General Feedback - My thoughts to A-Net - Long-Time Player (WPE) comments welcome!

Greetings!

This is an article targetted toward two specific audiences, so I ask in advance that if you do not belong to one of these two audiences, please DO NOT post here.

This article, and it's subsequent discussion, are meant for Arena-Net Developers, and disgruntled Long-time players of Guild Wars.

For clarity, I define a Long-time player as someone who has played Guild Wars consistently (at least 3 hours per week, without pause) since the World Preview Event of October 2004. This is when I first heard about, and started playing Guild Wars.

I have played this game since it's inception. I have watched it grow from a small, almost unknown title, into a global phenomenon to rival World of Warcraft. I revelled in Arena-Net's success, but now I feel it is my duty to speak out. Arena-Net, you need to know what is happening in the hearts of many of your most loyal customers...the people who made you the success you are today.

Please bear in mind as I write this article. This is a warning to you, Arena-Net. There are MANY long-term players that are about to ABANDON Guild Wars, as soon as other games currently being made are released. They are planning to defect, and if things do not change to their liking, they will. They will no longer buy your new chapters. They will no longer buy new character slots, or purchase pre-orders and collector's editions. They don't feel it's WORTHY of their hard-earned money.

If the spirit of the game does not change...I will be one of them.

If this article seems harsh and critical, it's because it is. People are not liking many of the changes to the game, and the way those changes have been carried out. Not testing this weekend, but the entire game, and it's spirit.

The game is losing it's soul.

I will attempt to keep this feedback organized into sections, and I apologize in advance for the length of this article. Please read these and think very hard on them.

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The Fall of Camelot
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I must first start out with my personal feelings of the game. I do this because there must be some context for WHY I am writing this in the first place.

To make a long story short...Guild Wars has lost the 'essence' that made it a once-Great game. I no longer have the drive or ambition in the game I once had. It is not just me, either. Virtually everyone I have spoken to, or know within the game, feels the same way. I see talk of it in the streets of Lions Arch, Kaineng City, and Kamadan. I hear talk of it in group chats while out adventuring.

Guild Wars may very well lose a good portion of it's player base, if these concerns are not addressed, and soon. BEFORE the next chapter comes out.

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PVE vs PvP - Who Wins?
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It has long been known that this game had distinct separations between PvE and PvP, since they do not intermingle within the same game world, map, etc. Instanced play, dedicated PvP arenas, it was a GREAT concept. One I LOVED. I loved it because it allowed me to focus on what I loved about the game. PvE. I am NOT a PvP player. Can I PvP? Yes. Am I good at it? More or less. Do I like to do it? No.

Truthfully, the dedicated PvE players in the game find that there is not nearly enough attention given to the PvE elements of the game. Every time I read a GW Website update, some new feature coming out, or skill rebalances...it seems that PvE considerations are almost an afterthought...and only after things are broken for PvE-ers, do they get fixed, with a 'we are sorry'. If this were an isolated incident, I could forgive and forget. However, it happens time and time again, and after a while, one cannot help but wonder if the Arena-Net staff even thinks of the PvE crowd at all.

It feels like any changes or new content is thrown at us, like a piece of meat meant to shut us up and keep us from howling too loud. This could be just my perspective, but that is how it FEELs.

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The Fellowship is Broken
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Probably one of the biggest things that first drew me to Guild Wars, was the concept of Teamwork. After playing in the WPE, I was amazed that a game finally catered to what I felt made a good RPG game: Comraderie. You not only adventured with other people because you liked to...but because you HAD TO. It was required to survive. It was necessary to advance.

Now, with the introduction of Heros, this feeling of Comraderie has all but disintegrated in Guild Wars. I am not saying Heros are a bad idea. Quite the opposite. Sometimes a person does want to be by themselves. HOWEVER, I think the way they were implimented has caused repercussions in the game that were grave, to say the least.

During the preview of Nightfall, I witnessed something I NEVER saw in Guild Wars until that day.

An entire town of people, all with (4) above their heads...and the public chat was absolutely silent. A full Mission district, with no one talking at all? I could not believe it. I thought I had hit some kind of surreal moment in time, where everyone in the district was AFK at the same time. But people were moving. Running here and there to merchants and such, so they couldnt be AFK.

I did the only natural thing (At least it used to be)....I advertized for a group. I did this about once every minute or two...with my own advertizement being the only discussion in the room at all.

It took several minutes before someone responded. When they did, it sent shockwaves through me. They responded by telling me to "stop spamming, and just use Heros/Henchmen. That's what they're for." I not only didnt find a group...nor saw anyone talking to each other...but was actually RIDICULED when I wanted to find another person to do the mission with.

I thought to myself... "This cannot last. Eventually, people will get tired of heros and henchmen, and start grouping again". They have, but not nearly to the extent which they did before. The whole culture of the game seems to have died, because people no longer feel the need to interact and get along with their fellow gamer to get ahead. On the slightest whim, they leave a group because "i can just do this with heros". There is no need to work together anymore, to achieve the common goal. You have to get along with only 1 other person, in the entire game, and even then, henchmen often will suffice in their place.

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For the love of Money
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It is inevitable in a game that people want to have nice things, and will pay large sums of money to get them. It is also inevitable that when people want to earn that money, they will turn to farming to get it. This can imbalance the economy and turn the entire spirit of the game on it's head.

This has happend to Guild Wars.

I remember a time when people thought that the armor in Droknar's Forge was great...and expensive. Then, the first time I set foot in Marhan's Grotto, I balked in disbelief. How on earth could anyone afford to pay 15,000g for one piece of armor? It was infathomable to me.

Obviously, I learned how to finally achieve this goal. I cannot describe the feeling I had when I finally bought my first peice of 15k armor... bought and paid for without the assistance of buying gold online. I earned it, and i was proud to wear it. Everyone I met commented on it, because it was still so rare. A few more people got it, sure....but the economy of the game was more or less stable, prices were more or less set...and everyone knew they'd have to work for the privilege of wearing that armor.

Then, something changed all that. Something that has changed the face of Guild Wars irrevocably.

Sorrow's Furnace.
More specifically....the "Green Item".

Suddenly, I saw items being sold for dwayna-forsaken sums of money. At first, paying 10,000g for an item was a rare and character-altering experience. Then...they were 30k. Then 50k....and finally...100k.

The economy then did something I couldnt imagine...the price of items went BEYOND what the game's mechanics could handle! People were charging more for a single item, than the game could allow you to transfer in the trade window!! This is a common practice today. So common that it's considered normal. I, for one, will never get used to the idea of transferring so much money/goods...that I surpass the game engine's ability to process it normally.

There was ONE saving grace in the insanity. One thing that made me proud of the Gold items I had crafted for myself to many painstaking hours of finding the right piece and the right weapon...to forge something truly unique. The Green Items were NOT as good as the ones a person could craft themselves. Indeed, even a blue collector item could be better, with the proper modifications. This kept a sense of variety in the game. People could have a gold item, and it still meant something. They earned it. They spent hours upon hours creating the perfect weapon for them. A person could get a green, and save time and effort. A 'quick way out' so to speak. But it was still considered that. A quick way out. The easy way. Like the Dark Side of the Force, it could give you great power in an instant...but over time could never stand up to those that had spent the greater time and effort of crafting.

Then more greens came out, and now there are so many, with statistics so high, that no gold item can surpass them. Now, Gold items are little more than replacements for the Green Item you cannot (or don't want to) get.

How I long for the day of the 'imperfect green' item.


=====
Farmer Joe
=====

Ahh yes, where there are money and items, there are always farmers. People who make their way in the game world by slaughtering the same beasts over and over again, for profit. Then came Mass Production, and like the current state of Farming in the real world....the small time farmer, trying to make ends meet on what he and a few companions can earn, have fallen to the big corporate farms of the Gold Farmer.

