This thread is dying

[Sylosi.6503]

Depends how you define 'dying', perhaps a less "controversial" word would be 'decline', and yes the game is declining, but then that is the norm for the MMORPG genre, where pretty much every MMORPG follows the trend of mid/long term decline, occasionally boosted by expansions or going F2P, but then returning to the trend of decline again.

 

The entire genre is in decline, you don't even have the rare exceptions you used to like WOW & EVE Online that managed growth for a number of years, then you only have to look at how few new AAA MMORPGs have been released in recent years and how the two biggest ones (Titan, EQnext) were cancelled to see the state of the genre,.

 

Meanwhile 80 million play LoL, 30 million play Overwatch, Fortnite has over 3 million **concurrent** players and so on, the MMORPG genre is basically stuck in the past, whilst the audience has moved on, people are not amazed by an online world anymore, a game needs something more, problem is the gameplay in MMORPGs (especially PvE) is simply lacking, which is why you have grind and shiny things as a substitute for meaningful gameplay, but that is a niche audience.

 

 

[Samuel.4812]

I just joined a couple months ago and only really really off peak hours like 4am are bad. Generally always people to help you complete things. This game is much better balanced than wow in terms of keeping active people together.

 

Any mmo is constantly questioning its lifeline. Wow had it over 12 years and it’s still going but I’m done with that and I think the new influx to gw2 is prolly ex wow players like me. I just hope we don’t get the toxic ones...

[OrbitalButt.5708]

It's likely doing alright, nothing spectacular but not on life support

[shinjin.3924]

Gw2 in my opinion need a complete restyling,not only because is 6 years that we do same things over and over,but becuase is becoming really boring and old.

Playerbase is dropping and you can see it around,from statistic and so on.

There are multiple ways for make the game great again,but nothing has been done till now,and i don't know why.

Anyway i think is pointless to discuss about it,they will keep doing what they want,without listen the community and the playerbase.

 

[Bern.9613]

Is it dying? I know wvw will when they have no more servers. No server pride, well, that's pretty prevalent atm. There will be no reason to take anything. PPT? Why bother. Not sure of the impact wvw/pvp ppl leaving will have as I do little to none pve but time will tell. I'm looking forward to another game being released soon. So yea, I'm leaving as well.

[TheOrlyFactor.8341]

> @"Bern.9613" said:

> So yea, I'm leaving as well.

 

Can I have your stuff?

[holodoc.5748]

Yeah, GW2 deaded yet and if yes why not?

[broFenix.1632]

I just came back to the game last week, after a 2 1/2 year hiatus getting my Bachelor's degree. I think there are more people than ever, with GW2 free-to-play which is awesome :) Also, I <3 Holosmith

[RoRo.8270]

I haven't played in quite some time. The thing that kept me around guild wars 1 was the pvp. PvP is a game mode that generally gives countless hours of play time because of evolving metas and the fights aren't static. In pve for example once you've done a fight a few times it's the same dance and gets quite stale but for pvp it never gets old because you are playing against real players. Gw2 had a chance to have a great pvp scene but they just bungled it. Simply put there is nothing to keep me around in the long run. Maybe if I was into dress up I'd enjoy the game

 

[Zalani.9827]

Gw2 is one of those games where you can leave and come back later to pick up where you left off. I know I take breaks from the game between patches or when i'm really into something else for a time.

If it dies it dies, but I wouldn't worry about it in all honesty....not to mention the people who yell about "*blank* is dying" is normally those that want it to die because they personally don't like the direction the game is going.

 

So, don't worry about it.

[Galaa.8475]

yep, its dead. i would leave if i was yall. but since im not yall. gonna hang around awhile longer. you know, because i enjoy playing dead games. please be kind and give people yall's stuff so it does not just sat there and go to waste. DA's

[Nash.3974]

> @"Orpheal.8263" said:

> The game isn't dead, but its inconsistently supported like a switzer cheese with many self made holes in it, cause of Anet oftenly working only on new things, before they complete projects they have begun, wostly always when they realize that the stuff they worked on brigns not in enough money and or fixing things they have created in broken ways, aren#t worth it to be fixed, cause of the costs and effort it would take to correct the junk they have left behind, which is in their view better spent on naturally new content, that has the chance to generate new money income, while fixing broken cheesehole content is just only lost money in their view.

