How well did Anet do in GW all things considered

I think one of the best things anet did was make getting max weapons/armor very easy to get. To get the nice/cooler ones need alot more work and alot more money, but if you just wanted simple gear that was cheap, but was still good, it was very easy to get in this game and Im sure that one of the reasons that it kept the new people from getting frustrated because they got overwelmed by players with better gear. To get the best items in games like Diablo 2, you needed quite alot of money, but in guild wars you need only a couple thousand gold and I think that is a great addition to this game.

add in everything everyone else has said and this is a pretty great game and im sure everyone is as excited for GW2 as I am

I think that aNet has, overall, done a great job with GW1... although I would gladly pay a monthly fee for it if that monthly fee resulted in more PVE content.

GW has allowed me to keep in touch with real life friends who have moved away and to continue to do fun things with those friends despite our geographic distance. And while I may not be happy about quite a few things about the game these days, I like to think that my unhappiness with those things is a result of the deep appreciation I have for their product.

I haven't been so willing to touch Diablo for the past 3-4 years cause of this game, so I guess that counts for something. On the other hand I keep hearing people on these boards screaming REDENGINEGORED!! all the time (F'N STOP IT!!!), but let's be reasonable, they did their job so well for the type of genre they're in that they really DON'T need to focus on updates each month to keep it fine tuned. It's practically complete enough as it stands already and not many MMO's can claim that.

Final verdict: Mediocre.

Up to Sorrow's Furnace, ANet did brilliantly. Pretty much downhill all the way after that, no monthly fee being the best part.

The way the game stands now, I'd agree. It's decent, especially for being a "free" game, but it's still nothing great and there are better games out there.

Anet did great until all the smart people left and went to work on GW2.

I only really am impressed with anet's marketing department.

Sell an mmo like any other offline game you find on store shelves but call it "no monthly fees" and 4 years on, people are still chanting that line.

Genius.

Things ANet did right (not gonna bother with all the screw-ups):
1) No fees + instanced gameplay. Say what you like; I for one appreciate having what is essentially an ordinary RPG (albeit with lamer quests and slightly less plot) that I can add people to for no extra cost (but unlike in WoW, I don't have to put up with them when I don't want to).
2) 8-skill bar. In WoW, the edges of my screen are covered in skillbars. I have skills hotkeyed to the number keys, shift+number keys, alt+number keys, and ctrl+number keys. That's really confusing and there're no tactics to it. Also, a more limited bar encourages teamwork. Maybe I'm just running with H/H, but at any rate I can't just solo everything.
3) Separation of item form and function. I guess not a lot of other people really care about this but it is big for me. When I play other RPGs, I'll often have my characters not wear an item because it looks stupid (like my rule for KotOR - I will not let any of my preferred characters wear anything that obscures the mouth or eyes except when absolutely necessary, even if it confers a great bonus). Guild Wars is great in that all armor is crafted and (at least since they implemented insignia), before you put runes on it, is the same as all other armor for that class. My Shaman in WoW finally got her armor sorted out now, but for the longest time she had this hideous fashion victim thing going on because it was the best stuff I could find. I've never had that problem in Guild Wars. Even all weapons of a type function more or less the same (excluding Dragon Swords, etc), so I can pick all my items based on what appeals to me, not their stats.
4) Guild Halls. I don't know how well most other MMOs do it, but I was stunned to find out that in WoW there aren't any Guild Halls (though they do have Guild Banks, which are neat). I have to say I love the idea of having a meeting ground where you can hang out, show off, sell junk without having to deal with the idiots in Spamadan or running around trying to find the NPCs.
5) Dual Professions. I like these; I know it can make people make some dumb decisions, but I like seeing how two professions talk to each other.
6) Map Travel! Another WoW shocker - "What? You have to run EVERYWHERE? 30 minute cooldown on my Hearthstone? Shattrath only ports to capitals? Rrrrr run faster you dumb elephant thing!" I dunno 'bout you-all, but I like getting places quickly.
7) As was mentioned by the OP, Warriors that can DPS. I always thought a "tank" was what Warriors basically are - guys that can run up and melee the enemies without going down for a while (as opposed to Assassins, who run up and melee guys and then die/require massive healing...). You know, like an actual tank - lots of damage and survivability. Then I get to WoW and they try to tell me that a "tank" is actually more like a turtle, or a boulder, or a wall or something. What's the fun in standing there getting beat on without contributing meaningful damage?
8) Preeetty graaaphicsssss... ^__^
9) Separation of PvE and PvP. I like to run around in WoW with my PvP flag up, because I figure if you're going to have World PvP then you might as well participate. But it's really annoying when I forget about it, or wander into enemy territory or something and they slaughter you. My character is sitting in a little gated off area in Scarlet Monastery right now because she is leveling there and she's afraid to leave, because she doesn't want to have to get past the ubiquitous lvl80 Blood Elf DKs that lurk there. I like that I don't have to worry about that in Guild Wars, that when I'm running around in Luxon territory I know nobody's gonna come kill me even if I am a Kurzick.
10) Level 20 cap. Seriously, I haven't played WoW in about 3 weeks, and a big part of that is that I'm burnt out on leveling. My buddies want to get me to 80 so I can do endgame stuff, but I'm level 41 and I'm pretty impatient at this point - and this is power-leveling! I can't help but think, "If this were Guild Wars, I'd be done with this already and we could be doing fun stuff."

