Enough is enough.

Actually its the first time I've played in nearly a week...

But yeah, sorry but i didn't see any reputation needed to progress in the storyline of GW:EN unlike we had to do in Nightfall or Factions

I have R4 in Norn and R3 in the others

And remember, the station isn't just guild wars, its all MMO's that have active communities (which is why I'm in talks with ANet and NCSoft at the moment about the future of the Ascension show, or the lack of a future)

Throwing my 2g into this argument, and based on Clone's idea of a "collector's equivalent to a rank 10 Norn's Ursan Strike", I think Anet could borrow the idea of EXP cards from Granado Espada (Sword of the New World).

Instead of XP however, your character would earn Rep cards that they could then give to your other characters. It'd be like one of my chara putting her arm around Sif or Gwen and saying "Hey, you know this Necromancer named Illianna? Well I do, she's really great at what she does. She can really raise some undead, let me tell you. Could put in a good word for her..."

You would then get a card with 2,500 or even 5,000 reputation points, similar to the Star of Transference, that could be customized to the receiver (in this example, my necro Illianna) and would be a jump start on their own title track. There would have to be a limit implemented so you can't horde stacks of these cards, of course.

Think something like that might work?

This isn't about adding grind, this is about that grind taking away from content available to casual players. They still advertise that Guild Wars can be played casually, yet right next to that add, they advertise "40 new armor sets" and "150 new skills" They neglect to mention that a casual player will probably never have the opportunity to get one of those 40 armor sets, or use 33% of those skills (to be effective at least)

That is a great start, and a great idea. This is the type of innovative ideas that seem to be lacking on Arena Net's side. The other thing that needs to be added is a new way of acquiring the points. Perhaps a quest chain that rewards 10,000 points, it takes time, but it is broken into parts so that a casual player can login, do a section of the quest, and then log out. The following day, they can do another section. Make the sections no longer then 1 hour to complete unless the player is a complete moron and doesn't bring adequate healing or and dmg dealers for example... you get the idea. Make it an 8-9 part quest. This would still ensure those grinding points and not disliking that route could do that, and those who like quests and the original foundations of Guild Wars could also enjoy the game. The quests could be very inventive. And in the process of doing the quests, guess what? You would also be killing monsters with the shrine blessings, thus getting even more points.

There are so many interesting posts in this topic. I'm just gonna post some of my thoughts.

I think the title grind is there to keep us busy till GW2 and to fight bots. The new armors are not that expensive but you need to play before you can get them. In prophecies you could get armor in grotto by ebaying and letting you run through the game.

Played with one character only last two years, a monk. Heroes are the best thing that happened in my situation. I play with a partner two times a week. On the other days, we do things on ourselves, working on titles, etc. Heroes made me so much better, I know all classes now,know all spells, test unusual builds with them. I can see the whole picture now. It's like I'm playing all classes at once with one character.

You still don't need titles or elite armor to finish the game or just play. You may have a disadvantage when it comes to the status and vanity department as well as the pve only skills in gwen. As a sidethought: The reskins are a pitty.

I never liked Pugs that much. I play with my real life friend and we like to do things our way. The feeling that thousands of other players are online and playing this game is enough for us. I call it a PAT relation (playing apart together).

Overall this game was a good choice for us as we're still enjoying it after 28 months. Maybe it's interesting to know what we were looking for back then:

- good graphics
- no monthly fee
- human only characters and not the classical dwarf elf stuff
- cooperative options without depending on other players
- a game that gets updates a lot
- good server system
- new content and events
- skill > time played
- etc.

After reading so many posts in this topic I don't know exactly yet what to think of the evolution of the game and more specific from skill > time to time > skill. Last weekend we discussed the grind needed to get some of the new titles. We do like the new pve only skills though.

The levelcap was mentionned a few times in here too. Personaly I like the concept. More half to end game content. The introduction of hard mode makes the whole game endgame content.
I help noobs by giving them the link to this site and guildwiki when they ask me something in town. If it's an easy question to explain I will give them a short but helpfull answer.

I think the best way to reply to your question is with another, written at the end of my novel here.

Would you agree to the following logic.

In the beginning before Prophecies, the endgame was intended to be PvP where players were supposed to go, thus ANet did not anticipate players spending 4,572 hours with their characters in PvE. The original uber status symbol was FoW armor, and the requirements to farm ectos and such put it into a category that only the most dedicated would actually achieve, presumably.

Fast forward to the end of 2005. Everyone and their brother has at least one set of FoW, and ANet begins to realize that PvP is evidently not for everyone. They thus alter development on Factions, delaying it, to incorporate PvP into PvE and by that encourage players to do it by AB. This is their second chance to move players to PvP. However, they have put an incentive to repeat content - grind if you will - in Factions that actually stops player progression until the player has achieved the specific levels, but does not have any in-game effects - all the bonus material is purely vanity armors and such.

