Does anyone do Fort Aspenwood or Jade Quarry anymore?

Everytime I have tried to do these from either the Kurzick or the Luxon side its a constant wait cycle. Maybe some of the leechers spoken about in another thread are just people who thought they would left it running for a while and ended up doing something else and forgot about it.

Aspenwood is pretty easy to get into at certain times of the day. Jade quarry is a joke. I have never even tried to get in, no1 ever does that 1. I've never even been there.

It usually takes awhile to get into Aspenwood. Generally, it sometimes takes up to ten minutes to get into a match.

Jade Quarry. Lol. I've been there like 2 times. I honestly have no clue how long it takes to get into one of those matches. I would imagine its a lot worse than Aspenwood.

I stopped caring about them when the leeching started to piss me off more and more. A shame though, as Fort Aspenwood is the kind of PVP I do like.

In the american districts aspenwood is pretty full when I'm in there. I dont usually have to wait more than 5 minutes for a battle. Jade Quarry on the other hand is totally empty 99.9% of the time.

I love the Aspenwood map, but I stopped playing ages ago because of the leechers.

I like Aspenwood and whenever I'm there I have no problems to start a match.. sure it can take ometimes a few minutes.. about Jade Quary.. I've been there 3 times =P

I'll second that

I still play Aspenwood, Kurzick. One of the best missions in game, but leechers are very annoying.

ANet, please fix Aspenwood! Kick the leechers.

Jade Quarry I would like to enter, but I never see players there. Never gotten into this one.
(By the way: Can you get Canthan grandmaster cartographer still now the Quarry is virtually incaccessible?)

I third it. Aspenwood is a joke.

Result: Leechers.

I love Fort Aspenwood i like to do is regurally although i agree the leechers are severely annoying and ruin it for the rest of us. Ive done Jade Quarry once i think

I still do Aspenwood quite often when I'm playing. It doesn't take usually more than a few tries to get into a game afternoons/evenings in european servers, and yeah, there are still some leechers, but maybe a bit less than there used to be. I've had quite a few enjoyable matches lately with actually intelligent people playing the map.

Jade Quarry is just deserted. Which is a shame, since it's a fun map. I think I've managed to play there twice, once in the preview event and once otherwise.

Furthermore, I'd wish A-Net would still up the rewards a bit, even though it would probably mean leecher numbers growing. The match can take longer than an AB and gives a lot less faction, and there are still people doing the competitive missions.

i remember trying to get 100% cantha, in order to get jade quarry uncovered i was jumping from 1 outpost to another advertising to all explorers that whoever wants to get that bit should go to quarry now - it worked.

FA was fun but leeching killed it, I haven't been there in months.

Meh... I'm slacking off.

I was starting to get a bit of a name for myself for a while at Fort Aspenwood. We weren't getting too many leechers because I tend only to play it at busy times...
But I made people notice me...
Invariably, almost every time... someone on our side would notice they had over a thousand health and ctrl+click "I have Fertile Season on me!" ... followed by a rather alarmed: "I have Edge of Extinction on me!" ... and a few moments later someone who either just found me or already knew what I was doing would indicate "Kim the Sinister is using Lacerate!" ...

This would usually result in various people freaking out because I decided to use them as Edge of Extinction ammo... I'd just stand up there, dump the spirits down... watch the Luxons swarm in and all hell break loose.... and then.... Fertile Season ends. 80% of the people in the fort, including all the Luxons (besides the turtles) would die.
And I'd be at the front of the fort, laughing maniacally...

Kurzicks would respawn nearby... Luxons would respawn on the other side of the map, well out of threat range... everything would be fine. ^_^ ....

Works a freakin charm..
Though I had to place my spirits in a more careful spot after a Luxon Ritualist called Pencil Salesman started sniping the spirits from beneath the wall. Clever bastard, that one.



Jade Quarry though?
Nobody fights there any more. Only mappers ever bother going in there, and usually half the people involved are just there to kill the mappers, so all kindsa aggravation breaks loose. But I've managed to get my Assassin in there about 5 times... Twice on the Luxon side, three times on the Kurzick side. Got GMC easy as pie.

Fort Aspenwood is easy enough to get into... Jade Quarry, though? Heck, it's a shocker that anyone can get in...

ive been fort aspenwood to get luxon faction. as my guild kurzik(that how you spell it lol) and i got in there really fast. also kurzik are so much better at it because their defending

Maybe they should give better rewards or a chest you can open at the other side with the remotest of possibility of an Elite Tome.

