define dead

That's an exact description of the current state of Guild Wars...

Yesh.

Also, in this 'instant gratification' phase GW1 experienced over the last year....There will be many returning that have taken a small (1-2yr) hiatus,
just so the game will feel fresh again.
GW is far from dead..it just needs a good cleansing to get some of the dust off itself.
Personaly, I have made a few 'newb' toons, just to help out those new PuGs in Tyria, Cantha, and NF. (They're on their own for EoTN.)
GW will only 'die', (for your own experience) if you don't play it.

Hmmm thanks back to grinding titles

What gw dead ? nou man i mean LOOK warhammer is dead look aoc is dead gw is not dead gw is not dead.

+100 internet points

AoC is a dead game
Hellgate: London is a dead game

Gw is merely flagging a little due to bad decisions, and other issues.

No, they stopped caring about PvP when they realized the PvP community didn't deserve to be cared about.

Guild Wars died with the very first skill balance, and has gone down hill from there. The original game no longer exists, and the current version has been down graded more so, then given upgrades. Granted there has been new content, and new challenges, but compaired to what they removed to satify the complainers and whiners, the current game is a down graded copy of the original.

Quite frankly, when I spent my money on this game, I knew there would be updates, I just did not figure those updates would weaken the product I originally bought. When you buy software, and are given certain abilities, skills, or tools, that enhance the product and are why you decided to buy it in the first place. You would never expect the manufacturer to delete or change those enhancements, which would make their products less desirable to use, would you?

That is what Anet did with skill balance and such, and it was not to fix some bug, or correct a problem, no it was done originally game wide to satify a small amount of Pvper's playing HA, and only HA. Later they added other things, like Guild battles, farming, and general down grades for other mainly PvP area's of the game.

I bought the game when it first came out, I even bought a walkthrough guide, all the skills in the guide have been changed, the very first skill ever to be nerfed was chain lightning, reason being is that a group of ele's could own the alter map in HA using that one skill. It was deemed as overpowered. Now whether it was or not, really can not be determined, because it was nerfed so early on in the game.

Anet whole reason for abandoning GW is because of skill balance mistakes, and all the crap they through into the game to correct them. That and the economy, so now GW is a lab to test new products, before they are added to GW2. I might add that GW2 is probably complete, however Anet wants it to be perfect, so they don't repeat their past mistakes. At this point in time, I am wondering if GW2 is just a red herring, a distraction for something better, who knows??? Even so, when and if it should come out, I am going to give it at least six month to a year before I spend my hard earned money on GW2.

OMG.
The bug infested death-throes we, that were dumb enough to buy that game, went thru!!
grrrrrr.
GW is just fat, it hasn't had a coronary yet.

You're still crying about a nerfed skill back in early 2005?

Long time to hold a grudge.

If you feel so hard done by, why still play?

Well as long as they rezone or don't reach 60 dp they should be ok.

But really they seem to be doing ok. I meet people all the time in game who are new and learning new stuff (that is old news to me).

To tell you the truth, I have stopped playing, and only come back for holidays and special events, or B-day presents. Sometimes I log on just to revist my toons, but not to quest. It is a shame to, because in my hay day, before I know about skill balance and such, I really enjoyed the game, mainly PvE and questing, however PvEing started to be a chore when I had to constantly change builds, not because of new challenges or area's, but because the skill I was used to using was nerfed because of the abuse of a certain few in PvP. Soon one skill became many skills being nerfed, that and eletist attitudes certain players had towards anyone not at their skill level, because thier goals were to win, not have fun. Do I still hold a grudge, yes against Anet for starting this whole mess, I feel ripped off, and robbed. If I knew that they were going to do this, I would have either waited until the price was worth it, or not have bought their products at all.

GW was your first online game I take it?

They should have implemented the separate PvP and PvE version of skills from the get-go. Seeing as the updates were a result of skills being overpowered in PvP, they could have done what they needed to do to make PvP balanced and left PvE skills alone. They could somewhat fix this if they just made all the skills their original versions for PvE. I'm sure they still have the coding or whatever somewhere for the skill descriptions.

[ EDIT]Maybe, but back there GW was more like a straight MMO, not sure how that would have been seen. Beside, Splitting may be the most effecient answer, but it's far from the most elegant... Best used as a last ressort if you ask me. And it allows for some "slightly-more-powerfull-than-the-rest builds". [/understatement]
[/ edit]

I can feel your pain. That's sad. Seriously, that's not sarcastic. I swear! Really.

Bah, guess I should be glad that I can stand ANet. See you in the next game angelina!

