If you're new here and worried about the forums: don't be. The game is still very much alive

[Tolmos.8395]

I know, I know. You come to the forums, wondering what the game is all about, and see nothing but doom and gloom. The front page is overflowing with a lot of "oh god the game is dying", "the game is dead" "long live the game" type threads, though several from the same familiar faces over and over. Combined with the fact that Arenanet suffered from a pretty gnarly round of layoffs recently, it sounds pretty bleak.

 

BUT! I want to throw this out there: if you actually log into the game, there are still tons of people in every zone. If you go world events, there are still tons of people doing world events. If you go to newbie zones, there are still lots of new characters being produced every few minutes and doing the intro. If you queue for PvP, you will still pop right in and go fight.

 

The layoffs were scary, and they hit everyone hard. IMO, they were made infinitely worse by the fact that someone, either a bigwig at Arenanet or a bigwig at NCSoft, really screwed up by letting the most familiar face in the community go: Gaile Gray. She had been here since the first day of the first game in the series, and was always the first one to tell us to calm down when we got riled up over these things. So, needless to say, that particularly bad decision really drove home that something was wrong and different to the folks here, and scared the bejeebus out of most of us. Combined with NCSoft having recently shuttered Wildstar out of the blue and then a couple months later demanding these layoffs, folks imaginations started running wild.

 

So, with that said, I'd like to interject a few thoughts into there for a moment.

 

This is one of the last old-school style western AAA MMOs left on the market. The folks who want to play that have a limited number of choices, and among them this game is usually in the top 3 for most written comparisons. Combined with the lack of real gear grind, it makes for an amazing casual environment, and yet the gear grind that does exist is heavily dependent on raids, which makes for an excellent content draw for your more dedicated PvEers. Of course, PvP is a big win of the series still; structured PvP for your quick play and WvW for your campaign needs. And (though most people probably don't care), this game is even considered to be one of the top 2 games for RPers on the market, so those folks aren't going anywhere any time soon either.

 

Arenanet did lose a lot of people, but most of them were supposedly not even working on GW2. That was actually the problem: the studio grew pretty quickly in recent history, and wasn't exactly making a lot of new income to make up for that. The layoffs helped bring the company's focus back to it's money maker: this game. Which brings me back to: the game isn't dying. In fact, there is a very good chance that the whole point of the layoffs was specifically to avoid that very scenario. I suspect the game will get more love in the near future than it has in the past year.

 

So please remember: folks are just frazzled right now, and need to vent. This is their venting place. Does it mean the game is dying? Nope. It just means that a big event happened, scared a a lot of us, and folks need somewhere to voice their concerns over that.

 

Log in, check it out. You've find the majority of the playerbase actually in the game, having fun, and hopefully you'll be able to enjoy it as well.

 

Good luck!

[Blanche Neige.7241]

If what I have read elsewhere is true, they had somewhere near 400 employees and they laid off like a hundred. That still leave 300 employees, which is certainly more than enough to keep one game afloat for a long time.

[Kam.4092]

> @"Tolmos.8395" said:

> I know, I know. You come to the forums, wondering what the game is all about, and see nothing but doom and gloom. The front page is overflowing with a lot of "oh god the game is dying", "the game is dead" "long live the game" type threads, though several from the same familiar faces over and over. Combined with the fact that Arenanet suffered from a pretty gnarly round of layoffs recently, it sounds pretty bleak.

>

> BUT! I want to throw this out there: if you actually log into the game, there are still tons of people in every zone. If you go world events, there are still tons of people doing world events. If you go to newbie zones, there are still lots of new characters being produced every few minutes and doing the intro. If you queue for PvP, you will still pop right in and go fight.

>

> The layoffs were scary, and they hit everyone hard. IMO, they were made infinitely worse by the fact that someone, either a bigwig at Arenanet or a bigwig at NCSoft, really screwed up by letting the most familiar face in the community go: Gaile Gray. She had been here since the first day of the first game in the series, and was always the first one to tell us to calm down when we got riled up over these things. So, needless to say, that particularly bad decision really drove home that something was wrong and different to the folks here, and scared the bejeebus out of most of us. Combined with NCSoft having recently shuttered Wildstar out of the blue and then a couple months later demanding these layoffs, folks imaginations started running wild.

