Curse

Aba · Nov 11, 2008, 06:30 AM // 06:30

Quote:

ITT: No one knows anything.

You PvErs really are in denial.
__________________

ha

Guildwars may be losing players ......
But everyone always comes back for the dumb hats

Zeppelin1 · Nov 11, 2008, 06:40 AM // 06:40

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Originally Posted by czymann

It is kinda funny that people say GW is dying when I see new people playing all the time. Guild Wars was made to play then put away then pick up and play again. Sure there are many that have left. And many of those have come back. I can't speak for other guilds, but mine has been going strong since 2006. Sure some have left, but we have more people playing on a consistant basis than we did in the beginning. Truely I believe what keeps people around and playing is the people that they play with.

Nice to see some positivity 'round here. One of the reasons GW has less players than WoW is because of its free-to-play 'subscription' model, you don't feel compeled to play because you aren't paying every month for an addictive service.

Konig Des Todes · Nov 11, 2008, 06:56 AM // 06:56

-reads OP and doesn't feel like reading all 7 pages of responses-

Guild Wars, and every game for that matter, lose people daily for the most part. The more people who play, the more often you lose people.

Of course, new people also start playing frequently as well, so while people do leave, people also join, giving a close enough balance.

Guild Wars is dying, but not as much as people think. It's dying because of the lack of new content, those who play are one of four groups how I see it:

1) Grinders and e-peen wanters who won't leave until they have GWAMM+Chaos Gloves+FoW Armor+Bandana+Full HoM+Tormented Shield+Crystalline Sword.

2) Those who are like something about the game: can range from lore lovers like myself, to the scenery, or even the storyline (will get flames for that one).

3) People who stay to talk to friends.

4) New people. However minor they are.

Zinger314 · Nov 11, 2008, 07:16 AM // 07:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azazel The Assassin

Guild Wars, and every game for that matter, lose people daily for the most part. The more people who play, the more often you lose people.

Of course, new people also start playing frequently as well, so while people do leave, people also join, giving a close enough balance.

If you think the new players are joining GW at the same rate old players are leaving, you're crazy.

Zera Fang · Nov 11, 2008, 10:07 AM // 10:07

Let's point out the difference between 'dying' and 'dead'. Diablo 2 is dying and has been dying for a very freaking long time, but refuses to die. There are people that still play the game and since, I think, they just reset the ladder gave people a reason to jump back on. Starcraft is dying, but as long as another UMS 'Protect the [Fill in the Blank]' is created, people will still play. Halo, at least on the PC game, is dead. The last time I went on there, well, there were two other people playing, both of which had auto-snipe programs running.

What's the difference between the two games? D2/S1 don't have a bigger, better, flashier sequel... yet, but Halo does, two in fact. Guild wars, though, does not have a sequel, yet, so it is still alive. Yes, there aren't as many people playing as there were when the game first came out (or whenever there was the peak population) and, yes, we can point out some reasons for that (lack of new material, immaterial skill rebalancings, lazy GMs, pandering to the noobs...), but is the game dead? No, and it won't be for a few months, maybe even years, after GW2 is released. Yes, the game is losing people, but it isn't losing so many people that the game is becoming unpopulated. BUT! In my honest opinion, I think a good percentage of the people currently playing are waiting on this next big update to see if it is really worth continuing to play or just to give it up and either wait for GW 2 or find another game.

Avarre · Nov 11, 2008, 10:31 AM // 10:31

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Originally Posted by Zera Fang

Starcraft is dying, but as long as another UMS 'Protect the [Fill in the Blank]' is created, people will still play.

The competitive scene is still in great shape if not continually growing, with lan latency/chaos, iccup, and such. Not to mention Gretech creating an entire new professional league alongside the previous three this year.

Quote:

but is the game dead? No, and it won't be for a few months, maybe even years, after GW2 is released.

Yeah, this. A game like Guild Wars won't really 'die' so to speak due to the play structure of it - the closest it will get is generally a decline in playerbase until it's insufficient to support major aspects of the game (PvP/pugs). Unfortunately, that kind of situation has become gradually more apparent.

Numa Pompilius · Nov 11, 2008, 11:01 AM // 11:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

If you think the new players are joining GW at the same rate old players are leaving, you're crazy.

As has been pointed out, there are other options than "growing" and "dead".

I don't doubt GW playerbase is smaller now than it was, say, a year ago, but, again, it's in the top ten among MMORPGs wrt number of active players, and is several times larger than MMORPGs like Everquest2, EVE, or Lord of the Rings Online.

H2SO4 · Nov 11, 2008, 04:59 PM // 16:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rak Orgon of Beowulf

i think its losing 2 kinds of people.

