Did Cassandra Claire start writing for GW2? Because I've logged in several times since launch and the story is more and more incomprehensible and ridiculous.
Guild Wars 2 Latest Update Destroys Hub Town
- Thread starter Ashodin
- Start date
Did Cassandra Claire start writing for GW2? Because I've logged in several times since launch and the story is more and more incomprehensible and ridiculous.
this is patently false. gtfo, you sewer rats.
this is event is perfect for leveling in. follow a zerg, get xp. much like the gauntlet.
cripterion
Member
I would say no. I went back to it and most of the early zones were empty.
crazepharmacist
Member
The human area, Queensdale is packed almost always. I was just there last week and saw tons of new players running about.
They're mostly people zerging on the Champ train.
That said levelling to 80 doesn't take that long so I don't see how empty low level areas is a massive deterrent to starting the game now.
cripterion
Member
On Gandara? There were a few people here and there in Queensdale and the Norn area was absolutely desert while I lvled my alt there. Made it to the next zone with the event featuring the giant and it was the same, no one around, lake was always full of tar cause no one to do the events.
Anyways, not trying to dissuade anyone to not try the game, just giving my experience. I did like others suggested and hopped back on my lvl80 and yeah it was full in WwW but imo it's really not that fun.
Well it is for me, as I like doing events and doing the little story bits. It's also kinda jarring to be playing a couple of hours and just crossing a few lost souls in a mmo, especially one where your level scales depending on the zone.
crazepharmacist
Member
On Tarnished Coast, a very healthy server. And no it wasn't the champ train. These people were doing actual questing.
And people, don't forget your server needs you in wvw. PVE updates are a nice distraction but the meat and potatoes of this game is wvw. If you're not having fun I urge you to join your server's teamspeak or mumble and get coordinated. Game is whole 'nother beast when you work together and get competitive.
And people, don't forget your server needs you in wvw. PVE updates are a nice distraction but the meat and potatoes of this game is wvw. If you're not having fun I urge you to join your server's teamspeak or mumble and get coordinated. Game is whole 'nother beast when you work together and get competitive.
God no, not in its current state.
crazepharmacist
Member
what do you suggest for improvement? What other MMO out there has better pvp than GW2?
Sothis Krieg
Member
Can i see the cinematic somewhere ? I've just logged in and no cinematic started 
Austriacus
Member
This sounds really silly when you know that the games last quarter revenue increased by 50%(making it reach 120m dollars of revenue in a year). The game is not shrinking mate, its growing and servers are almost always very high. I dont even play anymore and im not that misinformed
krameriffic
Member
It's not even about popularity with this one. Every time I try to play it I just grow quickly bored with the combat and questing. It offers nothing different from every other MMO, and in fact is much more shallow in terms of character building and progression.
KiteGr
Member
They didnt just destroy "a hub town".
They destroyed "the hub town" as LA was the main hub town where all the players where afking, all the portal to pvp and other towns as well as the mystic toilet where located and all the activities where taking place, making all the other towns into ghost towns.
Perhaps the idea of destroying it goes beyond marketing.
They destroyed "the hub town" as LA was the main hub town where all the players where afking, all the portal to pvp and other towns as well as the mystic toilet where located and all the activities where taking place, making all the other towns into ghost towns.
Perhaps the idea of destroying it goes beyond marketing.
The population status on the world selection screen are about the number of accounts with that as their selected world, not the number of players online, though maybe you know this already and I misunderstood.
Austriacus
Member
No, thats false as far as i remember. If this were true servers would stay on full for ever. There are times when some full servers turn to very high and vice versa.
Thats fine but thats not something i really was disscusing, those are personal preferences afterall (I dont understand how breaking the trinity isnt something new and content every two weeks is common but w/e).
I was only arguing that the game is as big as ever.