Fast forward to the end of 2006. Nightfall is recently released, and they have accepted the inevitable - that PvE is where 90 percent of their playerbase is. They also redux the incentive to repeat content, and actually introduce an advantage in-game for moderate repetition of content in Nightfall.

Fast forward to now. EotN is released, and they have continued their trend of gating EotN content linked to your repetition of content, and have gone so far as to introduce massive repetition for very powerful skills in Factions that are reckoned total per account yet still tied to each class, such as +100 armor party wide "Save Yourselves!" - that being different than before specifically because they are usable anywhere and (I cant stress this enough) not bound by the 200 point attribute balancing mechanic. And, they have also introduced 50 new skills usable by any class tied to individual grind, not account total grind, that are also outside of the 200 point attribute mechanic and are more powerful than standard skills.

In short, we have moved from "repetitive content rewarding vanity" to "repetitive content rewarding player toon power".

The question being, is that a good thing?

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

Nope, totally with you on all your points there

And you know my biggest surprise about GW:EN? Not needing to have completed another campaign but only get to lvl 20 to enter GW:EN content... this really shocked me as i wanted to do the lot in order and didn't think that the couple of character that haven't finished any of the campaigns yet could get there, but new warrior made and 7 hours laters he's lvl 20 (after a leisurely stroll through the nightfall starter island) and boom, i get the quest to go check the fissure and bang, i've met Vekk and Ogden and have them maxed and sorted before koss and Dunkoro have caught upto lvl 20 yet...

I see a lot of talk about powerful PvE skills, but so far I have seen only 2 that I would call gamebreakingly powerful: "Finish Him!" and Pain Inverter. The former is awesome primarily for the side effects and does decent damage even at level 3 Norn. The latter is damage-capped at 80, so there is little to no point in having a high Asura rank. (TNTF is, or was, also gamebreakingly powerful, but it's not a GW:EN skill.)

If anything, these mostly flat skills have made vanquishing (the only worthwhile PvE activity IMFO) less of a grind.

At the end of the day, the major complaint seems to be that the boring GW:EN armors are locked behind rep grinds. To me this just proves that many people would feel much more at home playing Barbie Fashion Fever than Guild Wars.

Well, I am going to have to stop posting for a while,my PC just decided to kick the bucket. I am on my PS3 right now, but it doesn't seem to like my G15 keyboard much (lots of delay), so I am going to make this post short and sweet.

A lot of you still believe I am trying to say remove the grind, the grind is eviil, grind is anti Guild Wars. Actually, I could careless if Arena Net adds 6x the grind. The point is, they have changed the way the game progression functions without changing who they are marketing to, casual players. Before, the content was achieveable by a casual player with few exceptions (those being FoW armor, very high end weaponry, etc) However, Arena Net never advertised those items, knowing full well casual players wouldn't be getting their hands on them.

Fast foward to today. Arena Net advertised "40 New armor sets" (I swear, I have typed that so many times now, I wish people would comprehend this finally), but those armor sets are not made for the casual player, they are made for a player devoted more to the game. Casual players are those that login for 30mins-1hr per day, have a small group of friends, and don't think much of the game. A casual player can still have green items and 15k armor, it just takes them a longer period to get it. With this new r5 requirement to even speak with the armor crafter, it will discourage if not completely shut out a casual player from these 40 new armor sets. Yet, that player was under the impression that those new armor sets were there for him/her, because Guild Wars is supposed to be for the casual player just as much as the hardcore player. Perhaps Arena Net should put in alternative ways of acquiring the armors rather then hours upon hours of "grind" or whatever you others call killing monsters repeatedly to acquire points towards a number based goal.

First off great thread. To the OP I can agree with most of your post. I havn't been playing as long as some of you, but i'm clocking in at 16 months. I think that's long enough to of noticed a change in the direction GW is heading, so I will post my personal experience with GW in this topic.

*Read this wall of text at your own risk*

When I first started playing, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had heard of the game before, but it was the level 20 cap that kept me from getting it. I admit sometimes I like grind, but I had played so many games, even up until now, that were based around it. "Grind to this level to be effective in this area, or wear this armor", and so on. Every MMO I played seemed like the same cake with different icing to me. So I decided out of pure boredom to give GW a shot.

When I first logged in and entered pre-searing, I was amazed. There were people just hanging out joking around and having fun, other people were looking for somebody for the rez sig quest, and the other one where you needed somebody to open a gate. It was an all around friendly atmosphere. Well for me anyway. I was also amazed that this game actualy had a story, rather then just being a grindfest based off of a story you would only know about by looking at the website or something.

As I made my way through Tyria, I remember thinking to myself how great it was. I joined groups, and we all worked together to accomplish the mission or quest, and "usualy" the groups I was in weren't full of bickering or build paranoia.

It wasn't long after when Factions was released. I had made it to the Ember Light Camp. Even though I told myself I would finish prophecies before I bought factions I just couldn't resist buying it and trying it out. At first it was kind of the same for me as before because not many people were used to the new professions yet. Once people did start getting used to them though I did start to notice a decline in "fun" PuG's.

