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To me, a casual, the future of GW2 looks uncertain based off observation of # of players ingame.


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The future of every game is uncertain. However, whether you have a positive outlook or a negative one will mainly come down to mentality. It's normal for most people to have a negative view of the future due to how uncertain it is along with the lack of control. Before you asked the question about the future you already wanted to be convinced the game is going to die, and likely just ignored most of what you saw to confirm your bias (normal human behavior).

It makes sense the starting zone to any given old MMORPG will not be packed, the majority of characters are at max level, and the only reason to sit in a low level zone would be to help someone out, collections/legendaries or dailies. However, there is generally a mentor or two in the starting area, for humans at least as that's what most created characters are, and if you play around the times where most people are then finding groups for various content is generally easy, even content Arenanet ignores like dungeons.

Even if WvW was a marketing point and it isn't constantly full, that comes down to most people preferring PvE, and even most PvPers prefer arena based pvp over open world type pvp. It also comes down to how rewards were designed, at the beginning of a weekly cycle multiple maps have que times, but then towards the middle/end that stops due to reaching the weekly ticket cap, and they just wait for reset again. Most of the action is also focused on one map, with the others mostly played to avoid interaction, or when the main map is full, or to defend/attack.

Other games with a lower population may seem more active, but that is only when you ignore context. Many games have a heavy focus on one particular set of content, and offer an extreme limited number of variance in activity. This causes most of the game's population to sit in a couple areas. Guild Wars 2 on the other hand offers plenty of options, and even said options have multiple options within that. This causes the population to be spread out more, on top of of how "channels" on maps are dealt with, hidden players, and the whole vip passes there's even more hidden players.

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@Omyrah.7389 said:I have done map completion 17 times. Just in core Tyria, with every completion I have done, I can see that the game maintains a healthy population, and I always see players running around. More recently, I have actually been running into the problem of too many people at a heart for me to get the completion done, and I have to move to a different heart until they leave. Don't listen to the naysayers who think the game is dying.

^^^ThisI also am a map completion fan....and there are tons of players out mapping...lower zones, middle zones, and the higher ones. Also, during the last week, I decided to revisit some old favorites—the metas in Silverwastes and Dragon Stand. Both maps were full and the events came off fantastic. I routinely farm Ember Bay, Doric Bay, and Bitterfrost for map currencies and ascended mats. All of those areas seem to be routinely well populated.

So, like others, I'm not sure how you are getting the impression that the game is dying. Seems very active to me.

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@Elothar.4382 said:

@Omyrah.7389 said:I have done map completion 17 times. Just in core Tyria, with every completion I have done, I can see that the game maintains a healthy population, and I always see players running around. More recently, I have actually been running into the problem of
too many
people at a heart for me to get the completion done, and I have to move to a different heart until they leave. Don't listen to the naysayers who think the game is dying.

^^^ThisI also am a map completion fan....and there are tons of players out mapping...lower zones, middle zones, and the higher ones. Also, during the last week, I decided to revisit some old favorites—the metas in Silverwastes and Dragon Stand. Both maps were full and the events came off fantastic. I routinely farm Ember Bay, Doric Bay, and Bitterfrost for map currencies and ascended mats. All of those areas seem to be routinely well populated.

So, like others, I'm not sure how you are getting the impression that the game is dying. Seems very active to me.

It all depends on how lucky you are, ive been consistently thrown around empty maps in some of those same areas, so, not that im saying the game is dying, far from it, but i really do wish maps could hold more people sometimes.

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I think the game population is decreasing, lots of zones deserted. Population is more spread out, but in zones where they should be concentrated because it's either new content or meta event, there are less players and the zergs are smaller. Meta events used to have multiple maps, now it's usually only one with a half full squad.

Spvp population has definently decreased, compared to season 1-3 lot of repeat players in matches and not many new ones.

I'm in tier 1 wvw and the population is definently lower for all servers. Less zergs around that are smaller on all sides. And way more maps with outnumbered for long stretches of time, way less players then when they introduced pips and definently way less then wvw tournament 3 years ago.

I've played since launch.

