dealing with the feeling of a fragmented, un-cohesive world

Nah you can't eliminate the loading screens, he just meant it would automatically go to 100% when you start loading instead of needing downloads.

it does that already. up to 100% in a split second.

GW2 = persistance...nuff said.

No grind, no kill stealing, no loot stealing, no pk-ing. For those you get a game with a story, more varied quests, more variation in character builds and a demand on player skill and tactics rather then time and money.

Yes, you can team up and sometimes it's enjoyable, that is the cooperative part. But please, don't team up as if it were an MMO, some people actually do try to get immersed in the setting and story.

I know. But it's gonna take at least 1-2 years before we can actually play it.

Essentially, there's nothing you can really do - it's one of GW's 'faults' (in lack of a better word) is that it's all instanced, segregating players rather much.

Just get into an active alliance so you've got some companionship to talk to whilst out killing stuff with your NPC friends, it's the best you can do. And if they're nice, they might actually help you from time to time.

Or wait for GW2 - from what I hear, that will thankfully be a mostly continuous world.

I think you're looking for 'strenghts'. No need to thank me.

/QFT

When GW first came out, they were very insistent that the PvE portion was really only there to get you started with some skills and experience playing a character type and then move onto PvP.

if area's were extremely large, vanquishing would be hell
to me i don't rly care
if i wanna play on a huge map i'd go play Battlefield Bad company or some HL2 (got big maps here and there too)
it's what you prefer of level structure rly
some games have streaming so you can play and play without one loading screen (unless you progress really fast)

The reason GW is fragmented is because it actually has a PLOT. You advance places and things change. IE, all the explorable areas in GW:EN occurs liked a decade after the events of the first part of the game. You can't link together events like that. IE, plotline wise, The Hedge of Denravi was destroyed when Markis let the white mantle in. But by map traveling to Hedge of Denravi, you essentially time travel backwards to how it was at a specific point in the story.

If you really crave human interaction in GW, try some PvP - Alliance Battles are a great way to start. AB is really fun with 24 people on the map at a time, all trying to kill each other. Whether you win or lose you still get faction points, which you can put towards an account-wide title that improves some SWEET PvE skills. The serious PvPers are off playing in more structured settings, so you can experiment with builds. Finally, it can be a good way to meet guilds with active players.

I only dabble in PvP myself but it seems far more social (though not necessarily friendly) than PvE.

Obviously, you have not learned the dance command.

Nightfall is nearly 2 years old, and there has been no real new GW content in over a year. There are less players, and their skill level is very different depending on how long they've been at it, so PUG has become a dirty word for most veterans. You're very late to this party. Most of the pretty girls have alrerady been taken home. You're best bet probably is to join a better/bigger guild, though frankly that may be more interaction than you really want.

qft. My experience of guildwars improved dramatically when i joined a great guild. However when the chatter gets too much i enjoy my ability to turn off all chat and wander around on my own.

I play solo in WoW, I play solo in GW. The only difficult thing in WoW is to get 24 idiots to co-operate with you.

One thing I do like about WoW is the persistant world and the fact that the cartography titles will be so much easier. Go into an area, entire section of that area is unmapped. No humping walls for an hour to get 0.1%. What a fantastically made game.

Guru also has a forum for forming PuGs. It at the end of the list in the Guilds section. This thread sounded like you could find someone with whom to partner.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10322510

I have enough problems with retards in PUGS, ty...

I really don't want random retards running around my zone, which is a factor in why I chose to play GW, in the first place.

This to me, is the quote of the year.

While I like to converse with people in Guild/Alliance/Local chat...I really like playing alone. It makes things so much less complicated and frustrating. At least if I fail when I'm alone I know who's at fault(doesn't happen often).

Not completely true, it's persistence in some area with a multitude of instance areas as well. (Instancing will be used for storyline, me thinks.)

Yes. I do. Back when Prophecies first came out, and onwards into Factions, prior to the availability of heroes, there was much more player interaction and all-player group formation to do the majority of tasks in the game. It was possible then, of course, to bring henchmen in to fill out a human party, but that was frowned upon and very rare. It was also, of course, possible to run a group with yourself and all henchmen to do quests and the like (though many, myself included, could do the entirety of the game that way - I just didnt find it fun).

Its just a fact of the way the game is played now. You can still find PUGs (all-human groups) but they are very rare, usually contain more griefers then ever, often contain heroes and usually arent as skilled as back when it simply was the way most actually played the game. Its deteriorated. Hero use now is a skilled activity and most use it to avoid interaction and achieve a certain level of efficiency.

That said, I never had a problem with the old PUGs. It was very rare that the group wouldnt complete the goal in my experience. You simply had to be picky about who you invited and who you joined, but there were so many forming groups back then that it wasnt difficult at all. I completed 12 Protector titles entirely with PUGs and loved it. I would not dream of attempting it now.

Much the reason I dont play anymore, though its true too I have a current technical issue (no PC lol) that stops me anyway. No desire at all to try and return and play with heroes anymore, though I did it for a while. A future MMO I play, if I do, will not have that much AI use, I can tell you that - but that is my preference.

As for instancing, I dont really mind that. Eight people out in an area was fun enough. I'm curious to see how it works for GW2 (arent we all), but I dont mind the development of more massive areas with the use of some instancing.

Wikipedia says it's an MMO.... just saying.