>

> When I list up all this cheesehole content that this game has collected over its 6 years by now, just imaginatign, how much better the game could be, if all this stuff woudl have been fixed by now, I'm pretty sure, people wouldnt have the impression, that this game is "dead"

>

> - If Season 1 would have been properly reimplemented into the game by now

> - If Dungeons would have been properly redesigned and integrated practically into the Raid System, instead of being abandonded by Anet completely

> - If missing Content would be there, that should have been part of GW2 since release, like Bar Brawls, Polymok and all those Town Activities that were planned to have on Day One to give peopel a reason to go visit and revisit actively all of the towns, instead of putting so much focus only into LA all the time...

> - If Underwater Content would get finally redesigned and rebalanced, but hopes are up on this for the 3rd Expansion wheneveri t may come...

> - If Jeweler and Chef would finally receive too Job level 500 with especially Jeweler beign revitalized and given a reason for existance again ....

> - If Raids would get finally a Split in difficulty settings between Easy/Normal/Hard Mode to not alienate anymore 99% of GW2s playerbase just to lure in Hardcore Elitists from WoW & Co that are just the 1% minority that QQed for wanting to have raids in GW2, while most of all other GW2 players never atually wanted to have Raids

> - If Fractals would receive those parts of Season 1 that aren't reimplementable again in normal ways via new Fractals, like the Marionette Battle, like the Breachmaker Battle with Scarlet, like the Invsasion of Lions Arch with that 3 colored Robot Battle and the Big Karka Queen battle that ends with lettign her burn to death in lava

> - If WvW would receive the attention that this game mode deserves (3rd borderline map, more character progression so that all those ranks points we have by now aren't useless)

> - If PvP would finally be more than just Conquest, theres so much unused potential for more PvP Modes like Hunger Games, King of the Hill, like GvG, like 10v10, Duel Tournaments 1v1, Deathmatch with more new maps than just having only 1 and also expand more on Strongholds, just implemented and they instantly abandon Strongholds again ..seriously?? liek addign more new Stronghold Maps, more interesting Mist Heroes

> - If Fractals would become finally more then permanently one and the same boring 100 instances grind that just becomes artificialyl only more difficult so higher the instance number is, Fractals is basically the big key for ANet to add so much more great content, because it gives them 100% total design freedom, they could add great new gameplay features through Fractals to add this way new interesting content that feels and plays different, than the normal game content, like addign Huntign Grounds to add some kind of monster hutner similar content where you find in the minds then bigger monsters to hunt either solo or as group which requires you actually eventually also to reach catch the foes via traps, or usage of the environments, or fractal content that feels more like GW1s bonus action pack lettign you replay old histories of the game in the view of a completely different character with skilsl of that characte, instead of your own character, woudl love to replay so much Ghosts of Ascalon under the view of Dougal Keane for example ... to receive at the end GoA based rewards for completign the History Books of GoA and turnign it in like in GW1 for rewards to a Historian ...

> - If SAB would.. ah forget it, dont want to open this bitter can of worms now..would only make me angry ....

>

> However, things are, like they are, mourning over these issues of this game won't help or change anything, but I'm sure, the game woudl be by now healthier, if these thigns would be all no issues and completely fixed, even if this would mean, that we wouldn#t be yet at Lliving world season 4, but maybe eventually still only in season 2 or so.

> Better a slow, but awesome story, than a fast rushed story and a game full of cheese holes ... that's my device

 

I‘m impressed. You actually pointed so many great things out! I agree with all of this. If anet would now focus on fixing these issues the game would definitely rise to its best. I just don’t get anet… I feel like all those things are such easy changes yet anet takes either years to implement only 1 of these things or doesn’t bother with this at all.