As any economist will tell you, introducing more money into a system only devalues that money. Take more money out, and the value of that money goes up. HOWEVER...it's never that simple, is it? So we place restrictions designed to target the Gold farmer. We make drops more random, we make repeated trips to the same area harder, and we ban accounts of those farming. Yet, still they are there, in the International District 1, flooding the streets with faceless automatons in the same grey armor and random-character names. Like Imperial Stormtroopers they march through the gates, over and over again. They can be spotted a mile away in their ubiquity...and yet we still cannot seem to rid the game of them? I think Arena-Net either does not want to remove them, or does not WATCH the game from the player's perspective enough to do what is necessary to stamp it out.

Now, I would love to get money quick, just as much as the next guy. I might even want to pay for it with real dollars (though to date I still find it distasteful to say the least). Still, i would gladly give up that chance to have that one really nice item, or that piece of prestige armor....if it meant that what I had was worth more. If I didnt have the absolute best, it would still be good...even -prestigious- to have the item I have...versus the item I may want in some character's fantasy.

Afterall....who wants to see everyone standing around in Obsidian Armor, just like those gold farmers...just because they could buy it, and not because they earned it.


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Deja Vu!
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Now we come to a more fundamental issue with the game's development. The content.

Tyria -

Tyria was great. Why was it great, though? It's not just because it was the first and biggest Guild Wars map. It was great because it was a CONTINENT. This continent had vastly different climates. Deserts, wastelands, jungles, open plains, volcanos, snow-tipped mountains, deep forboding mines, and sandy beaches. The vastness of the world and it's changing beauty stunned me as a first time player. It made me crave more and more, and drove me on. "I wonder what the next zone gate will look like??" I used to comment as I adventured. Sometimes we'd even bet gold pieces on what we'd find on the other side! We would stop at a cliff or a beach, pausing our quest or adventure, to take screenshots of ourselves and each other in these exotic and beautiful places. It was almost like being a tourist, with fighting!

Then there was Factions.

I was pumped about Factions...The thought of being able to do that all over again. To explore strange new places and see interesting things! To explore the world and watch it with wonder. And for a time, during the preview, I was convinced. My excitement built with each passing day, closer and closer.

Then the game was released.

I explored every nook and cranny of Shing Jea island. I took my time, and no shortage of screenshots. Like a tourist walking through a distant land's attractions. I then boarded the ship to Kaineng center...and wondered at the big city, tall spires, and the anchient architecture. Once I stepped out the gates though, my smile turned to an instant frown. I entered a dingy, disgusting looking place.

Of course, "every city has it's slums" I thought. So I continued. Quest after quest, I ran through these ugly streets and discusting filth-covered sewers. Each quest, I hoped, would take me out of this place to see the rest of Cantha...to see the beauty I knew was there somewhere. But quest after quest brought more exasperation than the last. They made me run through the same places over and over and over and over and over and .....(am I making my point?) This place was not a landscape, it did not inspire me...it made me wish for a can of gasoline and a match!! With each quest I loathed it more and more...to the point where I finally succumbed to the feeling that I must simply 'get through this'. The game became GRIND.

Not because of the quests...not because of the story...but because the environment made it FEEL like grind. There was nothing new and interesting to see, just the same textures thrown over haphazard and ugly terrain, making me wish I could just ignore the missions and just leave the city.

But of course, that was impossible. To leave the city, one had to DO all the missions. Had to DO the primary quests. Running around in this gods-forsaken place just looking for a way out. Frustrated and disgruntled, I cheered aloud when I finally stepped out of that sewer pipe into Pongmei Valley....only to find out I had to go back in!!! "WTF!!" came to mind. I was no longer enjoying the game, i was being frustrated by it. I enjoyed my time in the Echovald Forest and Jade sea, and I felt that the chapter somewhat was redeeming itself. Were it not for that fact, I would have quit the game there and then.

News of Nightfall again renewed my interest. Rumors of more PvE-oriented content was music to my ears, after the more PvP-primer oriented nature of Factions. The Nightfall preview was gorgeous. Finally, an african theme! I'll get to see the plains and jungles, the wild and exotic places...like a safari!

The introduction showed me a land of "wealth and bounty". A Promised-land, where all the myth that we'd learned about in the Crystal Desert would finally reveal itself in a grandious tour-de-force! Istan was great, I loved the old buildings, swamps, jungles and cliffs. It felt like Arena-Net finally listened to us, and gave us what we had been yearning for since Prophecies. The story was even great! The epic battle to leave the Island was fantastic!

Then I reached the Mainland. I found a dry, barren land. Mile after mile of desert..or desert-like terrain. Kourna was this ugly, red patch of dirt and sand, with people scratching a living out of the dust like rats. Then we were off to Vabbi! The Anchient Persia of Guild Wars. I reached it, and found....-=ghasp=-....desert? And more desert. Sand. Yay. The architecture was amazing, but just how is it these Vabbians happened to get so rich anyway? Did they sell Sand to everywhere else in the world. What do they have, that the rest of the world wants? I wouldnt even pay 5g for a tour of the place. Again, a place that made no sense, and were it not for the architecture, made me want to just push on through it. Whatever was beyond had to be better.

Then we reach the domain of Palawa Joko and the sulferous wastes. And I found....you guessed it. MORE Desert. Well, at least we'd see the Giant Worms!!! Eh...ok, not so giant. And...ew, they swallowed me? Well, im still controlling a worm, that's cool, right? I can ride the desert dunes like a crazed Fremen from a Frank Herbert novel!

Wait, no I can't. Im stuck in these narrow canyons, getting stuck on my henchmen who won't move...or worse yet, walk out into the sand and die because they didnt get into their worm properly. Im fighting the same monsters I fought in Kourna and Vabbi. Yay, they're just a bit bigger, but ugh, more brown. More yellow. More sand.

By this time, i no longer cared about getting bonuses. I no longer cared about getting quests. I wasn't even inspired by the Realm of Torment and it's strange surreal sights. I only cared about one thing. ENDING IT. I wanted to finish the game, and be done with it.

But through it all, one thing still drove me. "If I make it far enough in the game" I told myself, "I can finally get my Sunspear Spearmarshal title!!" I can still achieve something to show for all this toil and misery I put myself through!

NOPE!
You cannot reach the title. A title based on this chapter only, and I cannot even attain my full rank in it, to aim for my Maxed Titles title?? I completely lost interest in Nightfall. Every hope I had for it had been slapped, kicked, thrown on the ground, stomped on, and ground into the sand by the angry boot of "You want that? You cant do that!"

I have not created a Nightfall-based charcter since. I have only brought my original Prophecies character to Elona to complete the missions, and earn his Protector title. Once that is accomplished, I will no longer play Nightfall. It disgusts me.

I will not be fooled by a good-looking preview again. My hopes have been dashed too many times. I feel scammed and cheated, shown wonderous things that were only skin deep, only to realize what I paid money for had ONLY what I saw on the packaging, with little inside. Hollow. Empty.

Many people I know, and have introduced to Guild Wars over the years, asked me if they should buy Nightfall. I told them not to. I told them not to waste their money. Many others didn't buy nightfall, because they were so disappointed with the way Factions dashed their hopes.

These are lessons I think Arena-Net needs to seriously look at, and take note of, if they wish to continue this game.

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Closing thoughts
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The problem is not with any one system in the game. It is with the FOCUS of the game, and the direction it is currently heading as a whole. Nearly everyone I speak with tells me the same thing. In PvE, The game is all about what items you can now get, and how fast. Its about how quickly you can get through the game because it feels like a CHORE to play it. Its like taking out the garbage, or cleaning your room as a kid. You do it because you have to, not because you like to. Since when is playing a game supposed to make you feel like you're doing a term paper?? Some people I know even DID their term papers while playing the game. Exciting, huh?

