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

if you want a game based on the story and the community play something besides gw.
gw's advantage over other rpg-type games is the pvp, which has no community or story cause if everyone was friends with everyone else how would any fights happen to do pvping on? and nobody pays attention to the story while they're pwning the fembots on the other team

GUILD wars, GUILD wars, GUILD wars. Find a guild that doesn't suck.

Uh what? That really didn't make any sense at all. No community for PvP? Cept all the PvP only players out there right? And uh I can't really tell what you're trying to say about the story. Technically it does have a story, it is Guild Wars. Maybe wanna just clarify this post a bit better :S

I, personally would dread all of the online games being clones or even similar to one another (as many are). I say leave Guild Wars to be the ultra instanced game that it is so that when I want to play that type of game, there it is. I was reading an article on MMO players sometime back and it's common for them to aways want to make other games they go to just like the one they first played, even if some of those features are the reason they eventually left that first game.

I want a game that's completely instanced and allows me to take henchies/heroes if I want or allows me to play with random people that I meet online if I want. Then, I go to my other games that I play (such as Tabula Rasa, LOTRO, or Warhammer Online) when I want to play in a persistent world where I can run into other people, help them, get annoyed, or whatever. i don't want one single game that does it all.

Guild Wars is good for that because I don't have to subscribe, but that doesn't stop me as I pay subs to a few games, cable tv, internet, cell phones, etc and will probably continue to do so.

If you end up liking the GW playstyle and whatnot, but don't like the instance areas, it seems that you will love GW2.

It will basically be a mix for your common MMO (persistance, multiple races, etc. etc.) while *hopefully, as we have little information on this part* contain much of what makes Guild Wars, Guild Wars. Such as the no monthly fees.

I cannot see anything to help you out other then what others have suggested:

Go to the big towns to find people.

Find an active guild *3 people active in an alliance of 3 guilds with 150 people in the alliance is BAD!*, try to find people who are like you, for instance, if you like to Roleplay, find a roleplaying guild, if you like the lore of the game, you should join the Lore guild (I know only of one, which I am in), if you like to PvP, find a PvP guild, etc. etc.

Don't know what you like? Look around on the forums and move through guilds (like a week to a month of active playing in each till you find one you like).

For Pugs, Well, most of those who pug now are inexperienced, don't have heroes, or just suck with builds. Although it can be fun to party with them every now and then, as those who are good will get laughs (like I do), or you can help them out yourself.

This game is becoming a solo game now due to how long this game as ran. If ANet were to get rid of Alliances and Henchmen (but keep heroes), then that's a different story, PuGs will be going like crazy, or people will find solo builds. Some areas will need PuGs, others won't, etc. etc.

Not much more I can say really...

Thank you for you input. There have been some good points made.

For the time being, although I played Guild Wars for about 3 months, total, it's not what I'm after. It is fun, beautiful and all that, but I simply love being annoyingly annoyed by random annoying people, even when I just wanna finish gathering 30 leopard hides as fast as I can, without being annoyed. I love stumbling into an ally and thinking: "If I attack, can I win?" I love seeing a poor dude struggling to lose aggro and save his ass from 5 mobs as this is a perfect opportunity, for me to play hero and go help him.

Frustrating as it is at times, I am still going to play WOW.

All my hopes for the (almost) perfect MMO are in The Chronicles of Spellborn.

You explained it to yourself.

Developers say it's a CORPG. Developers who created the game vs a publicly edited online encyclopedia. I'd say the former wins.

Within certain respects, I mean if the devs of NBA Live '09 said it was an FPS and Wikipedia said it was a Sports game I doubt anyone would argue with Wikipedia.

It's a CORPG, everybody calls it an MMORPG because it's similar enough and there's no other games in the genre. It's just more "recognizable" to the average person. Which is good for marketing.

In the strictest since, the largest and truest MMO would probably have to go to EVE Online. It's the only massive one out there that doesn't shard its players one way or another. Everything is run on a server cluster and there's nothing stopping anyone from going to meet up with anyone else while they're both online. WoW, Warhammer, Age of Conan, EQ/EQ2 all split up their playerbase somehow. Even Minions of Mirth, which lets the characters go from server to server still splits themup by having, well, different servers. Guild Wars splits them up via instances, but even WoW does that.