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Thanks to those who were helpful in their replies. I don't know how so many people interpreted my post as some sort of definitive statement that I think the game is dying (used "uncertain" because I AM NOT SURE and would like better insight), I wish you guys would really read my followup posts to see that's not what I'm going after at all. I even prefaced that I'm just a casual player so I probably don't know as much as many of you long-time players do.

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@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Patchwreck.2357 said:The beginning areas appear far less populated than any game I can ever remember playing. It may be that they keep the pop low by opening other instances, but most are ghost towns. I can't get anyone to play this game just because this is the only game that doesn't offer a lvl 10 or 20 mount, making ppl run for 80 lvls isn't very appealing to a lot of players when they can go everywhere else.

Yeah, if you're free-to-play. If you purchase an expansion you can boost to 80, unlock the raptor in a matter of minutes, and have a full speed mount for every character from there on. You also have waypoints. It's hard to imagine a more convenient travel option than that.

That's how F2P works, though. You watch everyone else fly by on their fancy mounts with all the benefits of purchasing an expansion and you start to think it might not be a bad idea to just pay the money.

People keep saying the waypoint thing as if that makes any since, at no point in the game wile leveling a toon do waypoints help you go forward, they're not unlocked yet. I bought the game expansions at level 30 along with a few packages and found out on an alt I had started about the mount situation when 2 gurus were going nuts on a few people in map chat for wanting the 33% mounts that all other games have. The geniuses were so out of touch and self absorbed that they were telling members of the community that the community doesn't want mounts, its not that kind of community and they were sick of telling the community that community doesn't want anyone new to have a mount.

I also found out about that 80 thing and started to write a ticket to get my money back, I realized it had probably been to long and I got screwed. Besides there were still things I loved about the game more than any game I've ever played. So I spent hours of time were uselessly wasted running..... and running.... and running and my play time sucked more and more because at 35 or so you can't just run through the mobs to get somewhere, they start hitting you with slows and cripple so you have to fight your way through everything which takes even longer. Its lame that you can't just progress into a mount for the early game and a better one for the end. I like playing mmo's and didn't want this weird thing where I have to make an 80 then delete it because I level my toons and don't want an insta 80.

As far as the people comparing the population of this game to itself it has always been one of the lower population game. It has half the population of the games above it with the exception of WoW (yes everyone knows this isn't wow think you for informing me) which has around 6 times the population. I personally like low population areas but a lot of games I've played have all their cites as populated as LA, and all the beginning zones are full. When warhammer was alive in every 20 to 30 area they would have hundreds of people on every server during prime time.

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@solfizz.5730 said:

@solfizz.5730 said:Can those of you who know the game more intimately than me tell me what you think?

I expected a long, interesting post about it, and I get a question what I think... Sorry, but is it a joke? What observations?

If you took the moment to read my many responses after the OP you would find out.

So why didn't you just put your statements in your first post then? You clarified your title statement only because others made you do this.

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@Arden.7480 said:

@solfizz.5730 said:Can those of you who know the game more intimately than me tell me what you think?

I expected a long, interesting post about it, and I get a question what I think... Sorry, but is it a joke? What observations?

If you took the moment to read my many responses after the OP you would find out.

So why didn't you just put your statements in your first post then? You clarified your title statement only because others made you do this.

Look, I just wanted to generate a discussion on what more experienced players thought about there perhaps being a low population, that's all, and you decided to read it as something else. If it wasn't clear why don't you try to find out what I mean...or simply ask and I'd be happy to clarify for you! You don't need to resort to insults.

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@Yamazuki.6073 said:Before you asked the question about the future you already wanted to be convinced the game is going to die, and likely just ignored most of what you saw to confirm your bias (normal human behavior).

You couldn't be further from the truth as I genuinely want to see the game succeed. From coming back since 2015, Lion's Arch visibly has less players than before, that's not bias that's my very real observation. Now I know that isn't the only measure whether or not an mmorpg is well populated, as the rest of your post very effectively laid out, but it is a metric that should not be ignored entirely either.