Making players go through these things only destroys their trust in the development company. I, for one, do not plan to buy the next chapter, unless I see some very SPECTACULAR things come out of Arena-Net, for the PvE player. I cirtanly wish to see more restrictions on the use of Heros, to curb the rampant anti-social behavior of the players. A person can only form their own groups and force themselves through it enough, before they give up.


Now, I know not everyone will agree with my views. DO NOT post here if you don't agree. Go make another thread about it, please.

Why? Because this thread is for those that DO feel that way. They need a place to be heard. There are people that feel the way I do...but I see very little coherent focus for their discussions. If we don't tell Arena-Net what we don't like about things, they'll never fix them. They won't know to.

Arena-Net. This message is for you. Many of us are Unhappy.

Here, we can discuss how to change that.


Respecfully,

Chet Ingram Kabak
- Guild Leader, Holy Champions of Justice
- www.ascalonoutpost.org

i do not agree with you, and you should really not allow points of only yours view.

you clearly want PvE to be with players only, and thats fine, but wouldnt it be better to then go with people you know and trust? not random pick up groups? if you make a PUG you have clearly notices that every PUG have a few retards, that allways does something incredibly stupid and ruins the mission for you. Thats why you should make PvE guilds were you actually do missions together, or is most PvE players just not active enough?

id say most of the active players that played PvE in the start, have moved on to PvP, thats because you need to actually think and make strategic calls in PvP, in PvE you do all the missions once, and then they get repetitive, its really not how Anet makes the game, its the whole model of GW PvE, its just so repetitive and boring.

I 100% agree. Although I haven't been playing since 2004, I do have 20 months behind me on this game, and have seen its ups and downs over time. I too was disappointed with Factions PvE, and frustrated by the "no-run" restrictions put in place. I certainly completed the entire Tyrian campaign once or twice, but it was nice to be able to skip over missions when you were trying to reach skill caps or higher level armor. Still, I saw the mentality of that change, so I dealt with it.

Then we have NF released, and suddenly... wow. I never actually got an 8 (7 humans+hero) group for a mission in the entire campaign, and I got Protector of Elona... Something is very wrong here.

Finally we come to the farmers... I'm all for having them shut down, as if you need to pay $50 online for enjoyment in a game, you should probably buy a new game. However, I would suggest implementing some sort of bot detection rather than nerfing skills that screw over the average player trying to make ends meet. The people who are like OMG NERF FARMING SO MY CRYSTALLINE SWORDS ARE WORTH MORE already have millions of gold, and are merely screwing over the people trying to save for their FoW. Bots don't get screwed over by these sorts of things, they can merely be programmed around the nerfs. It's the human players that suffer the constant PvE farm hate.

Ouch, that's deep. As a player playing from the WPE...I agree with some points, but disagree with others. Even though I am not "disgruntled", your arguments hold some merit to them.

A. Camaraderie is indeed broken. Outside of my guild/alliance chat, all I see is trade spam and people talking about how their life sucks. Is that Arenanet's fault in its entirety? Not in the least. It is the problem of all games that reach gold status. As I told my alliance members, good gear isn't everything and enjoying yourself is the idea of a game. I miss the days of beta when people just adventured for the scenery and the battles, not for the loot. Loot was an afterthought then (especially since gold drops were like 4g in the higher leveled areas). So, in the end, it is the fault of players' greed and lack of concern for anything but the loot.

B. I used to PvP back in the day, even HoH. Now I don't either. Why? People have insane rank requirements. Is it Arenanet's fault? Not in its entirety. They didn't expect people to IWAY farm their fame... A fame reset would piss a lot of people off.

C. The quality of players decreases logarithmically. I see it all the time on my monk. As a monk, you get to see people's skill bars (especially when they get hit a lot). Even playing as the other professions, you see it every campaign. One week or two after release players are generally better, since those are yor die hard GW fans. One month into the campaign, you're hard pressed to find someone that knows not to use healing touch on a /Mo or Meteor shower on a necro. That is the way it is...

D. Items. People laugh at me (outside of guild) when I use collector's items. I don't think that it is fair in the least, since I don't eBay or buy gold with real money. People that know me know I blow every last dime on unlocking skills. Is there a reward for doing so? No. It's personal satisfaction. Nowadays, people have fallen into the "level trap" of other games, that doesn't apply to GW. They think that having a higher ranked title or a better (in the sense of more expensive) armor entitles them to ridicule people that play differently. Lightbringer discrimination is one of the forms of this.

E. I am a screenshot fanatic too. I think Kaineng City and Echovald Forest are depressing, if not dull. But that is because it reflects "realworld" landscape. If you went to the slums of Asia, it would be no better. Sulfurous wastes/etc. is similar in that respect. It reflects the world "washed by torment"...

To sum it all up, it is the people that migrate from the MMOs that think gold/fame/fortune are all there is. It is not the fault of Arenanet.

This is precisely the mentality everyone now has toward PUGs. This is NOT how GW started. Guild Wars used to be about HELPING your fellow players, teaching them how to get better, and adventuring through the game together.
Now, with Heros, no one bothers to help others, only themselves. If their group is not satisfactory, they have no need to help those other people get better...they just dump that person, and get a Hero. That does not make better players, it replaces players with computers, and cheapens the game for everyone.

The Holy Champions of Justice -is- a Roleplaying/PvE Guild. It has been since June 2005. We have had our triumphs and struggles, but with the overall lack of interest in Guild Wars, it compounds the problem, and it gets harder and harder to maintain member interest, when you yourself lose interest.


I find PvE to be VERY strategic. I pride myself on knowing where to go, and what to do, no matter what mission or quest I am in. I feel those are qualities that people look for in a group member, or a group leader.

Again, you are proving my point for me. I currently have 9 characters. I could easily keep myself occupied doing the same missions, but with a completely different style of playing, using a different character. I did so with all of my characters in Tyria. But, I cannot bring myself to take my many secondary characters to different chapters. Why? The content in the second and third chapter, the parts that I do not like, are PROHIBITIVE to me caring to play them. I simply cannot be motivated by the substandard content of Kaineng City, to bother with doing factons. If I could bypass the city, and go to Echovald and Jade Sea, or Vabbi, or Realm of Torment...I would love to take those characters there! I cannot do that, without going through all areas that disgust me, so I don't bother. Nightfall is even worse than Factions. I am so disgusted by the endless deserts and vomit-inducing manditory middle-missions, that I have no stomach to continue to Elona with my other characters.

Thank you for posting, though, cr3ature. You are showing what the common arguments would be for those that do not agree with me. I know there will be some that don't agree with me...that's fine. But those of use who do...This is where they can be heard, as I stated in the original post.

We need a voice too.


EDIT:
====

Thanks LifeForce and ca_ok. You guys are pointing out many things that also concern me. I agree 100% with everything you are saying, LifeForce...the problems in the game are not solely Arena-Net's fault. That is not my point. I am not trying to blame Arena-Net for the failings of it's players.

However...I believe many of those failings are also intrinsic to the lack of support that people like myself get from the game developers. Yes, they do listen to the players more than any other RPG I've seen. I applaud that, and that is why I am posting here.

My arguments are simple:
Find ways to keep your long time players happy and interested.
Stop making repetitive grinding quests through areas that are ugly. Either make them quick to get through for those that have already done them, or stop making ugly places to begin with. Don't make your players feel trapped, or that they have to go through a ton of stuff they don't like, just to get to what they do like.

You didn't do it with Prophecies...and we loved you for it!
Stop doing it with your expansions.
If you are worried about balance issues...find other solutions. Be creative. Ask your members.

I think this idea from Arena-Net to do a "testing weekend" is a GREAT Idea...this is how you find out what people like, before you do it.

Now...Arena-Net. Let's start doing that for PvE, shall we?

I disagree with most of the points, including the part where you seem to put "beta players > new players". I love how guildwars is not about level, but people that make playing time as their level and therefore exclude others also make me feel sick.