1.The 30 max titles, Choas gloves, FoW epeen types who are "too good" for such a "fail" game the ones who say "blah blah blah i remember when a 20/20 sword hilt was 75K" "GW is Dead"

I think the economy in GW is more stable than ever.

2.New people who are shut out by people group #1 "you dont have the cookie cutter build and therefore you cant get in our PuG or team arenas group cause all we care about is glad points"

QFT

I am in group 2, the only thing keeping me playing is that it's something to do to kill some time. Like if I wanted to reinstall baldurs gate or something to piddle about on

Tyla · Nov 11, 2008, 05:21 PM // 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rak Orgon of Beowulf

i think its losing 2 kinds of people.

1.The 30 max titles, Choas gloves, FoW epeen types who are "too good" for such a "fail" game the ones who say "blah blah blah i remember when a 20/20 sword hilt was 75K" "GW is Dead"

I think the economy in GW is more stable than ever.

2.New people who are shut out by people group #1 "you dont have the cookie cutter build and therefore you cant get in our PuG or team arenas group cause all we care about is glad points"

I guess I'll fix this.

Quote:

1. The 30 maxed titles, pimped out players who have nothing to do but PvP in the game, but don't like the way you have to put up an entrance.

and

Quote:

2. New people who don't understand that people play good bars with players they know or are confident that have a considerable amount of skill and experience because they want to win in a competetive enviroment.

Now, don't get me wrong on part 2. People just play to win, and that is what people find fun. There are already player training guilds around anyway, such as KiSu for example. You just can't jump into somewhere and expect to be chosen straight away. It's the same in all competetive enviroments.

There's no denying Guild Wars is losing players at all. It's an original game with conventional additions and lack of workout towards the end.

AKB48 · Nov 11, 2008, 06:09 PM // 18:09

GW is losing people, games like this always do. (Not to mention GW is the first of its kind) With games like WoW, developers can add areas as they wish, or, on that note, add ANYTHING they want/the subscribers want. But GW can't, all it can do is updates, which then gets into a tiring cycle which people thinks "oh great, ANOTHER update......yay?". Not to mention the countless nerfs which really drives some people off their laptops. And as the game it is now, it is really boring to play unless you have some friends who actually makes the game "fun" again.

On the note of TA, if you don't run a decent/meta build, then don't go there, people are there FOR glad points. Otherwise they'd be RAing. So don't go THERE can complain "oh, you guys don't like creative builds! You no-lifers!"
Of course they don't, they are there for Glad points.

O Nuxtofulakas · Nov 11, 2008, 06:13 PM // 18:13

If you remember the number of districts in LA or Kamadan during Halloween event, then you cannot say it's a "dead" game...unless you have no idea what a "dead" game looks like...

Of course, someone might say that all these players are not daily/regular players and play only during the weekends or events...the answer to them is... so what? the fact that there are so many players that check on a daily/weekly basis GW news/events or anything else means that it's not a "dead" game....
You don't login in a "dead" game to collect ToTs if you don't care about it.
You don't afk in Kamadan/LA to get the stupid Hat if you don't care/like the game...

Yes it's logical many players to feel bored after almost 4years but this is far from reading all this crap about a "dead" game.
The game offers the flexibility to relax for a while since you don't have to pay every month like the WoW slaves that are "forced" to play every day cause they paied for it...

Here, you paied once and you have an account forever. You can jump back in whenever you like...the events speak the truth and you cannot deny it...the wintersday is close and you'll see that again...

On the other hand this is a free country and if you feel "dead" you can stay with the "dead" rest in peace and leave the rest of the "alive" GW community enjoy the game they love for years. We'll not miss you.

illidan009 · Nov 11, 2008, 08:14 PM // 20:14

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Originally Posted by FlamingMetroid

private servers

No. Bugs and phail(GM/donation items...) plague private servers. And there's no way THOSE could have more players than a legit GW community...
Anyway I suppose players are leaving, but for those that choose to stay it's still a good game...it's not like Word of Healing suddenly heals for 2 health...

AKB48 · Nov 11, 2008, 08:16 PM // 20:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by O Nuxtofulakas

If you remember the number of districts in LA or Kamadan during Halloween event, then you cannot say it's a "dead" game...unless you have no idea what a "dead" game looks like...

Even with 1 million players, when they're all grouped up, that can be a HUGE group too lol

englitdaudelin · Nov 11, 2008, 08:36 PM // 20:36

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Originally Posted by zwei2stein

Its simple:

1) got to http://www.eve-online.com/, note numbe of people online as A.

2) go to http://www.xfire.com/games/eve/Eve_Online/ note number of people online as B.

3) go to http://www.xfire.com/games/gw/Guild_Wars/ note numbe of people online as C.