After a month or two, I started finding it a lot harder to find a group because of the professions I was. The only one that didn't have a hard time was a monk I had and maybe my warrior. I do not know why this decline in what was acceptable started happening, but it did. So I found myself grouping with people that were either,

1: Professions that people didn't want.

2: Kind people that didn't really care or were willing to offer build suggestions.

3: People who were just desperate to get through the missions and move on.

Now 1 is kind of a double edged sword for me. It sucked that some professions were just pushed to the side, however it was awesome when we beat the missions with a group full of outcasts.

Anyway to fastforward a bit, Nightfall. I was very excited about this campaign. I had been following it since I learned of it's exsitence. To be honest I loved the story, but hated the enviroments as most of it was desert. I mean they looked good, but the theme just seemed to carry on. It was the story and some of the new monsters that kept me going. NF was bad for PuG's in my opinion though. I do like heros, and at times i'm thankful for them, but they kind of took the MMO out of this MMO. I'm not saying it's not possible to find a group, it just seems to be harder to organize one.

Now with NF and the SS/LB titles. I actualy liked them. I didn't mind an extra boost against margonites, and the later released pve only skills. Some of them looked cool, but were in no way mandatory. I'm sorry for those of you who couldn't find groups because you were not rank 5 or above LB, I didn't have that problem though. I'm sure cookie cutter mentality exsited long before NF, but I didn't really see "much" of problem until DOA with the exception of the x tanks, x nukers, MM, 2 monks thing in Factions.

After nightfall I had gotten burned out and took a small break. When I came back I made a few new characters, and had fun again. I learned of GW:EN and spent most of my time LB/SS farming in wurms to make some cash, and get title points. Bad move on my part. That last month before GW:EN it's pretty much all I did. It was nice when I got something nice from a drop, but I was bored out of my skull. That's my own fault though for doing something I didn't enjoy. I felt like I needed to though for these new armors I might want. It was a long shot though because at the time I had no idea what the armors would look like.

The more I read about GW:EN, and the more videos I watched, I grew more excited. I was very happy to see the return of "skill rewards" in quests, new armor, and mostly, dungeons or rather content with rewards worthy of lvl 20 characters. I will say this about GW:EN, I enjoyed the story, and the enviroments, even with the reused rooms in dungeons. I was kind of shocked though to find out about the needing ranks to craft weapons and armor though. I was also dissapointed in the drops for GW:EN.

I mean for some of us saving up the money and materials is a grind all in its own. I'm not complaining, for a story element I can see it, from a different, more game play perspective though I think it's kind of ridiculous. I did it though on one of my rits. I got the norn armor. I'm very happy with it to. However I can't really see trying to do the same on several of my other characters. I guess if I had been more patient while getting that armor for one of my rits, I could of got it with pretty much no grind at all since it was Norn. However it would of been game over, what campaign would you like to repeat?

As for the PVE skills, well I like them. I don't find most of them that great, but that's my opinion, and I can accept the fact that other people will find ways to use them that I won't think of and so on. However it's yet another reason to grind. I'm kind of mixed on the issue of them being tied to a title track. So I won't try to debate here.

I guess my number 1 disappointment with GW:EN is my fault. I figured I would feel refreshed with the game I was playing. I did, for a few hours. Once the newness wore off I felt like I was just playing once again, "the same cake with different icing" for GW. I'm actualy hoping for GW2 they blow our house down with something that makes the game feel refreshing again. I don't want a WOW knock off, but I don't want a GW1.2 either.

I could go on but this is way to long already. I'll end on titles in a brief kind of way. I love cartography because it helps you keep track of what you have explored. It's like in a FPS that keeps track of how many headshots you've had. I like these kind of titles. Some of these other titles, like lucky, and unlucky I find very stupid. That's all AFK on a ring for a few nights and see what happens!!! No thanks.

To end this, I still do enjoy Guild Wars, and don't want to go back to the typical MMO crap i've played before. So that is why I care, and the "go play something else" line isn't my "Alem's Remedy".

seriously, nobody said you're lying.. armor is only used as an **example**. it is not the crux of the issue here. in prophecies, you get elite armor based on location. this led to runners running low levels to elite armor outposts. they fixed this in factions, nightfall so you had to play the game to get to certain outposts to get armor. fair enough. compare it to EOTN, where they slapped a title requirement on **all** armors. do you see the evolution?

the crux of this entire thread is the reason behind his evolution. why did they add the title requirement? is it to reward skill? you said it yourself.. you had to bounty hunt 2 or 3 times. why should we have to do that in the first place? i agree that it is very very simple to do, but that only means it is no indication of skill. to add longevity to the game? the old style (ala factions, nightfall) would have been to let players unlock the armor after you've completed the mission line for one of the races.

again, the issue is NOT about buying armors per se. it's the reason behind some of the features that have been implemented in EOTN, and how they clash totally with the founding principles of Prophecies and Guild Wars.