>

> So, with that said, I'd like to interject a few thoughts into there for a moment.

>

> This is one of the last old-school style western AAA MMOs left on the market. The folks who want to play that have a limited number of choices, and among them this game is usually in the top 3 for most written comparisons. Combined with the lack of real gear grind, it makes for an amazing casual environment, and yet the gear grind that does exist is heavily dependent on raids, which makes for an excellent content draw for your more dedicated PvEers. Of course, PvP is a big win of the series still; structured PvP for your quick play and WvW for your campaign needs. And (though most people probably don't care), this game is even considered to be one of the top 2 games for RPers on the market, so those folks aren't going anywhere any time soon either.

>

> Arenanet did lose a lot of people, but most of them were supposedly not even working on GW2. That was actually the problem: the studio grew pretty quickly in recent history, and wasn't exactly making a lot of new income to make up for that. The layoffs helped bring the company's focus back to it's money maker: this game. Which brings me back to: the game isn't dying. In fact, there is a very good chance that the whole point of the layoffs was specifically to avoid that very scenario. I suspect the game will get more love in the near future than it has in the past year.

>

> So please remember: folks are just frazzled right now, and need to vent. This is their venting place. Does it mean the game is dying? Nope. It just means that a big event happened, scared a a lot of us, and folks need somewhere to voice their concerns over that.

>

> Log in, check it out. You've find the majority of the playerbase actually in the game, having fun, and hopefully you'll be able to enjoy it as well.

>

> Good luck!

 

Thank you.

 

 

[Erasculio.2914]

> @"Blanche Neige.7241" said:

> If what I have read elsewhere is true, they had somewhere near 400 employees and they laid off like a hundred. That still leave 300 employees, which is certainly more than enough to keep one game afloat for a long time.

 

They actually fired 141 people, which is closer to 1/3 of the studio than 1/4.

[Bloodstealer.5978]

> @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> > @"Blanche Neige.7241" said:

> > If what I have read elsewhere is true, they had somewhere near 400 employees and they laid off like a hundred. That still leave 300 employees, which is certainly more than enough to keep one game afloat for a long time.

>

> They actually fired 141 people, which is closer to 1/3 of the studio than 1/4.

 

Still really only takes the studio back to similar staffing levels when the game went live, and the talent within it is still very much alive and kicking.

 

There is going to be some change, for sure and we may find their production schedule has to slide a little, but I always thought there was too much emphasis on their LS cadence, which often felt a little to rushed and lacked polish to me. Perhaps extending cadence a little between chapters would be healthy for the quality of the content.

Hopefully there will be some kind of roadmap pushed out in the coming weeks after the dust settles.. I think that would ease the concerns a little as to what lies beyond LS5.. if there is no plan then maybe there is reason for concern, but for now it's business as usual for me.. places to go, mobs to backstab and Warclaws to whine about.

[trev.1045]

Very new here (downloaded just over a week ago) the forums did worry me ill admit. However i still ended up buying both expansions to support the game

 

Why? because it seems a fun game, and my experience of the community so far is that is better and friendlier than wow (admittedly the pvp forums make me nervous about ever trying PVP here)

 

As for the events that pop up... its 50 50...some have loads turn up, others ive ended up soloing, but divinity reach etc feels like dalaran used to... busy and very much alive

[Tolmos.8395]

Yea, sometimes events can be somewhat deserted, but that can be dependent on which events. The smaller events in less trafficked areas may not have many people willing to go out of their way to be involved in them, but also some of the more popular areas could also be deserted because one channel filled up and you’re in another with fewer people.

 

The big events, like the world events, generally are very crowded. Most I’ve seen have at least 20-30 people hanging around.

[trev.1045]

I ended up in a world boss fight the first day i played... i had no idea what was going on!... i just entered a portal but it was cool ?