So is GW officially dead in terms of population then?

I have played every day. Sure I get one or two every few weeks, but it was similar in GW1 also, people advertising for money sites in Kamadan and the like. I can only base my responses on my own experiences

Uh, it didn't help anything but that anet gets a piece of the cake from the more "honest" or lazy people. Botting/Goldseller websites still offer way cheaper ways.
All this "it's to fight down gold sellers" is so silly. It doesn't really work and only veils the real intention behind it: Getting a piece of the cake, aka more money through ways that should have never found their way into gaming.

Game is still "alive" but my main issue is that it's harder to find good players. PUG or even guild the pool of players is lesser quality. It's like everyone decided to regress. Worse builds and old play tactics.

More of this instead...
"I'm experienced"
"I've done this before (so I don't want to learn)"
"I've been playing for X years"

I think part of the fun is actually to do some contents with byob-pugs, even if I'm fully aware that many of the builds might be bad. It's still fun though.

some of the builds might not be up to what others think are 'experienced' players, but that is what THIS game is about---the amount of skills that are out there just BEGS to be used (unlike another game which forces skills upon you----)....yeah, some builds are just plain bad, others are ok....but that is what makes this game so enjoyable (heck I vanquished yesterday with my 3 warriors--and their crummy builds-- and only a n/rt as healer--yes we got clocked once, but otherwise we cleared the whole area with no significant issues).

I find the game more fun when I play around with skills (I have never even looked at the pvx thingy) and learn more about which skills work well and which ones dont (on my own).

woooow hold it!!
.... i'm NOT the only one???

i only make own builds, although some look like pvx, cuz i was inspired by others (like a mes hero with illusion skills)

and yes, its the reason i have so many char slots (35), just to make different themed chars and try out alot
i also like to do z quests (ones i can do) and storylines so i can get everywhere for quests or items or such.... and heroes

too bad people say "use these builds" when i ask for help, some just help, but others... only cuz i use builds they think are bad
also heard alot "yea, its from pvx, BUT i made my own version" and acting like they made it themselves
also too bad most nice people leave GW early

anyway, i still managed to find some friends, so its not dead

otherwise GW2 is also dead, as i take it its not half as active as when it launched and a year after that
seen many people come back from GW2 (now hoping anet seen that too), and even people who got GW cuz of Gw2 HoM rewards, but they liked GW more

sure, its been MUCH more active before, but that is the same for all games one day

No you are not, I'm with you as well.

Ahah, I'm one of those Lately I've bought GW2 because of the 50% discount and for giving a look to the rewards I had achieved playing GW1, but soon realized the sequel is very different from the first game, much more action-based gameplay... Just my opinion but in all honesty, I prefer GW1, I'm very addicted to it

I actually just came back to GW after 4 years of absence. My fiancé and I were bored and looking for a new game to play together and she'd never heard of GW before. After contacting ANET tech support to get my password reset (it had been 4 years) and her starting a character with the free trial, she decided she liked the game.

We bought her a Prophecies/Factions/Night Fall bundle from ANET for $29.95. Wow, I remember paying $50 a campaign when they first came out. So this 'late' in the game, GW got a brand new player just two weeks ago and a player back from the 'dead'. It's been a bit of a relearning experience for me, but it helped to start over again (come back) with 18 maxed titles, a pretty stocked storage, and 900+ platinum.

I've never played GW2. GW does certainly seems to have a lot fewer players than it used to though. It's been pretty much impossible to find other people to do missions and things with. We're currently doing the prophecies campaign just made it to Ember Light Camp, and have we've yet to do a single mission with another player. So the cooperative game play has certainly lost something in the last 4 years, but at least we've got each other.

My guild was dead when I logged back in. Though even at its height it only had about a dozen players. Now it has only 6, 4 of which (all but my fiancé and I) haven't logged in in years. I find my self leader of a full guild hall, with only 2 players. If anyone wants an invite just PM here on Guru with your character name. We can't offer much, but access to a full guild hall, and 2 players that play 2-3 hours a day.

Guild Wars isn't dead in terms of population, but it sure isn't what it used to be. However despite the number that have left, once in a while it does get a new player and/or an infusion of old blood from a resurrected player.

And so am I. While I do look at PvX at times, I tend to always make my own builds. They might not be great, but I like it better this way.

There's really no point in trying to (re)start your own guild this late in the game. If you want to join an active guild then maybe you should try [LGiT] since they're the only guild that isn't based around speed-clearing and have posted in the last month. Otherwise, I would post in the Looking for guild part of these forums.

Also, make sure that you are in the American English districts. And, if you really want to join a PuG, then go to the Great Temple of Balthazar and see what's the Zaishen Mission and Bounty. People tend to do those regularly.

Welcome back to GW. If you finish all 4 campaigns then make sure you have a look at the GW Beyond content; the War in Kryta is especially good. And, if you get stuck somewhere, feel free to ask for help on these forums since there are plenty of experienced veterans who still lurk here

In the same line of thinking as you guys, I've been playing 2 of my characters with the following rules in order to make the game feel more fresh. I thought I would share in case anybody would be interested.