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@"solfizz.5730" said:You couldn't be further from the truth as I genuinely want to see the game succeed. From coming back since 2015, Lion's Arch visibly has less players than before, that's not bias that's my very real observation. Now I know that isn't the only measure whether or not an mmorpg is well populated, as the rest of your post very effectively laid out, but it is a metric that should not be ignored entirely either.Maybe this is due to there being a lot more content than in 2015? Maybe this is due to players hanging out in other places because they don't like the "new" LA? I don't doubt your observations; merely the conclusion.

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@kharmin.7683 said:

@"solfizz.5730" said:You couldn't be further from the truth as I genuinely want to see the game succeed. From coming back since 2015, Lion's Arch visibly has less players than before, that's not bias that's my very real observation. Now I know that isn't the only measure whether or not an mmorpg is well populated, as the rest of your post very effectively laid out, but it is a metric that should not be ignored entirely either.Maybe this is due to there being a lot more content than in 2015? Maybe this is due to players hanging out in other places because they don't like the "new" LA? I don't doubt your observations; merely the conclusion.

And that's okay, that's what I was looking for - people like yourself who know more about what's going on with the game to give substantiated feedback. In hindsight I should have posted more specifics like "I am a returning player from 2015, who plays(ed) very casually and this is what I see. Can anyone confirm or debunk this for me?" A big part of my question came from the fact that I was on the edge of buying PoF but wanted to know if people see that there's still longevity to this game. Somewhat relevant and fun fact: I was at McDonald's waiting on my order while I typed that up on the phone. :p Mmm...Mocha Frappe. :3

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I would say it depends on what you're doing and how the server sorts you into things.Random bounties? Might not get much unless you farm some people (tag up, call out in map chat).World Boss running? Kiss your framerate goodbye.Dragon Stand? It'll look empty because the method of getting into it "properly" is utterly poor design and based on a static timer. But if you do get in, it's a full map (and good fun).

But even running around in old world content or randomly exploring, I still run into plenty of people, which is waaay different than every other MMO I've played.

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@solfizz.5730 said:

@solfizz.5730 said:Can those of you who know the game more intimately than me tell me what you think?

I expected a long, interesting post about it, and I get a question what I think... Sorry, but is it a joke? What observations?

If you took the moment to read my many responses after the OP you would find out.

So why didn't you just put your statements in your first post then? You clarified your title statement only because others made you do this.

Look, I just wanted to generate a discussion on what more experienced players thought about there perhaps being a low population, that's all, and you decided to read it as something else. If it wasn't clear why don't you try to find out what I mean...or simply ask and I'd be happy to clarify for you! You don't need to resort to insults.

insults? It's just a constructive critique.

But if you ask the veteran players to get the answer you need, I can give you my opinion (I've played for 5 years- not since the launch).

I could see ups and downs of GW2 population- there was a time when I was overwhelmed by how many people there are- the population of GW2 players was rising and rising before HoT. This was a content I personally was enjoying for 4 months and I still am.

Do you know when the playerbase was decreasing to some small tribes? Just after HoT, because there was TOTALLY nothing to do between HoT and Season 3 launch- absolutely nothing except some quarterly updates.

Season 3 should have been started just after HoT- 3-4 months after it to make people engaged, and then we had to wait for almost one year for another episode of story.

This was the worst time in my GW2 experience when my guildies were leaving the game and were joining only for updates, and they disappeared for another 4 months.

I don't know if it was just my guild, but I was feeling alone, I became a total solo player- and then the nerf for dungeons was released- there was no will to play.

Do I think GW2 will ever be the same game as before and a bit after HoT?? I do not think so.

I hate ANet for this break between HoT and Season 3 with a little content, because they had the money, and they spent them on nothing, even Season 3 was a very subpar Season.

I have a feeling that they rather want to keep the players they have, than searching for new players.

And the greatest embarrassment in MMORPG industry was that they needed another game to fail- Blessed Online- to remind people that GW2 still exist. I mean what if it wouldn't happen?

