The Guild Wars community

Yes, I know, I critique Guild Wars for its large population of stubborn, ignorant, and generally unpleasant idiots. While I have always criticized Zinger for his shameless promotion of the World of Warcraft playerbase, I have always recognized that the GW community has its share of less-than-pleasant individuals, as any sample population undoubtedly will have.

However, more and more, I find the Guild Wars population better in comparison to those of games.

Every once in a while, I log off GW to play Starcraft, TF2, CounterStrike, (insert popular online game [here]). After about 30-45 minutes of play, I inevitably log off of that, if only due to my absolute disgust with the players I encounter there.

It's not that I lose a lot or win a lot; my SC record is about 1.5 wins to losses, nothing amazing. Everytime I play, I am for some silly reason or other, bombarded by unmerited verbal attacks "Tryangle, you're such a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing faggot/RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO yourself/I'mma RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO your mother" etc. One game of SC last night, a mass-attack game where you are assigned a unit that spawns constantly, only be thrown at other players, I stayed silent the whole match. I played decently, did nothing out of the normal, and was called all manner of epitaphs, constantly verbally assaulted.

I encounter this frequently whenever I play games other than GW. And while, yes, in GW, I encounter general jackassery, I've never encountered such visceral and unwarranted aggression as I do in other games. Shit-talking, even at its worst in GW, has never for me evolved into out-right hate, whether its from me or at me.

What do you think? Does Guild Wars have a generally 'better' (difficult to use this term, but I will) populace in terms of general civility, or do I encounter the worst in others?

No.

EVE has a better community. I also have had no issues in WoW either.

In PvE, everyone is happy with Ursanway, so there aren´t noobs and people for blaming to.

Probably you are good at PvP, so you dont receive insults.

And maybe, you are playing with the chat filter activated.

But I have a theory: grinding players are the worst-behaved ones, and Guild Wars is the less grinding game, so....

I haven't played any other online competitive or co-operative games so I can't make a direct comparison between the lot. I can say that the GW population isn't as bad as I'd expect when you consider that it's the internet and people retain their anonymity. We all know what these two factors lead to.

There are plenty of people I have a low opinion of on these forums for adding nothing apart from crap like "PHAIL" and "lern2play". While these people waste valuable bandwidth, there are people outside the internet who are wasting valuable air that better people could be breathing. The point being that there are bad eggs both on and off the internet. I don't let them bother me. If you don't feed the trolls they'll eventually get hungry and graze in new fields.

I can be an ass too but I choose to be an ass in real life where someone can hit me if they want to. I'm not gonna shout abuse at people on forums with the security of a screen.

I don't really play much of the multiplayer games anymore (GW is the exception), so I don't know much about the state of other online games. In fact, I try to avoid said games as much as I can.

And here's the reasoning: When my family first got internet back in the day, I thought I would try some of the games that I loved online. And even then I encountered the same kind of hate/ignorance/jackassery that Snow Bunny described. Needless to say I won't even bother with any other sort of online gaming outside of GW.

I've had some outright rage-fests in GW as well. I really don't believe there's a huge difference between communities in most online games. People are ignorant, stupid, and all around jerks, yet they make online games worth playing. I'll just be lazy now and paste a post I made in another thread.

Sure, you can curl up by yourself and never leave your comfort zone. You can avoid playing with anyone you don't know. That's certainly an option. However, for every asshole I've met ingame I've met a person I get along really well with - this is true for PvE and PvP. It's not worth it to let the idiots ruin your game for you.

Plus, it's really, really funny if you think that there's a real person behind some keyboard, desperately struggling to string together a coherent sentence. Try subjecting their words to a dramatic reading.

EDIT: EVE admittedly does have a different community from most online games, mostly because of the horrendously steep learning curve. However, people are still jerks there, they're just more coherent about it. Every corp is filled with people scamming everyone else, people who head out to lowsec only to podkill people, and people who play the market to screw over newer players. EVE is white-collar asshattery, shooters are blue-collar, GW lies somewhere in between.

Well I've noticed things like what you described in Halo 3, but not as bad.