AHHH! My PC is back up and running. Gotta love when drivers corrupt and your 8800GTXs just say, "Nope, not gonna do it, go to hell." Don't ya? :P

You see the post above me? Let me quote something.

I believe this man has realized the point of this thread. I encourage the rest of you to read his post or the quote above, for some reason it comes across better then everything I have said. I am putting it into the opening post.

I actually think alot of the grind and new features in GWEN are implemented to encourage a wider spectrum of play and player base. If you think about it, GWs life is about over, GW2 is in production and they started selling a platinum series you can buy thats Prophicies and GWEN. Our player base is actually extremely small compared to other MMO's. GW has sold over 4 million copies, those copies are actually spread out between 3 campaigns, bots, people who dont play anymore, and people with multiple accounts. The player base is actually very small compared to the other major MMO's.

IMO i think they are trying to sell Guild Wars to new players and more casual players. Players who enjoy grind, players who were once maybe playing another mmo. They are trying to increase the appeal of GW. The goal i think anet is actually after is to get new people to buy and enjoy it. That way when GW2 comes out they can sell more than enough copies to justify the expense of it.

No matter how unpleased alot of people are with the changes to GW we keep playing it. And we will keep buying any expansion, add on, update , ect.. that they offer. We say we wont, but we will.

QFT... and I bolded what I felt was most important as it describes exactly how I feel. I liked casually playing this game, logging in for a few minutes here and there to get a quest or two out of the way. I don't feel I can play this way anymore, and once I came to this realization, I simultaneously realized that maybe this game just isn't for me anymore. As I stated previously, I've been playing this game since the E3 for Everyone alpha, right through the betas and up to now. Coming to the realization I have kinda blows.

I've been following this thread for a while now. I think it has lost perspective of real casual players. Real casual players who play the game for fun, real casual players who don't play everyday, but when they play they still do dungeons sometimes.

I am also not one of these, they don't read or post mostly on fan forums, and they probably do not care about the advertised or not advertised elite armours since they don't have the money for those in the first place. They wouldn't understand the "grind" some are talking about since when they go and play they do whatever they feel like fun doing, whether advancing their (usually only one) character or going out with their friends wherever a group is just starting. Oh, it's still a great thing that despite playing a fraction of hardcore players they can still join 99% of the activities a guild does (that's skill over time for me).

If you ask them about this supposed grind getting the armour, first they will say that they wont buy the armour, they are quite happy about their Droknar's one, secondly they will get the title when they get it. No, they won't *repeatedly* farm areas, they will just slowly acquire the title on the way and they are *happy* when they reach a new level. And no wonder they will be extremely happy about getting a 15k armour if they will get one, but they will be proud of it, showing it off, feeling it something special, not speaking about how unfairly hard it was to get one... By their standards skill>time does not mean that everything in the game is accessible easily, it means they won't get left behind just because they log on once a week for 3 hours and not play daily. And if you say they are left behind because they can't use the PvE skills maxed out, I assure you they run around with sometimes suboptimal builds, since they might also not have all elite not to mention normal skills at their disposal (which might be normal for a semi-dedicated player), still they can join and be an integral and useful part of any group. That's skill over time for them.

I think some people were like this but we most likely lost the ability to be happy about the first tier of a cartography title (hands up who would switch on their legendary cartographer title, when someone started to brag about their Canthan Pathfinder!).

Sorry for speaking for the casual players I see, but this thread was also started on that basis, and I think otherwise, also I remember the time I was like that, and it wasn't that long ago... still of course everyone can have his/her own opinion, this is mine

Cheers!

have they seriously not fixed this yet?

/fail

I play the game a lot more than someone you'd normally consider a "casual" player, but this is still pretty much my outlook. I don't work on titles, I play the game and get points when I get points. I'm in no rush about getting anything, really. When I ding a new title level or whatnot my response is "ah, cool" and then I go back to whatever I was doing.

I guess that's why the whole "grind" thing doesn't bother me, I just feel no compulsion at all the approach the game in a "grindy" way.

I actually needed to put a lot more effort into getting 10,000 Luxon faction so I could progress into and past the Gyala Hatchery than I needed to reach Norn level 5.

What I'm trying to say is, the writing has been on the wall since Factions.

Rahja is only right for himself and people agreeing on this forum does not establish or is any way reflective of 'THE' GW community.

Anet doesnt 'accept defeat' because, and this is very simple and easy to comprehend, they dont think they are wrong. You do. It cannot also not be established in any meaningful way that Anet made the wrong choices, in fact the argument could be made that it is, in fact, you that is wrong.

GuildWars sold 1 million copies of the game during the 9 months preceding EN, a period when no expansions or chapters was released and a period which contained titles and the 'lack of vision' or 'fun' that Rahja is complaining is about.

Feel free to counter my opinion with actual arguments.