The only part that I agree with is that "PvE need help". But that isn't anything new. The rest of the post is written mostly basing on emotion (aka rant).

Everyone know PvE need help, but how? There weren't a single "simple suggestion" made. Most of the things are like "re-open catacombs" and etc, which are something that would take awhile to get everything setup.

I believe the biggest set back that PvE get is actually the storyline. The developers need to focus on telling a story while providing PvE, hence often they can not go out of their way to put random things that doesn't make sense, or not in chronological orders. (no pink flying elephant invading temple of ages)

One of the main reason PvE is often boring is also because the repeated fashion of tactic and play style. Everytime one went into FoW, they would know to move back a bit to not accidently aggro, then proceed to the left killing monk first then move up to kill more, and then back around. It is the same thing everytime! Same to urgoz, the deep, UW, DoA, any mission (if you used the same build). And in order to suceed, most people go for cookie cutter builds.

So how to make PvE fun? No matter how one think of it... there isn't a simple button you can press to fix everything.

PvPer got the skill balancer. PvEer got the AI programmer.

Anet still continue to try new things for PvE. For example, a suggestion was made to allow user to change their enviorment, and this was done by what the team can do in GW. For example the Sun Spear command post, and also the luxon kurzick town posts. I think alot of PvE idea are also turned off due to technical difficulty. These technical difficulty isn't so easy to solve, so wait awhile.

(oh btw... the person who wrote the bad guy's line and done the voice acting... I think that area really need help... I want to stop hearing "HULK MAD! HULK SMASH!!" Everytime I hear the name shiro or varesh, it only remind me of their worst line)

*cheers*. I'm not even that much of a PvE player, I'm mostly PvP, yet I agree with almost every single point. Nightfall was indeed too long and too grind (still haven't bothered finishing it, I got bored). Also, heroes do indeed cut down on the LFG too much, as I progressed I couldn't find a group, but there isn't really a way to fix this. However, nightfall did have the feel of a CAMPAIGN, where as factions had the feel of a really crappy expansion. Tyria was by far the best. Anyway, I mostly agree, especially about farming (seriously stop nerfing it cause of gold farmers, even a few things this skill balance update screwed things further), campaigns, groups, and the overall decay of guildwars.

EDIT: I do NOT agree with the PvP getting more attention that PvP part, domain of anguish, elite areas, the new campaigns are mainly PvE... I'd say it's about equal (lately PvP is getting more attention due to HA, but blame anet for that, they f***ed it up with 6v6).

Im done with PvE, and I consider myself a long time player(1 year plus). Pvp is left only, which is kind of turning into a game of rock-paper scissors with the current metagame. So yea, im disgruntled

I agree to a limited degree. Yes, more than 6,000 hours played so I am definitely on the far side of the curve.

The pug situation can't be fixed by Anet they did their best with heroes. Example .. last mission Nightfall .. tried twice with pugs and failed. ONE attempt with heroes and henchies and I got masters. Heroes were a double edged sword. They made it easier for people to stay bad (the AI doesnt taunt warriors using firestorm) but also gave us the means to avoid them (heroes). There was never a utopia when it came to grouping with random people in this game so don't look for it or expect Anet to make it. If anything they should employ babysitters for every town to deal with other peoples kids ... not going to happen.

Anet's jihad on the "farmer" has had nothing but a negative impact on the legit players. The "farmer" just adapts and moves on this is a fight that only hurts the community. The rich become richer and the middle class become dirt poor. If that was Anet's goal they have done a great job. Subtle nerfs to farming builds with every update in an effort to hurt the "farmer" needs to stop. The only thing they are doing is driving people away from the game they are selling ... the "bots" just relocate. Please do NOT tell me that this keeps the game fresh by forcing people to rethink their bar. If you have killed the same monster a thousand times .. making it harder is not refreshing it is GRIND.

Greens hurt the gold items .. inscriptions killed them. After beating the luke warm storyline many play for items and inscriptions kind of defeats that point. We have fansites to thank for this the constant crying was answered with making items basically worthless (beyond the VERY rare exceptions). I still pose this question to the "casual gamer" when all items are worthless how will you generate the gold required for armor and titles.

HA was killed by Anet listening to crying .. next fotm that comes along that is pug friendly leave it be to keep new people coming to ha. Roll it back to 8 people and force people to stay in their home servers. You made ID no need to let people relocate regions.

Chapters comes down to taste (factions is questionable on taste) but can't really debate something that come down to the eye of the beholder.

To Anet I would say .. take a poll at the login screen before making a change to get an accurate sampling. Fansites tend to be warped toward you guessed it FANS. Work on core problems ... storage / auction house and keep the fluff and micromanagement to a minimum till you fix these.

Heros were designed to help when people ARENT there in the outpost. I doubt they were placed in the game to discourage PUGing. They help with the quests the general playerbase hardly does. I think I've never done any quest with players...every single quest I've done in Nightfall that wasn't primary was done with Heros...not by choice, but because people seldom do side quests. They are too busy blasting away at the campaign and/or primary quests and missions.

leprekan, your statement "Greens hurt the gold items .. inscriptions killed them. " is kind of against the whole idea of inscriptions benefiting the people without money. People can farm all they want, but when the economy goes to the point any rare weapon starts costing 1 million gold, it's pretty ridiculous. If you look now, inscriptions killed off the ridiculous prices mostly. Rare items are around 30-50K, except for the extremely rare items which go for the ridiculous amounts.

On the other hand, an ingame poll would be pretty neat, but people with extra accounts and/or no clue would just randomly pick a choice. There has to be accountability.

Short term they help .. long term they will make the new golds worthless. Want to buy a blazing wing wand .. how about a req9 shadow axe? Sorry but short term gains always hurt the people without money in the long run. If you take away the mid price range items that people can sell to make money to buy armor and skills or God forbid titles it leaves .. Ebay.

[QUOTE]i am one of those long term players and i call BS to most of that.

PUGS had a poison reputation within 2 months of GW release but they wouldnt fix our little healing tank or the cremator of dead bodies we all know so well.

heroes finally give people sick of PUG JERKS a choice and the heroes win hands down

SO if people didnt participate in the 2004 preview weekend they have no right to comment because they havent played the game long enough.
The problems with GuildWars stem DIRECTLEY from players like you in my point of view.
DI love these end of the world threads,you do realise of course that right now A-Net could wash their hands of this game, and laugh while they walked away. How many other online games do they run, and they charge a minthly fee for every one of them. These guys are problably bathing in money(thought Im not privy to the quarterlies so dont hold me to that one).
They care little if you threaten to leave the game , believe me. They also seem to do more than any other company that produces online titles, so I think we have it pretty goood.

I have had my GW account for 2 years+ now and own all 3 chapters. I have taken long breaks from the game but I always come back because I like what Guild Wars represents...

However, I feel that the restrictive nature of the game is hurting the chances for having a dynamic and growing player base.

Mostly this is due to obvious design choices:

-the Chapter concept and a linear path

-the "exclusiveness" of professions for each campaign

-Heroes/Henchies work contrary to building a stronger in-game player community

Guild Wars needs to be opened up in some way, but every turn in the development seems to make it more enclosed.

I would describe it as a kind of decadence. The game play is becoming more turned in on itself and fractured into specialized bits.

I don't know if anything can be done about the co-op/teamplay aspects. You only have to read the (many) threads about Heroes and pickup groups and invariably walk away with the same impression: for some reason people are playing this multiplayer online game, and basically wanting it in a single player format.

Perhaps Anet should pay attention to that and give all the botfans what they want: a single player game. You can use MSN and the like if you need chatrooms.

Maybe have an online version without the herohench so the more multiplayer minded online gamers can play it how it used to be too...


Also I'm not surprised he didn't want responses from people who disagreed (not that I agree with it), there's at least one person who chose to hurl an insult (calling him a whiner). Couldn't just disagree, had to make an ad hominem attack too...