I do wish we had an Auction House and crafting, though.

(im not going to read through all the pages, but!)

not sure if this has been said but i really enjoy the fact that theres no different playable races. inherent bonuses make everything more difficult than it needs to be. i dont mind seeing different races, i would love to play as one of those little ankle biting asura, but if they have something silly like -10AL but +1e regen (relatively speaking in GW terms) im going to be massively disappointed.

edit: also the armor mechanic. i like being able to choose what armor i want to wear, and the fact that i can just rune and insignia it up to be "perfect" makes so many more customization options. they could literally market the game as more customization than every other game out there because of this fact.

I think all things considered they did rather well. Especially considering the game was set up as a game geared towards casual players.
Most of the things that people ended up not being happy about are related to that, so it makes sense that they are building a new game.
The one thing that really gets me though is Anet's inability to meet their own deadlines. Four months ago we were told about content updates that would appear every 3-4 months...still waiting.
Still I do want to say that for me GW so far has been an amazing game. I've played it for 4 years and that wasn't cause I hated it. It has grown stale for me now. So I am excited about playing Aion now but GW2 will be on my wish list after all is said and done.

I love this comment. You claim it's mediocre, yet you STILL play a four year old game and come onto forums to complain. Anet has done a bunch right.

I don't believe that anywhere in that post he claimed to still be playing the game. And just because he feels the game in its current state is mediocre, doesn't mean that he doesn't have the right go on a forum and express his opinions about it.

As to not derail the thread: I think that Arenanet did horribly all things considered. There's nothing worse you can do to good game that rewards skill and strategy then make it bad game that rewards grind and facerolling. While Guild Wars was initially very progressive and entertaining in its overall design, you cannot ignore where it is now. I hope that someone will once again make a game aligning with Guild Wars' standards should GW2 fail.

negative:

-Over-promised on things all the time.

-Lame developer interaction with the community, all we ever got is CR's and they stopped even that pretty much. It can be hard and thankless to try and get anything across to CR's.

-Too many bots/hacks/exploits came to light over time. I can only imagine what I didn't find out about.

-Started a sequel without anyone really anticipating or desiring one at that point.

-They got into a cycle of just pleasing the community by fixing broken things, or UI enhancements or whatever. Actual new content updates sucked ass post SF, aka the majority of GW's life.

positive:

- Art direction and quality is amazing.

- Technical stability and speed is amazing. (Though lag mysteriously became rampant in latter years.)

- That they do cinematics in an online MMO.

- That they do listen to feedback.

- That they fleshed out a fairly original fantasy lore.

- That they take chances the competition wouldn't in a million years.

All-in-all they did a great job. We can bitch and moan all we want about how shitty A-Net is and how they can't come out with good updates but in the end we are playing their game. We payed them for their game and they made their money. They sold millions of copies, A-Net did very well.