How's the economy and playerbase?

[FunkyMonk88]

Hey everyone. I used to be a very hardcore WoW player. In a top US guild, 8+ hours a day, so on and so forth. When MoP came I grew so bored of the game and quit. I played FF14 for a couple months and it was fun but there was absolutely nothing to do in the endgame. Tried a few other random mmos. But nothing was very fun. Now I see this game is on sale for 50%$ off and I have heard good things about it. Before I pick it up though I am wondering is this game even active anymore? Will I find a guild for endgame content? Is there an economy still? What are some good servers? PvP? Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Svifnymr]

It's active, economy is fine. If you want to WvWvW, find a server that's doing well in the rankings, if not, it doesn't matter.

There is no bimodal endgame, when you finish leveling you keep doing events, world bosses, exploring, all the same stuff you've been doing while leveling. You'll still gain skillpoints as you gain more levels, but there is no gear treadmill with gear resets. There are no raids.

[Meledelion]

PvP is a joke.

Dungeons are a joke.

There are some crazy rich ppl controlling the precursor market (needed for legendaries, which are only skins).

[zed zebes]

Game is very active with players. Economy is rather tightly controlled, though high end up items have seen a lot of inflation due to the 1% that can afford them.

Endgame is not WoWesque. As said, it's not bimodal, which means that what you do leveling up is very much what you do at max level. Currently, the game leans heavily towards open world content, but there are dungeons and instanced pvp.

If you want really high end WvWvW, then you should look at a server ranked in the top two tiers. If you want to do the big bosses then you can do that with your server community or join a Boss Killing guild. It doesn't matter which server you're on for these guilds, just that you're in the same region.

[Karizee]

The closest thing you get to hardcore raiding in GW2 is a hardcore WvW guild. They have all the theorycrafting, raid schedules, drama, gear & skill requirements and everything else you'd expect from a hardcore guild.

For PvE it's high end Fractals and speed running dungeons. There's Living Story content every 2 weeks but the majority of it is meant to be completed by everyone, I wouldn't call it hardcore endgame unless you are determined to collect all the skins. There's also Guild Missions you can run weekly but they are pretty easy as well as long as your group is large enough.

Game is well worth the price though, it's a steal at half off. Extremely active, players everywhere. The trading post is worldwide (except for China), you can buy and sell pretty much anything you want in minutes.

[Achaman]

pvp is WoW bg style spvp/tpvp or wvw which is just zerg rush vs zerg rush

pve is pretty much farming dungeons for a new look, closest thing to a raid would be a world boss like tequatl

and the economy is what others have said

[carnifex2005]

pvp is WoW bg style spvp/tpvp or wvw which is just zerg rush vs zerg rush

pve is pretty much farming dungeons for a new look, closest thing to a raid would be a world boss like tequatl

and the economy is what others have said

That's bullshit about WvW only being zerg rush versus zerg rush. I've been doing solo and small party WvW with my engineer and its very fun.

Player base is pretty huge and the economy is meh in that you basically only make money by playing the trading post like the stock market or by playing the game and selling any items that drop. That being said, being able to have good gear when getting to 80 isn't expensive at all because the entire player base (except China) is on the same trading post.

If you're looking for organized raiding, this ain't the game for you. You should look at a game like Wildstar. It is basically trying to be WoW 2.0.

[Thelxi]

Community is one of the best I've ever seen, probably the best I've ever seen in any MMO. People are very helpful and gracious, not as competitive and ego driven as other games' playerbases tend to be.

Assuming you don't want to do dungeons of course. There is a "meta" that dictates everybody wear full zerker gear, stack up while pulling the boss into a corner and just blow the boss up. There is not much of a hardcore community though and many "theorycrafters" are not that bright or good at the game, they just take credit for common sense and get away with it because there is no such thing as logs and recount/skada.

World feels very alive. You will see people everywhere and capitals are full.



Economy.. well.. if you consider D3 a healthy economy, GW2 is an exaggeration of that. You can slave for hours grinding pennies, or you can use your credit card and 10 bucks = 200gold from chinese nerds, double that money if you want to buy gold directly from Anet.

You can get ANYTHING in the game with either grinding for pennies for hundreds if not thousands of hours, or use a credit card and get EVERYTHING within 5 minutes. Very few things are gated behind actual daily/monthly grinds, but many of those you can actually circumvent through you guessed it a credit card. Also pretty much everything costs gold.

Gold is the heart of GW2 both for us the players playing the game and Anet keeping the game afloat financially, and you can get as much gold as your wallet is deep.

[Karizee]

Got to say Thelxi, that's the first time I've heard that one, lol. What are you doing that you're only making pennies an hour and what on earth are you spending it on that you need so much?