A.

1. My Primary profession must not be a spell-caster (I chose Ranger).

2. I must never choose a secondary profession for myself nor for my heroes.
In order to still have access to most of the game and not pick a secondary profession, you must start in Nightfall and get someone to run your character to Consulate Docks and then to Lion's Arch and Kaineng Center. You will not have access to most of the things in Elona and, obviously, you will not be able to make an Assassin or a Ritualist.

3a. I may only add heroes that are NOT Mesmers, Necromancers, or Elementalists. If I'm adding a Ritualist then I may not invest in Channeling Magic.
Basically, this prevent you from using most offensive spells. I had to allow Ritualist healers because I would only have access to one Monk hero, Ogden, and I don't like using henchmen. I also allowed Smiting Prayers and Communing because they both have very few offensive spells and several good skills that synergize with physical attackers.

3b. If the above rule (3a) is too restrictive then you may only add one type of each profession in the party. So only one Ranger (which will be me), one Monk, one Necro etc.
There are some areas that have far too much Blinding, Blocking or point-blank Area-of-Effect damage and doing the Riverside Province (the archers on the towers are difficult to attack without being obstructed), Eternal Grove (minions are extremely useful here), and Abaddon's Mouth (the enemies on top of the high walls can be a pain) would have been rather frustrating.

4. Equip yourself and your heroes only with Tengu weapons by completing Master Togo's Story.
Most of the time I use random green weapons but, this time, I wanted to actually buy the mods for the weapons that I needed for myself and for my heroes. One nice side-effect from this was that all of my casters now have spears so I never have to worry about an enemy casting Chaos Storm or Backfire on any of my heroes XD Hooray for abusing the AI!
If you wanted, you could also use weapons from other families.

B.

You may only invest points in the following attributes:

Warrior: Strength, Tactics, Hammer Mastery.
Ranger: Expertise, Beast Mastery.
Monk: Divine Favor, Smiting Prayers.
Necromancer: Soul Reaping, Blood Magic.
Mesmer: Fast Casting, Illusion Magic.
Elementalist: Energy Storage, Earth Magic, Water Magic.
Assassin: Critical Strikes, Deadly Arts.
Ritualist: Spawning Power, Communing.
Paragon: Leadership, Motivation.
Dervish: Mysticism, Wind Prayers.

Welcome back Uli!
Yes its not as populated as it once was, but you must also remember there are 4 games as well----

Schmerdro....I did something similiar, I have an earth ele from nightfall and yes got the run so I dont have lots of heroes either, though I havent limited myself as much as you have. I also have 2 accounts without eye--so no eye heroes, I have gotten creative with the ones I do have (mox is a rit!). Makes for a more interesting game---most interesting is my factions only account--NO heroes! (remember the days of just using henchies?)

anyways there is plenty of game left in this game!

I'm surprised that people do similar things as I do.

I have a primary profession only ranger, mesmer and a dervish, they have access to mercenaries though, because I'm thinking about going for titles for one or more of them. I also have a warrior on another account, but she won't get any mercenaries, not interested in titles there.

And also I too have a Factions only account, but again I'm using mercenaries because I want to see if I can manage to complete everything in Factions with only factions skills. I started this one because Factions has always been my favourite (probably because I started when that one came out). Oddly enough having less choice as to where to go/what to do next is working out great for me, I am really enjoying it, I can only recommend that to everyone: start a complete new account with only the campaign you started with! It is amazing!

Had a blast Mother's day, running rampant with my Splinter Rt/R and pet rainbow phoenix!
Winds of change is soooooooo much fun!
Nope, GW ain't dead to me
Old Tyria keeps drawing me in.
(And yes, the original wallow mini-pet was there too.)

i have 4 chars (sin, rit, derv and paragon) which i only let play in prophecies and eotn
i like proph most, cuz there's alot to see, and the enemies are basics
i just wanna see how newer profs do in proph, and eotn to not get bored too much

i even got my sin, derv and para to ascalon on the lowest lvl i could get (meaning no masters in cho estate and zen daijun with sin, and getting taxi/ferry to LA, then run to ascalon), just to see if those profs would do well from low lvl on

i do give em a few skills, which they keep using (maybe 10 i'll use, and ignore the ones i dont use, which i start with) plus the eotn pve only skills (not from factions or NF)

the only reason i got tahlkora, is cuz i like to have all of my chars doing the events on the islands
oh and melonni, cuz when you do diggings mission, you can get to all places on istan
i dont get them to kourna for halloween quests, but i can get many chars there, so enough tot's for grab bags (needing pumpkin cookies and candy corn to get such halloween token)

so enough to do, plus proph+eotn chars of newer profs, using ranger as secondary (accidentally gave sin war as 2ndary, but oh well, just take frenzy at doppelganger, and i'll kill him with sin support and YMLaD, then change into a/r)
why ranger you ask? well using a pet is fun at times, leveling from lvl 5 on, and even make builds for pets

also 1 more thing, i use only NF/faction skills (non-pve only's) if its for that prof, so the rest will be proph/core skills, and using elite tomes for their primary prof

also gave em nicholas items from proph, so that they can go to the place where nick would be, and give the items..... easy storage :P

