Are a large number of players retiring?

Well there is a lot more talk of trying something different in my guild, since the last update and series of nerfs (paragons and rits get hit).

Unfortunately many of the changes folks see are due to PvP which is affected PvE play. Most of my guild is PvE and everytime an update and nerf happens it appears that most of the changes were prompted by PvP reasons and the PvE players get short end of the stick.

I have read most of the thread and think the question itself probably suggests that many players are re-examining their gaming options.

Three main things I hope Anet considers
1. Be very cautious in changing skills. Instead of changing the players skills how about adjusting monster's skills, which would make these adjustments less of a nerf. The fact that they are adjusting Player skills strongly suggests that its PvP that is the primary driver for player skill changes.

2. The grind. All these title tracks things are long term goals doing the same thing. Even if you completed all of a chapter and all of the quests you are generally not very far along a title track. So if you want these you have to grind them out usually doing something where the primary purpose is to get the points.

3. How to join up and facilitate team play? I think there are still some game mechanic items that still could be much improved. For example, reordering players. Often for missions we like certain classes or someone else to lead, this should be as easy as drag and dropping player names on the list, but its not. I think the Player Search List and other things are attempts at trying to improve connecting of players, which is good. It took a while but it seems like people are starting to use this Player Seach more. Maybe a weekend of player connection events would be good.

I have 9 characters, all in different classes, and all but 2 have completed all three chapters and 5 of these GWEN. I have done all of the elite missions numerous times in the 3 chapters and now at Duncan (still waiting others to go with). I do not like grinding out things just to get titles, so have very few titles as they seem more like a chore than fun. I liked DOA and spent much time there, but now DOA is dead. I mention these things as part of the issue may be that many have done done most of what the game has to offer. The piece that brings me back is interacting and playing with real people (we use ventrilo a lot). I do like the weekend events if they are PvE focused.

All that being said, I do very much like the game.

Guru is considered by many THE place for all things GW.
I remember when Guru hit 1mil posts.Threads would fly to page 5 in half hour.

Not any more.

Now the Riverside Inn might have the same dead boring topics for 3 weeks straight still on page 1.

That tells me something, actually alot.

With 2993 hrs played I've made many friends, all of which have been long gone. Face facts-The golden years of GW are gone and thats that.

Take a step back and ask yourself these questions:

What makes you unique from other players? Not just armors, dyes and weapons which everyone can acquire with time and money, but you as a player.
If you start from new, what makes you more respectable than any other new characters? (Accounts do get stolen, it is a fact. People do get bored with one char and start another, that's a fact.)
If you are level 5 and knows how to play, with the right skills and knowledge, you can beat a level 20 with max armor and weapon, you can go from beacon's perch to droknar's forge with henchmen and just use prot spirit at the right time, which is near impossible in a grinding oriented game.

This game opens your mind with builds like IWAY, fragility+virulence spiker and 55 monk, you can't get it anywhere else.

Yeah...I think more and more people are leaving...

My friends list is almost full, but only 8 people consistently are on it.

It's full of old PvPers mainly, from many different guilds. I have a couple of kurzick Saviors on the list too, but in a weird way the Kurzick HzH FFF community was fairly tightly knit, and everyone Steward and above used to know everyone. Last time I was in the HzH alliance, I knew maybe 6 people. 2 of the PvPers on my list are on...out of 30 maybe.

I think people are leaving, due to any real sense of objectives save for the odd title grind. The lack of meta change has driven most old-school PvPers away. I spend at most 2 hours a week on the game, if that. College and good friends does that to you I guess

There's not a lot of ppl in normal mission area already...

Well I just played Guild Wars after quite a while (stopped a week after Nightfall was released). It is a different game to the one I most enjoyed. (Just a background: I used to play from the start, mostly just PvP, finished the first 2 chapters once and gave up half way in Nightfall, the best time in pvp imo being just before the release of factions)

It seems to me that the pvp crowd kind of petered out after Factions came out. As a pvp'r it was quite exciting getting the assassin and rit, because of all the possibilites but as time went on everything got stagnant.

Introducing Nightfall with all the titles, everyone just stopped playing. Pvp was all over the place compared to the solid version they had running before Factions. PvE was just uninteresting and frankly annoying (having to grind for a title just so you can continue with the game annoyed me so much I stopped playing).

The rest of my old pvp group (20/30 odd people) left at around the same time. Between the release of Factions and Nightfall.

----

On a side note, all the large Guild Wars communities also seemed to shrink or disapear after Nightfall. Infact the entire Ogaming network has colapsed.

I won't argue that GW has been around a long time and is no longer in its "golden years," of course that much is true. I just mean that to say its dying is overstating the facts. I don't believe that there's enough evidence to say that.

I quess that games like WoW just give more "SOCIAL PvE experience".

Then other thing is that game is not in loading screen every five seconds but stream more area information when players are moving in areas. Players buff each other, duel and other fun PvE activity what players can't do in Guild Wars.

Other thing is that Guild Wars leveling system (most from quests have no point to do outside Prophecies because your character is level 20 and already flooded more skill points than you probably gonna use other than consumables after all skills unlocked to PvE character) make game pretty short and lack of monthly fee, increase "not so nice" player community percent in-game (Don't get me wrong, Guild Wars also has those players too).

i feel ur pain...
it sux to see ppl come n go

I'll always be a Guild Wars fan but after 2 years of playing I think I hit the wall in this game. I am not one for acquiring titles so there is little left for me to do. Time to do something else and wait until Guild Wars 2 hits the stands.