Jest Chillin
Member
Can i see the cinematic somewhere ? I've just logged in and no cinematic started
Go one of the three refugee camps in the zones that neighbor Lions Arch. There should be an NPC there that can either recap the events in text or show you the cutscene.
If it bores you, then it bores you. However to say it offers nothing different from every other MMO or that it's more shallow is patently untrue. Guild Missions, Jumping Puzzles, World v. World v. World taking place with 3 servers fighting each other across 4 maps, Instanced PvP that doesn't require a player to level a class to take part in, zones that have dynamically chained events, a handful of huge open world raid bosses that require 100+ players working in coordination to kill, etc... are all different from many other MMOs. The focus on limited use of skills means the fights are more reactive, less dependence on specific rotations, and (best of all imo) no macros all mean the combat requires a player to constantly be engaged to perform at full potential. Now, that's not a knock against the Trinity. Plenty of people enjoy that system and prefer it's order and organization and that's fine. I'm just saying to accuse GW2 of being shallow would be incorrect.
You're correct here. The labeling of "Medium," "High," and "Very High" are representative of the amount of players currently playing on the server at that moment. The labels regularly change throughout the course of the day as a servers population is more or less active. At a server's Primetime, the vast majority of them will be "Very High" or "Full."
Imp the Dimp
Member
What's the player base these days?
I can't blame you for giving it the benefit of the doubt because it would seem deliberately misleading otherwise.
Austriacus
Member
I can't blame you for giving it the benefit of the doubt because it would seem deliberately misleading otherwise.
"indepently of where they created their accounts". Doesnt that mean that its about people who are in the server and not only where the account is created? The wording to me reads as people who are online and are membersof that server and people who have joined the server as guests make up the "very high" "high", etc labels.
Edit. Ive googled it and it in fact only counts active accounts logged in. Found it in reddit with a single google search. I really dont see it other way, if it worked as you say, why does it change what it display at peak hours?
Kos Luftar
Member
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jX5S7UdvO8&feature=youtu.beCan i see the cinematic somewhere ? I've just logged in and no cinematic started
flyinpiranha
Member
When does this event end?
I have to agree with the above poster that the lack of skills was largely the cause for me not playing it anymore.
I fucking loved my 2-handed sword wielding warrior, but when you end up playing a game as huge as this and yet never get any new fresh skills, it really dampens the fun.
They really should add a truckload of cross-weapon skills in addition to the existing weapon-bound ones. Would blow new life into the game for me for sure.
I fucking loved my 2-handed sword wielding warrior, but when you end up playing a game as huge as this and yet never get any new fresh skills, it really dampens the fun.
They really should add a truckload of cross-weapon skills in addition to the existing weapon-bound ones. Would blow new life into the game for me for sure.
KiteGr
Member
There are no low pop servers as you can read above.
Despite this being a subscriptionless mmo, aparently players who started the game and abandoned it later are not being coutnted in the servers campacity as their population status apear to change from time to time.
If you are thinking of starting and have no friends currently playing, i suggest going for high pop servers, as the game is designed so other players cant harm your experience.
There are definitely low pop servers, especially those in the lower tier. And that is not just in terms of WvW players.
To my understanding there is only one full server, Blackgate.
I like this kind of events but my computer can barely handle that amount of players in the screen. Things slow to a crawl.
I still had some fun trying to save some citizens. The fact that we get upped to 80 really helps for doing this kind of activities even if you are a casual player like me.
I still had some fun trying to save some citizens. The fact that we get upped to 80 really helps for doing this kind of activities even if you are a casual player like me.
It's awkward English for sure, but the general opinion was that these were first and foremost just where people had selected as their homeworld, so it might take into account guesting as a means of temporarily increasing the status, I'm not sure. That the status was more or less fudged was normal talk on the official forum and I never saw it corrected nor find anything else (that quote was hard to dig up). Arenanet love metrics and it's a clever way to make the game look healthier than it is, we don't know what the numbers, or the adjustments to whatever algorithms they use to determine those status types.