Anet please focus on making the game better or greater again, fix those issues.

[Ikkeman.9280]

> @"Zalani.9827" said:

> Gw2 is one of those games where you can leave and come back later to pick up where you left off. I know I take breaks from the game between patches or when i'm really into something else for a time.

 

I played GW2 since its release but didn't see much of it at that time because of my job. Eventually I stopped playing in 2014 because of this and that and I came back last year. And yes, I simply continued my story like nothing happened. In my opinion, the game is much better now, with so many great options. Moreover, I can see that the number of players increased greatly since 2014 - every time I think I will be the only one doing something in some remote spot of some out-of-the-way area I run into a bunch of people doing similar things.

So no, this game is far from dead, especially for people like me who can only afford a couple of hours per day to play. My playing pace is set to "slow mode", but I don't mind, because like this I will always have something to do in GW2.

[Dami.5046]

Every game in the world has this thread. *yawn*

[Gehenna.3625]

To answer that question we'd need to wait 3 months till the next financial reports. Aside from the peaks from the expansions the overall trend of revenue is down. For example when HoT came out, the sales went up and when that peak was done it went down lower than the quarter before HoT. With Path of Fire we just had the peak and the next quarterly report (Q2 2018) will show what happens after this peak.

 

Now sales doesn't represent player numbers so it could be that there are plenty of players but they're just spending less and less on the game, but of course fewer players generally means less money being spent. Of course for ArenaNet that's the deciding factor for deciding to keep the game alive or not. What we do not know however is how low revenue needs to get for them to consider it unviable to support any longer. So even though the general trend has been downward over the years, it may not mean that the game is actually in trouble. Roughly speaking after HoT people were spending about a third less per quarter on GW2 than before HoT.

 

This of course is why they announced a quicker release for the next expansion which is where they have extra sales beyond the normal. Of course we have to consider that the revenue dropping by a third did set off alarm bells and made them move up the expansion schedule. So the conclusion would be that it was significant enough of a drop for them to be concerned.

 

So the extra revenue during the PoF peak was a little higher than HoT but there is also more focus on the cash shop so part of that peak must also come from there. So it can be argued that PoF was as successful or at least fairly close to the success of PoF. By itself that is good news of course but it isn't great news either.

 

The next quarterly report in August will show us the trend after the peak. During the current financial report of May they did specifically state that GW2 was still up a bit as it still benefitted from the PoF release. So I'm not making that up. Even so I must note that this report of Q1 2018 does show that it's below what it was pre HoT and so without that benefit of an expansion release the revenue would be lower still.

 

So it would be good news if the next quarterly report shows an increase compared to the 2016/2017 quarterly results. If it's not and actually the trend is still downward you could argue that the game is dying, however, only in a general sense because it's unclear how long the game can still go on. Might be years still especially if the expansions make up enough.

 

I suppose when ArenaNet announce they're going to be working on a new game, that's the time to start worrying. But then they might bring out a mobile version of GW2 and that could bring in a lot of cash. So really, as long as you can find enough people to play with and ArenaNet haven't announced GW3 or something entirely different, there doesn't seem to be much reason for concern.

[Ryou.2398]

Dying nah, it seems active besides id rather it be just active then over populated, those extras are usually not passionate about the game and are their to troll.

[Kenneth.7536]

According to the first quarter financial report of Anet, GW2 sales have dropped 32% quarter-by-quarter, but increased 66% year-over-year. Yearly sales have increased only because of HoT and PoF, and 66% increase is good, I'm not a financial expert of some sorts, but the numbers are there. Plus, labor costs have decreased by 22%, mostly because of Lineage. Marketing costs for Anet have decreased by 55% quarter-on-quarter, but Anet states it's because of more efficient marketing strats, which sounds reasonable.