I don't recall waiting more than 2 minutes for Fort Aspenwood, unless it's a pretty bleak hour. Jade Quarry to me is a myth, it's been dead since I started playing GW, I have no idea how it works, why it died, nothing.
And to those who stopped playing because of leechers, I think you're losing out on it, because surely some matches are completely ruined by that, but the majority of matches goes very well and is a lot of fun.

Fort Aspenwood is popular because the two sides play completely different roles: Kurzicks on the defensive and Luxons on the offensive.

The Jade Quarry is pretty much just a glorified Alliance Battle with worse pay-out. Both sides are evenly matched... trying to cap shrines around a rather convoluted battlefield. The only key difference is that while this is going on, there are juggernauts and turtles trying to carry Jade to their respective bases.

i played constantly in fa while i was getting mats for 15k lux. it was a lot of fun. wait was typically minimal. attempted to do jq, but gave up after 10 mins. actually i've had to wait longer for ab matches than fa matches a lot of times.

i think they should have made jq a mirror of fa. then the lux would get to defend and the kurz would invade. the format of base offense and defense is pretty fun.

I've waited, trying to get into Jade Quarry.... for 14 hours before.
Admittedly I went AFK to do other things for quite some while, but eventually I just figured it wasn't even worth the hassle and gave up. Jade Quarry trips NEED to be pre-arranged.

Jade Quarry... good times...

Now the only real time that area showed popularity was during the Factions PvE preview event. And it showed REAL popularity, none of this "omg I finally got into JQ!!!" stuff. And showed a bit of a populace when PvP characters were first allowed into these areas. It actually surprised me a little when JQ still died out even after this introduction, as a lot of people had asked for that particular update. Oh well.

Other than that, I would have had to have been the biggest fan of JQ when it was alive, it was my favorite map. When numbers started getting to like 3 or 4 in a party waiting to get in (before it completely died out) i used to advertise in FA on both sides to entice players to come over to JQ and play there instead, and I could get like 2 or 3 matches there... but I got tired of having to constantly get people (and those few matches were great, because all the leechers were only in FA)

I've posted in quite a few threads about why JQ is so unpopular and consistently questioning why leeching isn't that much of a concern to anet to take immediate action. But there are more factors attributing to the general dislike of both areas, leeching is just at the guts of it all.

I have an agenda to revitalise JQ whenever such relevant threads come up, so I'll outline the main reasons why JQ is less popular (in no particular order)

~ It's an even playing field, and Luxons don't like that, so they always play in FA (I know this because I hardly lose a battle in JQ whenever I play^^, experience ftw! j/k. Then again, Kurzicks mostly lose in FA...)
~ FA is closer to get to than JQ. On the kurzick side specifically, it's 'easier' to get to FA than JQ. JQ is unpopulated, because once people get to FA, they start playing it, then they start getting into a routine, and before you know it, they have a superior knowledge with playing in FA than they would in JQ.
~ Initially, JQ rewarded less faction than FA, this was later (and lately) fixed so that JQ rewarded more generously. But first impressions last, always.
~ Finally, on the luxon side, you can gain faction faster simply because you can complete the mission faster when the conditions are met. This is also partially true for Kurzicks, if they could buggery learn to run amber more frequently!! *rant*. Unfortunately, this isn't possible for JQ as the time duration is fixed for both sides. That was the biggest deterrent towards playing in JQ.

The current (positive) state of JQ is being influenced by organized matches (not that i've witnessed one being organized, it's just a possibility), assuming you can get one done without a leecher, which isn't too bad to hope against, unlike FA.

I haven't had the chance to get a match together in JQ since... a month before Nightfall was released. That's truly disappointing.

I still do the Fort.

Most of the people play that one in the afternoons. Jade Quarry is dead cause it isn't fun as the Fort.

Last time I was there was on a double faction weekend. I did the quarry about 12 times and got bored.

But the Fort always satisfies me.

I've been playing FA quite alot recently on both sides as part of the required 10k faction grind in factions and gotta say its great fun, like AB where class doesnt matter too much but less chaotic. The only problem with it, is things seem to be stacked in the luxons favour. If left unchecked my SS necro can take down every NPC quite easily and any other AoE elemmentalist can take down any of the gates and given that you have 2 hardened mobs of turtles and warriors also smashing everything in their path the luxons job is quite easy. But for the kurzicks it seems alot harder, not only do you have hold out against 8 generally good built luxons players and the respawning 2 turtles + entourage but you also have to dedicatedly run amber. Its hard to find a good group that can defend and run given how quickly players respawn. Sure the kurzicks can win, i've seen it happen quite a few times but alot of that times its down to luxon quitters or just an awefully disorganised luxon group, but which again tends to lead to quitters.