Im still waiting for starcraft2 to be released, until that time im trying to vanquish area’s… im still in my pvp guild, but since the pvp part of the game is not very exciting anymore 80% of my guild has ether quit the game or comes online once a month for about an hour

I think I first heard that lament in September of 2005.

2 K.O. punches are coming to hit GW in the face..Hellgate and starcraft 2..

Another boring lunch in the office so I'll comment again...

Just want to add that Guild Wars is one of the best games I've played!

For me, with each new campaign/expansion I think it's genuinely "free play" after the 3-5 months as I'd have moth-balled most other games by this point and here I am still playing Prophecies a LONG time after buying it PLUS I got the other campaigns/Expansion to boot that I feel the same about.

The only thing that bugs me is when ANet nerf skills cos of the so-called 'flavour of the month' PvP builds. I wish they could find another way of dealing with this but I can't think of any better ways. It's still not a reason for me to stop playing.

ANet have nerfed with one hand while improving with the other, they've maintained a decent enough balance and we can't expect them to please everyone all at once.

I applaude ANet for the GW series, I'm starting to get bit bored with some areas of the game but I'm still having lots of fun with the rest. no reason to quit playing yet, the minute I don't enjoy playing it I'll stop but with 11 characters and a lot I want to do in the games I'm happy the way things are going.

Also, is there a MMORPG that can be played in 15 minute intervals? Personally I don't think MMORPG and 15 minutes of free time go together. I play 1 hour minimum most nights usually...Sleep is for losers and animals that hibernate!

Blah Blah Blah Yada Yada Yada....

I was a casual player, playing since the beta. I have not logged in since the loot scaling mods back in the spring. I just stopped by the forum today to see how GW 2 was coming.

I did not leave the game because it was old or boring. I left it because it quit being fun. I miss it. It was one of the best games I've ever played (until last spring).

...Short-end, like how the PvE community got a whole expansion of content? But when it comes to skill balancing, PvE players still think they got the short-end? Jeez, how much do you want to make up for this "short end"? PvP being not supported by anet? Done that. Releasing PvE focused content expansions? Done that. PvP community nearly destroyed by the fact that PvP isn't supported. Done that.
And even still you can do the content and finish an campaign with skill such as mending, healing hands and power attack. Not only is that extremely selfish of you about thinking that the PvE players got the short end, but anet doesn't even nerf the skills that a lot of the PvP community want to see changed!

Make that 1 K.O. punch Starcraft 2 or else scrap Hellgate and add Warhammer...

Yes, its terrible you know, cause theres soooo many things in PvE that need a good skill bar to win... could never possibly stop PvEing for a year and go buy NF and Factions and then Hero/Hench it through the games in days. Oh wait you can... I did... PvE is skilless

I can say I've stopped playing for now. I used to be at 2 hours a day, but now I'm at 1 hour a week. I think it mainly because it's hard to fit in with school, and I've been kicked out of that Guild Wars routine.

honestly alot of the older/ubber players quit due to the constant nerfing on A-Nets behalf, u make a good build, it nerfed in 1 months time, u come up with a good farming team/builds and its nerfed in 1 months time, farming, drop rates bosses, difficulty, is all being nerfed more and more, less titles to work for(thats why i like my quest title http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10208852)

Guild Wars is just getting a little old in my opinion. Guild Wars isn't like WoW. Because of it's easy pick up and play (no dedication to a single lvl 70 character) style, it also means it's easy drop and stop playing style. A person would probably be more likely to get bored in guild wars because the world isn't as insanely big as WoW. My .02 cents.

GW2 will bring a new wave of gamers though, old and new, I'm really crossing my fingers for a world as big as WoW though, but it feels unlikely for some reason, mainly because graphics will be better and therefore more time on graphics of an environment instead of more environments.

I would agree that this sums it up.

Well actually, good PvPers (The truely ubber people in the game) would have left because A-net don't nerf enough and leave imbalanced things in the game. Silly PvEers who think their FoW armor and grind titles make them skilled leave because they can't be arsed to find new things to farm.

P.S: This is not a flame at PvEers on a whole, just the kind I listed.

Anet is forcing guild wars to take it's own death toll due to all the negative changes that have taken effect. It ranges from their nerfs on good skills and buffing worthless ones to dishonorable status (forcing time wasted and stripping free will) and /report (emo's favorite trigger-happy command). If anet really expects players to abide by those updates, they have another thing coming to them. I've purchased Gwars about a month or so after it first came out and I absolutely LOVED the game! Factions and Nightfall were awesome too, but all the nerfs were taking their tolls and I began to see skills being rendered useless. EotN came out... I was somewhat stoked for it... But now it seems like there's no longer a point to the game with all the restrictions they've put in place. Now, I'm afraid of even buying GW2 due to the fact that they can easily destroy the game by instilling such restrictive updates that make the game more and more unpleasant. Sorry Anet, but I'm throwing in the white towel on this one... I'm thinking of deleting my account (which I worked so very hard on) and am now pursuing Halo 3 and any other non-NCSoft game out there. I think it's time I moved on to other greater games in life because Anet has just too many deficiencies that're left uncorrected. Anet doesn't care anyways, they're living comfortably after their sales from the first 3 campaigns and expansion. Good day!

Nah, I do that (find new farms) or after other goals - IDC if I'm skilled in the eyes of others. I play because I want to, and I do what I want. I'm working on my main's titles, and I work on other characters as well. Unlocking skills, trying new builds, playing different professions... For me, GW is far from being dead because everytime I feel like quitting, I come up with something new to do, some new stuff I want.

And when I'll be "done" with PvE, I'll move to PvP. Simple as that x].