If you think about it, the 10 million or so players on WoW are split up amongst x number of servers. Each server only seems to handle a few thousand players concurrently (hence queues). Even on a single 'server' they are spit up amongst seveal instances (Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland/AzureMyst, Dungeon Instances). That's why when there are player events or protests and everyone goes to the same place the game lags so bad and sometimes crashes. It can't handle them. That's also why ther's a loading screen while riding a boat or zeppelin (different instances between continents). In most games it's really a misnomer, unless massivly means 1 or 2 thousand and not tens or hundreds of thousands. That title really and truly belongs to EVE which has the record around 25k concurrent I believe.

Just call em online games, who really cares about the rest. Either its fully instanced (GW), somehwat instanced (WoW), or not instanced (EVE). The common factor is that they're online, get continuous updates from content and bug fixes, have the opportunity to socialize iwth others, and in some games have the opportunity to almost completely avoid others but still get the benefits of being online (dynamic, living game).

Some people tell people who like to solo in GW to play a regular RPG.. If they play a regular RPG, they get limited content from the producer (possibly lots of player mods), never have th chance to randomly socialize with other people if they change their minds, and never get to participate in things like holiday events. If I were playing a game solo, I'd still prefer an online game such as GW to an offline game.

EDIT: And in most of these games, there's no intrinsic role playing functionality in the engine (such as a DM/GM moderating the game like there is in tabletop RPG). So, calling some of these things RPGs is a joke, regardless what the developers say. Most of them are more akin to 3rd person shooters or 3rd person action games.

Go join those big title grinding guilds (e.g. LAZY, SNOW) Problem solved.

EDIT
^ Regular RPGs are in fact much more enjoyable compared to Guild Wars. My last played RPG before Guild Wars is Neverwinter Nights. Basically players can create their own modules and modify the class's strengths (basically they can do their own 'skill balance' in their modules). And you would be surprised some of the popular player created module numbered around hundreds online.

I have two level 70's over on WoW, Druid and Mage. WoW is a great game, I still have friends over there. No WoW hater here. I just happen to like GW a lot more!

All Alone While Questing: On a FULL WoW Server, Alleria, it was surprising how often I was out there completely alone. I often thought when out in the boonies, there is no feeling so lonely as playing WoW. In GW, there are always the heroes and hench along. And, the H&H have the advantage that they do not bicker, fight, argue, or rage quit.

Groups for Missions: Grouping for dungeon quests is usually easier in WoW, because there is no way to solo most of them. In GW, you can solo most of the missions if you read the walkthru instructions for the mission on the Wiki. At least you can try and then tell how far you got on chat. If you have at least tried, then you can often get into a group or someone will jump in to help you.

Worst Mistake To Make: "Can someone please help me with a quest / mission?" gets ignored. People who might help would like to know what mission or quest they are getting into!

Loading Screens and Zones: If you have a decent computer and a good internet connection, zones load very fast; I don't even notice it.

In WoW on the other hand, you have smooth zone transition, but pay for it with the considerable time wasted watching your character flying around on a bird and you even have to pay for this boring interlude. Even worse, if you have to go by ship ... ugh ... good reason to take up fishing so you have something to do while standing minute after boring minute on the pier.

GW has some real advantages over WoW once you know the territory.

What I don't like is the lack of an 'unified communication system.

Party panels work only in the different districts of the same region, friend lists are too short and there is no way to increase them by storing more entries in client-sided txt files (like is done with builds) and there is no offline or asynchronous messaging system.

They shloud add a way to centralize the party panel to work in an unified and worldwide way.

You don't need really big guild or alliance just players who know the game and how to put together a good charactor.This includes builds.I educate my guildies on this and how to play a certian areas.

There are however some or a lot of bad guilds out there the reason why there are bad pugs.

I am mostly on my own when I play but I get a lot of pms in game which doesn't make it so lonely.

you came in the wrong time , guild wars is dieing .