Edit: though this is better server in Riverside as it's not really related to the Test Weekend....

Ive have had this game since the day it came out. Unfortunetly, I didnt take advantage of the easy farming spots and now am not rich. I always regret i didnt farm back then, but i really dont care to much.

Want i dont like is when people say they hate the people from the "pre-nerf" times who are are sitting in the piles of cash now. Sure, the farmers then had it great, easily making money and all but stuf back then was way more expensive. for example:
Ecto was 15-25k, now its 5-8k
Runes like sup Absortian used to be 100k, now there like what 10k?
Even the worst of greens were sought for, the best got up to 200k+, now those same greens are like 25k


My question to anet is:

If your soo anti farming and your constantly nerfing skills and areas and implementing anti farming codes, Why did you put FoW and 15k armor and tormentor weps in the game? If people play the game their "supposed" to without farming and just completing missions, the most they can get is like 50k. Most, if not all that money goes toward max armor and weapons.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I, like most people, do hate the nerfs anet implements but if you think about it makes the game more intersting. If farming never got nerfed everyone who played GW would be rich. Having FoW armor would be like having 1.5k armor. Tormentor weapons wouldnt be anything interesting and everyone who wanted a rare skin wep could have one. Nothing in guild wars would be interesting and in essence, fun.

After beating the storyline in GW, making new and better builds is fun. One of the funnest aspects of this game is inventing new builds after old ones are nerfed. Altough this is like a back and forth battle between anet and the players it is fun.

I dont know, but maybe anet isnt so bad. Maybe they dont nerf just to smite us, but to keep the game interesting and challenge our minds.

My girlfriend and I have been playing since Beta and even though both of us read through your post neither of us agree with you on a word of it. Even though you said that you don't want people to post if they don't agree, I'm going to post here because that is what forums are for sorry if it bothers you. I'm not going to try and focus on all of the arguments because you can't argue with people that are 'sure' they are right. My girlfriend is one of those screenshot maniacs and drives me and my guild crazy by stopping to take them in the middle of battles and missions and stuff. She even made a website to show the 'diamonds in the rough' and I must say definitely found a good deal.

Yes, we both agree that there are some places in the games that are rather blah and make it a chore sometimes to play, but that doesn't mean that the entire game of nightfall or the entire game of factions is so horrible you'd rather quit than play it or you're telling people it's not worth it. If you can't find beauty in the scenery I'm sorry for you because Nightfall has deposits of gorgeous art that will surprise someone that is too dulled to see it by the feeling of 'grind'.

I agree with you 100% exactley my feelings! Bless you for putting them down so well, I couldn't my knowledge of the English language, (not my mother tongue), is very limited!

Thanks again.

I fully support and agree with this statement. My first opinion of the OP was that s/he obviously did not have a good guild group of people to play with. Anybody who attacks Heroes by saying they are destroying the commeraderie of public chat or whatever is insane. Also, without Heroes how would you expect to really play the old campaigns? My second opinion was this was a cry for attention. Anybody who asks for only agreement in responding posts has a weak base to stand on. If your arguments/suggestions (which I'll get to) are strong and of any worth, you would gladly accept all criticism. My last opinion was that you really brought nothing to the table. If I was a dev and read this I would come away knowing what to do less. If there are any suggestions hidden in your post... well I will just leave it at that.

Possibly for the sake of everyone, when you start a new thread where you wish the devs to read, agree, and possibly incorporate in to the game your ideas you might want to follow this simple format:
I have a problem with X because of Z logical effect on the game, however, I think Y could be a possible solution to mitigate or reverse Z logical effect on the game because...

The Fall of Camelot
I will agree that as I’ve been playing the game it has lost an essence it once had.

PvE vs PvP
This is a serious back and forth argument. Talk to a sole PvP’er and from their perspective the game seems to always cater to PvE and dump on PvP.
I don’t know if the game really meant to actually cater to sole PvE and sole PvP play. The transition from casual PvE play into casual/hardcore PvP play didn’t happen for a lot of people as I suspect was the primary intention. And so perhaps in revelation that many players will not compete in the setup format for PvP they decided to go ahead and make the game more rewarding to players that PvE alone with never the intention to PvP.
I really don’t know though. I do know that PvP’ers feel just the opposite.

The Fellowship is Broken
*sigh* I just think there were other directions to go to get players into successful teamplay before the introduction of hero’s. I’ll never actually know, and admittedly it would have been just as big of a gamble as bringing in heroes.
I still think hero’s/henchmen are a good idea except there was nothing in place to hold the players together before their inception.
Team search system (before the fact), kick teammate proposals, perhaps having to pay for hero service could have lead the community of players to prefer each other, using hero’s as a last ditch replacement.
Now we have a team search system. I’m a little embarrassed that I have stated over and again that this would help the community to connect.
Now it’s proving to be bypassed in favor of hero’s and chat spam. I can imagine ways to make the whole system more attractive, but... it seems kind of like empty wishing at this point.

For The Love of Money
I remember the whole green weapon thing as a way to introduce cheap alternative’s to maxed out gold weapons. They would be easier to find, allowing the more casual adventure and trader the opportunity to have a max/standard weapon instead of going against high odds for gold items. That idea flipped on its head. Either I was mistaken in assuming that greens were cheap alternatives, or; the focus of the whole green thing just flipped as the players decided to value them higher than what was intended.
It's as easy as flooding the game with the hot new commodity to bring its value down. But now they don't want to do this because... well, I don't actually know.

Farmer Joe
Community based games with an economy will always suffer this. I don’t know what the mmo development peoples are brainstorming to combat this. I can only think that introducing a robust auctioning system and removing all player to player trade interaction to forcibly remove real world economy transaction, thus balancing the game economy with game rewards – not real world cash rewards. I’ve heard of games that just use the game economy as a conduit for real world money like Second Life considering that this is what players will do - pay for goods and services, virtual or real, with hard earned money.

Déjà Vu
Kaineng center was hard to navigate because the map was on top of itself. That and fed-ex quest frustrated me. Outside of that I really liked the way the slums looked. I kinda wish there was a Kaineng slums style GvG map.
For me, the worst part about traveling and questing is I already know I’m going to do it by myself 90% of the time. Many of the quest themselves have decent plots and aren’t too overbearing. The environments have always been interesting, imo. But without other people to play with it turns into a “go here again” grind.
Guildmates be damn, it’s just never been realistic for me to gather the 7 other people considering all of our interest are sprawling over the whole game.
No simple solutions here. It would take a lot of time and hard looks at PvE map design, quest design and assisting community networking.

The title system is novel. It failed for me initially because when I saw someone with a title I didn’t actually care. Most titles didn’t do anything for me or allow me to do anything towards other people like moving from lvl 19 to 20 did, and; I couldn’t actually depend on a person with a big title to do anything for me.
That has changed somewhat. The lightbringer title actually grants you a more powerful skill. The pvp titles give you extra faction space. Etc. Wanting a title or wanting someone with a title makes a little more sense in these cases now. However, my goals are still hardly set on attending them.

In Closing
Personally I’m surprised that the PvE game would not faze out for the player after their first run through the maps. Perhaps they would come back to get or complete something. But they have been there and done that, so it’s time to move on to organizing at the guildhall for gvg or finding a good pug for HA. This has been my outlook from day one. I played through prophesies 3 times and the second 2 times sort of pissed me off. (I did it to unlock skills)
I have no personal understanding as to why players enjoy repeating the maps in pve except maybe they have mates that are fun to play with that always enjoy going through that repetition. I don’t know why people farm except to complete their weapons and wardrobe list, which understandably, can get expensive. However the simple solution for me towards that was, because I don’t like farming, to stop wanting the stuff that requires farming.