From thefreedictionary

"dead (dd)
adj. dead·er, dead·est
1. Having lost life; no longer alive.
2. Marked for certain death; doomed: was marked as a dead man by the assassin.
3.
a. Having the physical appearance of death: a dead pallor.
b. Lacking feeling or sensitivity; numb or unresponsive: Passersby were dead to our pleas for help.
c. Weary and worn-out; exhausted.
4.
a. Not having the capacity to live; inanimate or inert.
b. Not having the capacity to produce or sustain life; barren: dead soil.
5.
a. No longer in existence, use, or operation.
b. No longer having significance or relevance.
c. Physically inactive; dormant: a dead volcano.
6.
a. Not commercially productive; idle: dead capital.
b. Not circulating or running; stagnant: dead water; dead air.
7.
a. Devoid of human or vehicular activity; quiet: a dead town.
b. Lacking all animation, excitement, or activity; dull: The party being dead, we left early.
8. Having no resonance. Used of sounds: "One characteristic of compact discs we all can hear is dead sound. It may be pure but it has no life" (Musical Heritage Review).
9. Having grown cold; having been extinguished: dead coals; a dead flame.
10. Lacking elasticity or bounce: That tennis ball is dead.
11. Out of operation because of a fault or breakdown: The motor is dead.
12.
a. Sudden; abrupt: a dead stop.
b. Complete; utter: dead silence.
c. Exact; unerring. the dead center of a target.
13. Sports Out of play. Used of a ball.
14.
a. Lacking connection to a source of electric current.
b. Drained of electric charge; discharged: a dead battery."

Since I can't find any relationship with the game and one of these definitions, I think it's safe to assume that people are just trying to use pathos to get others to stop playing the game.

Personally I think the game is old; A game lasting five years isn't going to have the support it once had (excluding WoW.)

The ones I left can relate to GW :
Number 2 : GW2
Number 8 : the ghost town outposts and The henge of denvarri (not true, but some people will tell you that. BTW, how active is Kodash Bazzar as of late?)
Number 7 : if you play with the words... If you're alone in an empty district, nothing reacts (the "resonnance") to what you say... If you play with the images
Number 11 : the "fault" would be ANet's handling of game balance...

In all case, it's not true. The game is old and in it's late life, but it's not quite dead yet. IT's just that all that everyone seem to be talking about is SF/Farming/UWsc/title grindign/some other uninteresting stuff.

GW has been under the effect of Unyielding Aura (PvP) for a long time now.

The very last thing keeping the game alive is PvP'rs.

From what I can see there are new players to GW's coming in all the time (I'm working through a campaign or two with new guildies). But (yes there's a but), most of the new players are under the age of 20, with a fair number being around 16 or so. This in itself isn't a bad thing as new blood (as you will) is nice.

The only thing that isn't so good though is a fair portion of this new blood is of the "Can someone run me to XXX" generation. Instead of learning HOW to play, they want someone else to play the game for them.

And even more annoyingly this new blood, also demands instant answers rather than looking up or finding the answers out for themselves. I mean hands up anyone in LA/Spamadan recently who answered a "When's the next event" question, when the EXACT time to the next event was only *6* keystrokes, and a mouse click away. Or how about "Can someone ping me an XYZ build?". Instead of looking up PvXwiki and finding a build for themselves.

GW isn't dead, it's just a different kind of life.

GvGers say GW is dead because it takes 15 minutes to find a match in the mid ranks, where only the top 10 used to have that problem.

Tombs players say GW is dead because there are rarely more than 3 districts (and many of these people are afk), and you can count the number of competent teams on one hand.

PvEers say GW is dead due to a lack of new content, and they refuse to PvP (Anets planned endgame).

Also, lack of skill balances means the game becomes stale (from a PvP point of view) because everyone knows the most efficient builds. As a result you play against the same bullshit spike builds every match until you stop banging your head against a virtual brick wall, and decide it will be less painful to do it with a real one.

And no, I don't really play anymore. GW is a shiny IM program.

"Dead" is a relative term when used by players.

HA and GvG are "dead" compared to activity levels in previous years. By the same standard, PvE is "dead" other than perhaps a few dungeons and some elite missions.

A few things caused that. Normal fatigue with an old game, for one. In PvP, some dubious balance decisions, deteriorating servers and lack of balance updates also hurt. The wikis, heroes and overpowered PvE skills make it difficult to find a group for anything other than group farming in PvE, because heroes are just too good.

Elite networks are probably harder to break into than they used to be. You'd think that it would be reverse as elite players start having trouble forming groups, but many would rather not play than take a chance on unknown quantities likely to fail these days.

There are a lot of tools that players didn't have early in the game's run that make playing the game well easy. The wikis organize a very large amount of information into an easily accessible space, which makes it possible to hit the ground running yet makes truly "casual" group play difficult. The wikis have raised players' expectations of other players quite a bit.

Finally, the game is now a "discount" game and the player base skews young as a result. That has its drawbacks.

The game is different and less populated. I think that a lot of those changes are for the worse. Others disagree. Calling it "dead" is a reach IMO. "Dying" might be more accurate, but if it's "dying" it's suffering a pretty long terminal illness.