I'm still quite new at this game, having only started playing since August of this year, as such, I am not bothered as much by the amount of grinding for the rare and valuable items (I _DO_ get bored of it though). What DOES bother me the most is that the elite missions/dungeons, as well as a lot of the newer dungeons in eotn either require very specific cookie-cutter builds/teams, or just involve an insane amount of slow pulling/killing of an outrageous number of enemies.

I hate the places that require very specific cookie-cutter builds/teams because, well, I would like to beat every location at least once with each of my PVE characters, and this makes it pretty much impossible to accomplish as no PUGs will let you in. For example, look at the Tombs of the Primevil Kings, the only groups there are BP teams, or solo farmers. Good like finding a pug that'll take someone of the "wrong" profession. I don't care about time>skill or skill>time for titles or what not, what I do care about is that all the locations should be just as equally doable for each profession. I'm not asking for areas to be doable by a team of all melee or all spell casters or whatever, but just something more... doable with a random mix of professions. As a late comer to the game, I've spent countless hours sitting in mission areas calling out to join a PUG and being rejected because of my profession. It gets really frustrating and I usually end up just hench'n the missions myself. If I wanted to play alone I might as well go play a non-online game.

As to a number of the eotn dungeons.... some of it just requires a ridiculous amount of time investment. I can hench a good number of them as all it requires is just a lot of slow and tiresome pulling , but spending more than an hour in a dungeon tends to get boring fast if all you're doing is the same thing over and over again. Especially if you were forced to hench it due to using a less popular profession. Its not like there is a change in tactics or anything required in different parts of a dungeon, most of it is just the EXACT same pulling over and over again. I do that enough grinding for the titles. More monsters per mob isn't my idea of an interesting dungeon. it doesn't require any skill. Just ridiculous amounts of time to do slow pullings. Or running back and forth like crazy for ridiculous numbers of torches. that's not fun. its annoying.

Just my 2 cents.

I just got bored of killing stuff.
After 50,000 battles in the past year and a half I think GW game play got too repetitive for me.
I mean killing stuff is basically what everything boils down to. I don't think there is anything in the GW universe that doesn't rely on killing stuff.
I'm surprised I played it this long to be honest. I've gone back to playing Oblivion. Where I try very hard to get things done in creative ways that avoid killing stuff. I'm a nice guy in that game. lol

Having read the original post and some in-between, I get the feeeling that there is a lot of negativity flying around re ANET and what they have "done" to "our" game.

I'm not trying to defend ANET in any way, but feel that we, as a community could be more pro-active in our criticism of how the game plays, what new features, content, whatever... we would like to see introduced. There are many points, and valid at that, that have been raised by a number of people throughout this thread. I am sure that ANET do take note of our opinions and fears etc but I think we need to be realistic in what can be included and what cannot; essentially GW is a Game, and as such should be treated as one. It is meant to be fun, the experience can be shared or not as you like and after everything is said and done you either like it or you don't, with the obvious extrapolotation to follow..

Personally, I love the fact that I can enjoy it with friends (Guildies), ppl I meet because I help them or vice versa, or when I feel like it, play on my own, solo stuff or with henchies/hero's. There are some parts of the game that are better than other's (in my opinion), some have to be endured to enable me to do the things that I like, but overall I love the whole GW experience. ANET have a duty to provide the best gaming experience possible to themselves, us the consumer and I believe they have done their best to achieve this. The big thing with games like Guild Wars is to remember that the new things introduced such as Hero's have been done so because there was a feeling that the game would be enhanced by doing so; more importantly, that is what we, as a community, asked for (or something similar). Finally, if your not enjoying the experience ask yourself why? Is it really beacuse they nerffed something etc or is it because it's time you moved on?

Me, I'm happy, but that's me and that's why I will continue to invest my time in enjoying GW's, when I stop doing that I'll question why and do something about it

This month marks 2 years I have been in the game. I love the game and still play every chance I get. I am a proto-typical "casual" gamer. I have a wife and kids, job, mortgage, and car payments. I remember the thrill of the game when I started. I also miss that thrill. Thats not to say I wont be up saturday night playing away somewhere in the GW universe. I wouldn't mind the grinding for armor in GW:EN if it wasn't for the fact that I have a lot of chars. I love the look of the spectacles. I was gonna get them on all my chars. After spending the hours to get them on my main ranger, i kinda had a change of heart. I'm a casual player, I'm not gonna spend the hours to get fricken glasses on 11 chars, mainly cause I would really like to keep my job and stay married. All of my chars have max armor, but I dont plan on spending my hard earned gold on elite armor for all.