It's the same idea for TERA EU except way more obvious.
http://en.tera.gameforge.com/community/serverstatus
Source? And why would they suddenly change it? If the algorithm was as honest as it supposedly looks I feel they would've be singing it from the rooftops to correct the wide misinterpretation caused by that employee.
ricardo_sousa11
Member
I never liked normal Lion's Arch in GW2 (loved it in Gw1), I prefer the new look of it
Austriacus
Member
This is all speculation really, but if it had 30k active users as you said, why is it generating 120m dollars in revenue a year? thats the ammount of active people tibia has. And thats a 20 year old game.
Austriacus
Member
I said concurrent. There's a big difference.
Sorry my mistake, i also ment concurrent
Also, this is the original post on the issue in the reddit of guild wars 2, i assume by the devs.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13317p/arenanet_what_server_full_means/
WarMacheen
Member
Played last night for a while. Love this content update. I like people being spread out over several zones instead of piled into Lions Arch. It can be difficult to tell where you are sometimes because of how much damage was done to the city. My only issue is the hierloom items, seem hard to come by.
15-30k concurrent users might mean something like 100k active or whatever and there's no real way of knowing, so it would still be a decent pop in that sense.
As for the reddit it feels like it stated what the original does. "If you move your homeworld from server X to server Y, then you'll be counted in the server Y population regardless of where you made your character". But again it's like the first half of the statement completely contradicts the rest by not being clear. We'll never know and they won't tell us. I think that employee possibly said something they weren't supposed to either way.
Its only a matter of time before people congregate to make a new hub.
Austriacus
Member
What you are basically saying is that guild wars 2 players on average, spend 1.15k real life dollars on the game a year (this is to reach 115m dollars and asuming there are few players joining in)
Numbers dont add up. Pop needs to be at least x5 more to be realistic. Guild wars 2 CS is to fair to get that amount of money per player
I don't get some people. The game isn't by any means perfect, and anyone in the guild will tell you that I'm the first person to criticise the game for some of it's design decisions that I don't like..such as the lack of trinity, the grindy nature of ascended gear, the lack of content for hardcore gamers. Trust me, the guild has heard it all from me.
In saying that though...it's still the best MMO out there right now (Except maybe Planetside 2 but that's a completely different beast). The payment model is so easy, pay once and you're done. It's a beautifully crafted world that actually changes as time goes on. We've seen zones expand, contract and now, completely destroyed.
Also at the end of the day, the GAF guild is an awesome group to play with and I'd probably enjoy playing with them even if we were playing TESO. (lol)
In saying that though...it's still the best MMO out there right now (Except maybe Planetside 2 but that's a completely different beast). The payment model is so easy, pay once and you're done. It's a beautifully crafted world that actually changes as time goes on. We've seen zones expand, contract and now, completely destroyed.
Also at the end of the day, the GAF guild is an awesome group to play with and I'd probably enjoy playing with them even if we were playing TESO. (lol)
I don't do financials but that's a good point if true, where is the 115m from?
Austriacus
Member
From the actual NCSoft quarter report, its open to anyone to check out at their webpage.
For reference, in 2012 it did over 164m dollars, 2013 it did 123m. While it has definetely gone down, to make that much cash and stay constant through the year, you need a pretty big active base. Also to note that 2012 was the year it came out and sold almost 4 million boxes. So really if you go by the numbers one could assume the game has either 500k+ people spending 200 dollars a year or closer to 1m people spending 100 dolars a year.
Its prob somewhere inbetween imo.
Jest Chillin
Member
The quote is pretty clearly speaking to why servers fluctuate all the way to "Full" at one moment while a few hours later it's "Very High." The terminology of "Full" would seem to indicate that players could not create new accounts there, yet if they try to create an account when it's "Very High," they can.