To list some of my own motivations found and lost in GW:

Lost when
-Deleting characters I worked many hours with, to later not like their name/face/hair
-Looking for people to play with
-Retracing my steps to unlock skills (largely solved) or to unlock the key map points for other pve characters
-Time investment in affording certain customizations
-Bad sportsmanship (pvp community related, it’s so much easier for me to tolerate people in PvE)
-stale moments in metagame

Found when
-getting the story/exploring the new chapter
-customizing my character (usually only a set of 15k with some dye or modding a npc crafted weapon)
-getting a title (even though I said I don’t care, when it does something, I start to want it)
-playing with silly/happy people (community related also)
-theory crafting builds and strategy which is reinvigorated with new chapters and skill balances
-a good pvp run

To each his own though.


Lastly, I found this interesting. It’s a little study that looks into what gamers get out of playing video games. Comparing it to the methods of playing GW’s Id say that game is trying to fulfill these impulses, but somehow it’s missing the mark for a sustaining PvE/PvP community in my understanding.

Nice post.

the first big blows to the PvE community, IMO, was npc traders and greens. those alone eliminated half the market, and in turn hurt the community. things just became too easy to attain. easy -> lazy -> reclusivness.

Wow, to speak the truth. I myself had a simlilar situation arise today trying to do the Pogahn Passage mission. I advertised for a group and someone told me to stop and use hero/hench...after a while made a group of all people, had a blast too.

As a side note, I will gladly do missions with any group of all people and ill help with any mission, as long as it is ALL poeple (exception being the lame required hero).

I agree, and disagree.

I am a well balanced player, 400 + Balthazar Faction with 400 + Fame, a screenshot fanatic, a guild leader, one who loves cooperative play. My mesmer (main character), never 'joined' a group for anything in Prophecies, I made them, and I am proud to say it. I have went through all the aspects of guild wars, from the thrill of getting through the game with my first character, then running through the game with my second.

I have taken interest to taking many screenshots, of guild parties, random people, my friends list was filling in fast. When Factions came out, it was too short, the landscape wasn't too interesting. Echovold Forest has its uniqueness, but it is ugly in one way or another. Even the Manguama looked better, despite its' insects. Look at Dry Top, Majesty's Rest, those are awesome places. You can never find them in Factions. Although certain areas in Prophecies are quite pointless, they look nice.

In Nightfall, one experienced player with heroes can hench through the entire game, with Master's on each. the Party Search panel wasn't very efficient either, I can't see it being used, and social in GW is awful. I can never form a proper group now without spending 1 hour at least. Nowadays, I rely on guildies and friends. I havn't led a group in ages, the last time I properlly formed a group fast was in Deldrimor War Camp to beat the last quest in Sorrow's Furnance.

Green Items, interesting, costly, alters the game economy, gold items, worth more, reasonable. Chest runs, easy way to get gold items which are 'worth more', resonable if random (which they altered), but otherwise stupid. Inscriptions, insignias, great ideas for PvP. Rare skin weapons for nightfall, great! An near impossible to get Dwarven Axe, Serpant Axe, Crystalline Sword, great, gives an ambition. But they all dropped in prices now, overfarmed, farming bots, those are not nice.

Elite Missions, The Deep, Urgoz Warren, Fissure of Woe, The Underworld, loved it. I loved how some of them requires Vent, lots of teammwork, I love the 'four chamber' idea in the deep. It is a great thing for PvP players playing PvE. A challenge, but Domain of Anguish... disappointing, it is just like another farm area... what's worse? little socializing, I rarely see anyone advertising.. although the Deep is so limited in people, there are still advertising everywhere, but guild wars lacks social.

PvP side? About the Hereoes Ascent Weekend, I like it, more ways to win, HoH looks fun, Alter matches, kill count, it's nice. What happened to king of the hill though? I still say they shoudln't totally remove it, everything had their flaws, like for kill count (ppl stealing kills), but that's for players to sort out. I enjoy interrupting the ghostly hero. 6 vs 6? Not a bad idea.. it kind of encourages team arenas players to come do HA a bit. 8 vs 8? I do miss the tombs days, where a balanced group can defeat IWAY... 8 vs 8 is not bad, I do miss it, but 6 vs 6 is good too? How can we have both? introduce more ways to pvp, GvG has always been great, but we need more.

PvE vs PvP? Yes, the updates are kind of putting PvE players to the last, when a big update or a test weekend comes out, really, I think they should include both the Pve and the pvp side...

Double Xp with skill capture? I loved it, helped my survivor, triple key drop, triple chest running? Good concept, but the idea mite not be so good, cocnering economy. Double faction this, double faction that? Great ideas, helps new PvP players get faction. Double Fame? BAD BAD BAD idea... new pvp players are already discriminated enough, now they do a double fame, all the fame farmers and new people start mass farming with Vimway etc.... it is just awful... it didn't help any other than move rank requirements up a tier. From r3+ teams, it just became r6+ teams...

Overall, I think Guild Wars is still a good game. Summing up, more styles of PvP, more 'hidden beauties' or 'obviously beauties' of the game for PvE players to enjoy, (Pre Searing is awesome), even the desert, it shoudln't be so dull, more cactus maybe? The cracks in Marga coast isn't so bad, and the monsters should be prettier . Of course, more styles of PvE too, more socializing, less farming as in 'farming'. 6 man farming is okay, 2 man farming, 1 man, I don't like it at all.

GW has been getting better and better with each chapter. However, I spent most of my 1000 or so hours in the first six months after the release of Prophecies.

Let's face it, YOU GET TIRED OF PLAYING THE SAME GAME FOR SO LONG.

I don't think it's surprising that many old-time players are losing interest. The only games that can hold people's interest for many years are PvP games, because they offer constant challenges, improvements in player skill, etc, and MMO-style grindy games, because of the strange addictive effects of watching numbers go up.

GW PvE doesnt really have much of an acquisitive side. The reason people complain about items being expensive, is because they're really not much better than collector items anyway. "Why should I spend 100k just for looks?"

This is both a strength of GW, and its downfall.

Sadly, GW is about skillful battles. There's no place you can go and explore without wading through a hundred enemies. However, with no RPG-like character development, it just becomes an action game, a beat-em up.

But, whereas the fighting in beatem-ups are skillful and exciting, with lots of things to try like various combos, special attacks, and impressive bosses to fight, GW has none of that. PvE has very little to encourage skillful play.

Theoretically the drop system should encourage you to play with as small a party as possible, thus challenging yourself for greater rewards, since items don't really matter, then people dont care. They just want to plough through as easily and quickly as they can.

Moved to Riverside because this thread ISN'T ABOUT THE TEST WEEKEND.

Goonter's post was most excellent.

As I referenced in an earlier post in this thread, there are certain trends in the Guild Wars campaigns that are going against some of the core things that make a game thrive. By "thrive", I mean retain players and/or grow.

-source

In Guild Wars PvE, the independence factor works well up to a point. But, generally there will be a need to rely on other players as you start into end-game. Nothing shocking about this, it's entirely expected.

However, the achievement portion is where Guild Wars loses some ground. Title seekers aside, there are not many other ways to distinguish yourself. Really, the limitation of achievement is more on being able to have it recognized in any way. The game provides a very limited stage on which to strut. Great deeds occur in instanced zones with little or no player involvement other than one's self. The world is divided up into fragmented society. A few major hubs of some social activity, but not enough to reach a critical mass.

This in turn impacts the chance of feeling any "connectedness" to others that you can get from the game. If you are fortunate to be playing with real life friends or have very strong guilds ties, then the connectedness may be there for you to some degree. But, many players will start a game to seek that way of connecting and may not find it in Guild Wars.

Guild Wars has a social problem. It has its player base spread out through 3 not very easily connected "worlds'. The players are further split by instanced zones and districts. Additionally, Mission progression and the introduction of Heroes and Henchies to the mix create a situation that's ripe for the shunning of PuG's.

If I can run a Mission successfully solo with Heroes/Henchies, why should I bother involving myself with other players? They'd only complicate things... See, this would play into the achievement part of the game. Personal achievement.