I still think it doesn't match the community's behaviour, and atleast those people can play to a minority of decency.

They haven't learned to properly curse yet. Once they get over that hurdle, you're in for the same verbal beating.

Before GW I played FFXI online for 2 years. By far the best community I ever been associated in concerning an online game. People you didn't even know would help you if you needed it. We also didn't have to deal with pvp elitism or people shouting noob this or noob that in town. I can only hope that GW2 since it will have persistent areas will improve the ingame community.

I've followed Guild Wars for three years, mostly due to my interest and ties with the community.

It's hard to pin down exactly why, but I think a lot of it has to do with the game and the type of player it attracts. It's not a typical grind MMO, with more complex and unforgiving gameplay than some alternatives.

The PvP crowd is particularly different, and at times I am reminded more of the Unreal Tournament community than I am of other MMO communities I have been a part of. In general they are self-policing and fairly unforgiving of stupidity or silly behavior.

There are always rotten apples wherever you go, but I like to think that this community is better than most on that count.

The LOTRO community is awesome. Smart, helpful, friendly. If they'd get their botspam problem fixed, there'd be next to no reason for an ignore list. Eve was also decent, though they seem to have the attitude that every single idea anybody has that would change any aspect of the game is an insult to their mother. WoW isn't too bad outside of the PvP servers, though I wouldn't call it a great community by any means.

Guild Wars? Meh. In PvE it's mostly jerks spamming in the wrong channel or begging. In PvP you get the trash talking basement dwellers. Overall, if I had to rank 'em:

LOTRO: A+
Eve: B
WoW B-
Guild Wars: D+
Everquest 2: Incomplete... there's like 7 people still playing that game...

Compared to UT or CS:S or other FPS-styled games, it's probably not too bad, but Guild Wars, compared to other MMOs, has the least mature, least respectable community of the bunch I've played, IMHO.

I wouldn't be that charitable. I don't think I've ever played an AB match where you didn't have jackasses swearing back and forth and insulting each other the whole time, and I'd guess about 1 in 3 TA/RA matches I see have a significant or extreme amount of trash talking.

But, then, I have 0 tolerance for trash talking. My opinion on the matter is that if you're proud of a video game achievement, you have nothing in your life to proud of, and I don't want to hear it (and I don't... unchecked chat boxes ftw!)

Jealousy is the greatest evil in any online game. If you had to think about everything that people complain about, in the end, jealousy is the key perpetrator. You want a good community? Make sure everyone finds a way to enjoy the game without someone else GO RED ENGINE about it all the time.

All communities are the same, their all human, and not in a good way.

I think it's safe to say that CounterStrike has the most rotten game community you can find.

I don't know where you guys are playing WoW, but a battleground's chat is sewage. And you know someone is really trying when something legible comes from the opposing faction.

I played around 30 matches in RA this weekend. No trashtalking. Only the odd GG at the end of a match. Only in Aspenwood (1 match) did I see someone complain.

Played on Kurzick side and two people complained on our side that we had it too easy, so one of them left.

Moral of the story: If it doesn't make you have to complain because of losing, sometimes complaining on winning too much ends up being the case.

cannot help you there, I don't play other MMORPG, and, I don't play with other people in GW that often to know if they are good people or bad people or just people with bad languages. but there are some people who would go on a "typing war" while they are in Alliance Battle, but, I suppose that is normal because Luxon and Kurziks are never friends, even Lukas says he can't believe the monastary let the Luxon in, right?

However, I do encounter a lot of very helpful and generous players during my 28months +- of GW days. And have also encounter a handful of cheaters and not so pleasant players, but only a handful.

i may be thick skinned or oblivious, but less than appropriate online behaviour has never really bothered me.

i think i've just become numb to all the idiocy i've seen online, but from my online gaming experiences, guildwars would probably rank somewhere in the middle in terms of a helpful/friendly gaming community.

My logic:
Why do FPS-es, and GW have the most idiots?
Because most of the idiots are basement-dwelling 12-year-olds / college dropouts / chavs and the like.

Now. What do FPS-es and GW have in common?