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Not sure what "# of players in game" means. I can't think of a single time when I couldn't find enough players for a meta event, champ boss, or to answer any questions. For things like Meta events, it can get tricky if you don't understand how the 'megaserver' works, or how to 'taxi' to the right server IP, but I've always found there to be plenty of players in all game modes at all times of the day.

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@"Turkeyspit.3965" said:Not sure what "# of players in game" means. I can't think of a single time when I couldn't find enough players for a meta event, champ boss, or to answer any questions. For things like Meta events, it can get tricky if you don't understand how the 'megaserver' works, or how to 'taxi' to the right server IP, but I've always found there to be plenty of players in all game modes at all times of the day.

Appreciate your feedback. I should have been more clear as I was in a rush waiting on some food while I was out - see post above. It's reassuring that so many of you who have responded are saying that there are more than enough players.

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@Arden.7480 said:

@solfizz.5730 said:Can those of you who know the game more intimately than me tell me what you think?

I expected a long, interesting post about it, and I get a question what I think... Sorry, but is it a joke? What observations?

If you took the moment to read my many responses after the OP you would find out.

So why didn't you just put your statements in your first post then? You clarified your title statement only because others made you do this.

Look, I just wanted to generate a discussion on what more experienced players thought about there perhaps being a low population, that's all, and you decided to read it as something else. If it wasn't clear why don't you try to find out what I mean...or simply ask and I'd be happy to clarify for you! You don't need to resort to insults.

insults? It's just a constructive critique.

But if you ask the veteran players to get the answer you need, I can give you my opinion (I've played for 5 years- not since the launch).

I could see ups and downs of GW2 population- there was a time when I was overwhelmed by how many people there are- the population of GW2 players was rising and rising before HoT. This was a content I personally was enjoying for 4 months and I still am.

Do you know when the playerbase was decreasing to some small tribes? Just after HoT, because there was TOTALLY nothing to do between HoT and Season 3 launch- absolutely nothing except some quarterly updates.

Season 3 should have been started just after HoT- 3-4 months after it to make people engaged, and then we had to wait for almost one year for another episode of story.

This was the worst time in my GW2 experience when my guildies were leaving the game and were joining only for updates, and they disappeared for another 4 months.

I don't know if it was just my guild, but I was feeling alone, I became a total solo player- and then the nerf for dungeons was released- there was no will to play.

Do I think GW2 will ever be the same game as before and a bit after HoT?? I do not think so.

I hate ANet for this break between HoT and Season 3 with a little content, because they had the money, and they spent them on nothing, even Season 3 was a very subpar Season.

I have a feeling that they rather want to keep the players they have, than searching for new players.

And the greatest embarrassment in MMORPG industry was that they needed another game to fail- Blessed Online- to remind people that GW2 still exist. I mean what if it wouldn't happen?

Sorry that I answered hastily, I genuinely thought you were just trying to give me crap which I admit doesn't seem to be the case after your last post. It's good to hear someone who's seen the ups and downs of the games and can chronicle the journey it took to get to the point where we're at. Again, coming from a relatively inexperienced point of view, I think Anet needs to be a little more assertive marketing their game, because of the brief reminder that this game exists through an entirely non-intended third party. We can't wait for other MMO failures to continue Anet's responsibility to get the word out that GW2 exists. But the very fact that they're not really doing that is, in my eyes, sort of telling of trepidation toward spending money that they might not be able to afford to do so right now.

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Oh boi you're a bold one. Even just alluding to GW2 not doing well in the future can get you crucified around these parts, the community is extremely defensive about it..

I personally don't think this game could survive another PoF.

PoF is the WoD of GW2, great first time experience but an absolute disaster in the following years because of the lack of content. Community reacted better because it's a more casual one, but there's a breaking point. Having a cosmetic endgame with next to no cosmetic rewards outside the gemstore doesn't give me much hope either.

And don't get me started on deliberately destroying the combat system with powercreep for quick cash grabs..

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@solfizz.5730 said:

@"Weindrasi.3805" said:A LOT, and I mean a LOT of people, have been saying the game is dying or it has an uncertain future--both in-game and on the forums. They say this because people like to whine, tend to be cynical, and are quick to believe the worst.The reality? This game is doing fine. Ignore the predictions of doom, go on playing, and you'll see for yourself.