I worry about getting into PUGs because I don't have the flavor of the month build. And high enough norn/asuran/LB rank. I remember trying vainly to get into a PUG in vizunah square with my tyian ranger when factions came out, remember I have a job and a family, I can't be on 24-7. NOBODY wanted rangers. Finally after over a week, a bunch of us put together a PUG at 3 in the morning, it wasn't a by the book team but we got through it. Now i fear my ranger will never be wanted in groups because I dont have a high enough norn/asuran/LB rank. I tried to get into a PUG to kill murakai (I lust for her sword) and no one wanted a ranger (my ranger collects swords) (she doesn't use them, I just like the way they look.) I H/H it and managed to finish it. It wasn't pretty, but it was doable. it probably would have been more fun in a PUG but GW has changed, and fun PUGs are as dead as Rurik. (On a side note, Storm of souls or whatever that chicks skill is, is stupidly over powered. Holy Hobby Horse Batman, when I go in to fight the boss with a 10% Morale boost and finally finish the fight 45 minutes later with 60% DP, that I 've been having to deal with for 43 minutes, the skill is a tad over powered.) (I used the vilest language I've used in years, I called curses down on the lineage of Jeff Strain, Gayle and all the devs at GW, going from fighting to dead in a microsecond is ridiculous.)(but thats another thread, and yes I've finally figured out how to kill her with my R/P and a H/H team without dying.)(So please dont call me a noob or give me fricken tips.)

I do see where the game has lost some of its flavor. When I started playing, it was with a group of 10 guys here at work. I am now the last one standing, and have been for about 10 months. I've actually bought the accounts off of 2 guys here, to give to my kids. So A-net can say they sold 4 million games, but how many OGs are still here? And really, who calls the crap you guys put out "40 New" armours. A-net kinda screwed the pooch on that.

and how exactly would a casual player pay for a set of 15k armor? i played early prophecies and i was able to buy 1 maybe piece of 15k armor a week, if i played a lot.
i have gotten to rank 5 on several characters by now (with systematic questing and vanquishing) - and i always earned around 10-15k on the way. which allowed me to buy exactly 1 piece of the new armor, leaving me free to grind for the rest of the armor the old fashioned way

the amount of grind for elite content is still roughly the same, it has just switched from pure gold+materials to titles+gold. i actually like that change because you cant get the armor by ebaying or solofarming for an evening.

in my opinion the only real problem for casual players is the lack of cheap armor. every other campaign had a couple of 1,5k sets that casual players could buy, now they get nothing but high level stuff.
in my opinion, the gw:en armor should have different tiers. like the monument armor, because its a cheap reskin anyway, should be available at rank 3. asuran, because a lot of ppl will want the cool spectacles, at rank 4. norn armor at rank 5 because its actually new. and dwarven/eagle, if it were cooler, at rank 6.

I agree with most of what the OP has said. GW used to have a really neat community. I remember I'd be able to hang out at an outpost and actually have a quality one hour conversation with a complete stranger. Piken's Square used to be the social zone, and random people would be getting together to dance. Sure, some people played bad, but everyone tried together, and it was never a pain to PUG. No leaving halfway, no spamming, no yelling noob. Many of these people have left, and in their place - bots, cyber bullies, and others who like to keep to themselves. I get the feeling the early group of people were more RP based, and GW did not satisfy their demands. Instead they went the path of typical MMO grinding, which attracts the associated people.

Does anyone remember those old GU comics about "the vision"?

Grinding is a method in which the developer can give you less new content for your playing time by making you do something repeatedly. That is a major component in almost all MMO, and quite a lot of single player games as well.

The opposite of Grind is to play through and experience every bit of a game's content once. There should be no difference between a casual or a hardcore player with regards to this. There might be a difference between a good player and a poor player, because the latter might not be able to get pass certain stages of the game.

I think GW is quite successful at being the opposite of Grind. That is not to say that there is 0% Grind in GW. If you play through all the quests and got blessings in all the zones, you will be quite close to the 10,000 proceed to the mission.

So that is experiencing those zones and doing all the quests available, once.

Sunspear requirements for quests and missions is also quite close to what you will get by playing through the game content once. There is no Lightbringer requirement, but certain Missions like Grand Court of Sebelkeh is quite hard if you do not have Lightbringer Gaze, which will require some grinding to achieve at that stage in the game.

I do agree with the thread starters 1st post
Till Nightfall I was proud to say that I never did any GRINDING within the game .
Althought I play a lot in The Deep and FOW..But thats by choice and not forced to


With EOTN came the concept of GRIND and its ridiculous The developers are breaking the very 1st rule whu GW came into existence
Then I started to grind I badly wanted the woad on my warrior so started spending endless hours just kill for norn rep points
I got my woad .Then i wanted specs which are crafted by asura but then i was so fed up that I didnt want to grind anymore for the 5 th rank

Imagine the FOW armor obsdian if that was connected to rank and not to completing elite quests in FOW that would be stupid .

I never thought I would provide an argument against any rpg element in gw, I like my role playing games and although gw isnt pure rpg it does ok.
I think that's what the titles are or were intended to represent.

Ok I may think I am just repeating an area killing the same mobs again and again but to the locals I am clearing their homeland of enemies.
This would be fine and dandy if such clearing had a noticable effect for that character and areas became cleared.
Then other challenges could occur in that place.