Unless in a strong guild, or among friends, other players are just fleeting and ephemeral avatars that you seldom have any need to interact with or rely upon. The bulk of social interaction is manifested in hawking of wares in trade channels or smack talk.

I feel that ANet should start reversing the trends that are fragmenting the game. In importance, this fragmentation problem transcends issues of skill balances, PvE and PvP,etc. because with out a stable and dynamic social underpinning the game will stop being a dynamic experience.

To the origional poster of this thread "Chet Ingram Kabak".

My Friend you could not have said what you said any better I totally agree with you up to the whole Faction's problem . However the strange thing is I must say that I love Nightfall all of it and it renewed my love for this game. Saying that it did until the introduction of the new DOA "elite mission" which IMO is just a bunch of BS with rediculous difficulty and "Elite" player Descrimination of character classes. But on the whole element of the game and the way it has become you are IMO completely correct. It is about time A-net realised who pay's their wages and listened to those people before they decide to stop doing so.

/Signed A-net pull your finger out and make PVE right for the first time since Tyria PLEASE!!!!!!.

IT doesn't matter how GW started. People have that mentality towards PuGs now because they have learned from experience not to trust them with important tasks anymore. The fool me once/twice/three times motto does apply.

This wasn't some fluke introduced with heroes. Heroes were created for the SOLE purpose of satisfying a growing base of people choosing the AI over a person for a number of reasons. A couple of those reasons were bad attitudes, the willingness NOT to participate as a team, and complete stupidity(not the inexperienced, those who act an ass). Other reasons was for the fact that there was never anyone there when you needed them and normal Henches didn't cut it, or for the fact that you just wanted to solo when you wanted to.


I personally blame that on the fact that ANET is trying to bleed more PvP elements into PvE. To be fair to Factions, there wasn't that many PvP style missions in Chapter 2. Though the quests had you do a lot of backtracking in order to move you forward. Hell, there was only two of these types of missions in Prophecies. BUT, in Nightfall I can count atleast 5 of these kinds of missions and they most of them are towards the second half of the game. Which is where the game usually sours for me. Though, things pick up again in the Desolation(I personally like worm country). But when your get to the Realm of Torment, the sour taste returns. Though not necessarily because of the missions.

I think the next chapter will shift more towards PvE, that's where most of ANET player base is. And they have got to keep the PvE's happy, for them to stay a float themselves! They "may" want everyone to do pvp, but they got to think about the profits at the end of the day

I agree with you on this: PVE MUST be deeper.

For a complete character that has finished all campaigns, (which really doesn't take so long) bought armors he wanted and bought the skills he wanted, PvE is just hollow. And please don't tell me that's what PvE is all about. It should contain more than repeatable dungeons with high end drops. They should be there too, but that alone just won't cut it.

Ch4 needs to adress this imo.

Well I sympathise with you (the OP) on a number of points there. Although my first game was Factions. I actually like Factions, including Kaineng City...I like the low, gentle, comforting hum when you're walking around...and at least devourer's don't pop out of the ground every few seconds like Tyria. I bought Tyria soon after...only for the skill Chain Lightning originally, but then started playing it and found myself really enojoying it (with the exception of Ascalon). If you find Kaineng City disgusting...what about Ascalon? I've just started my first every Tyrian character and braved the journey from pre to post searing and I just want to get to the Northern Shiverpeaks as quickly as possible...I'm just "grinding" quests in Ascalon to try to help me level up, which is also miserably slow.

I agree with the OP on Kourna...although I wasn't a fan of Istan myself...Kourna is horrible. But it's not just the sand and dirt everywhere, it's the mobs. They run at you from a great distance...then the priests make it as hard as possible for you to kill them. They run from warriors/dervishes and spam reversal of fortune whenever possible. My brother, i feel, is with you on Elona...he hates it. I'm trying to push him on a bit...but he doesn't even seem to have the will to take his monk, his all time favourite character, through Elona. Personally I find Vabbi a wonderful place. Yes, it's still sandy, but it's "nice" sand. What consitutes "nice" sand? Well...not like Kourna which is red and dirty...also not like the Crystal Desert where every few steps you take you come across ANOTHER devourer or plague of scarabs. Yuck. I find Vabbi to be a refreshingly different desert and throughly enjoyed exploring it for GMC. I particularly like the "explorable towns"...like those around the Resplendent Makuun and Kodash Bazaar...

As for Chapter 4, I truly hope we get more snow. I like snow. It's something Cantha and Elona are lacking. In Cantha on Shing Jea I guess y ou get snowy mountains but it doesn't actually snow like it does in the Shiverpeaks. I find that to be a nice touch.

Onto the hench and heroes debate...this has been had many times. I, personally, woudl prefer to use PuGs because when you find a good one, it's fantastic. More often than not they're all idiots...and I feel compelled to use my heroes, who at least don't claim to be a healing monk then start casting Retribution and Bane Signet! The early days of Elona were very enjoyable. I took my ele through reasonably quick and further through the game at that time you would get a fair few people who were good at playing and were enjoyable to spend time in a PuG with...while the morons who couldn't figure out a way to kill the drought were stilll left in smelly Kourna.

Can people just post what they *personally* think without dragging some random people into it with "Most players I know", "Most long-time players", "Most veterans I spoke to in Ascalon, Lion's Arch etc etc"?

Leave them alone. It doesn't make your opinion any stronger. If anything, it's a bit lamer with it.

Well said...

Personally ( ) I think this thread is a waste of valuable space...

Chet, I've been playing since retail release of Prophecies and I am primarily PvE. I understand your concerns in this post, though I don't think that GW is "down the tubes" yet.

Looking back to my initial character in Prophecy, a Ranger, I think that nothing at all can ever compare to leveling him up through the game. Each map was a fresh and new experience. And in those days of the initial release, the PvE was quite a bit more challenging.

I think that a part of the problem that you have with the PvE experience in Factions and Nightfall has been that ANet has been building maps with environments generated by algorithms in these two expansions to save a bit of money and keep them affordable. The splendor of Prophecies will never be repeated because now it would simply be too expensive to do it "all by hand" for a mere chapter release.

The real problem with the PvE game, as I see it, arises from a basic flaw in the game concept, which is that PvE character skills should function like PvP skills, and that there should be no difference between a PvP character and a PvE character. Since the two sets of environments are usually isolated from each other, I never really understood the reason for this game design feature.

That being said, GW is still a great game which ought to be and could be even greater. I do not think that everyone is going to dash off to some other game and forget GW. Certainly not me!

On the positive side, I think you ought to notice that ANet has added a host of new features for PvE players in Nightfall, and that ANet is showing a new concern for the PvE player experience. I think myself that GW ANet will overcome such problems as exist and that the game will only get better.

and that is where you are wrong.

the game engine can support one and only one build at a time.

that means that SF cannot have two values

1 a balanced value for PVP

2 an ungodley high unbalanced value for hardcore farmers

the people who play the game for fun dont seem to mind these changes that much.

most of the loudest protests are from farmers not players

one build one value for a given skill

I agree in part - The one thing I've come to miss most (especially since the release of NF) is the ability to PUG.
I KNOW not everyone likes to PUG, and I KNOW that it usually just makes things more difficult, and that you sometimes hit upon a disastrous team, or a couple of idiots, or whatever.
But you know what, I still like it! For all the times it's a trial, it can also be FUN. And I miss the times when it was easy to do. Just to pick up a group and do a mission. Even a quest! Who PUGs for quests these days??
I like Heroes - even Henchies - I won't deny that. I like playing with team builds, and I like that I CAN run a mission on my own when I log on at 4am and nobody else is about to team with me.
But I miss being able to PUG freely also. Now the variety of teammates has dwindled, running my characters through the same missions has become a chore.

Okay, that's my complaining over with, and I feel better for it.

