parts of their communities are a whole other thing. This has nothing to do with a "toxic meme culture", they are just deliberately spewing hate.If I compare twitch communities in a bigger picture, you have communities like Forsen's community, who actually spam just to meme. But for some reason a big part of the GW2 twitch community lives in an echo chamber. They really do think that the "casuals" are against them, so they continue to be hateful. I'd probably watch certain GW2 streamers more, if it weren't for some individuals in their communities.

Well firstly no they might not have ever said it...but then again people who have that feeling about them tend to not. Note I did say "attitude" and not that they have
specifically
said that
specific
phrase.

Also you might be right the "vast majority" of casuals might not think or behave that way, but that doesn't stop the ones that do from doing it and being incredibly vocal. Does that represent all players within that certain "subgroup"? No, it doesn't, and that goes for both sides of the spectrum.

I don't disagree, that's why I'm only talking about "parts of the communities".

The point I was making was that whatever you see on Twitch isn't isolated to just there with GW2. This is just my own experience based on my own interactions where I am actually consistently cordial with people, but GW2's community is definitely on a level of toxicity that I don't think many people realize and it is sort of due to the whole "casual vs hardcore" narrative that has been constructed over a long period of time. It really isn't one sides fault over the others, its both at this point because it has been perpetuated for far too long with very few people actually telling the both of them that they are wrong. I can see both sides point of view because I've been on both sides and they are both equally ridiculous in the whole scenario. On one side we have the "How dare you tell us what builds to use for certain content!" and on the other we have the "What a trash player monkaS pepehands" and the ones doing that are both idiots for doing so because there is no understanding present, just vitriol.

I honestly don't agree with this part. To me it feels like the "hardcore" playerbase started to bash the "casual" playerbase simply because Anet creates more content for the latter. So it is obvious to me that some casuals will then lash out in retaliation.About the "trash build" part: Shouldn't everyone just play the builds they want? If you don't like someone's build, you don't have to invite him into your squad. That is atleast what a lot of raid players give as an answer, when casuals are looking for a group: to just create their "own" squad.

I also want to add that this disagreement is based on my own experiences, as i've obviously been subjected to different situations as you have. I'm not saying either of us is right or wrong, just that we have different perspectives on a situation that shouldn't have persisted for this long.

I do agree however with the part that there are idiots on both sides, and I'm honestly sick of this clown fiesta.

It was said that "twitch attracts a very specific type of people" but whatever sort of "type" one might see on streams for GW2 or LoL isn't the entirety of Twitch. There are plenty of streamers who have communities that are crazy supportive of the streamer and even more so giving during charity streams. To say that it attracts a "certain type" isn't reflective of the Twitch community as a whole, as memey and potentially toxic as it for sure can be, often times its just for jokes and laughs (often cheap ones), but you also have to ask what the community at large for a game is like if you see, with GW2 as an example, a "certain type" flock to streams for that game. LoL is notoriously pretty toxic in the game and similar can be said for the chats of many streamers for it. My point is that GW2 isn't that terribly different.

Of course there are streamers that have supportive communities (eg. CohhCarnage, I also honestly think communities like Forsen's are supportive).

It was never specified what the "certain type" was, you assumed it to be negative. It most likely was, but you linked it with the casual/hardcore narrative, that's why i stepped in. I assume he/she probably meant the whole of Twitch, no matter if the viewer/streamer is casual or hardcore. I myself am an avid Twitch viewer, I just tend to ignore those broad statements like "Twitch only attacts a certain type" / "Twitch is boring" / "Twitch is only watched by 12 year olds" (Examples in this thread), as they tell me enough about the person stating them. I won't have a pleasant time discussing/affiliating with them.

I also don't think that LoL is as toxic as many say. And I've seen far less toxicity in GW2 than in various other games. (SPvP is actually more toxic than anything I've seen in LoL, but that's based on my experiences in the past. I'm not sure how things have developed since i've last stepped foot on SPvP. The only thing I've noticed is that the SPvP community is shrinking)

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Twitch is about few things:

  • Esport or some kind of meaningful competition
  • Popular game titles
  • New overhyped things

Gw2 has none of them. So it's probably just too boring to watch.

Game is f2p (so everyone can play it itself) and very casual (so there's no need to watch things, because literally everyone can play this way by yourself). There's also not enough new content to attract players regularly with new things (no hype).

As you can see every scene of hardcore players (pvp,wvw,raids) is kind of "dead"in this game. Veterans are leaving. Alot of PvPers left. Raiders? Same. WvW? Too.So when there's no players, which wants to play this game this way, then there certainly won't be viewers too. Every of this game modes were able to bring pretty big audience. We saw it in the past. But it worked just for a while, because every of this game modes sooner or later became very underdeveloped.

Gw2 had a lot of good and pretty big streamers in the last few years. And there's still few of them (probably not for long). But sooner or later they all leave. And reason is almost always the same - they're not happy with the state of the game. And underdeveloped game modes. That's why GW2 don't grow on twitch and always is in the same place.

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