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Does ANet have a plan for 5 months post release?
TheDor
Member UncommonPosts: 84
Reading the article today about SWTOR and how all of the low population servers have turned into ghost towns has me wondering. Obviously some of the worlds (*COUGH* DARKHAVEN *COUGH*) won't have any problems with population, and GW2 shouldn't see as huge of an effect due to players not having to pay subscription fees and thus sticking around longer.
I realize you can buy world transfers now, but who wants to log in to their "f2p" game and see nobody online, a WvW map that doesn't have a single structure owned by their server, and the only option being to shell out $X to be able to play on a server that actually has something going on? It's more likely that particular world will fall further and further into the unrecoverable depths.
I don't think anyone here could question that this game will be huge at launch. We'll see a ton of population everywhere in the first few weeks to a month, but after that...
BW made all kinds of promises leading up to launch of SWTOR about how they knew low population would kill the game, and how it did exactly that to WAR, and yet right at launch, boom, tons of extra servers. But, despite that, has anyone seen anything in interviews or reviews that says the devs are aware of things like this?
My guild and I will not be making our home on Darkhaven. It simply doesn't appeal to us to go to what will likely be the "winning" side, we'd much rather be on the underdog world. 5 months down the line are we going to log in and hate the game because our guild's the only people still playing on our server?
Comments
Worlds in WvW are matched up based on their ranking, so that high-ranked worlds will battle other high-ranked worlds, and low-ranked worlds will battle other low-ranked worlds
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World_versus_World
You don't have to buy the transfer with real cash; you can buy gems for in game gold and transfer that way.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
WIth WvW server populations will be of great importance so I hope they think about this type of thing.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If Anet does Guild Wars 2 like they did GW1, first expansion pack will be for sale within 6-12 months that will most likely have almost as much content as the main game.
BW never made an MMO and they went in with this vision that story matters more and they lost on that gamble.
Anet made one of the most successful MMOs (some say it's not an MMO but regardless, they have the experience) and instead of having 160 servers at launch, they'll have overflow servers. No queue and in the long run, no dead servers. Sure they'll have lower population servers but I think those lower pop servers will have like twice the population of a high population swtor server.
What the heck are you talking about?
Why are you so obsessed with failor empty servers predicting ghosttowns and what not?
Instead of being positive your only concern is failor empty servers lol.
Oh btw read PC Gamer article then you know your answer and be more positive next time ok:)
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I know that. What happens to the worst world? That's right, they're always sitting at the bottom playing against the 2nd worst and 3rd worst. The 2nd and 3rd worst will change week to week, but if a server is continually losing, it's going to keep losing, not magically get better, other worlds would just need to get worse, and then that world is the new worst.
I realize you can buy gems with in game cash, but like I said, do you really want to log onto an empty server and then go farm for a few months to be able to afford to move to a more populated server? How does that help the other people on your server? It just leaves them with 1 fewer person, making the problem worse.
If you get on a smaller or incomopetent WvW server you will be balanced against other servers with about the same difficulty once they have enough stats to do that. So at least you don't get steam rolled.
But you might be forced to buy gems for gold or real money if you want to be on one of the better servers. Even if new players come in as old ones quit some servers will become worse with time while others become better.
Short answer, yes. They do have a plan.
How well it will play out is another matter entirely. People seem to be enjoying the game, but there is a lot of heavily skewed criticism going both ways for this game. It's to be expected, but it's difficult to see how many people will be playing this game going in with the wrong type of mindset and then leaving.
I am also concerned about the longevity of WvW servers. They are a ton of fun, and a lot of people seem to be enjoying them, so we'll have to just wait and see i suppose.
I know this isn't final, but the gem price in the BWE and the stress test was so low that one could buy 1800 gems in two days, without crafting or playing the market, just by selling loot to the NPCs
So, you know, if you think your server condition is critical, it's not like you're gonna have to "farm" for a month to change servers
Also, someone should point out this is a WvW-only issue and thanks to guesting people won't be stuck to their ghost server for PvE
http://www.pcworld.com/article/247153/star_wars_the_old_republic_shatters_mmo_sales_records.html
I don't doubt that GW2 will be successful and have a bunch of players. But, saying that the lowest pop server will have 2x as many players as the highest pop SWTOR server is a little ridiculous.
Has Arenanet said specifically that the 48 worlds that we currently see are the only ones they're going to have? I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere.
Yeah, hard to tell.
The other type of PvP with 2 small teams will be popular for a long time since it still is in the first game, but noone really made anything like this before. DaoC is possibly the closest and RvR was popular there but here we just have to wait and see.
That's a critically important thing to remember there. GW2 isn't going to be a one time sales. Populations will be continually growing, shifting, changing... don't expect a static population from launch through eternity.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I realize you can buy gems with in game cash, but like I said, do you really want to log onto an empty server and then go farm for a few months to be able to afford to move to a more populated server? How does that help the other people on your server? It just leaves them with 1 fewer person, making the problem worse.
You're assuming that everybody playing MMOs cares about PvP. I have no idea how many PvP lovers there are in comparison to PvE lovers. I can see how losing PvP players could shrink the server population though but I don't think it would be a big loss. And really, if you're that good at PvP, wouldn't you prefer the challenge of a good fight? If you just go to the best server, then you're just a pussy aren't you?