Either way, within context of how you're using the comment, the relative population of GW2 is still quite high as very few (if any) servers ever dip below a "medium" population at any point during the day. "Guesting" only works while you're logged in. The moment you log out of the game, your character is "returned" to it's home server. So again, pop caps on the server screen only represent the amount of players on a server actively logged in at the time.
I literally just checked the North American servers and every single server is currently "Very High" with exception to Blackgate, which is "Full." And it's 9:09am EST, 6:09am PST on a Wednesday. Population is fine.
"Whales." This is essentially why F2P and B2P is more profitable for most games. There are plenty of people who have tons of disposable cash who have no problem with spending thousands of it on cosmetic items. Think multiple accounts, double digit character slots, all cosmetic Gem store clothing sets, dye packs in an attempt to get every color in the game, and of course, gem to gold conversions so all their characters can buy the coolest looking weapons.
I could agree with that, though of course there's whales to take into account and people who buy gems every week to keep up in the limited time they have. I think I easily spent more $100 myself last year.
EDIT: ^^^ Lol, same thought.
Austriacus
Member
Well of course, thats why i said average. I think you and me well know that the majority of people try to pay as little as possible and farm for what they want (You could see the trains of farming all day long). I think a big chunck of people dont spend a dime and ride on the free content they get. And it all evens out in the end to the numbers im saying i think. The system of whales after all, is where the few support the many.
Im a whale myself i think, spent over 300 dollars last year, but when i played i also did it with 6 other real life friends. They payed 0
I'll do my best to keep this mega-post from getting too mega, only touching on direct responses to my posts or giving people information where asked and no answer was given. Because at the end of the day I am a wellspring of useful knowledge here for the benefit of all (except Arksy, who is clearly unworthy).
Games in general, never mind MMOs specifically, have a very narrow method of resolving conflict; combat. There's some great 'non-combat' games out there, even within the genre (Vanguard's card-based Diplomacy thing was an interesting attempt, at the very least) but for the most part if something is going to get done, you're probably going to be hitting it, shooting it or in some of the more amusing cases, both at the same time somehow.
The way games stay fresh is by changing the context in which this happens. So while the events, in your opinion, aren't any different, the context in which they occur is. Not just that everything is happening in a familiar environment turned upside down, but the enemies are appearing in different configurations, and there are environmental hazards and a zone-wide threat that players have to work together to stall (the deployment of the miasma). The city-wide effort to rescue citizens is also something that hasn't been seen before, where every individual NPC saved is contributing to the effort as a whole, be it a large group of players pushing into enemy controlled parts of the city to rescue a large group or a single player carefully picking their way through the patrols to escort a handful of citizens out at a time.
So yeah, you're "going somewhere and killing bad guys to complete events", but the way in which all of that is happening is different. In the same way shooters are all about 'going places and shooting people' and platformers are about jumping on things; the way in which you go about shooting / jumping makes all the difference.
The Living Story up to this point has been about Scarlet uniting various enemy factions together under her command, so it makes sense that you're encountering some enemies from the past year. We rarely have had to fight them all clumped up together, however, with their various abilities overlapping to sometimes devastating effect (some enemies are brutal up close, but there are enemies dropping anti-range defenses over them)
I also think it would be much more difficult if we weren't at least a little familiar with the enemies already; we know from the distinctive palette choices and/or silhouettes that green toxic enemies will behave one way, red molten enemies another, watchwork enemies with their twisted, larger forms another, and so on.
It's been mentioned several times in this thread already, but there's absolutely nothing stopping you from playing the game and having a blast right now, personal and PC issues notwithstanding. There's no gear treadmill to speak of, so you won't have to 'catch up to everyone else' before you can play with them (hell, you don't even have to level to take part in this event, it automatically levels you to 80). If your PC can run it, you have the time to play it (honestly not as much of a commitment as other games in the genre) and $40 floating around, there's nothing else to worry about.