I mean, that was the biggest complaint from players that were used to gear grind type play - they geared up so fast that they didn't know what to do with themselves and thought there was no end game haha.

[frymastermeat]

I've been trying to get back into it off and on for the past year and I've finally played longer than a week, mostly thanks to the new Megaserver tech they put last month. It basically made it so that every zone is decently well populated by mixing in other servers, which is actually a good thing in this MMO since group events are common. Before this, seeing no one doing events in the mid-level zones was always a bummer and usually led to me losing interest.

[Thelxi]

Got to say Thelxi, that's the first time I've heard that one, lol. What are you doing that you're only making pennies an hour and what on earth are you spending it on that you need so much?

I mean, that was the biggest complaint from players that were used to gear grind type play - they geared up so fast that they didn't know what to do with themselves and thought there was no end game haha.

Someone who just grinds can make 20-30 gold per day. We are talking about doing every single dungeon path here, or mindlessly farming mats in smart places. 20-30 gold translates into 2-3 dollars.

I call a 10 hour grind for 2 bucks grinding for pennies, sorry if you can't wrap your mind around that.

[Meledelion]

So it takes you an hour to do one dungeon path?

[Valeron]

unless you are doing Arah or the Aetherblade path in Twilight Arbor there is no way it should take longer than about 15 minutes per path.

[Thelxi]

So it takes you an hour to do one dungeon path?

It takes you an hour to do just 1 arah path?

[Meledelion]

It takes you an hour to do just 1 arah path?

Let me help you out here

Someone who just grinds can make 20-30 gold per day. We are talking about doing every single dungeon path here, or mindlessly farming mats in smart places. 20-30 gold translates into 2-3 dollars.

I call a 10 hour grind for 2 bucks grinding for pennies, sorry if you can't wrap your mind around that.

20g-30g=2$-3$

10h=2$=20g
=>10h=20g
=>1h=2g
TA Aether, Arah1/2/4 earn you 2 or more G

Thus, DOES IT TAKE YOU 1h to do one path?

[LonestarHero]

Hey everyone. I used to be a very hardcore WoW player. In a top US guild, 8+ hours a day, so on and so forth. When MoP came I grew so bored of the game and quit. I played FF14 for a couple months and it was fun but there was absolutely nothing to do in the endgame. Tried a few other random mmos. But nothing was very fun. Now I see this game is on sale for 50%$ off and I have heard good things about it. Before I pick it up though I am wondering is this game even active anymore? Will I find a guild for endgame content? Is there an economy still? What are some good servers? PvP? Any answers would be appreciated. Thanks.

The game is completely worthwhile and ACTIVE.

You can join multiple guilds at once. I have a main guild for dungeon running and WVW and a guild I represent during the two complicated world bosses requiring massive coordination between 150 players (Tequatl and Triple Trouble).

I would consider fractal dungeons and the two difficult bosses named above as traditional "endgame". Though you can WvW all the time if you wish. The WoW BG-style sPvP (structured PVP) has no level. When you play this mode you are automatically boosted to level 80 with all skills and weapon upgrades at your disposal.

Servers no longer matter at all for PvE or sPvP. However for WvW server affiliation is the "team" you are playing on. If WvW is something you wish to pursue the server choice is very important. Though you can switch servers it will cost you.

Playing the auction house (trading post) is a bit difficult as there only being one means that there are few inefficiencies in the market to capitalize on unlike say EVE Online. This website is very helpful in finding opportunities in playing the trading post: http://www.gw2spidy.com/

Give it a try. You have nothing to lose. The nice part is you can take a break and still be just as powerful when you come back months/years later.

[Thelxi]

10h=2$=20g
=>10h=20g
=>1h=2g
TA Aether, Arah1/2/4 earn you 2 or more G

I know this is the internet and semantics are an life purpose for most, but this has nothing to do with my actual point. If you are average and want to make 30 gold in GW2 you WILL be spending ~10 hours per day, OR 5 minutes using your credit card. If you want to argue with me, start there.

[Meledelion]

Oh what a difference
10h=3$=30g
=>10h=30g
=>1h=3g
So it takes you an hour to do Arah p1/2/4?

I understand that you can't express yourself intelligently so let's go at it from another angle.
How long does it take to earn 30g?
AC1-3 = 4g65s = 30min
TA1-2 = 2g = 20min
SE1/3 = 2g = 15min
CoF 1-3 = 3g = 15min
CoE 1-3 = 3g = 30min
Total = 14g65s = 2h

This is only going with dungeon rewards, no drops, no token conversion,...

[Lane]

The fact that you have to equate gold per hour using dungeons is one of the many things wrong with GW2's economy.

[Meledelion]

You don't have to, it's just really easy since there's standard values. If you complete a path you're guaranteed X gold, and you know that most paths take 10min.