Suggestions for ANet, apart from the usual better grouping/better trade suggestions:
- In the game itself, have an official list of guilds (they can omit guilds with less than 10 or so members if they need to cut the list down) with the following information: A short descriptive paragraph, a flag indicating PvE/PvP focus, flag indicating whether the guild is recruiting. This list needs to be searchable, sortable, etc.
- You should be able to select any player in the game, and at the touch of a button, see the above information for their guild.
- You should be able to click on a button "Apply to guild", and the guild's officers /leaders will see your name on a list in their Guild Window, and they can contact you when they feel like it.
- change "All" chat into "Shout", and make it extremely limited - 1 message per minute or something.
- Make a new "All" chat. In town, it works like this: Messages you type can only be seen by people standing "nearby" you. It will show up in their chat box, and also, they will see a speech bubble with your full message in there. In missions and explorables, "All" chat works the same way it does now.
- Allow people to write a short sentence describing themselves. They can change the sentence at any time. You can see a player's information by targeting them and pressing a button, or from friends list, guild roster etc. Players can use this sentence for whatever reason they like, for example "A dark and smelly man." or "WTB Ectos pm me" or "Looking for help with Sunjiang district pm me" or "Friendly helper, beginners feel free to ask me questions" or "Will cyber for tips" or whatever.
- Either change the guild member limit to something like 500, or allow people to see who's online in other guilds in their alliance. Oh, and make Alliances a core feature, not a GW:F one.
Suggestions for players:
- Be proactive in finding an active guild that you like. A reasonably large guild, or a small guild that plays at the same time as you. Dont be lazy and be guildless, or be with a guild you dont particularly like. Go through all the forums, apply to different guilds, talk to nice people you meet ingame about their guilds, etc.
- You want a community? Form your own! Start a thread to meet people with similar backgrounds and interests. Hang around some GW IRC channels and play with the people you meet there. Find some like-minded people and make a serious commitment to play at a particular time (like those good ol days with the weekend D&D game
- Anyone who seems reasonably nice and mature, ask if you can friend them. Then make an effort to play together if you see them online, even if you're helping them out sometimes, etc.
- Be nice to new people whenever you can. Answer questions whenever you see them, play a mission/quest or two with them if you feel like it. Just dont give them anything, and dont run them, powerlevel them, or otherwise "lead" them in anyway. Tag a along, chat, let them kill stuff and give a hand if they're in trouble.
Oh, and I've played WoW before, and EQ2... the only reason they seemed to have a better community is because it's easier to ignore the majority of people there (since you can only talk when you are nearby), and because you generally meet them in small groups, or 1 on 1, etc.
In GW we have the problem of the most annoying people being the most vocal, and the most audible. (ie. the people spamming loudly and rudely in All chat.)
And to counter the OP's Leeroy Jenkins argument, I bring up Ian Boyd from TGH :P