fewer people playing GW?

I am pretty much waiting for GW:EN. Playing LOTRO in the time being (great game, try it out).

I have a “friends list” of over 35 people (been cut back a bit, but has always changed over time) and it’s been down to 5 people, who are on one day out of a week. I think it’s just the flux of people leaving after they have their fill of GW, that just playing sucks. It all has to do with personal preference I guess. I have to agree once EotN comes out; they will all be back hopefully.

On an average I think there is a fountain of new people still filtering in, but they never really want to stay as long (like some of us do). At least I still have my good friends in the guild to count on, for having some interesting times with good ol’ GW.

Seems this way to, at times the game just fully dies for me (in guild and on friends list) and when i go to towns, theres really just nobody around, This is at various times of the day to, sometimes it gets so bad that i just log off cause i have no one to talk to. But then theres other times where the game flourishes with people.. rare though.

1) Players being stretched accross 3 (soon to be 4) campaigns.
2) Most players have done most things.
3) Rude and arrogant players.

Is it any wonder people are either leaving, or the numbers seem thinner, or people choose to use AI instead of PUGs?

The game isnt suffering, its been like this for over a year now.

Yeah, people always coming and going in this game all the time. GW is not mmorpg that you have to spend all of your time playing to get your money worth. When they have nothing more to do, they stop playing, jump on other games. When they want to come back, they just log back in.

I think that's one of the great things about Guild Wars. I've stopped playing for now, as I've done just about everything I can with my Warrior. I plan on coming back soon to try out some more characters, but I was busy with exams until recently. At least with GW I can simply log in when I feel like playing for a bit again, where as with something like City of Heroes, now that I'm done playing that, I've had to cancel my account, if I want to play again in a few months, then it's quite a lot of hastle.

Either way, I'm sure the number of players will jump quite a bit when Eye of the North is released, and I'm surprised they haven't had another one of those big festivals yet, isn't it about time for another? They always get thousands of players online, and are usually what encourages me to come back to continue playing the game. I come on for my hat, but then find loads of other things I want to do.

Bleh... GW is just a game in the end... and like any other game, you are bound to get bored with it after playing for 1 year+ ...

If you are trying to say the game has less people now due to the updates despite what players want and that this is proof that you were right and that you can shove a "I told you so!" comment in their face (Anet's, that is), then you can't be any more wrong...

Most of the changes/updates are due to the community's whims and complaints. How screwed up the community is in GW, I leave that to you.

But, if you just wanted to make a simple observation without any of the above implication, then ignore the last part of my post.

The same number of people are playing, but fewer are actually doing the misisons... The missions get boring, and so people tend to do other things like farm or UW...etc.

Well here in the UK its half term (school holidays) and GAME are selling all three chapters at only £15 each, so i think we're gonna have an influx of new UK players

IMHO, Hard mode was a blessing and a killer all in one. The economy is shot, all the rare items are not worth anything, with the exception of a few. Ecto is down to about 5k. Most of the hardcore players have been ran off. All the work most players have done over the past 2 years have been nerfed where casual players can play on the same level, and not work as hard for it. Unid golds now go for 7 for 7k. I understand that the game should be every user friendly, but most hardcore players are the ones with 3 + accounts.

I have seen fewer people play. Ever since the UW and FoW free day, it is very hard to get a FoW group together. Now everyone either does duo or solo farms in UW because of it. Everyone created there SS or 55 over that weekend so they can farm the heck out of UW, now thats all u see in ToA. G.W.E.N. will bring back people, but probaly only for a few months.

Need to bold and hope there is a way to overcome that

This is almost non-information; it simply says that one change increased play count, over some period. The player base could have been reduced by a third over the past year, and gone up 1% since the last change and that'd be true. It certainly doesn't mean that more people are playing now than a time you are thinking of, nor does it mean the game is growing in popularity again - it may just mean that hard mode piqued the curiosity of a few, so more people picked the game up than quit that week. At best it's a snapshot, a look at the derivative of players over time - the slop is positive at present, but not by how much or for how long, or for how long it hasn't been the case.

I don't blame Gaile for quasi-informative statements, it's her job. She has the duty of making GW sound like it's doing well, defending their decisions to the public etc.

If the game had 50% more players than it did a year ago it would be the kind of thing that would be mentioned. I suspect that the lack of concrete figures doesn't bode well.

I'll admit to being a cynic in some ways as well; the introduction of games/titles that can be afk farmed, the sudden extensions of weekend events - these things don't ring of great generosity on ANet's part, not when they are followed up with announcements of how a given weekend had more player hours logged than any weekend thus far. This tells me that they need a positive story, and that having people afk their accounts to gain lucky points gives them a nice quotable statistic - more total hours online. Extending the event likewise boosts this kind of claim.

Starcraft 2 = Death of GW/GW2 (depending on release). Lots of people will stop GW to play SC2 I imagine. Even so, GvG will be almost done shortly, unless things change, so people will want another form of Player vs Player game.

fyi the average botter has at least 8 active accounts. multiply that by the number of botters...
as for actual players, 60% of the ppl from my friend list are offline most of the time. i only see them on at some events. but they are pvp players and it's a known fact that many are upset about the past pvp changes. the situation might be different with the pve crowd though.

Sorry but what?

I love it when someone makes a comment which states some new game is the dogs bollicks, and its going to consume everyone in the gaming community.

I know about Starcraft 2 and I play Guildwars! Yet I have absolutely no interest in playing Starcraft2! If I want to play a RTS game, I will go play C&C3 on my xbox360!

But I dont really want to, because it will be a waste of money on a game ill play about 10 times and put away. Compared to GWs which i've played endleslly for 2 years.

You cant make a statement saying an RTS game is going to come along and steel people away from an MMO/RPG. Their completely different games, and considering GW2 is only at the design state and and SC2 is nearly out, chances are that GW2 will steal players away from SC2.

Yeah, that is for sure

Ive been splitting my time between SC and GW right now (trying to rekindle my skillz for when SC2 comes out) and man im so rusty -.-; My zerg skills are teh suck. SC2 is gonna be HUGE!!!

Need more Vespene Gas /fistshake

GvG is a fine pvp gametype, but yes i do agree we need more PvP gametypes.
We need something in lines of "Assault" mode in UT2004....
Maybe escort/ambush type matches.

Yeah, I know this for fact as well. My previous guild (may it long live in memory) was proof of that, as is my original friends list, although I have a core set of PvP friends who have been on through it all. Natural ebbs and flows, as well as players taking a break for extended periods of time. I recently came back from one myself.

Ive had 2 guild members who were on a 3 month hiatus just come back (it is summer after all) and its like...freaky.

Im gonna have to say i think theres more people playing, but just SOOO many places to play in.

Ive been playing through Cantha and the early areas have no problems finding pugs.

When you get to the point where the storyline branches into 2 (effectively cutting your pug chances in half), theres way less people, and beyond the 15k armor towns, theres almost nobody. Then when you get to the final 2 missions, theres tons of people there (the two branches of the story unite again)

That's my hunch too. The core population is probably roughly the same. We're at a natural point between chapters where its going by definition to be the lowest on average online, even despite the influx of new players. Take them and spread them now between three chapters and its going to look pretty sparse in some areas during some play hours.

I was surprised, though, at the number of seeming first time players working through Prophecies. Havent been to the areas in Cantha you mention in a while. Some of those areas were sparsely populated even when Factions was at its peak.