But the limitation of gw is that the storyline is the only true rpg element, jump back to a town already visited and the story backtracks.
Join a party and its the same experience for all even though one member has completed the game.
Don't know how they could have made it different, any changes/improvements/nerfs made to the game just please/annoy a different group.

Once you reach a particular point the game is over apart from grind or repeating with other characters.

They could I feel either allow you to complete the game without grind content to achieve extra armor etc, in which case some would complete in a week and moan.
Or do what they do now.
GW2 may well be different it will be an amazing achievement if they succeed.


Drat said Alexander I have conquered the known world and only have 2 sets of special armor.
Lets do it all again he cried AGAIN ! said the army and that's why he died aged 32

I dont see the difference in you grinding quests in FOW and the deep, because you chose to. And grinding ranks in GWEN titles because you chose to.

You cant advercate one grind and not the other, just because its less fun from your perspective.

As for badly wanting the woad on your warrior, you chose to do that! You didnt need that woad in anyway shape or form. The game wasnt going to stop without it.

And rank 5 is doable with just quests and dungeons.

Yes, I'm still pale-skinned and wear glasses..... and proud of it.


I stick to improving things for individuals. "Communities" aren't my business. I help personages on a 1-on-1 business if at all, and don't treat them as numbers.


On the shelf and plugged in I keep my X-Box 360, original X-Box, Wii and Gamecube.
I had a Dreamcast... but that unfortunately broke.
I have a still-functional Saturn, Megadrive (or Genesis to those west of the Atlantic) and Mega-CD... Likewise to one side I have my handheld collection of the DS, GBA:SP, Gameboy Color and the only remaining part of my original Gameboy (the cover for the battery-compartment).

Technologically speaking, I might not be quite as knowledgeable as you seem to be. My PC isn't all that impressive (and I'm saving up the cash to get a new Alienware piece)... But I am a gamer of the Pre-16-bit generation (started on Amiga), I saw the changes that S*ny caused to public attitude of gaming, and personally consider it to have ruined the gaming industry as I knew it. They marketted to entirely the wrong sort of people and encouraged the industry to start catering to what effectively are non-gamers rather than those playing from the beginning.
Irrespective what the tech in their consoles might be, I refuse to give them any of my money for what they've done. It is unforgivable.


Serves them right if they are. After the disgustingly dishonourable corporate dealings of the company so far, it is about damned time they slipped up. Though it is perhaps too much to ask for, I hope upon hope that S*ny crash and burn so badly that they never get up again.


While I'm aware of the mod-factor in games like Morrowind and Oblivion (I have BOTH versions of Morrowind) .... one shouldn't discount the value of the unmodded game either. I was a modder for Morrowind myself... and I remember the discussions that took place when Oblivion was first coming out. I suppose it is difficult for me to remove that deeply engrained concept in my mind that Oblivion mods would be that much more difficult to make...
And afterall.... it isn't the playing of the mods that is the real strength of the TES games... but the making thereof. If I couldn't mod it myself then I wouldn't get half so much out of it.

I also have 9 characters, who all want the newest armor/weapons. Getting all 9 up to the same lvl/part in a campaign is just not feasible anymore. I'm now sticking to 1 character, which kinda sucks. I like the variation of playing with a different profession after playing through a campaign with my monk. It breathes fresh air into the game (for me anyway) to play with different professions in all areas of the game.

With title/rep point grinding this isn't fun anymore.

Personally, I wouldn't advocate either, but the difference with FoW is that it isn't in your face. There's no NPC sneering at you in Ascalon. You have to already be into elite dungeons before you even encounter the crafter. A casual player wouldn't necessarily even hear about it, unless they read sites like this.

And, of course, FoW is *supposed* to be the most elite. Though, for what it's worth, I've always considered FoW to be slackly implemented. I get that the idea is to limit it to elite players, but the simple mechanism they used (high cost) merely limits it to farmers, powertraders, ebayers, anyone who gets lucky with a rare birthday mini or has been around long enough (I'm about 150K from it, if I were bothered).

They *could* have implemented a system (for FoW) whereby players are awarded a token for each significant gameplay achievement - each token granting the right to have a single piece crafted. Make those tokens customized and award them only the first time you (for example) complete a particular campaign with all bonuses, get a win in HoH, or complete all quests in an elite dungeon. Then make the cost in proportion to other armours - high but not stupidly so - say 25K per piece and no ridiculous amount of ectos on top of that. The cost would be lower, but you and your character really would have earned it in a far more measurable way.

But that's besides the point. I'm happy for the most elite set to take an age to acquire, regardless of the mechanic. Other armours, I want access to as I play the game. There's no point in them being there, if they're all end-game (esp. in GWEN) or "grinders only".

Let me kit myself out for my journey, *not* my retirement.

So you have 9 characters that don't have max armour or weapons?