*thinking out loud* sigh, i wish we could make those 4 profs in pre searing, with a few basic skills of their own

anyway, as you can see (and i didnt expect this much, tbh either) the game is far from dead

oh yea, i have a rit which stays on low lvl areas, so ascalon + northern shiverpeaks, istan and shing jea island, she only kills enemies in those areas.... but thx to event quests she's lvl 19 or 20 already (cant remember xD... but i have all char slots unlocked, so its hard to remember, haha)

i even made a derv which is gonna use all other profs as secondary.... basically storage/item char (item as in event items and maybe elona treasures), but with alot of builds (d/r having either a bow or pet + scythe)

1 thing i experienced i dont like, is all guilds i joined last 1 and a half year or 2 years, either go for factions towns, sc's and HM (and dont even help someone on istan, for example), or do nearly nothing together (but do help more than the other example i gave you)

but aside from that, it seems the game is even more alive than i thought, hahaha

Glad to see it isn't dead yet :3 I guess you just have to find the right place where to look. Hope something happens that GW will go boom and reclaim its prestige reputation.

Is GW dead? Yes, it died in 2009. When match queue times for Halls and GvG got up over an hour, that literally means nobody was playing it - ergo, it's dead. Imagine hopping on league or dota 2 or any multiplayer game and waiting an hour to play a single match. That's how dead GW was... in 2009.

And the PvE died even earlier. Time was you could find a group for literally any mission in that mission hub, and only rarely would you have to drag Alesia along. Now the vast majority of players (...the few that are left, in essence) prefer playing with heroes, since everyone good quit years ago. GW2 isn't necessarily a better game, but it's newer and shinier, so that drug a lot of people away. Anet's attempts at balance and disastrous expansions in GW1 chased the PvP crowd away and killed the competitive scene after only 2 or 3 years. It was sad to see, but GW has been dead for a long time.

Obviously the tiny crowd that's still left tries to circlejerk and pretend otherwise, but GW is thoroughly dead. Most of them weren't around when GW was considered a PvP game, and the ones that were apparently forgot how busy even the PvE areas were. Being able to find active people in maybe 3 towns is not a sign of life - it's the opposite.

Heroes were added specifically to address the problem of the game dying - ArenaNet knew its players were leaving in droves, especially after the disaster that was Factions balance, so they added in a mechanic that let people fill in gaps in their party that ArenaNet assumed would be there because the game was dying. As even more people left, the few still around begged for 7 hero builds... because finding even 1 other person to fill in the other half of your party was so difficult. As time went on, you had to rely on PvE guilds or large friends list to fill parties, because simply going to an area and pugging was impossible - nobody would be there.

But ignore all that, right? Game's still alive and buzzing. Totally not dead at all. Despite the vast majority of towns, mission hubs and outposts being empty, despite PvP happening maybe a couple times a month, because my small guild is active, the whole game is alive!

Edit: The thread title is "So is GW officially dead in terms of population then," to which the only possible answer is yes. The population is a miniscule fraction of what it once was. Fewer players overall, fewer players doing any given part of the game, fewer players farming, fewer players doing PvP... which is impossible to get a match for most hours of most days of the year. Even in PvE, players tend to rely on Heroes to fill parties - 1 player where 8 used to be. Going purely by population count, GW is very much dead.

You can tell that GW was and always will be a great game because, no matter how much people complain about it being ruined or dead, they still come back, years later, to talk about it. If GW was such a bad game then it would simply be forgotten by now... but no, people just can't let it go and evidently get very emotional when talking about it.

lol, what's wrong with you? If you consider the game dead it's fine. I don't. I remember the times where PvP was at his full height and mission outposts were crowded. Of course it's nowhere near that right now. But everyone should decide for their own if they consider the game dead or not. I still have a fully active alliance I can play with. Yes, pugging is dead but as long as there are still people to play with it isn't dead to me. While it isn't comparable to the glorious old times, it isn't all black and white.

"Going purely by population count, GW is very much dead."

dont lie, play the game, look around, and you see many guilds helping and doing stuff together

nvm, dont listen to those who only compare times, if thats the case, then alot of MMO's who still do well are dead

GW (again) is far from dead, as people still return alot

and dont count pvp, as pvp in general is a smaller thing than pve, unless its a pvp MMO

look around in the whole game, join different guilds and allies, and you find ENOUGH people around who still play, play again, or are kinda new either thx to GW2, or just cuz they heard from anyone or anything

if you compare, then its not dead, but way less active, but the game is bigger, so people are anywhere (dungeons, zaishen quests, pvp... still and whatever you can think off)