Nope, Black Lion keys do indeed still drop randomly, as I was shocked to get one a few weeks ago. They're also occasionally a reward for map completion and are always a reward for the Personal Story chapters at level 10, 30 and 50.
It's kind of a moot point anyways since Black Lion chests have only ever dropped convenience or cosmetic items, so there's really nothing you're missing by not opening them. A few minis (which aren't account bound and can be purchased on the trading post) and the Tickets / Ticket scraps are the worst of it, but even those are just for weapon skins (which aren't account bound either, of course, but get rather pricy on the TP).
To be fair, it probably just happened last week; we reached 496 members (the cap is 500) and systematically removed about 180 people who hadn't played since the end of August. As always, it's nothing personal and whispering an officer or posting your name.#### in the OT will get you invited asap.
There's an NPC at the Vigil refugee camp (in Gandaren Fields, north of LA) with a Living Story icon (A scroll with a golden starburst) over their head that will give you the option to replay it. There might be similar NPCs at the other camps, but that's the only one I know of for sure.
As others have mentioned, very strong. If you want to be sure you'll have people to play with, roll on the Stormbluff Isle server where the majority of GAF plays, or at least in the North American region (yes, even if you're an EU player) so you can guest over to SBI.
Except that they also increase the population cap on servers when they start to get full; Blackgate, for example is currently listed as "Full" hasn't been that way since launch. It's merely full again. Here's a developer post from the official forums confirming one happened 10 months ago, though they've definitely done it more than once, and more than once since then.
Two weeks, so March 4th. Then something else will happen, whatever Scarlet is drilling for will be revealed and we'll go from there. For what it's worth, they usually put out a teaser video on the off-weeks, so check for news on the 25th.
Lots of changes, some big (a currency wallet, account-wide magic find, the removal of culling), some small. There have been several major class balance updates, you can look up specific notes here; http://gw2patchnotesearch.david-reess.de/ (click the engineer icon to sort just for engie changes).
And it's not just you either; I can't think of anyone who plays the game who thinks it's perfect, myself included (I dislike the way traits are handled, several professions need more weapon options and new skills are overdue). But the game definitely doesn't merit the level hyperbolic hate it receives, for whatever reason.
I like to think GAF in general has better taste than that.
Games in general, never mind MMOs specifically, have a very narrow method of resolving conflict; combat. There's some great 'non-combat' games out there, even within the genre (Vanguard's card-based Diplomacy thing was an interesting attempt, at the very least) but for the most part if something is going to get done, you're probably going to be hitting it, shooting it or in some of the more amusing cases, both at the same time somehow.
The way games stay fresh is by changing the context in which this happens. So while the events, in your opinion, aren't any different, the context in which they occur is. Not just that everything is happening in a familiar environment turned upside down, but the enemies are appearing in different configurations, and there are environmental hazards and a zone-wide threat that players have to work together to stall (the deployment of the miasma). The city-wide effort to rescue citizens is also something that hasn't been seen before, where every individual NPC saved is contributing to the effort as a whole, be it a large group of players pushing into enemy controlled parts of the city to rescue a large group or a single player carefully picking their way through the patrols to escort a handful of citizens out at a time.
So yeah, you're "going somewhere and killing bad guys to complete events", but the way in which all of that is happening is different. In the same way shooters are all about 'going places and shooting people' and platformers are about jumping on things; the way in which you go about shooting / jumping makes all the difference.
But I shouldn't be fighting the same enemies I fought six months ago using the same strategies because they have the same abilities.
The Living Story up to this point has been about Scarlet uniting various enemy factions together under her command, so it makes sense that you're encountering some enemies from the past year. We rarely have had to fight them all clumped up together, however, with their various abilities overlapping to sometimes devastating effect (some enemies are brutal up close, but there are enemies dropping anti-range defenses over them)
I also think it would be much more difficult if we weren't at least a little familiar with the enemies already; we know from the distinctive palette choices and/or silhouettes that green toxic enemies will behave one way, red molten enemies another, watchwork enemies with their twisted, larger forms another, and so on.