I made a new warrior the other day in Nightfall, got him to Consulate Docks and he had max Armour then... Hell, he had max weapons back in Chebek Village thanks to GotY and prerelease weapons, but again, I jumped to my guild hall and bought him a max weapon from there... took me two days of CASUAL play to get the gold, materials and experience

That's the same reason I got bored.

Finish this objective! BY KILLING! Save the Prince! BY KILLING! Your leader was captured! BECAUSE SHE WAS KILLING! The story got stale after a while, you end up with all the armours and weapons you want, you amass great wealth, realise that you already have EVERYTHING you want, give it away to people who don't have what they want... And then you find new games.

I started Oblivion recently, too. Finished it and the Shivering Isles expansion. That was definitely far more story involved than GW. Shame it was far too short, though. GW is massive in comparison and takes a bit of time to do the things you want. But after that? It's all the same.

Final Fantasy 7, there was far, FAR more to do than just killing. There was a mini-arcade, (The Gold Saucer for those of you familiar with it) there were treasure hunts for the rarer, more powerful weapons, there was a large map with so much to do, so much to hunt and actual rewards for hunting these things down.

Eye of the North had my hopes up. It really did. It promised us a great game, story, and once all was said and done with, mini games to keep us going. The mini games typically finished in 10 minutes and the dungeons leaving little to imagination. It was all just a major disappointment.

I am seriously hoping GW2 will be at least somewhat decent. If not, it's a dead series for me and back to games more involved with story, like Shin Megami Tensei and Final Fantasy.

I could agrue otherwis, by saying you see alot of people running around in FOW armor. You see elementas in FOW armor all the time and that is in your face!

I dont quite understand how anything in GWEN which requires grind is "in your face" though?

The title ranks only effect armor, weapons, pve only skills and the status effects. The armor and weapons are in your face, but rank 5 is easy to get (i cant highlight that enough)! For that reason I dont count them.

The pve only skills you get from quests and minigames, so there isnt a sign post saying "get your skills here NOW", unlike a skill trainer NPC. You can avoid the pve only skills if you really wanted to. Plus the most important ones you get from quests and that acid one is the only really important one IMO.

The status effects do show up in the corner, but even so! Do you spend every 2 seconds staring at it thinking "hmmm its not high enough...". I know I dont! The status effects dont really add that much in GWEN anyway.

I'm currently working on rank 8 on all my ranks, but that isnt due to pressure or a need! Its just cos I have nothing else to do. I could stop and do something else if I wanted and I wouldnt feel like im loosing out.

Im actually not playing the game until monday when my new PC arrives, so that shows I dont feel any huge pressure to keep increasing any ranks.

Oblivion's content comes from it's mods. There's so much more you can do once you bring mods into the picture. I play Oblivion for desktop backgrounds because it's so beautiful.

Hahahaha I know that problem big time with that game. I never get past level 5 >_<.




As for the OP. Well you know what, after 2 years, farming nerfs, changes I didn't like, good changes too though..I don't really care anymore. I never really picked this game up for the skill>time thing in the first place, I liked the titles at first I was like oh something new to do! I've done that with every bit of content they added. I got my 2 years of fun out of this game so I'm not gonna worry about it too much.

I play what's fun really, and I love to complain so if there's public to complain too and I can have fun while doing it, then I'm there. Guild Wars is that game! Hahahaha.

I have spoken to alot of people who would disagree saying that "You don't need to grind to enjoy this game" and I'm sorry, but with EotN this could not be further from the truth.

Gold is no huge issue. If you want to make money in ANY game, you either need to be able to play the market well or farm. Farming is a fixed grind, or in game money would be worthless.

But looking at EotN. If you want any of the new armor, you have to grind. If you want to get the elite pet, you don't have to JUST complete the game. You have to complete the game and then grind. If you want to get the best use out of PvE skills, you don't get it based on time or experience, you have to grind. It is ridiculously un-like Prophecies seemed to be when it started out. I have to say that, from my PoV, GW:EN has seemed like a half-assed attempt at a quick release to keep people from leaving before GW2 whilst also getting more people interested in GW.

I mean sure, nice graphics and good gameplay. I will admit, I enioy alot (if not most) of the features in GW:EN. But it seems ill-thought out, and the number of things which people disagree with, or which seem half-assed (IE, the end of the storyline. Seriously wtf?) is just stunning.

Anyway, I still enjoy PvE and probably always will. I have nothing better to play until I decide whether or not I'm getting GW2, so I guess I'll just be grinding out of a simple lack of other things to do. No big deal.

Just my 2 cents.

I think the problem is that GWEN has lots of repetitive content like recycled dungeons.

Veterans are only left with one thing till GW2 is out: Title maxing grind.

You do not need to do it, but the HoM and the promised item unlocks for GW2 are the carrot.

I got about 12 pictures of the skies in Shivering Isles. Gorgeous.

Lol, thanks to you I can't make it past level *2* without hopping over to Leyawin and picking up the Blade of WTFPWNING! People pinball ftw.

Q f t fo sho.