GW Getting Too Spread Out

I'm growing concerned that the GW community will be getting spread too thin by the next few expansions. I mean, every time Anet adds a chapter the players get more and more spread out. Right now it's not too bad; there are only two different places to go. But when Nightfall comes, there will be 3 seperate land masses. People who buy Nightfall will be playing Nightfall, leaving the other areas behind (sure, it's nice to visit the old areas, but honestly, the newer areas get more attention). When Nightfall hits, Factions and Prophecies will become ghost towns.

Now, maybe it's just me, but this seems a terrible waste to see these areas completely abandoned except for certain outposts. I'm not sure how ANet will resolve this, or if they even care, but it seems to me that fragmenting the community is not a good idea. I'm not sure if there is a solution. Perhaps ANet never thought about it because they never expected to last as long as they did. Perhaps they don't value the PvE player community.

Again, I don't have a solution. Perhaps connecting the maps would work. Perhaps not. But I'd like to hear what you all think about it. To be perfectly frank, this, to me, is the most important issue that the coming of Nightfall will bring people's attention to. It's so important in fact, I would consider not buying Nightfall or any other expansions for a while to see how things go. I have to no wish to be a part of a fragmented PvE community, and if that means waiting until the next big MMO comes around, then that's what I'll do.

The community grows larger every time, and with every expansion as well as their high rating from many game reviewers gives them that edge to attract lots of people to play the game. When factions came out, Prophecies was empty with concern, but... realising how... *cough* Factions is, people are going back to Prophecies. Both areas are sustainable and still recieve peak numbers during the day, the only way to tell if fragmenting would become a problem is to actually wait to see what happens. People are complaining about desertion of towns already, it'll depend if that number increases over time.

heres what we need. every week well have a scavenger hunt. not a crappy little scavenger hunt but one that covers all 3 continents. there will be multiple lvls of prises so the more towns and out posts you have unlocked the better off youll be. there will be something in say 10 towns over the 3 continents and you have to answer a trivia question or riddle. every person will get something for every ammunt of items they have. so even if the only place you have have is courthouse and asclon you can still get something when courthouse is up. people would have to spend time in different towns. its always fun to solve puzzles. it would premote exploring. and it has title oppertunitys. gg.

Even when it was just prophecies there was still a deserted town problem, just look a Henge of Denravi..

as for nightfall.. well, Im not sure, but I dont think you will be able to get luxon or kurzick faction there.. so im fairly sure Cantha will continue to be a bustling community.

Its prophecies which will gradually take the hit, there just isnt a reason to go there anymore, and as GW will release standalones as opposed to expansions, new-comers to guildwars probably wont even both buying it.

Its the reasons which attract population, not how many expansions there are. and I just dont think Prophecies has enough of these reasons.

There needs to be a PvE town which all chapters can get to. It probably should be for the realms, but if its a new area that would be nice to. ToA/Zin Ku will just get worse and worse I think, unless its fixed.

Same subject was up a couple of days ago, it's the way such games go you can't really do anything about it - people move on to new chapters it's just the way it is.

If you know everquest and the 1,000 expansions you'd know that some old areas aren't visted by anyone.

What this might do is actually boost the importance of Guilds in the game.

While it might be harder to get a PUG in some places, the advantages of being part of an active guild/alliance --where you can call up some team mates for a mission --will become more obvious to people.

Imo Prophecies will be fine... lots of people say they like it more and there never seems to be a lack of people playing it. Factions however... if you think i'm taking my new Nightfall characters through factions anytime soon, you've got another thing coming.

People will still visit old areas

some Elite skills can only be captured from specific Chapters


in the same way that I brought all my Factions chars to Prophecies,
I'll be bring my Nightfall chars to Factions/Prophecies content

I'm not concern at all.

If there was no expansions, everyone would still be running about chapter 1, in time people would get bored and quit.

Expansions keep the game interesting, and get new players trying the game.

The problem with the Jungle and the Desert in Prophecies was the insane % of people skipping half the game to get directly to Droks. Factions' release made things worse, but it wasn't the primary culprit.

This has been discussed time and time again, and will forever be discussed in the GW community. Of course, the constant supply of expansions will offer more content and could potentialy lead to the thinning out of the community, but as of now, it seems that Prophecies is still fine. There's a noticable decline in population but still you can find PuGs easily, but the reason Prophecies isnt dying out is because it was so popular, but with Nightfall coming out, Factions will probably be left in the dust, and deservidly so.

It's sad to think that a player new to Guild Wars will miss out on the greatness that was, Prophecies, because they bought the later stand-alone "expansions" but there's nothing to be done there. As of now, I'm hoping A-Net will go in a new direction with later expansions.

EDIT: Typo.

I think Prophecies will always have a fair amount of people. Most people started in tryia and it feels like home. Everyone goes to play through the expansions; but at the end of the day everyone returns home

Is prophercies really fine?


I can't even find people anymore for a good infusion run these days.. its just empty and deserted.


I have my serious doubts about new people buying factions. I find that hard to belive. Expansions severly limits a potential games growth, doesn't it?



there is really nothing they can do about it, but they could still try to make fewer outposts and towns, and instead focus on making the fewer better and bigger.



Something else they could do - In all deserted outposts in prophercies and factions, they could make all players start in international district. so instead of having the korean, usa, european and japanese districts almost all deserted, if they where combined so each time you would enter the outpost, you would get into the international district.

it makes so much more sense. all the less popular places should have no "home districts". ArenaNet should really do this.

Compared with getting no new content, a thinning out of players is the lesser evil.

At least the newest chapter should always be full enough for pugging.

Hopefully this is what will happen: People buy standalones. People like standalone. People migrate backwards towards factions and Prophecies. It will take a while probably, but a fair crowd of people should cycle through prophecies, people that bought factions/nightfall and got bored/want to see if the other chapters are as good.

I'm finding myself more and more in Tyria, doing bonuses I've missed and running with my Canthan warrior, and as has been mentioned, it's home

Maybe they should implement a ' use international districts' option, so you always spawn in international districts, so you can get more people together!

I have a sneaking suspicion Factions just isn't that popular. It may have sold a lot (and I've had it since preorder) but an awful lot of outposts/mission zones seem to be lacking in people, compared to how Prophecies was.

More than a few times the party I've been in (or formed) has had to hop districts trying to scrounge up players. That was virtually unheard of in Prophecies.

(Euro servers, dunno about elsewhere)

I think a lot of people, myself included, bought Factions due to the love of Prophecies. Its taken me a long time to show any distinct interest in Factions, but I've finally gotten around to it. Hopefully this lag in attendance will be temporary. I've seen quite a few people in my own attempts to beat certain missions, but I don't know what the population is like near the Luxon/Kurzick missions.