And overall, despite my personal gripes, I think we can't live in the past. So Guild Wars is different now. Some things have deteriorated in some people's opinions. But other things have improved.

As for your complaints as to the environment: I see where you're coming from (I'm not a fan of the NF vista), but I don't think it's a good thing to generalise. I, for one, am a lover of Factions - even those horrible grimy hours spent in Kaineng City. I know I'm in the minority, but that's fine. Just don't generalise - Not all us long-time players are as utterly discontent with the new chapters as you seem to be.

And I don't care that half the community is running about in 15k armour these days. Even ignoring the direction the market's taken, the game's been out longer - More players will be able to afford it. You can't always be the only one. I don't feel any less accomplished these days when I earn a new set of 15k armour than when I bought my first one.

Times change. Gotta roll with them, and all that.

Thank you all for posting.

Most of you, whether you agree or disagree, are participating in precisely the kind of intelligent discussion that Arena-Net needs to see. I realize wholeheartedly that some people may not agree. If everyone agreed with me, the game would not be in the state it is in today. Therefore, those of us that DO NOT like what is becoming of it, need to let Arena-Net know.


I should address a couple points brought up by responders to my post.

1. I purposefully avoided making my own recommendations on how to fix the problems in the game, to avoid dictating my own views to the community. Sure, I have ideas, and I think we should focus on discussing them.

THIS is why I did not want people who disagree, to post here. Rather than being an "us vs them" thread (as it has now become), I want to see SUGGESTIONS and IDEAS on fixing what we do not like about the game...and for that, there must be a form of consensus among the posters here.

Do not mistake my motives for making that request.


2. There are reasons why I targeted this post toward players from the betas. Quite simply, those of you who did not play in the betas, would not understand. Those of you who have, know precisely what I mean when I say this game was built around teamwork and comradeship. It sounds utopian, but during those beta tests, 95% of the individuals I encountered were genuinely great people. We played the game, adventured, quested, and had a blast. We would go through 'withdrawl' until the next Beta event, because the experience was so rewarding. This is not dramatized. It really was THAT good. It looked good. It felt good. It played well. It was exciting! To finally be part of a good team....THAT was the essence of Guild Wars!

Now, of course, there are always going to be nasty people. The only way to deal with that, is to not game with them. I have become expert at finding and weeding out 'bad apples' in my group, before we even begin.

As I said in my original post, I do not blame Arena-Net for the fact that many players are unseemly and undesirable to have in a group. This is not their fault, any large game will have them. I DO blame Arena-Net for allowing and encouraging an environment where those players that want to find groups. It just seems their latest efforts have been counterproductive to this end...which is very atypical of Arena-Net.


3. Things that go wrong, and what could improve them? I might as well delve into this.

I personally feel that the introduction of the Party Search screen would have been a fine addition, but they chose to release it after the advent of Heros, which seemed very counterproductive to me. There is no need to search for parties anymore, since there are very few parties to search through, in a given district. It's a great idea...just bad implementation and timing.

I personally believe that if they had implemented JUST the Party Search, without heros...the guild wars community would be doing much better right now.

I also think making Heros available ONLY in explorable areas would be a good balance and compromise. You could solo with them all you like, with the reduced drop rate and all. YES, you would have to rely on your fellow players to advance in the game. Necessity is the mother of invention. Hardship is the father of Evolution. If you must rely on your fellow man (or woman) to advance, you are more motivated to work with them, rather than against them. You become stronger in the process. If you dont want to go with people, there are always Henchmen. People did missions with Henchmen before. They can do it again. If you aren't patient enough to play with other players...you should not play Guild Wars in the first place. Go play KOTOR.


I do blame Arena-Net for not coming up with features that would greatly benefit the economy. For years we have asked for a better way to sell our items to other players, rather than screaming in public chat. They have not yet provided any means of doing so. The Guru auction house is a good start, but is not an In-game solution, therefore a large portion of people will simply not use it. An in-game auction house, IMO, would stabilize the economy of the game to a great extent. It would provide a uniform reference for all players to know what items are truly worth, and also provide a means of selling and buying them easily. There would be an added bonus: The game mechanics would then offer a natural buffer against superpriced (100K+XX Ecto) items. These could still be bought and sold as they are now...in chat. This would satisfy the hard core traders out there...while providing the casual gamer a chance to both make money and aquire the items he wants, without having to become an expert on GW economy just to avoid getting scammed.

I totally agree with previous posters about Arena-Net's failed attempts to curb Chinese Gold Farming. The Farmers will find a way around your attempts to nerf farming...and in the process, you also hurt the very people you are trying to protect. There are very simple solutions to this problem.

How about a gold transfer cap per 24 hrs? 100k? 200k? Think about it! From one account to another, you could only trasfer up to 100k per every 24 hours. Gold Farmer accounts would not be able to service more than 1 customer per day, requiring MANY accounts to work...so many it becomes economically infeasible to farm gold for the low prices people will pay for GW Gold. People who want to transfer high value items can do so in the form of Ecto, which is significantly harder to get. This makes the value of the money go up, prices go down, the average player remains largely unaffected and the Chinese Farmers are the real losers.

These are all I can think of at the moment. More may come to me later on.

EDIT: Further clarification on my idea of gold transfer.

Gold transfer would be limited to the giving of gold only...not receiving. If the farmer cant give out more than 100k per day, then that means they'd need 10's, maybe 100's of accounts to hand out the volume of gold they deal with. You could receive as much as you want, since you may have really good items you want to sell. Larger purchases would have to be done through the Auction house, for any form of payment (Gold+ecto/items, maybe?). This lets ArenaNet track transactions and nail high-volume farmers easily.


P.S:
I agree with you. If I thought it was down the tubes, I'd have stopped playing it. It still has great potential, and I look forward to positive additions and changes to the game. Arena-Net DOES listen to it's players...so that is why this post is here. For them to see what some of their patrons want.

Hahaha what? Not only is KOTOR an awful, awful game, it's absolutely nothing like GW.

So what you're saying is because, a majority of the time, I want to play with no one other than my guildies or the AI, I'm supposed to "go play KOTOR".

Because PUGs will wait around for me if I have to go AFK frequently--which is common.

Because PUGs want to go cap every single skill in order.

Because PUGs want to hug every single wall in an area.

Because PUGs will bring exactly the skills needed, and use them at the right time.

Heroes are by far the best feature of Nightfall, no questions asked.

Kakumei,

These are precisely the attitudes that drives this discussion. As I said, this is not an "us vs them" conversation. As for your comments about PUGs (assuming I understand your comments, since they are somewhat uncoordinated and confusing), I agree...many are less than ideal. HOWEVER...This is not a game where the "me" attitude is, was, or should be the focus. This is a "we" game, not a "me" game. It is about teamwork. As far as going with your guildmates....GOOD! That is why it's called Guild Wars in the first place! Not "Hero Wars". Not "Hench Wars". Guild Wars.

As for my assessment of this game...You do not agree with me. That is fine. You are entitled to your opinon, the same as anyone else. However, please add to the discussion by presenting your ideas and things you would like to see modified, removed, kept, or changed within the game. Please also provide supporting arguments for your comments.

To Everyone,

From here on, I wish to remain in the spirit of this conversation. Constructive criticism of the game, with ideas and discussion on how to make it better. If you do not have valuable content and substance to add, please refrain from comment.

Thank you.


P.S.
I disagree. I thoroughly loved the game. It is not like Guild Wars, and that was my entire point. It is single-player, requiring no personal interaction with anyone. BUT...That is not the point of this discussion, nor will I mention it, or respond to anything else relating to it, again.

Oh wow.

You evidently didn't read my post at all. I don't think anything really needs to be changed at all in this specific regard--groups are there for those who want them, and Heroes are there for those who want them.

What's the problem? That having the option of Heroes "discourages teamwork"? Something tells me you don't want those people in your party anyway--we like to just get things done.