Well to be fair, I was basing my observations from the time I played around when HoT came out give or take a few months into it's infancy where there were a LOT more people in Lion's Arch and today where even the biggest hub city seems sparse in comparison. Maybe it was just because there were fewer zones then, but in my mind, if Lion's Arch out of all places was showing a decline in numbers, then maybe there is something to be said of at the very least GW2's population count. Notice how I left my post title pretty open ended becaue I didn't want to say authoritatively that this thing is for sure happening to our game, but wanted to leave it open to others' feedback, and so far I've gotten a lot of good responses.

lions arch was so crowded because from there you could quickly travel to any other city for free and had access to all services one would need (bank, BLT, crafting stations, MF etc)

issue is tho that after HoT AN ws releasing ALOT of "lounges" - which were providing all of that but at much more condensed space.

why run around LA, when you can have access to all the same things but requiring much less running?

so I'd blame the decline on LA population on everyone who could affording it, moving to one of these lounges.

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@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

@"Weindrasi.3805" said:A LOT, and I mean a LOT of people, have been saying the game is dying or it has an uncertain future--both in-game and on the forums. They say this because people like to whine, tend to be cynical, and are quick to believe the worst.The reality? This game is doing fine. Ignore the predictions of doom, go on playing, and you'll see for yourself.

Well to be fair, I was basing my observations from the time I played around when HoT came out give or take a few months into it's infancy where there were a LOT more people in Lion's Arch and today where even the biggest hub city seems sparse in comparison. Maybe it was just because there were fewer zones then, but in my mind, if Lion's Arch out of all places was showing a decline in numbers, then maybe there is something to be said of at the very least GW2's population count. Notice how I left my post title pretty open ended becaue I didn't want to say authoritatively that this thing is for sure happening to our game, but wanted to leave it open to others' feedback, and so far I've gotten a lot of good responses.

lions arch was so crowded because from there you could quickly travel to any other city for free and had access to all services one would need (bank, BLT, crafting stations, MF etc)

issue is tho that after HoT AN ws releasing ALOT of "lounges" - which were providing all of that but at much more condensed space.

why run around LA, when you can have access to all the same things but requiring much less running?

so I'd blame the decline on LA population on everyone who could affording it, moving to one of these lounges.

That makes sense, I wish Anet did a better job of guiding people in-game to these lounges (and activities in general). There is so much to do, but a lot of it isn't explained very well apart from the fanmade wiki.

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@solfizz.5730 said:

@"Weindrasi.3805" said:A LOT, and I mean a LOT of people, have been saying the game is dying or it has an uncertain future--both in-game and on the forums. They say this because people like to whine, tend to be cynical, and are quick to believe the worst.The reality? This game is doing fine. Ignore the predictions of doom, go on playing, and you'll see for yourself.

Well to be fair, I was basing my observations from the time I played around when HoT came out give or take a few months into it's infancy where there were a LOT more people in Lion's Arch and today where even the biggest hub city seems sparse in comparison. Maybe it was just because there were fewer zones then, but in my mind, if Lion's Arch out of all places was showing a decline in numbers, then maybe there is something to be said of at the very least GW2's population count. Notice how I left my post title pretty open ended becaue I didn't want to say authoritatively that this thing is for sure happening to our game, but wanted to leave it open to others' feedback, and so far I've gotten a lot of good responses.

lions arch was so crowded because from there you could quickly travel to any other city for free and had access to all services one would need (bank, BLT, crafting stations, MF etc)

issue is tho that after HoT AN ws releasing ALOT of "lounges" - which were providing all of that but at much more condensed space.

why run around LA, when you can have access to all the same things but requiring much less running?

so I'd blame the decline on LA population on everyone who could affording it, moving to one of these lounges.

That makes sense, I wish Anet did a better job of guiding people in-game to these lounges (and activities in general). There is so much to do, but a lot of it isn't explained very well apart from the fanmade wiki.

well they are mostly gemstore content so one could take them highlighting it more the wrong way ;)

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