I've never onced played JQ, since it appeared to be dead before I even started playing

If you want some JQ fun, round up some guildies and have a blast!

Fort Aspenwood is easy to get into. But there's only one game running at a time. So you have to wait until a battle is over before you get in.

Jade Quarry is very depressing. It feels like the 20-40 man instances in WoW: A waste of time and effort, and something that many people aren't going to see. Unless there's proper coordination.

I still do aspenwood from time to time, it's fun. Its a shame Jade Quarry never has any people, back in the preview event it was probably my favorite thing in factions.I was so excited for it when the game finally came out but it's been deserted since then. I tried for awhile but I gave up a long time ago trying to get in to play again.

I disagree 100% on this. Its easy to overthrow defenders. Take the mines break the gates. Well of Profane ftw.

Disagree. I end up with atleast 1 leecher 95% of the time. Mainly by the same people. Theres 5 certain people that I get every day. It gets to the point to where I just leave the match if theyre in the group cause im not going to waste my time working for them. 1 match I had all 5 of these well known leechers plus 1 other. 6 Leechers ftl.

... Are you guys for real?! o_0;;

80 to 90% of the time I've played in Fort Aspenwood... the Kurzicks have won.... and that is with my playing on both sides.


... O'course... admittedly when I was playing with my Necro on the Luxon side I was using an active sabotage build to help the Kurzicks win.... healing the gatekeepers and reducing the damage done by the luxon warriors.


But still...
I barely ever see the Luxons win. I like Fort Aspenwood primarily for the fact that the Kurzicks usually win there (in my experience)... ^_^

i used to play at FA every night, but like so many others...i quit due to the leechers.

i wish anet would step it up and hire a few full-time game moderators. honestly, its downright sloppy on their part for making customers the only people who bother to moderate in-game activity. it would take a real person a matter of minutes to spot bot activity at FA/JQ and granite citadel.

Interestingly enough, Kurzicks used to say that Luxons were better at it because they were offensive.

I really have no clue how the victories by both sides are achieved. While I was a Luxon at FA, we won about 9/10 battles. A month or so later, I'm Kurzick, defending, Necro Spiking the turtles, and have only lost one match out of about 20 (watch me jynx that, though).

I think - I think, I'm not assuming - that Luxons may have developed a sort of cockiness when they fight there. A lot of battles I see some guy starting off with "Prepare for a quick and easy death, Kurzicks!", and the Kurz's will end up winning. Just one theory out of many. I have no clue what's going on.

Edit: I guess I should also mention that the leechers on the Kurzick side have been decreasing. And when we do have leechers, we seem to be doing just fine! What's going on?

Plus of course my personal contribution to Fort Aspenwood (when I'm there) seems to work a charm. My spirit-spammer Ranger can effectively wipe out 80% of combatants in the fort in a very short space of time, and given that the other Kurzicks respawn a whole lot closer, it is a lot easier for the defending force to keep itself constantly high...
And to think I've had people complain on both sides about my routine (which consists of Fertile Season => Edge of Extinction => Winnowing => Predatory Season => Lacerate)... I guess some people just can't accept that I'm using them as ammunition... but it certainly works!

The Signet of Suffering build I'm using wipes out a turtle in about 10 seconds. So I guess that could be a pretty important contribution.

That, or maybe my shouts of "RUN AMBER YOU *#%#ING #@*&# OR WE LOSE!!!" are somehow working.

I don't do either. I used to do Fort Aspenwood some, but AB was better payout for the time, and now no one really seems to care about Factions.

I think better rewards will definetly put a small halt on leeching. If you win, a chest will pop up near the gatekeepers for luxons winning, and if Kurzicks win, a chest will pop up where the middle of the kurzick base is. Maybe not even a chest. Could Anet do it, where whoever gets the most kills and so on below them gets a certain amount of gold? For monks whoever stays alive the longest? I'm just wondering.

This is why I've never done FA (besides the leeching problem I've heard about). Kurzicks are always on the defensive and the only way for them to win is to hold out for 20 minutes. It would be nice if the game randomly choose who is on defense and who is on offense for that mission. Perhaps the kurzicks could be given some juggernuats and have to retake the fort.

I used to do Fort Aspenwood a lot. Nowadays, it seems like it is overrun with people who care way too little or way too much. That takes the fun out of it.

I still do Aspenwood on the kurzick side from time to time
I agree on the leechers of course.. theres hardly ever a time when its really 8vs8, so its either frustrating or boring
though it still makes fun when enough people play on both sides