No-monthly-fee.

That's right. No sane parent would dish 15$ a month to his kid to play an online game. Analogly, I don't know of any 12-year-old who earns his money.

The most they can squeeze out is "Mommy/daddy buy me game xy."

There's rarely more than a couple of loud idiots playing AB in a single match. The rest of the 24 players there, the silent majority, are perfectly fine. In fact, that fits perfectly with your RA matches - around 1-2 of every 24 players try to ruin things for everyone else. I'd say a 5-10% chance of moron is pretty good, compared to real life.

teh gw community has gone downhill ever since titles were introduced
as well as hardmode and "pve elitists"

i mean u expect there to always be pvp elitists...
but if ur a pve elitist...then u need to /uninstall

though somethings have improved gw over teh years
rune traders
greens
bonus mish pack
gw wiki and pvx wiki
etc, etc

u mention there bein trashtalk in starcraft...
thats expected as its a competetive game

if u play random arenas at all in gw
u'll see teh same thing
if not worse

(i hate being pm'd by hater nubs that set their status to dnd so u cant pm them bak -___-')

Out of all the online games I've played, EVE probably has the best community out of the lot. GW comes in second.

The explanation is easy.

GW is a game not meant for that kind of players.
Those that want to remove the Lootscaling, those that want prices to go over 100K, those that call anyone that disagrees with them a 'noob', those that want to replace map travel with mounts, those that want to turn GW into the micromapyment or fee games they left...

Yes, there is 'scum' like in other games, but they get tired faster and leave sooner. And, like a sive, a filter, only the good ones remain.

Morons in real life are generally kept in check by the possibility that they may get a lip split for opening their mouth, though, so the odds of encountering the moron may stay the same, but the odds of being impacted by them are greatly reduced by reality.

I remember the first time I ventured out into low-sec space and stepped on somebody else's toes in a mining operation. He beat the crap out of my ship, but stopped just short of destroying it, hailed me, and warned me about coming into low sec again without better equipment, then warped away.

Experiences vary. My Guild Wars experience, including both PvE and PvP, has been pretty bad with TF2 and CS experiences being relatively good. DoA and SC have been pretty bad as well, with WoW having it's sour moments as well.

I was really talking about the forum community, which is something of a seperate entity. My bad, should have clarified.

GW's community isn't much different from any other online game, but at least it's instanced, so they can't interfere with your actual gameplay, and you can turn off the pertinent chat channels when you're in town. The result is that you can play as though it's a single player game, play as though only you and your friends are in the game, or play as though it's a huge community. I've never seen another game of this type where that was the case, and am beginning to suspect that I never will.

Oh god...

I'll just keep it simple: my opinion of the forum community is terrible. Has been for two years now. It almost seems like you only get the real, real hardcore players on the GW fansites and they seem to REALLY resent any opinion that doesn't revolve around the way they play.

Its not just the internet.

If you study politics enough, you learn that people are selfish and short-term oriented. They don't care about how things affect other people or think things through to thier conclusions. They want tax cuts NOW, but also want improved services, with no regard to the defiecet, etc etc

And my expereinces with starcraft have been the exact opposite, very friendly and enjoyable. Eh, experiences differ from person to person.

Oh, and the forum is a bottomless pit.

Well, grab yer ankles, its gonna get worse.

In every game that has a sequel or the majority of the player base leaves for other reasons. Who will be here?

The people that refuse change (few)
The perverts and pedophiles (lots)
The role players (some)
The children who scam or only want to cause mischief (lots)
New players (very few)

The good players that want to have fun will be done with gw1 by the time gw2 is ready for beta. While some of these may pop in from time to time, most will not.

i totally disagree with your explanation of GWs player base... especially being based off of low tier pvp arenas like RA/AB...

LotRO B+ (pretty nice.. awful game)
WoW D- (i quit it for that reason, and the grind was too much after my 3rd character was made.. bad economy)
EQ2 C- (theres, like you said, like maybe 50 people total)
GWs B

i find that GWs has its good and bad bunch, like all player bases, and while it seems you only targeted the bad, or just maybe have bad luck, i rarely see the bad till i get on fansites, where people seemingly start to really forget how to be polite. i have tons of friends on GWs, and never have a problem making a new one, and i love to just talk to newbies getting to Shing, just to help them out, or get to know new people. maybe thats just me, but i feel GWs has a very homey, easy to socialize feel.