While I like GW and its instancing just fine (it can be a mite lonely), I am not playing GW these days just because I am really maxxed out on the game at the moment.

What I have found in LotRO is a generally more mature and helpful player community (i.e., than either WoW or GW), a good balance of solo and group content, clever quests, a solid, player-centered storyline (unlike anything WoW has to offer), and an enjoyable and well-crafted persistent world.

In short, LotRO takes a number of the elements I have appreciated from both GW (great graphics, a more realistic, rich world [e.g., armors and weapons that don't look "WoW-stupid"], and actual story progression) and WoW (persistent world, group and solo quests/instances) and mixes them very nicely together with a really great player community. I would never have tried LotRO but for the 14-day free trial, but the game has totally won me over -- at least until GW2 comes out.

If you're back in WoW and having fun, though, that's good, too.

GW is what it is and flourished for it.

Comparing it to wow is like comparing D2 to Everquest simply because both have multiplayer capability with RPG elements...

That pretty much is the consensus. Listen to them, they make a lot of sense.

No issue with any of it <3 my Guild Wars since the day it first loaded up.

i refuse to accept guild wars is dieing and i'm late for this party. i may be a bit late, but not terribly late.

also, with wow, it's a thing of love and hate. i love it when i discover a new area, or clear an instance with a nice pug, but i hate it when i meet lots and lots of spiteful and rude dipshits, or when in every zone there are 6 quests where i have to gather 30 wolf livers, but only 1 in 5 wolves actually has a freaking liver.

i joined what seems to be an active, friendly and chatty alliance of guilds, and i swear i already felt my gameplay experience improve, even though i didn't really do anything just walk through spamadam and chat with the new guildies.

People that play solo find the same reasons for not wanting to play in groups it's soooooooo dull when you play with idiots who don't know what they are doing and one finds heroes/henchies do a better job than most players. We all have our QUALITY of play that we seek beit with or without henchies or with or without grouping with others. Anything can be dull it is just a perspective on what is dull and what isn't. If I want to socialize I'll come to a forum and socialize like this I don't buy games to socialize though I buy them to entertain myself with phatt looting and monster stomping at my level of play. If GW had of been an offline game I would have been just as happy with it since 99% of the time I play it solo anyways and the only time I play in groups anymore is in PVP AB or RA or FA cause I soooooo enjoy stomping assassins and rangers in PVP haha they are soooooo easy vs my blinding burning blurring ele.

Welp that's like an alcoholic refusing to accept he/she has a problem. Denial is the first form of the problem. GW is in fact losing it's customer base as things have become grindy, there are several new mmo's out there to play now and GW is just old by the standards of really a single player offline game like Diablo or Neverwinter Nights or Baldur's Gate. SOME people are diehards and still play those while most of the CROWD has moved on. That's why you see so many FPS/RTS games for sale at rock bottom prices on Amazon.com or Ebay, once you've played them through and maybe a few certain parts over again they are just boring and just repetitive and most people don't like playing repetitive rpg games cause they already know what is going to happen. PVP is the only thing really keeping this GW alive atm and even it is getting old and repetitive. But, you go ahead and keep playing in your denial we'll try to help you along with your addiction.

BTW have you played The Witcher? It's really a great offline rpg.

I'm sorry but all that is just a load of bollocks!

I've probably spent no more than 20-30 hours playing Guild Wars, so it can't be repetitive and dead for me. I've not finished any of the campaigns, I still find most towns are packed, so you can't really tell me I am denial. Sure, to those of you playing since launch, it might be stale, but for me this game is just as fresh and exciting as it was for you when you started playing.

Also, I really do not appreciate your tone here. Please refrain from making prejudiced assumptions about me.