Approximate number of people playing GW currently = (A/B)*C

Couldn't find a spot for number of people online--was it that lovely multicolored graph? If so: looked to be about 60,000 people.
X-Fire listed about 3,000 users for Eve.
That's about 5% of Eve online users, right?
c = about 8,000 users.
(60,000/3,000) * 8,000 = 160,000

So, you would suggest that there are about 160,000 GW players still active?

Fates · Nov 11, 2008, 08:41 PM // 20:41

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Originally Posted by Antares Ascending

...
FYI GW had between 5-6 million subs at its peak and I suspect the numbers will go back to that or better with GW2.

...

FYI information, the latest numbers from an A-net news release are 5 million copies sold. That's across three campaigns. I dont know about you, but I bought all three campaigns and have two other accounts that have been given to me by friends that quit.

Assuming all people bought all three campaigns and were all playing shortly after Nightfall, at it's "peak" it had 1.667M players. And let's not kid ourselves here, many of those that bought GW and Factions didn't even bother with Nightfall and quit long before it was released.

Yes, GW is dying. Why do you think all the servers have been combined?

Numa Pompilius · Nov 11, 2008, 08:55 PM // 20:55

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Originally Posted by englitdaudelin

So, you would suggest that there are about 160,000 GW players still active?

Scattered over three continents, PvP areas, countless dungeons and missions, a bunch of language districts (french and german euro districts are actually bigger than the english)... Yeah, I can well believe that's in the ballpark.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fates Monk

Yes, GW is dying. Why do you think all the servers have been combined?

Frankly I'd welcome unifying all european districts into one.

englitdaudelin · Nov 11, 2008, 09:02 PM // 21:02

So then it seems to me, with the new big update coming, and the resurrection of the "GW is dying thread," there's a question that begs to be asked:

What would (might) prolong GW's life and cause a significant, long-term stabilization of the player population?

So I'll operate on some of the key assumptions in this thread:

1) I'm with Zinger: more players are leaving than are starting. However, I DO think a notable number of players are starting or resuming.

2) Both PvE and PvP are "stale," in that there is no significant new content.

3) I think the update this week--the title updates and the HoM updates especially--MIGHT lead people to resume playing characters other than "primaries," but this is speculation. My feeling is that Lindsey and the small GW1 team hope their changes encourage people to pick up 2ndary and tertiary characters and progress their titles somehow, to contribute to the hall.
(Otherwise...why the changes?)

So: With these in mind, what could the GW1 team POSSIBLY do that would:
a) encourage pve'ers to get out and play, to not redundantly farm the UW or the poor raptors? encourage exploration, vanquishing, questing, mission play, pugging, whatever pve activity suits your philosopy?
b) encourage pvp'ers to continue playing, adding guildies, and so on? Encourage GvG, TA, and HA? Alter the game so that cookie builds aren't AS dominant a part of the game (if possible?)

Now, I'm going to rule the grand idea of "balance" out--I think it's nearly impossible to achieve skill balance in a way that will please everyone.

So, is it down to content? Would an SF or DoA-style update appease and attract PvE'ers? A monster AI overhaul or mob overhaul? Alterations in rewards for dungeons, realms, and domains? Would new maps or some kind of new "game" attract PvP'ers? Some alteration in the behavior of Halls?

I'm genuinely curious: what would it take to get you--or others like you--back, and "stop the bleeding" that people are pretty sure is happening?

Numa Pompilius · Nov 11, 2008, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by englitdaudelin

What would (might) prolong GW's life and cause a significant, long-term stabilization of the player population?

PvE: Resume the "a new expansion every six months to a year" schedule.
The only thing missing in PvE is new content, really. The graphics and sound are still competitive, the mechanics are still competitive... But the content is stale for many or most of us.
1-2 Guest keys for everyone who owns a GW chapter might be a good idea too.

PvP: Pfffff.... Hero battles can just be killed, it's beyond salvaging. Other than that... I don't know. New maps never hurt, tho, even recycling some old maps might be good.

upier · Nov 11, 2008, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by englitdaudelin

I'm genuinely curious: what would it take to get you--or others like you--back, and "stop the bleeding" that people are pretty sure is happening?

A new chapter.
Not GWEN-like crap though.
With end-game areas designed like FoW/UW are.

t3dw4rd0 · Nov 11, 2008, 09:41 PM // 21:41

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Originally Posted by Tyla

1. The 30 maxed titles, pimped out players who have nothing to do but PvP in the game, but don't like the way you have to put up an entrance.

I guess I'll fix this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

The players who did all there is to do in PvE and are finally looking half a foot away from their computers, out their window, and seeing the sun for the first time in 3 years, and THEN going to PvP.