It's been mentioned several times in this thread already, but there's absolutely nothing stopping you from playing the game and having a blast right now, personal and PC issues notwithstanding. There's no gear treadmill to speak of, so you won't have to 'catch up to everyone else' before you can play with them (hell, you don't even have to level to take part in this event, it automatically levels you to 80). If your PC can run it, you have the time to play it (honestly not as much of a commitment as other games in the genre) and $40 floating around, there's nothing else to worry about.
Nope, Black Lion keys do indeed still drop randomly, as I was shocked to get one a few weeks ago. They're also occasionally a reward for map completion and are always a reward for the Personal Story chapters at level 10, 30 and 50.
It's kind of a moot point anyways since Black Lion chests have only ever dropped convenience or cosmetic items, so there's really nothing you're missing by not opening them. A few minis (which aren't account bound and can be purchased on the trading post) and the Tickets / Ticket scraps are the worst of it, but even those are just for weapon skins (which aren't account bound either, of course, but get rather pricy on the TP).
To be fair, it probably just happened last week; we reached 496 members (the cap is 500) and systematically removed about 180 people who hadn't played since the end of August. As always, it's nothing personal and whispering an officer or posting your name.#### in the OT will get you invited asap.
Can i see the cinematic somewhere ? I've just logged in and no cinematic started
There's an NPC at the Vigil refugee camp (in Gandaren Fields, north of LA) with a Living Story icon (A scroll with a golden starburst) over their head that will give you the option to replay it. There might be similar NPCs at the other camps, but that's the only one I know of for sure.
As others have mentioned, very strong. If you want to be sure you'll have people to play with, roll on the Stormbluff Isle server where the majority of GAF plays, or at least in the North American region (yes, even if you're an EU player) so you can guest over to SBI.
Except that they also increase the population cap on servers when they start to get full; Blackgate, for example is currently listed as "Full" hasn't been that way since launch. It's merely full again. Here's a developer post from the official forums confirming one happened 10 months ago, though they've definitely done it more than once, and more than once since then.
Two weeks, so March 4th. Then something else will happen, whatever Scarlet is drilling for will be revealed and we'll go from there. For what it's worth, they usually put out a teaser video on the off-weeks, so check for news on the 25th.
Lots of changes, some big (a currency wallet, account-wide magic find, the removal of culling), some small. There have been several major class balance updates, you can look up specific notes here; http://gw2patchnotesearch.david-reess.de/ (click the engineer icon to sort just for engie changes).
And it's not just you either; I can't think of anyone who plays the game who thinks it's perfect, myself included (I dislike the way traits are handled, several professions need more weapon options and new skills are overdue). But the game definitely doesn't merit the level hyperbolic hate it receives, for whatever reason.
I like to think GAF in general has better taste than that.
KiteGr
Member
Further proving that they don't count players who abandoned the game, as when I checked, there was none on low.
That means that the server population is an accurate representation that the population of GW2 is still very strong despite what haters say.
MakeshiftChef
Member
I'm glad I saw this thread. Checking out LA being wrecked seems like fun. I stopped playing around level 67 on my guardian, I wonder how many levels I will be able to get out of this event... I just wish I hadn't uninstalled it, so much to download now, lol. I was in the GAF Guild on Stormbluff Isle when I was actually playing. I will post my info in the community thread when I figure out what my name#### is.
You should be able to log in while downloading, which will give you your name.####, I believe. If not, it's not like there won't be anyone playing to get you invited when the download is done.
As for leveling, supposedly it's pretty good given how many events and enemies there are going on constantly.
Sothis Krieg
Member
Thanks
Mr_Antimatter
Member
Pretty much. You are boosted to 80, so you can enter the event. After that, just watch yourself, and use a nice mass tagging weapon to get mass XP. Stay witht he zerg to get the best effect.