^^ i was thinking this myself (the instancing used for storylines bit)

I wouldn't mind persistence myself but the thing I love about instancing is all the storyline stuff that can come from it. GW2 being instanced (for storyline stuff) and persistence would be win IMO

you found peace in guild wars? nice joke think u need to try pvp everyone flames eachother etc..

everyone?

lol, I think you mean the vocal people who go out of their way to make themselfs heard by everyone >_>

I don't know about dieing, but i will say there is a definate Lull in some areas. Certain aras more popular to stay out and help others cause its fun or challenging. I have noticed certain areas have a huge number of people doing farming for certain things like Umbral grotto in GWEN. I also think it may be that people are spread out through 4 campaigns as well. I admit GW might be in a slight decline (In denile there). But all games have their highs and lows in population and sales. I am looking forward to GW2. But GW will always be the MMO/COORPG the i have liked the best of the ones i have tried.

Haha, that's a classic. I've responded to a couple of "help with a quest" calls, and it's ALWAYS the longest, most boring quests - Galrath, Black Moa, Red Cloaked Deserter...

no i mean everyone.

go to heroes ascent id1 and say something bad u will see all the kids trying to start an argument immedietly

While persistence is the most beautiful thing in the world (don't listen to those people who have not played LOTRO's persistence and do not understand what I mean by beautiful, they are just blind for the moment), I think Guild Wars would be bad without an instanced story. It's kind of crap having everything instanced of course, in many ways. The cons of persistence can almost all be demolished in one way or another.

So yeah a good guild helps, but I find the even a good guild can't really satisfy the need to talk to random people who you don't have to actually see in real life, that's where persistence would help.

As for places to meet those random people. Shing Jea is a good place, so is Great Temple.

let me post a challenge, something i find to be interesting to do lately,

pick up someone, one single player, they can take any heros/hench they want, you may ask them to ping build, give them advise if you see the build really sucks, but if they insist, let them bring it, when the mission fail, ask again, they will surely change it. You can also bring your heros.

Now the challenge: take this group, and your "new friend" thru a couple of mission/quests and see if you can control the situation and not get wipe out.

I just recently started playing WoW and I so wish GW wasn't instanced. My dream GW world...

Missions and some specific quests stay instanced. Everything else, you have the option of an instanced map or non-instanced map. When you choose to go instanced, you get your own explorable map like you get now.

If you choose not to go instanced, than you will load into a place where other players are playing as well. Heck, it doesn't have to be completely like an MMO. It can just be sharing an explorable map with a handful of other players. The game may have to restrict the player's party size (like each player can only bring 3 h/h) and enemy party size to allow for several players in one explorable area. The enemeis would also have to respawn. I would love this.

And I agree, playing alone with h/h is just so mind numbingly boring. Anet really should allow full heroes so that playing alone isn't so boring. My solo time is kind of a "stand by" time until I hear a guildy/ally request help or want to play together. This "stand by" time has been getting longer and longer and now, I just moved on. Why should I play alone for several hours, not having fun, hoping that a guildy/ally needs help with something or wants to play together when I can just go play something else that's more fun?

Either allow full heroes to make solo play more bearable, or make some changes to the game to make it easier to find people to play with. Better yet, do both please.

you can find ppl play with you in Pug section here, or try get some friends in game, or nice alliance

lol Now that is a load of bollock hahaha. Yeah you find Ascalon, Lions Arch and Kamadan and Kanaing are packed those are the last solace of population of the game. But, to sit there and tell me you find those outlying areas of any chapter packed is a load of crock and I know it and everyone here at the Guru knows it as well. 10 people in a zone does not equate to packed. lol Plus there are plenty more where there's a lot less than 10 and the majority of those are silent players afk sitting with their henchies and heroes groups. The packedness you are seeing is a lot of afk players with heroes and henchies in their groups. They don't talk, they don't move they are like zombies of GW.
But, you go ahead and keep playing in your denial we'll try to help you along with your addiction.

Well your kinda late but not to late to enjoy the game. Back when I joined up pretty much every mission had tons of people in it and it never took long to get a group(I miss pre-heroes gw ). Now only a handfull of areas have people in them. If you enjoy the game awesome, its a great game, but its still not as good as it used to be.

Also I noticed your location and just have to say, you can't stop there. 1k to the first person who knows wtf I'm refrencing lol

I edited out my reply as I obviously know what this is all about and it wouldn't be fair.

One more tip: "What the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO are we doing in the middle of the desert?!?!"