 

**Link to the Q1 financial report is avaliable here: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/quarterly.aspx**

 

Looking at those numbers, I'd say the game is doing very well. If Guild Wars 2 is dying, every other MMO with one exception, should already be long-gone, but I find people coming back to GW2 every now and then. The main problem with the game is its inability to KEEP the current players and not make them leave at the first place. Lack of end-game content is what drags people out of this hole. Don't get me wrong, I love GW2, but I find myself taking 1-2 month breaks from the game too often, not because I have no time, but because the end game content just lacks that spark for longevity.

 

[Ashabhi.1365]

Every so often, someone posts or resurrects one of these "Is the game dying" threads. I usually don't answer them but in this case, I'll go ahead and put my two coppers' worth into the mix.

 

GW2 is following the same pattern as almost every other game. It breathes in new players at release and every story or expansion and breathes out disillusioned players here and there during the "in-between" times. The thing is that it's not dead, nor is it dying. It's merely breathing between releases.

 

The big differences between GW2 and other games is that most other games are victims of a great "dumbing down" as time goes by. I can't tell you the number of games that I and my friends have tried that have great potential at the outset, but then Group X complains about something being too hard and the company that oversees content determines that if they want to keep their players, they need to acquiesce and do away with the "hard stuff." Unfortunately, what you end up with is a game that simply isn't fun any more because there's no challenge. GW2 hasn't done that. Instead, they've given content that is challenging and fun. Will they have missteps and bungles? Of course they will. In the past, they've more or less fixed anything they've screwed up, so I'm not too worried. In truth, the only thing that will make people give up on them is if they negate all the effort a lot of us have put into this game from the beginning like a certain game did when they started offering end-game equipment for a few $$ in their cash shop.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

> @"Ashabhi.1365" said:

>

> The big differences between GW2 and other games is that most other games are victims of a great "dumbing down" as time goes by. I can't tell you the number of games that I and my friends have tried that have great potential at the outset, but then Group X complains about something being too hard and the company that oversees content determines that if they want to keep their players, they need to acquiesce and do away with the "hard stuff." Unfortunately, what you end up with is a game that simply isn't fun any more because there's no challenge.

 

This, this, this!

[Elva.6372]

> @"Ardenwolfe.8590" said:

> > @"Ashabhi.1365" said:

> >

> > The big differences between GW2 and other games is that most other games are victims of a great "dumbing down" as time goes by. I can't tell you the number of games that I and my friends have tried that have great potential at the outset, but then Group X complains about something being too hard and the company that oversees content determines that if they want to keep their players, they need to acquiesce and do away with the "hard stuff." Unfortunately, what you end up with is a game that simply isn't fun any more because there's no challenge.

>

> This, this, this!

 

The dumbing down usually happens with older content, the tougher stuff is reserved for newer content areas. There's reasons for this that make sense but I think sometimes it goes a bit too far and has the danger of boring new players to death...like in the starter area maps and all the way until the Maguuma Wastes...they could use a little toughening up and I say this as a casual player who often plays 10-11 hours a day when I am not working.

[theerrantventure.9185]

I would say no. I've just come back to GW2 after a LONG break. I played for ~3 months at release, and then for a couple months just prior to HoT, the game feels just as alive now as it did then. I was pleasantly surprised to come back and find the community still very much engaged and active!

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Gehenna.3625" said:

> To answer that question we'd need to wait 3 months till the next financial reports.

You know, someone once tried to make a bingo for "game is dying" threads, and that sentence was on top of the list.

 

In general i agree with Nuka Cola. No, the game is not dead yet. It's slowly leaking players, but it's still quite away from being considered "dying". That's however mainly thanks to only one fact - it's practically the only game now for the more casual crowd of gw2 players. There's simply no sensible alternative. So, people stay with the game, but many aren't really all that loyal to it anymore. It's just that they have nowhere to go. If that were to change someday however, the game might end up dead overnight.

[LucianDK.8615]

There will always be naysayers hoping to find fellow doomsayers to reinforce their own beliefs.

[iKeostuKen.2738]

To me 2/3's of the game are dead or in a awful state. PvP, basically.

[LucianDK.8615]

pvp isnt what matters anyhow.