Thinking about getting back into the game.. how active is it?

[heyhellowhatsnew.3578]

I used to play this game like crazy back in the day. The expansion stuff has my interest peaked.. but I was just wondering how the population is before I buy the expansions and get back into the game. Thanks!!

[Randulf.7614]

Very active, even in older expansions and livng world maps

[aswedishtiger.7320]

Yeah you can literally go anywhere anytime of the day and see tons of people

[Gehenna.3625]

I came back a couple of months ago and I can confirm that the game is pretty solidly populated.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

@heyhellowhatsnew.3578 said:I used to play this game like crazy back in the day. The expansion stuff has my interest peaked.. but I was just wondering how the population is before I buy the expansions and get back into the game. Thanks!!

Like folks said above, I see a lot of people in the game when I play every day. But beyond the population, I think you'd love the expansions because of the mechanics. Try gliding, ride a mount -- you'll have a blast. :)

[Goettel.4389]

Plenty active for open world PvE/metas, and even 3AM insomnia alt leveling never feels lonely. I played from launch, quit for quite some years, and have been been back in for a year or so. Game feels more alive then ever, get in! :)

[DeceiverX.8361]

@"heyhellowhatsnew.3578" said:I used to play this game like crazy back in the day. The expansion stuff has my interest peaked.. but I was just wondering how the population is before I buy the expansions and get back into the game. Thanks!!

It depends on what you're after.If you're looking for the experience ANet provided at launch, odds are you'll want another game.

Storytelling, Open world and hardcore raid-style PvE? Sure, you'll love it and there's plenty of people.

Dungeons/Casual instanced PvE - Effectively removed from peoples' to-do lists. Either grind open-world for gold or do raids where there are very strict profession/role/build requirements. I haven't done one since HoT and I don't know of anyone who has.

PvP/WvW - Almost all the pro players quit citing that the professions are not fun to fight against (no-animation damage/CC, infinite boon stacking across all professions, invuln spamming, etc.), the WvW meta and skill requirements have gone down the tubes with all-time-poor balance, and populations are down massively from before HoT. I've been around the tiers being on a low-level linked server now after transferring down from T1 in WvW. A "High" queue in T1/T2 EBG on reset night on a full server is like 50. Pre-HoT, this pushed closer to 120 and the T4/T5 servers, which lack sufficient players on their own currently, used to have 30-man deep in EBG.

TL;DR: ANet has drastically changed their vision for the game since launch, and especially in the competitive modes, the game is just not worth playing without the expansions because outside of a specific one or two builds, the core game content has been phased out with powercreep.

[Little Leota.5849]

Re: Dungeons - My guild does dungeons weekly. We do them to help members get dungeon tokens they need, help new members/players who may have never done them before, and just for the fun of it.

[dylyn.9681]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:Like folks said above, I see a lot of people in the game when I play every day. But beyond the population, I think you'd love the expansions because of the mechanics. Try gliding, ride a mount -- you'll have a blast. :)

Same for me. Even in Living World Season 2, I see a lot of players any time I go there.

I second getting the expansions. I finished the first chapter in each expansion and it made the whole game a lot more interesting to play. You need gliders and mounts for the expansions, but they're wicked cool for the core game too. It also lets your level-80 characters put their experience toward masteries.

[Ashen.2907]

@Little Leota.5849 said:Re: Dungeons - My guild does dungeons weekly. We do them to help members get dungeon tokens they need, help new members/players who may have never done them before, and just for the fun of it.

My guild does Dungeon Wednesdays (as well as Fractal Fridays) for the same reason.

[Lavith.8930]

@Little Leota.5849 said:Re: Dungeons - My guild does dungeons weekly. We do them to help members get dungeon tokens they need, help new members/players who may have never done them before, and just for the fun of it.

My guild doesn't it too and most of the time we take pick up players who are lonely with us and teach them if needed.

On meta events there's A LOT of people. And whatever i do I always see people even in really useless place.

[Skotlex.7580]

The empty map issues pretty much all died away after ANet implemented megaserver tech (that is, people from all servers can be tossed into the same map instance if it's underpopulated).

So, yeah, usually I can bump into people anywhere anytime. It'll just be hard to get some group events done at off times unless the daily tasks bring them there.

As for casual instanced content? Tier 1 fractals would suit. It's generally all yolo when I set up my lfg runs, it's all in good fun. :P

[Majic.4801]

Nobody plays GW2 anymore.

It's too crowded.

[SloRules.3560]

Well it's declining in pvp/wvw gamemodes, couldn't care less about pve.