Gems were selling for far cheaper during the BWE than they ever will after launch. Everyone in the BWE was given 2000 gems for free, and everyone was a low level. That means you need more gold, and gems don't do anything for you, thus, low gem prices. Gems will never sell for that cheap once people have to pay real money for them.
I thought I made it pretty clear in my OP that this is a WvW issue, but thanks for clarifying it by mentioning guesting, some people might not be aware of that feature.
Nah, it will definitively not have as much content as the whole game at launch. They have said GW2 has around the same content/size as whole GW1 today. How do you expect them to make that much content in a year? Sure they got a way bigger team now, but I think we will se a expansion pack with a few new zones couple of dungeons and some additions to current content. I hope they will add content every 6 months, but yea, kinda doubt they will keep that up for too long slowly making bigger gaps between BIG updates.
We'll have to see but I do hope if it becomes an issue, they just do complete merges (free of charge of course) despite the negative impact they sometimes have on communities.
Yay, personal attacks. Good for you.
Where did I mention I wanted to move to the best server? Oh that's right, I said the exact opposite in my post.
Well, I think that would only exacerbate the problem, and they would have to do them in blocks to keep the multiple-of-3's going on.
I'd rather see some sort of incentive provided to brand new players to join the current "losing-est" server. The way the game is currently set up (from what we've seen and heard) with the world buffs from WvW, there is no incentive whatsoever to joining a losing server. I think this is something they could combat early on, rather than try and band-aid later.
That was really unnessicary kanezfan. Perhaps chest-beating is welcome in your circle of gamers and that's fine...but when you talk like that to a community of people outside of that, it is best to keep such comments to yourself, otherwise expect to be criticized swiftly and then forgotten and never taken seriously.
A server merge would have to be the bottom 3 servers merged with the next bottom 3 servers in ranking. If there were 48 servers - So 48th and 43rd, 47th and 44th, 46th and 45th. Having a very low population does not mean you are going to be the bottom of the ranks, it means your smaller team is way better than a full server.
That would be the fairest way to do a merge if those servers were consitently at the bottom of the ladder AND were empty. If even one of those bottom servers are constantly queued in WvW then no merge should happen because then even the smaller servers can beat a full server.
No kanezfan is correct. Joining the best server to be part of the best is nothing short of inflating ones epeen without lifting a finger. It's better to be able to beat them and become the new best. I also think people get offended way to easily if a generalization like that gets taken personally.
Furthermore the biggest problem MMO's with multiple servers have is seperate databases for each server. GW2 doesn't have that problem so if server merges are needed all they have to do is change the homeservers of people to a new one. Or give people a free server change and a certain amount of time to transfer. After the time expires they would be forced to choose a new homeserver or not be able to play until they do.
As for Content. They have stated they have a plan in place already for new content after launch.
There's something missing from the logic here. In order for there to be a rank, someone will undoubtedly have to be at the bottom. That may end up being you, it may not. But someone WILL have to be "the worst". That's not something that's going to change. Obviously, if the worst server starts winning, they're no longer the worst, and they'll move up in the ranks. However it's true, that if that happens to be a lower populated server, their rise in the ranks may at some point cap out due to being outnumbered.
WvWvW does have a cap to the amount of people from each server that can play at once, and you'd have to queue to join once that cap is reached. That means that yes, a lower pop server could stand a chance against a higher pop one, provided that lower pop has a good amount of people that like PvP. If you end up on a server that doesn't like PvP, that's hardly the game's fault (not yours, either) and that's what server transfers are for.
As for empty servers, GW2 like any other MMO will see a decline in players. There will likely be more coming and going due to the payment style, but overall people aren't as willing to make one particular MMO their "home" anymore. Variety, n' stuff. So eventually there will be servers that are more empty than others, and the only way to avoid that is to get involved in actively building a lasting community on your server. That's it. There's nothing else you can do to fight the eventuality of it. Maybe you won't end up on that server, maybe you will, but short of consolidating servers (which I'm sure they are willing to do) it's unavoidable.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Well, I see how you became an elite member with your post count in only 3 months, you don't bother reading before replying.
They will update and improve GW2 till GW3 comes out you can be sure about that.
Also there will be expansions like in GW1.
I'm sure Anet is aware of low pop servers. I haven't seen any interviews about it, but from what it looks like, they are basing the amount of servers they have on how many prepurchasers they have at that time. So I'm predicting a gradual increase in the amount of servers available until launch. At launch, they'll probably add a few more servers for those who choose to wait until release to prepurchase, and also base it off of the number of preorders. Considering they are B2P, and not P2P, I'm betting they'll try to keep their overhead costs as low as possible, meaning as few servers as possible.
However, as no one can really predict how the server populations will fluctuate post launch, I see 2 possible avenues for deal with really low population servers:
1) Merging a server with other servers. This could be done by just taking 2 or more low pop servers and merging them, or opening up free world transfers for people on this server, allowing the people on this server to select the server they want to move to (which I'd personally prefer).
2) Take a path similar to Blizzard with WoW. They open up free world transfers for high population servers to these lower population servers. This would be more advantageous for WvW guilds who just can't capture any keeps because of the more powerful guilds on their server.
One of the thing we should all be aware of by this point is that the people working at Anet are not stupid, cocky at times yes, but stupid no. I've been playing GW1 for many years at this point (I'm taking a break right now), and Anet has prove to me time and again that they know what their doing. While GW1 may not be considered an MMO, it is still a very successful game.