Not having played too many online games I guess my 2 cents worth probably doesn't count for much, however....that's never stopped me before

GW was the first online game I played, and I have to say over the years the community in-game seems to have stayed pretty much at the same state - verbal abuse, and general asshattery wise. Yes there are offensive people you'll encounter in towns, but a quick hop out of the district or to another town, or now even to another server entirely (Euro, US, etc) takes you away from it.

I don't in general PuG so have only come across a few idiots in parties, mostly in RA or AB - where often I'm left wondering about the IQ of some of the players. That's just a reflection of the interwebs as a whole though I believe.


I played WoW for just under a year, and though we had some idiots on the server/realm I was on...they generally stuck together and were known as trouble makers. Obviously people don't go raiding and such with total idiots and trouble makers so I think the fact (at least then) that you pretty much HAD to stay on the same realm, with the same people - with your chosen character - made the players think twice about causing trouble.

The downside though, is the ability to create alts to cause trouble on without detection. An upside...the fact you can contact a GM in-game to report anybody for particularly harassing behavior. But in-game GMs are probably a benefit of online fees I guess, and I'm quite happy with my no-fees GW

EDIT: I did notice - bit hard to miss really - that in PvP in WoW the amount of abuse goes up and general IQ rating goes way down. I guess that's where most people go to get their abuse on, and it's not pleasant, and far worse - in my opinion - than in GW.


The only other online game I've tried so far was EvE. Now, it was a trial account, and I was on for only a few days...but in those few days I have never come across such foul mouthed, idiotic, ignorant and abusive people anywhere before online. I quickly learned to switch from the rookie channel as it was just - well, it left me with a very bad taste in my mouth about the game.

I tried the other channels, but on most of them I only encountered extreme 'leetism' and absolutely no humor, and endless...and I do mean endless spams from gold sellers. Suffice it to say...I stopped playing after a few days and will not be going back, despite the fact the game actually seemed like it would be a lot of fun to get into.


I think every game probably has it's high points and low points community wise...but to me GW is pretty damned enjoyable despite the few idiots that are - for the most part - easily avoided.

The WoW forums used to be the go-to place for srs drama, but it's all kind of mellowed out of late. GW forum and wiki drama does not even come close.

The GW community, while it could be better, isn't awful. Guru could be a lot worse than it is. In game, I usually only have problems in RA or when someone in a major district is determined to make a fool of himself.

If you avoid farming places like ToA, or hot spots like LA Dis 1, Kamadan Dis 1 and Random Arenas, you'll actually meet plenty of nice people you can play with.
I pugged most of my current guardian [90%] and there was no single "PvE Elitist", idiot among them.

Didn't stop you from 4000+ postings.

Ok I have to say this.

I started online games with Puzzle Pirates, and for me that was possibly the coolest game ever, a couple years ago of course, I was about 12. I honestly was never insulted once.

In GW I've been insulted for all manner of things, for example, having to fight a Norn because I haven't used the rez shrine before, many things that shouldn't mean anything.

But I have seen worse, like in WoW an entire guild using the /spit emote on me for no reason. Fun stuff eh?

FPS is different to MMOs ( i really don't care what you all say, gw is an MMO). There is more pressure in fps, a headshot will kill you instantly. TF2 and CS rely on teamwork to win (though you will get a lot of rambos in CS). It also tends to attract the immature culture as they like big guns and big sounds. Ofcourse GW community is better. But...in comparison to other MMOs, it is debatable.

Yeah... because I've been on the forum for like 3 years. Its pretty easy to accumulate posts.

I still think there are a few dozen people who have valuable opinions worth reading. Most people are just trolling idiots.

Guru has steadily gone down hill over the years, but it's still my 3rd home

YOur first and second being a card box and a newspaper, right?